Bill Belichick opens up (kind of) on Tom Brady leaving Patriots for Buccaneers

Bill Belichick with a mic check on Monday morning.

Tom Brady is returning to Foxborough on Sunday night as the former Patriots QB faces off against Belichick and the Pats for the first time since leaving New England. As you can imagine, Brady’s former coach is going to be grilled about it.

Surprisingly, Belichick has opened up a bit regarding the Brady situation ahead of the matchup. Speaking on “The Greg Hill Show,” Belichick offered a bit of interesting insight into the Patriots’ decision to let Brady walk — though it wasn’t as much about that as about the situation that Tampa Bay offered.

MORE: NFL Week 3 winners, losers — Rams, Stafford big winners over Bucs

“He looked at his options and he made his decision,” Belichick said. “We weren’t as good an option as Tampa, so you’d have to ask him about all that. But that’s really — It wasn’t a question about not wanting him, that’s for sure.”

While the Belichick-Brady marriage was successful for years — resulting in six Super Bowl wins and nine appearances overall — reports indicated a fracture between the quarterback and Belichick years before the end of the tenure.

Brady taking his talents to  Tampa Bay worked out great for him, and less great for the Patriots: Brady and the Bucs would win Super Bowl 56, Brady’s seventh ring, while the Patriots toiled in mediocrity with Cam Newton at the helm and a depleted offense in 2020.

Now, Belichick hopes to rekindle some of that Brady magic with Mac Jones under center. Maybe Brady will bring some back when he returns to Gillette Stadium on Sunday.