Tom Brady drove the New England Patriots’ dynasty for two decades. Alongside head coach Bill Belichick, he helped the franchise win six Super Bowls and dominate the NFL. Yet after the 2019 season, the Patriots chose not to re-sign the quarterback when he hit free agency. Years later, that decision still sparks debate, and now, former Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker James Harrison claims he may have played a role in it.

Harrison spent most of his NFL career going up against Brady and was part of Pittsburgh’s fierce rivalry with New England. But in 2017, Harrison joined the Patriots to play out the last season of his career. Around that time, there were already reports suggesting that some tension was growing between Brady and Belichick. Now, Harrison just revealed that Patriots’ owner Robert Kraft even pulled him aside to ask a major question: Who deserved more credit for the Patriots’ success? And Harrison’s response might’ve just influenced Kraft’s decision to let Brady go.

“When I was in New England, Kraft pulled me to the side, and he was like, ‘Hey James, I want to talk to you,’” Harrison recalled on the latest episode of his Deebo and Joe podcast. “I’m like, ‘Alright, cool, what’s up?’ He said, ‘Why is it that we were able to beat you guys even though, for the most part, you guys were more talented altogether than we were?’ And he said, ‘Do you think it’s Tom or do you think it’s Bill?’ He’s thinking about, at that point, which was 2017, moving on from one or the other.

“He was just trying to make a decision, right? And I’m like, ‘I’m going to be honest with you. I think Bill does a great job of coaching, like he puts his players in positions to be able to get out of them what it is they do best.’”

It’s hard to ignore how often Bill Belichick outcoached the Steelers during the Patriots’ dynasty era. The Patriots repeatedly crushed Pittsburgh’s Super Bowl dreams throughout the 2000s and 2010s. In the 2001 AFC Championship Game, the Pats came in as underdogs at Heinz Field, but they pulled a 24-17 upset over the top-seeded Steelers. The Patriots then won their first Super Bowl while playing against the Rams.

Then, in the 2004 AFC Championship Game, the Patriots beat the Steelers again, this time by 41-27, before winning another Super Bowl. Lastly, there was the 2016 AFC Championship Game in which the Patriots moved past the Steelers with a dominant 36-17 win at Gillette Stadium. Pittsburgh fielded star-studded offenses, first led by QB Kordell Stewart and later by QB Ben Roethlisberger. Yet Belichick consistently found ways to neutralize them with disciplined defensive schemes and situational adjustments.

“We had defenses where we had like seven, eight different personnel, and he would switch out two people just to put a guy in there that he knew could do the job that he needed done,” Harrison added. “And Bill would sit there and be like, ‘Okay, if they do this, I’m going to do this.’ But then he flipped to the other side. ‘Well, how would I go back and defend this,’ and he’d be ready to kind of react to whatever it was that happened. I was like, ‘Yo, like he’s good.’ He’s damn good, dude.”

Even after Harrison endorsed Belichick, Kraft did not immediately choose the coach over Brady. In 2018, Brady silenced critics again by leading New England to a Super Bowl LIII victory over the Rams. But the following season ended differently.

In the 2019 AFC Wild Card game, the Patriots lost 20-13 at home to the Tennessee Titans, and Brady threw a late pick-six that night. Following that loss, the Patriots allowed Brady to walk in free agency. The QB then joined the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and immediately proved he still had plenty left in the tank despite being well into his 40s.

In his very first season with the Bucs, Brady won his seventh Super Bowl. The next season, Brady then threw for more than 5,000 yards before retiring from the NFL. But the legendary QB clearly remained highly productive long after New England moved on from him.

The Patriots struggled with Belichick in the post-Tom Brady era

After Tom Brady’s departure, the Patriots went through years of instability at QB. Bill Belichick handed the offense to QB Cam Newton in 2020, but the team finished 7-9 and recorded its first losing season since 2000. Then, the Patriots drafted QB Mac Jones in the first round of the 2021 NFL Draft. Jones impressed as a rookie, going 10-7 and leading the Patriots to the playoffs. But then his progress stalled, and he led the Patriots to 8-9 and 4-13 records in the next two seasons. 

Without Tom Brady, the Patriots had a disastrous 29-38 record over four seasons. Belichick also drew criticism for questionable staffing decisions, such as putting coach Matt Patricia in charge of the offense. Belichick failed to rebuild the Patriots’ dynasty and parted ways with the franchise after the 2023 season.

Then came perhaps the biggest sign of regret from Kraft. During the Patriots’ 2024 season opener, Brady’s father revealed that Kraft privately admitted the organization made the wrong call by letting Brady leave.

“He [Kraft] just said, ‘I made a mistake.’ He told us that back in September,” Brady’s father revealed in an interview back in 2024. “We don’t all make the right decisions, but he’s made a hell of a lot of good ones over the years. But I know that it galls him that Tommy went elsewhere and won. Not that he won, but that he won after Bill said he was done.”

Kraft clearly did not make the decision alone, since Belichick reportedly pushed for moving on from Brady as well. But watching Brady win another Lombardi Trophy elsewhere only intensified the criticism surrounding New England’s choice. The Patriots still won six Super Bowls under Kraft’s ownership, which most franchises would envy. Yet one question remains impossible to ignore: how many more could the Patriots have won if they had never let Brady walk away?