It’s been more than five years since Tom Brady – arguably the greatest NFL player of all time — left the New England Patriots after 20 years in Massachusetts. In those two decades with the Patriots, Brady won six Super Bowls and appeared in three others.

The cracks in Tom Brady’s and Bill Belichick’s two-decades-long partnership had been splintering long before the quarterback left the Patriots in free agency. When reflecting on the developments of this year’s NFL free agency in his 199 newsletter,

ESPN's Stephen A. Smith reveals how he heard Bill Belichick could have kept longtime QB Tom Brady with the Patriots for his entire career