Tom Brady Jokes About ‘Player-Friendly Coach’ Bill Belichick On NFL Broadcast

Tom Brady and Bill Belichick led the New England Patriots to unparalleled success, but it wasn’t always the warmest player-coach relationship.

After Belichick’s North Carolina Tar Heels dropped a 34-9 loss to UCF on Saturday, Brady called an NFL matchup between the Chicago Bears and Dallas Cowboys on Sunday. During the FOX broadcast, Tom Rinaldi reported on the relationship between Bears head coach Ben Johnson and quarterback Caleb Williams.

Williams told Rinaldi that Johnson has been tough on him, including in front of his Bears teammates, to get the most out of him and set an example for everyone.

“Tom, I think you can relate,” Rinaldi said, via The Comeback.

Play-by-play announcer Kevin Burkhardt replied: “Yeah, you think?” That led Brady to playfully deny the implication that Belichick was also a demanding leader.

“What do you mean? I had such a player-friendly coach in Coach Belichick,” Brady said sarcastically. “He’d always tell me how great I did.”

The seven-time Super Bowl winner noted that Belichick had lofty expectations for him and the Patriots.

“You know, there was a high demand of excellence,” Brady added. “Let’s say that.”

Brady opined that a tough coach is better for Williams and any other NFL quarterback.

“When you’re a pro quarterback, you’d much rather have your coach be hard than easy,” Brady claimed. “Sometimes the growing pain is, ‘I got to get these guys outside their comfort zone’ from a coaching standpoint, to help them grow and to understand the magnitude and the trust that the organization is giving to them.”

Now that Brady is retired, he realizes that Belichick would pick him apart in front of teammates to show that nobody is untouchable. However, he didn’t have that clarity at the time.

“Of course not,” Brady said when Burkhardt asked if he knew he was setting an example. “I used to think, ‘I’m gonna kill this guy. Doesn’t he know how many Super Bowls I won?'”