The New England Patriots dynasty is a thing of the past, while the intrigue around how it all fell apart is still very much alive. Years after Tom Brady left Foxborough and went on to win a Super Bowl in Tampa, NFL fans are still asking one thing: What really caused the breakup between Brady and Bill Belichick?
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Rob Gronkowski — someone who had a front-row seat to the entire ride — is finally shedding some light on the matter. In his recent appearance on the ‘Bussin’ With The Boys‘ podcast, Gronk got honest about the slow unraveling of the relationship that defined two decades of football.
And at the heart of this breakup, he said (or guessed), was something surprisingly simple: control. Taking us back to his rookie year in 2010, Gronk reminisced about a time when even a seasoned Brady, already a three-time Super Bowl champ, was treated more like a pupil than a peer.
“He was like Bill Belichick’s son in my rookie year,” Gronk recalled, describing how closely Brady fell in line with Belichick’s famously rigid system. But things changed.
As Brady entered his mid-30s and his résumé grew more and more historic, with 5 Super Bowls and 2 NFL MVP awards, the quarterback wanted things to be different. He craved more creative control, more flexibility, and, frankly, a little more respect.
“Tom was probably growing older… wanted to freelance more,” Gronk further speculated. “He was 35, 36, arguably already the greatest of all time. He doesn’t need to be treated like a rookie.”
Yet despite Brady’s growing legend, the dynamic inside the building maintained its status quo. Belichick remained firm, continuing to treat every player the same — Brady included. And that, according to Gronkowski, might have led things to quietly splinter.
“You could see it,” said Gronk. “Neither of them were going to bend the knee. So the tension just started heating up.”
Despite the skies turning dark, there was no blow-up or explosive, headline-grabbing feud between the two, confirmed the legendary Patriots TE. As per Gronk, their breakup was a result of years of small frictions and unspoken frustrations adding up.
“Tension started feuding over things… And eventually, you know, the divorce happened,” Gronk said, describing a slow but steady drifting apart that eventually became too wide to fix.
Gronk didn’t claim to know every detail. He emphasized that only Brady and Belichick could truly explain what happened.
But from where he stood — as a player and, at times, an outsider (he briefly retired in 2019) — he saw two men who built a legacy together but ultimately couldn’t evolve together. And as it turned out, Brady and Belichick’s split became official in 2020 when the star QB left for Tampa Bay.
A year later, Brady won his seventh Super Bowl — without Belichick on the sideline. As for the head coach of Croatian descent, his Patriots tenure ended with one disastrous season after another.
The Patriots ended the 2020 season with a 7-9 record, with Cam Newton as their quarterback. The next year, they improved marginally (10-7) after drafting Mac Jones as their new quarterback.
Their record became worse in 2022 (8-9). Jones was their signal caller that season as well as the next. The final act in the slide under Belichick came in 2023 when they ended with an abysmal 4-13 record.
Clearly, Belichick failed to find an anchor in the QB position after Brady. Now, years after the breakup, we’re still piecing it together.
But thanks to Gronkowski’s perspective, we get a more personal look at how even the most legendary partnerships can fracture. It happened not over drama, but over time, pride, and the natural push-and-pull of two alphas trying to share one throne.
