Reason No. 1: An Internal Power Struggle in New England

I can’t and won’t get inside the head of Bill Belichick. Same goes with Tom Brady, for that matter.

At any rate, the gist of Seth Wickersham’s piece focused on the power struggle between those two, Robert Kraft and what to do about Brady’s backup with the Patriots, now-49ers quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo.

Garoppolo was going to be Belichick’s finishing touch for the Patriots dynasty — the hand-picked successor to the greatest quarterback of this generation, perhaps ever. Only, by Wickersham’s account, Garoppolo was a direct threat to Brady. Kraft backed his star and not Belichick’s plan of succession, if that’s what you believe from Wickersham’s article.

Belichick holds a similar mindset to this matter as Hall of Fame head coach Bill Walsh, one in which it’s better to move on from a star player a year too soon instead of a year too late. We’ll never know how that plan in New England would have worked out, now that Garoppolo is in San Francisco. But it’s telling that Belichick was already leaning towards Garoppolo taking the reins sooner than later.

Perhaps the Patriots head coach knows something we all don’t. At least not yet.

True, Belichick probably wasn’t counting on Brady to play well into his 40s. Only a handful of quarterbacks, including the great ones, make it past 35 years old. So it makes sense Belichick understood holding onto both Brady and Garoppolo beyond 2017 wasn’t “sustainable.”

Regardless, Belichick is linked to Brady for the foreseeable future, for better or for worse. It also appears as if the Patriots front office understands the future Hall of Fame QB might not necessarily be a “guarantee” out there on the field entering his 19th season at the NFL level.

Reworking his team-friendly contract, including a number of performance-based incentives, is clear evidence of this:

The #Patriots are adding $5M in incentives to the 2018 contract of QB Tom Brady, source said. He’s on the books for $15M this season, so he could make $20M in all… or still a bargain.

— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) August 9, 2018

Why would there be such incentives? Let’s dive into the stuff that matters: on-field performance.

Next Page: No. 2