The seven-time Super Bowl champion Tom Brady was bound to be a Hall of Famer long before he left the New England Patriots. For his head coach, Bill Belichick, however, he was no better than a high school quarterback down the street. In fact, the 73-year-old did not shy away from calling him out in every film session, and Chad Johnson has just added yet another story to the list, highlighting why it mattered.

“He put the film on and chastised Tom Brady for the mistakes that he made and why they didn’t win a Super Bowl that season,” Johnson told Front Office Sports News.

“That was an eye-opener to me because it’s a cardinal rule number one that you never chastise your quarterback in front of the team, and he did that to Tom in front of everybody before the season started.”

This story is from the 2012 Patriots training camp, after a 21-17 loss in Super Bowl XLVI. Sure, Mario Manningham did the honors with a 38-yard acrobatic catch along the sidelines that helped set up the winning touchdown then. But the forever bragging rights to have never lost to Tom Brady in the big game went to Eli Manning. If the stinging loss wasn’t enough, Belichick had some plans of his own.

As always, he took to the board, breaking down films of each of his players, and Brady wasn’t immune. The Giants overwhelmed Brady, sacking him twice while claiming one interception, which ultimately led to the Patriots’ defeat. And Belichick made sure his QB knew where he flopped.

“If I didn’t point him out, then everybody walks out there feeling like they got yelled at except for him,” Belichick once said on LosTalksPats in May last year. “When I could make points to Tom, then Tom could say, ‘Hey fellas, he got after me too.’”

In fact, this wasn’t the only time Belichick’s high accountability quotient caught Brady’s trail. He even made an example out of the No. 12 by comparing him to a high school quarterback.

During a two-minute practice session in 2017, Brady signalled receiver Randy Moss to run a five-yard quick out. Long story short, the two didn’t connect. The next day, during a film session, Belichick put up that very incompletion for everyone to see, and made a sarcastic comment targeting Brady:

“Are you kidding me? I have my such and such All-Pro wide receiver, and I have my All-Pro quarterback, and y’all cannot complete a 5-yard out? Tom, I can go down here and get the local high school quarterback to come and complete me a 5-yard out.”

Oooh!

That was the collective response from the entire team sitting there. For Moss and Brady, though, that wasn’t humiliation but motivation. “We went out there and put everybody up. I don’t care who it was; whoever was on that defense that day, they got it. And that was practice,” Moss said then.

However, as always was the case, Brady only took it positively.

Tom Brady needed Bill Belichick’s tough love

The Patriots’ owner, Robert Kraft, has more often than not talked about the relationship between one of his best head coaches and his greatest quarterback of all time. For him, it was always that of a son looking for assurance from Belichick. As such, he wasn’t afraid of the head coach giving him a hard time on the field or in front of his teammates.

“(Belichick) has high expectations for us, and if we are not meeting those expectations, then he is going to let you know,” Brady said in 2017. “He doesn’t let things slide by because you have been here for 10 years, or because you have been to two Pro Bowls. He doesn’t care about that. That will never change with him.”

Brady went on to win a total of six rings with the franchise alongside Bill Belichick. In fact, when the Patriots made it to the Big Game in 2015, Brady didn’t allow history to repeat. He threw four touchdowns and brought back the Lombardi Trophy to New England. For Belichick, it was always simple.

“In professional football, nobody is entitled to anything; he has to go out there and earn it.”

For Brady, it began when he entered the NFL as a 199th pick in the 2000 NFL Draft, and it continued until he left for Tampa Bay in 2019. He won two more Super Bowls with the Patriots before this very thing became the reason for the fallout in the dynasty.

Brady eventually joined the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2020, securing his seventh Lombardi Trophy. But it goes on to say that all that tough love was something that allowed the entire team to hold the dynasty down for almost two decades.

In fact, players like tight end Aaron Hernandez wanted to come to New England just to have some guidance under Belichick after he lost his own father. So, while the team knew the endless stories of the wins, they also knew the pain behind the losses.

And Brady knows better than anyone what a Super Bowl defeat feels like. With his former team suffering a dominant defeat in Super Bowl LX, Brady took time to reflect on how an NFL player deals with defeat.

Tom Brady speaks about suffering defeat in the Super Bowl

After the recent Super Bowl in San Francisco, Tom Brady tried to present what could be going on in the mind of the New England Patriots and their QB1, Drake Maye, following their heartbreaking 29-13 loss against the Seattle Seahawks. Writing in his weekly newsletter, 199, Brady reflected on what a player feels after losing in the Big Game.

“When we lose, we often go through our failures with a fine-tooth comb. We’re hard on ourselves, unforgiving. And yet, when we win, we can forgive a lot. It’s easy to gloss over the details when you have a ring on your finger or a medal around your neck,” Brady shared.

But once again, the former QB didn’t let the defeat take over. He turned it into words of wisdom as he reminded everyone that “the Seahawks and the Patriots will not be afraid to tackle their next mountains. The guys who lead those teams are not afraid to do the work, to make the tough decisions, to take the big risks.

“Now, they each have their own advantage over other teams and competitors if they take the time to learn the big lessons the Super Bowl can teach them.”

Tom Brady knows better than anyone that a Super Bowl defeat, as painful as it is, can be the ultimate catalyst for greatness. For Drake Maye and the Patriots, the loss stings now, but if they apply Brady’s advice, a Lombardi Trophy isn’t far away from them. Perhaps Brady’s former teammate, head coach Mike Vrabel, can rebuild New England’s lost dynasty.