Seth Wickersham says Bill Belichick perused openings after Jimmy Garoppolo trade
We’re heading into the 2021 season and Bill Belichick is still the head coach of the New England Patriots.
For most people, that isn’t a surprise. The legendary head coach has been with the team for two decades and has a relationship with Robert Kraft that allows him to run the team as he sees fit. Belichick is the general manager, head coach and the owner of six Super Bowl titles during that span.
For ESPN’s Seth Wickersham and those close to the situation, there was a little less certainty in Belichick’s longevity with the team. Wickersham wrote a bombshell column that deeply explored the power struggle between Belichick, Kraft and Tom Brady in 2018.
Jimmy Garoppolo was sent off during the trade deadline that year and the belief was that he’d be the successor to Brady. Reports heavily came out saying Kraft wanted Brady to play longer and Belichick was ready to get Garoppolo in the mix. At the end of the day, the story honed in on issues between Brady and Belichick.
Obviously, Brady left and Belichick still remains in his role. But, Wickersham recently discussed the story and discussed a scenario where things would’ve been much different.
“There was a lot of pushback to that story. But, I felt comfortable with what I was writing and what I was working on,” Wickersham said on The Harrison Vapnek Podcast . “At the time, I think there was a sense that Brady wasn’t going anywhere and Bill left the impression that he might be open to a move. There were some reports that came out at the time that the Giants were looking at him. I think he talked to the Washington Football Team and the Dolphins about sort of their openings. And it was unclear whether he was interested or not, but he was still talking to them and subsequent reporting has only sort of shown how in that offseason, Brady skipped the offseason program for the first time in his career and he had just kind of had enough.
“I think [Brady] wanted out of his contract at one point and maybe to be released, and at the end of the day both sides played a little hard ball. I don’t think Kraft was immediately inclined to let him out of his contract, although later he was like, ‘Well, if this is what you really want, we might be open to doing it.’ At that point I think Brady had come around and he was like, ‘Well, I might figure things out on my end.’ It was a fascinating offseason. Remember, he got up on stage in Los Angeles at that tech conference and he said, ‘I plead the fifth’ when asked if he felt appreciated. We never heard that language out of Tom Brady before. It was an interesting offseason to say the least.”
Brady was clearly ready to move on and made his move, leading to a Super Bowl win in his first year with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Who knows how the league would’ve been altered if Belichick left the Patriots, but it likely would’ve created a dramatic shift.
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