Tom Brady reveals his thought process behind singing with Buccaneers in 2020 free agency after 20-year Patriots breakup

Few free agency moves in NFL history are as shocking and unexpected as Tom Brady leaving the New England Patriots and joining the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. After spending 20 years with the franchise and leading them to six Super Bowl wins, the then-41-year-old quarterback decided to move to Florida to try and add another ring to his collection, which he succeeded in doing in his first year with the franchise.

Six years on, it's still unclear what led to Brady's exit from the Patriots. The quarterback decided to answer that question in a newsletter on his website titled 'My Thoughts on Free Agency.' He revealed that his relationship with head coach Bill Belichick has suffered a natural deterioration and he pondered whether he wanted to continue playing under him in New England.

When the Buccaneers became a potential landing spot, he did not pounce at the opportunity. Instead, he came up with an interesting solution to decide whether to stay in New England or embark on a new adventure in Tampa. In his newsletter, Brady explained:

"What I ended up with was a list of about twenty things that I then ranked and graded on a weighted scale from 1 to 3. The presence of skill players was a 3 in terms of importance, for example, and the Bucs graded out as a 3 because of guys like Mike Evans and Chris Godwin The same was true for the head coach. That was a 3 in importance, and Tampa scored a 3 with Bruce Arians."

The quarterback added that he graded the Patriots from 1 to 3 on those same 20 parameters and calculated the total before making his decision:

"In the end, I chose Tampa, almost exactly five years ago now, because, in the aggregate, it graded out higher than New England along those twenty or so dimensions. It's not much more complicated than that."

---

Tom Brady wanted to work with Bill Belichick again

While Tom Brady and Bill Belichick no longer saw eye-to-eye in the final years of the quarterback's playing days, the seven-time Super Bowl champion was keen on reuniting with his former head coach in Las Vegas. According to NFL insider Tom Pelissero:

"Multiple NFL teams have inquired about whether legendary coach Bill Belichick would reconsider his move to college football -- including the Las Vegas Raiders, whose new minority owner Tom Brady spoke recently with his old coach about what it would take to make a reunion happen in Las Vegas, per sources."

Belichick decided to turn down the opportunity to work with Brady again and instead signed with the University of North Carolina as their new head coach. While he may have passed on the Raiders job, the quarterback approaching him and the head coach's presence at his roast are proof that the two are back on good terms.