Hype grows as Brady and the Bucs get closer to a bitter reunion with Belichick

Four days before the AFC Championship clash against the Jacksonville Jaguars in January, 2018, Tom Brady gashed the thumb on his throwing hand so badly it required 25 stitches. An injury that would have put most quarterbacks out of the game.

After surgery, Brady threw away the splint next morning to resume training and, five minutes before kick-off that weekend, asked the doctor to trim the sutures because they were affecting his grip. When he led the Patriots to a come from behind victory with two touchdown drives in the last quarter, the manner in which he played through injury featured large in the media’s questions. Much to the chagrin of his coach.

"Tom did a great job and he's a tough guy," said Bill Belichick. "But we're not talking about open-heart surgery here."

Even by Belichick’s notoriously mean-spirited standards, it was an extraordinarily telling remark. Any other man in his position might have paid fulsome tribute to his star overcoming adversity to reach yet another Super Bowl. But, by that point in the partnership that yielded six Vince Lombardi trophies and the greatest dynasty in NFL history, the two men were not even on speaking terms away from the field. The dysfunctional relationship somehow endured for two more seasons, and, in the subsequent divorce, Belichick got custody of the Patriots while Brady was free to see other people.

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Next Sunday night, he returns to Foxboro at the helm of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Befitting this most eagerly awaited regular season fixture, the hype surrounding it started nearly a full two weeks out when Brady’s father was interviewed for a Patriots’ podcast.

Vindicated

No stranger to the reach of the all-consuming Boston media during the two decades when his son was Lord of Beantown, a question about whether he felt vindicated seeing his kid leading the Bucs to a Super Bowl last season prompted an unequivocal response.

“Damn right,” said Brady Sr. “Damn rights. Belichick wanted him out the door, and last year he threw 56 touchdowns (the correct figure was actually 50). I think that’s a pretty good year.”

When the interviewer wondered if his son shared those sentiments, the proud parent doubled down.

“Damn rights,” he said. “Damn rights.”

Even though both teams still had games to play last weekend (that they both lost), the build-up to the showdown at Gillette Stadium had already taken over the spotlight. No sooner had the forensic poring over Brady snr's interview began (right down to analysing the face he made when saying "Damn rights") than Alex Guerrero, the quack physician who is Brady's personal trainer and closest confidante, talked to the Boston Herald about the end days at Foxboro. Not something he's likely to have done without the permission of his employer.

“I think in time, with Tom, as Tom got into his late 30s or early 40s, I think Bill was trying to treat hm like that 20-year-old kid that he drafted,” said Guerrero.

“And all the players, I think, realised Tom was different. He’s older, so he should be treated differently. And all the players, none of them would have cared that he was treated differently. I think that was such a Bill thing. He never evolved. So, you can’t treat someone who’s in his 40s like they’re 20. It doesn’t work.”

Of course, that was only half of the story. Guerrero’s interview also touched upon how, in 2017, Belichick banned him from the Patriots’ locker-room and forbade him from travelling on the team plane to away games. Diktats that ensured he often ended up treating Brady in a corporate suite at Foxboro or in vacant maintenance rooms in other stadia, an ignominy that made the rift between coach and quarterback irreparable. At Tampa Bay, Guerrero was immediately afforded complete freedom of the facilities and is now treating several members of that team.

Dark arts

Nobody has ever been able to figure out for sure if Belichick went to war with his best player’s best pal and godfather to one of the Brady kids because of his control freak tendencies or because Guerrero’s methods were so questionable. The latter would be something given the Patriots’ coach’s own long, very productive association with the dark arts.

Yet, as Brady continues to somehow defy the ravages of time, throwing touchdowns at 44, and looking set to pass Drew Brees for most passing yards in NFL history this Sunday, too many in the American media conveniently forget a troubling detail. His amazing longevity should always be questioned given the alarming resume of the man whom he trusts most with his body.

Back when he was still styling himself Dr. Alejandro Guerrero, this charlatan sold Supreme Greens, a nutritional supplement he claimed cured 192 people of cancer and prevented arthritis, MS, Parkinson’s and AIDS. At least until the Federal Trading Commission discovered it was inevitably junk science, forced him to recant, and stopped him ever trading as a doctor again.

The FTC were also quick to shut down another Guerrero concoction, Neurosafe, a magic elixir containing minerals that he and Brady promoted for its ability to help speed up recovery from concussion.

Around Boston, the talk is that Brady snr and Guerrero spoke out last week because a forthcoming book on the split will portray Brady in a very negative light. As if owing his unlikely, age-defying career extension to a snake-oil salesman should ever be viewed any other way.