Bedard: To the end, Tom Brady and Bill Belichick each stayed true to themselves and didn't budge

It was a glorious gridiron partnership. So many victories. Six Super Bowl titles.

The ultimate competitors, there wasn't much Tom Brady and Bill Belichick couldn't achieve on the field when they were of like minds and focus. The game never saw anything like it before and likely won't again.

That ceased today, with Brady announcing he would not be returning to the Patriots after 20 years.

The destination for Brady is unknown and retirement can't be completely ruled out, but Brady's announcement seems like last-ditch effort to tell all NFL teams, "You still believe I'm going back to New England? I burned that ship. Anyone else want to inquire about my services other than the Bucs and Chargers? Last call, fellas."

Up until now, Brady and Belichick traveled the same competitive superhighway together. Cut from very different cloths and belief systems, they merged into a singularly focused machine obsessed with winning the next game, conquering all challengers.

But today of all days (on St. Patrick's Day with a nation in quarantine, fearful of what is about to come next), those roads diverged and the football marriage ended. The record will show Brady ended it, with his Monday night visit to Robert Kraft and his social media announcement the following day. But Belichick equally, if not moreso, had a hand in this dissolution with his detachment and unbending football beliefs.

In the end, Brady and Belichick each bet on themselves and stuck with their well-worn beliefs. For 20 years those were joint operations. With Brady entering next season at 43-years old, the way the quarterback and coach see success diverged, and they'll travel the rest of the way separately.

Brady wanted respect and a partnership with a head coach, who understood Brady needed to be surrounded with more — not less — as he aged, and had no problem doing that, even as Brady inched closer to 50 than 35.

Belichick put a valuation on Brady the same way he would Ryan Mallett. Belichick told Brady what the team could pay him (less than he made last season since he's one year older) and for how long (one more year since no NFL quarterback has won anything at 43, let alone 44 or 45). And then didn't budge, especially as it became apparent that no other contending teams (Brady's best odds at winning were with the 49ers and Titans, both declined real interest) created a market for Brady's services.

Many people will play the blame game in all this, and I understand why Patriots fans will do that. I'm sure it hurts deeply.

The inclination will be to take your frustrations out on Belichick for not surrounding Brady with more offensive talent the last two seasons as he aged — which played a part in all this — and not making up for the lack of money earned with personal affection and gratitude along the way. Fans will also not understand why Belichick didn't just bend a little in his beliefs, in the end, to make sure Brady played one or two more seasons in a Patriots uniform.

I can also envision some training camp practices and early-season games where Robert Kraft isn't exactly greeted warmly and is, in fact, booed. Fans will look at Gillette Stadium, Patriot Place, all those banners and all the billions in the Kraft family bank account and wonder why Kraft didn't step in and make sure Brady, with all he sacrificed, finished his career the right way — walking off a field in a Patriots uniform.

And some will look at where Brady is in his career, his attitude for much of last season, his absence during offseason workouts and a focus that was more and more split with off-field interests, and wonder where the other Brady went and if he's detached from reality, thinking that he can leave now at his age and still be TB12.

All will look at the scoreboard all throughout the season. What's Tom doing? How are the Patriots doing? We'll all be comparing and contrasting, and we'll find some enjoyment out of that. But will that really tell us anything? The circumstances are so different with each team. Sometimes in sports, there aren't always winners and losers.

In the end and given some time and distance from all this, Patriots fans will realize this wasn't a terrible ending. It was far from the belief Brady's tenure in New England would end terribly. I've seen terrible up close, and this was far from it.

This wasn't a Brett Favre-Packers divorce where the parents are screaming at each other and the kids are caught in the middle, forever changed. Brady and the Patriots just sort of slowly grew apart after the kids graduated from college (incidentally, a generation of Patriots fans have done so knowing only Brady as their quarterback) and thought it was better to live the rest of their lives without being married. They're still good friends and it's hard to tell they're not still married at family events, but each is more interested in finding their own happiness than seeking it out together and giving up a part of themselves.

My inclination is to give Brady a lot of credit, because what he's doing takes a ton of guts. The odds are stacked against him, and they're even longer since he has to go into this all alone — no offensive system, and no coaches and teammates who have been with him for years. Brady will be walking, mostly alone, into a totally foreign environment — who knows when and with how much practice considering what's going on? — and trying to finish his career off the right way. But Brady's always had an intense and unmatched self-belief. It's how he got here — a part-time college starter who was the 199th pick buried on the Patriots' depth chart as a rookie who toppled a franchise quarterback in Drew Bledsoe. It's who he is.

And Belichick will keep doing what he's always done, in the same manner and in the same place, just with a different quarterback, whoever that might be.

Brady and Belichick. Still the same. Still true to their beliefs until the end.

They just won't go the rest of the way together.