Turns out the grass was greener for Tom Brady in Tampa Bay.
The veteran quarterback left plenty of Patriots fans in shock last month when he parted ways with New England to sign with the Buccaneers in free agency.
So why after 20 seasons and six Super Bowl championships in Foxboro would a 43-year-old quarterback start from scratch on a Bucs team that hadn't reached the playoffs since 2007?
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In a recent interview with Michael Strahan on "Good Morning America," Brady said he found the idea of a fresh start "in a lot of ways really invigorating."
"When you're at the Patriots, everyone would always come to me and introduce themselves to me because I was kind of the mainstay," Brady told Strahan. "But I was the new guy for the first time, you know, and that was a really different experience."
After some early growing pains with head coach Bruce Arians and a new roster, Brady rallied Tampa Bay to eight consecutive wins that culminated in his seventh Super Bowl title.
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Arians in many ways is Bill Belichick's polar opposite as an outspoken, player-friendly coach -- and it sounds like Brady welcomed that change.
"He's a great motivator -- he's got a great feel for the team -- a great pulse for what's going on in a locker room, great intuition, great evaluation of talent," Brady said of Arians.
"When you're in one place for 20 years, you think that's the only way, and I think when you go to a different place you realize, 'wow -- there's another way that people do things."
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That might be Brady's subtle way of saying he had reached his limit with the "Patriot Way." He and Belichick found unprecedented success together in New England, but after a disappointing 2019 campaign in which Brady dealt with limited offensive weapons, the QB apparently decided he wanted to try something new.
Arians is among many who have hinted at Brady's motivation for leaving last spring. So while he'll downplay any rift with Belichick and express his admiration for the organization, the message between the lines is that TB12's marriage with the Patriots had run its course after the 2019 season.