The Audio of Brady Dunking on the Media Who Tried to Drive Him and Belichick Apart is Sweet, Sweet Music

JEFF HAYNES. Getty Images.

Call me a sentimental fool, call me what you will. But I'm not the least little bit ashamed to admit that I'm in love with love. And if all the romantic movies I've ever seen have taught me anything, it's that the best kind of love is the kind that exists between two very different people, who somehow manage to see through their differences and find strength in the ties that bind them. To use the cliche', "Opposites attract." 

I don't mean the cheap, superficial kind of romances. I'm talking about the deep, heartfelt, lasting, loving relationships that stick with you. Rocky and Mick. Doc and Marty. Riggs and Murtaugh. William Wallace and Hamish. Jules and Vincent. And there is no better real world example of this true, abiding love between two opposite people united by a common goal that the dual GOATs, Tom Brady and Bill Belichick. There's has been a sweeping epic that has transcended all time and space.

So it came to pass that ate in the day on Monday we got word that the two reunited on Brady's podcast:

Though all we had at that point was a few printed quotes that had been pulled from the discussion. It naturally followed that we'd soon get audio, and that it would be better than anything ever to ever emerge from the pens of a Shakespeare, a Bronte, or a Thornton. 

It has not disappointed:

Here are the quotes:

"For me, there's nobody I'd rather be associated with. From my standpoint, I think it's always such a stupid conversation to say, 'Brady vs. Belichick' because, in my mind, that's not what a partnership is about. Coach couldn't play quarterback and I couldn't coach. And the best part about football is, coach says it a lot, 'Do your job.' And he just asked me to quarterback. He didn't ask me to coach. And I didn't want to coach. And I didn't want him to play quarterback. I just wanted him to coach. I'd seen him throw, so he definitely wasn't playing quarterback. (Laughter)"

"In my view, people were always trying to pull us apart. I don't think we ever felt like that with each other. We never were trying to pull each other apart. We actually were always trying to go in the same direction. And I think when we were in New England for 20 years together, they got tired of writing the same story. So once they get done writing all the nice things, the championships, and this, and then they just go 'Well this works. Let's just start trying to divide them.'

"I never really appreciated the way people would try to do that. He and I always had a great relationship and we met all the time. Did we always see everything exactly the same way? Who does in life? What relationship can you have where, you know, everything goes like a bright, sunny day? No. There were moments that were, you know, never intolerable. But I would say it was healthy debates about certain things. We always talked about them face to face. And one thing I always appreciate about Coach Belichick and like, is that he's not afraid to have a hard conversation too. And we didn't always agree. But we always respected each other.

"I know he respected me for the job I did, and I certainly did the same. I think even when you go away from each other, you probably respect each other that much more. I know I certainly did. Because I respected the commitment he was trying to make to get our team to win."

Please allow me to pause here to collect myself, because I'm a puddle right now. 

As someone who invested more hours of his precious life pushing back against the entire narrative of the Pliability War that was waged in the media from about 2017 until now, I'm taking a victory lap. And that lap might just end outside the front entrance to Gillette Stadium where I'm going to chisel "We always respected each other" in the granite facade next to where it says, "We are all Patriots." 

I can already hear the angry, contemptible, anti-Belichick know-it-alls on Boston talk radio and the insufferable ingrates in their audience who swallow every word of their agenda-driven dreck calling shenanigans on this. Despite the fact that for two decades none of them ever got to within a makeable field goal's distance of either one of these men. Not even the reporters who cover the team - boots on the ground, so to speak - were ever privy to their interpersonal dynamic. No one ever sat in on their almost daily meetings. Heard their private discussions. Save for this one clip we've all seen, from 2009:

But everybody was an expert.

Every time some ESPN reporter published some hatchet job loaded with factually inaccuracies, no one ever tried to verify a word of it. They just took the most salacious crap about how much Brady despised Belichick and how mutual the feeling was, and ran with it as Gospel truth. 

So riddle me this: Why is this being said now? What possible reason would Brady have for bringing Belichick onto his podcast and lavish this praise on him, if none of it is true? To help his post-playing career? He's about 18 months away from collecting $35 million a year of Foxbucks. I don't see where he needs to polish his public image any. As a matter of fact, he'd probably engender more goodwill if he denied Belichick's very existence, given the fact the whole country has spent two years saying the "Brady vs. Belichick" debate he referenced is over, and it was Brady all along. 

The answer is, he wouldn't lie about it. This is him setting the record straight. They had interpersonal disagreements like every great partnership does, but they never were at odds. Never in conflict. And Belichick echoes those same heartfelt sentiments:

"I learned so much from Tom because, as you know, I never played quarterback and I never saw the game through the quarterback's eyes. I saw it through a coach's eyes. And what Tom would tell me that he saw and how he saw it, it was incredible how during the game, he'd come off and I'd say, 'What happened on that play?' And he'd go through eight things that happened: tackle flash in front of me; this guy slipped; I saw the linebacker drop wide; safety was a little deeper than I thought he would be; and then this guy stepped in front and I kind of put it a little bit behind him because I saw this other guy closing. And then you'd go back and look at the film, and every one of those things happened in the exact sequence that he explained it to you on the field. I'm like, 'This guy sees everything.'"

Yup. Sure sounds like a bitter, resentful, discontented taskmaster who hates the best player he's ever been associated with alright. It's a miracle Brady didn't jump ship out of Foxboro the first chance he got, as soon as his rookie contract was up.

I say again, I've put more time into thinking about their relationship than I have my marriage to my own deeply loyal Irish Rose. And every word of this is exactly how I've imagined it to be. You simply cannot have the degree of success they achieved together over an impossibly long time if you don't have the level of mutual respect and admiration they enjoy. It's impossible. 

I mean, just listen to Brady's voice crack here:

He was fine in 80 for Brady. But nobody is this good an actor. That's genuine raw emotion. The kind you only experience in one of the truly great love stories of our time. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go figure out how to use these quotes in a Valentine's Card. Because even after 29 years of marriage, what Brady and Belichick have is my Couples Goal.