“I usually don’t do well with compliments. I had a coach for 20 years tell me how s—ty I was every day,” Tom Brady said during his commencement speech at Georgetown University’s business school graduation a few days ago, taking a light jab at his former head coach Bill Belichick. Over two decades, the coach-quarterback duo built a dynasty and won six Super Bowls with the New England Patriots.

Behind the scenes, though, NFL fans long believed Belichick never missed a chance to criticize Brady during team meetings and film sessions, and they were not wrong. That was simply Belichick’s coaching style. Still, during a recent appearance on Hang Out with Sean Hannity, Belichick revealed that Brady himself acknowledged how hard Belichick was on him in those meetings.

“Tom was great. People say, I was hard on Tom, and I yelled at Tom. I mean, at times, sure. That’s part of coaching,” Belichick said. “But Tom was great about that. A lot of times, I might say to him, ‘Hey Tom, look, it might be a little rough in there today in this meeting because of what happened in the game yesterday or whatever.’ And he’d say, ‘I understand. We probably need it. Make sure you include me because I’m one of the guys. Because if you leave me out of it, then it’s like, well, Tom’s great, but everybody else is a problem.’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, no problem, Tom. I yell at you, too. It’s easy.'”

As Belichick addressed being too hard on Brady during their Patriots tenure, Brady responded with a six-word message, conveying, “The greatest coach of all time!!!❤️.”

Arriving in New England as the 199th overall pick in the sixth round, Brady began his NFL career as a fourth-string quarterback during his rookie season. Then came 2001.

After Drew Bledsoe went down with an injury, Brady took over as the starter and never looked back. But even as Brady grew into a Super Bowl champion and eventually the face of the league, Belichick never gave him star treatment in New England.

That was the standard inside the Patriots locker room. Belichick demanded greatness from all 53 players on the active roster, and Brady was never treated any differently. Film sessions often turned brutal, with Belichick openly criticizing his quarterback in front of the team. The interesting part, though, is that Brady wanted it that way.

“There were a couple of meetings where I would say something to Tom after the meeting, ‘Hey, I didn’t really think that was that bad, but I just wanted to include you with everybody else,'” Belichick explained back in 2023 during his appearance on Brady’s Let’s Go podcast. “Tom would say, ‘Coach, you have to. If you don’t yell at me, then what am I gonna do with all the rest of my teammates? I’ve got to be there with all the rest of them and say, ‘Hey, he’s yelling at all of us, and we’ve all got to do better. But if you leave me out of it, then I don’t really have a platform to work from. So go ahead, rip my a–, too.'”

And that became part of the culture in New England. Belichick would rip into Brady during film sessions, and the rest of the locker room understood the message immediately. If the greatest player on the team was getting called out like that, nobody else was above criticism either.

Meanwhile, Brady strengthened his leadership by putting himself in the same category as everybody else and making it clear that the entire team had to be better. In many ways, that dynamic between Belichick and Brady became one of the biggest reasons the Patriots dynasty lasted two decades before Brady eventually left after the 2019 season for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

And while Tom Brady has since retired from the NFL and Bill Belichick has moved on from the Patriots to coach the University of North Carolina, the former Patriots quarterback still hasn’t passed up the chance to take a lighthearted jab at his former head coach.

Tom Brady calls Bill Belichick a cranky old coach

During his commencement speech at Georgetown University’s business school graduation on May 16, Tom Brady didn’t miss the chance to take a playful jab at his former head coach, Bill Belichick. From joking about Belichick telling him how s—ty he was to calling him a cranky old coach, Brady had plenty to say about his longtime coach during the speech.

“I want you all to challenge yourself with ideas that are uncomfortable and people that push you to be your very best,” Brady said, addressing the graduates before adding, “Even if one of those people is a cranky old coach who cuts the sleeves off his sweatshirt and screams at you all day, ‘Do your job.’ Okay that’s too specific.”

While Brady never mentioned Belichick by name, it was pretty obvious who he was talking about. During his 20 seasons under Belichick with the Patriots, Brady won six Super Bowls while throwing for 74,571 yards and 541 touchdowns with a 63.8% completion rate.

Over that stretch, he also earned five Super Bowl MVPs, three MVP awards, two Offensive Player of the Year honors, and 14 Pro Bowl selections. Brady led the league in passing yards three times and passing touchdowns four times before eventually leaving for the Buccaneers.

And even though reports suggested his relationship with Belichick did not end on the best of terms, the former quarterback has continued to show respect toward his longtime head coach.