Bill Belichick will not tolerate anonymous quotes about his relationship with Tom Brady

The big storylines from Tom Junod and Seth Wickersham’s ESPN the Magazine article on Tom Brady’s longevity made headlines when it was released. But details about Bill Belichick’s relationship with Tom Brady and his trainer, Alex Guerrero, flew under the radar.

Bill Belichick dismissed claims that there’s conflict between him and Guerroro and that his relationship with Brady is on shaky ground. He called the unattributed comments “fake news.”

What the article says:

Trading Jimmy Garoppolo was Belichick’s tacit endorsement of Brady’s TB12 method.

The apparent vote of confidence comes even as Brady has found himself in the middle of a conflict between the Patriots and Guerrero, with Guerrero blaming the team’s trainers for injuries some of his clients have suffered and with Belichick making it resoundingly clear that Guerrero has no actual role on his staff. “There’s a collision coming,” a friend of Belichick’s says, and even without Garoppolo itching to supplant him.

What Belichick said:

There’s no relationship, or drama, between Belichick and Guerrero.

“Alex works for Tom in Tom’s facility, and that’s really about the end of it,” Belichick said during his weekly appearance on WEEI’s Dale and Holley with Keefe show. “So if a player goes up there for a second opinion or a treatment or whatever, then that’s fine. No different than anyone who goes to his own chiropractor or massage therapist or whatever it happens to be.”

There’s also no official connection between Guerrero and the Patriots.

“No, he’s not on our staff. Our staff and our training staff, our nutrition staff, our equipment staff, those are all contained within the Patriots,” Belichick said. “Alex and his staff at TB12 and Tom’s role in TB12, that’s kind of a separate business.”

What the article says:

Belichick thought he could win it all without Brady.

(Belichick had) told friends for the past year that he wanted to coach Garoppolo as a starter and that he was confident he could win a Super Bowl with him. That, of course, would have required him to decouple himself from the player who has changed his life and his legacy, and so the question always was: Would he do it? Would he actually move on from TB12?

What Belichick said:

There’s no bad blood between Belichick and his longtime quarterback. Belichick said his relationship with Brady is “good” and “consistent.”

“I’ve met with Tom at least twice a week for the last 16 years,” Belichick said.

Belichick didn’t have much patience for the anonymous quotes about him in the article. He called them “a general random opinion about I’m not sure exactly what.”

“So if we’d like to actually talk about somebody who has an informed opinion about something, that’s one thing,” Belichick said. “I mean, otherwise we’re just talking about a lot of fake news here. But now things that are unattributed, as usual. We get a lot of that.”

Belichick and Brady have been to seven Super Bowls together and have won five of them. Brady currently leads the league in passing yards, and the Patriots are 6-2 right now. There’s no reason for Belichick to be out of sorts about whatever is keeping Brady playing at this level.