National Football League

Tom Brady: 'The fire burns' in Bill Belichick to continue coaching

Published Jan. 30, 2024 3:34 p.m. ET

It doesn't appear that Bill Belichick will be on an NFL sideline in 2024, but the quarterback he won six Super Bowls with would be surprised if he decided to call it a career.

Tom Brady believes that his former head coach with the Patriots for 20 seasons still wants to coach, even if he might be out of the game for the 2024 season.

"I think the fire burns with him," Brady said in an interview on Tuesday's "The Herd." "He loves the sport, he loves the preparation. He's been doing it for decades and in my mind, there's nobody better than him at it. Whoever gets him at some point is going to have, in my opinion, the greatest coach ever. I know he's as competitive as can be, and he wants to be out there winning football games as a head coach."

Belichick's inability to land a head-coaching gig this offseason has been one of the more surprising developments of the coaching carousel. After he parted ways with the Patriots on Jan. 11, Belichick had two interviews with the Falcons and was believed to be the front-runner to land that job.

However, the Falcons opted to name Raheem Morris their next head coach on Thursday. Atlanta's decision leaves Belichick without a clear landing spot as the Falcons were the only team he interviewed with this offseason. The Commanders and Seahawks still have head-coaching vacancies, but Belichick doesn't appear to be a candidate for either job.

Despite winning six Super Bowls, the Patriots opted to move on from Belichick as the team struggled in the four seasons after Brady left in 2020. They had three losing seasons in four years, making the playoffs in 2021 before falling to 4-13 in 2023. Belichick, who'll be 73 by the start of the 2025 season, is 14 wins from tying Don Shula for the most wins by a head coach in NFL history (regular season and postseason combined).

As the Patriots faltered in the seasons after Brady's departure, the quarterback found immediate success at his new home. He led the Buccaneers to a Super Bowl title and helped them win the division in the following two seasons before his retirement in the 2023 offseason.

Tom Brady on how Mahomes compares to all-time QBs

Brady, who will begin his next career as an analyst for FOX Sports in the 2024 NFL season, credited Belichick for his growth as a player when asked by Colin Cowherd how much better Patrick Mahomes can get, specifically at pre-snap reads.

"When I think of my growth as a player, it was really about who was pushing me to succeed and who was pushing me to learn more about the game," Brady said. "I was fortunate I had Coach Belichick. Early in my career, I had meetings twice a week with him about defenses, defensive players, skill sets, defensive coordinators, how they were going to call the game against us, what they were going to do when we motioned across the formations, when we lined up in certain formations how were they going to adjust based on their calls and if we motioned out of that what to expect.

"So, there was such a high level of football IQ that I was getting every single day in practice from my own coach."

Brady said that Mahomes can continue to get better, saying "it's all about the evolution as a player." But as he said that he can tell Mahomes is a great leader like other iconic quarterbacks such as Peyton Manning and Drew Brees, Brady emphasized that coaching is the key to a player's evolution.

"We would get the No. 1 seed because we played well over the course of the year and then we'd go out in that first week of the playoffs, when we weren't playing, and we practiced like we were getting ready for the Super Bowl," Brady said, recalling his playing days with the Patriots. "We had competitive drills, two-point plays, end-of-game situations, two-minute drills and Coach Belichick was pushing us to make sure that we stayed sharp in those moments so there was never a chance to take the foot off the gas pedal.

"The thing I appreciate about the [quarterbacks] that you mentioned, I think the key to their development is who's really pushing them to get better? As an individual, you can push yourself to a certain point, but there's days where you need people to push you."