Officially, the end of the Bill Belichick era with the New England Patriots came on Thursday as the esteemed coach stood next to team owner Robert Kraft at Gillette Stadium and announced that they mutually agreed to part ways.

Unofficially, the end of the era – and Belichick's status as the preeminent NFL genius – came on March 17, 2020.

That's when Tom Brady left the Patriots as a free agent.

Brady went on during that pandemic-enveloped season to win his seventh Super Bowl with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Without him, Belichick made the playoffs once. With then-rookie Mac Jones as his quarterback in 2021, New England was drubbed on its own turf by the succeeding kings of the AFC East, the Buffalo Bills.

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Sure, we knew it would never be the same without Brady. Over 20 years, Belichick and Brady won 17 division titles, 9 AFC championships and six Super Bowls.

But we still expected better from Belichick in the post-Brady chapter of his Patriots era.

And no doubt, he expected better.

Instead, Belichick went 29-39, including the playoff loss, after Brady's departure.

He sure tried. Belichick tried to reignite Cam Newton. Splat! He drafted Mac Jones from his pal Nick Saban's championship operation at Alabama. Plop. This season – his worst as a head coach – he squeezed out four victories with Jones and the unheralded Bailey Zappe at quarterback.

Of course, no quarterback was ever going to match Brady's greatness. Will anyone ever? It's just that Belichick was the one to show us that it was still possible to win big without TB12. Or so it was envisioned.

The potshot back in November from Rex Ryan, the former coach and proud Belichick nemesis, is worth revisiting, but only briefly. As the Patriots sank to 2-9, Ryan put it this way on ESPN's morning show, "Get Up."

"Tom Brady was the absolute difference," Ryan said. "I said from jump, they would never win again. I said they would never win again when that guy trotted down to Tampa."

With Brady as his quarterback, Belichick's record is 249-75 (.769). Without TB12, and including his stint with the Cleveland Browns – who were quarterbacked by Bernie Kosar, Vinny Testaverde and others – Belichick's mark is 83-104 (.449). By the time Brady left Belichick, at 42, he was such a polished pro and established winner that he could instantly transform any team, as the Bucs can attest.

Yet it's too simple – and well, just plain wrong – to conclude that Brady made Belichick into the coach that is now 15 wins shy of surpassing Don Shula as the winningest coach in NFL history.

Brady made that quite clear with an Instagram post on Thursday, the most significant reaction from anyone about what just went down in Foxborough. TB12 lauded Belichick for setting the tone and creating the culture that enabled the Patriots dynasty to succeed. He ended the post with this:

"I could never have been the player I was without you Coach Belichick," Brady wrote. "I am forever grateful. And I wish you the best of luck in whatever you choose next."

Brady implied that he would have never become TB12 without Belichick, who drafted him with a sixth-round pick in 2000 and groomed him over years during their weekly, one-on-one in coach-quarterback meetings. They went through the fire together for decades as the best coach-QB duo in NFL history.

It has always fueled great debate: Who's more valuable? The coach or the quarterback?

John Elway, remember, didn't win a Super Bowl until Mike Shanahan arrived. Joe Montana blossomed under the watch of Bill Walsh. Aaron Rodgers has so much MVP hardware, but only one Super Bowl crown.

It's a partnership. And part of what made Brady thrive was the "Patriot Way" – including defenses, special teams, high standards, discipline, culture, resourcefulness – that Belichick's fingerprints were all over.

As Brady emphasized during a recent episode of his "Let's Go!" podcast, it's a team sport.

"It takes a great coaching staff to win," Brady said. "It takes great players to win. It takes great front office support to win. It's an organizational win. It's an organizational loss."

Still, it's a shame that Brady didn't end his career as a Patriot, the quarterback opting to become a free agent because he apparently grew frustrated with the lack of quality support around him – and the input afforded (or not) in trying to upgrade that. That, too, has Belichick's fingerprints on it. Kraft tried to convince Brady to stay. But at that point, Belichick wasn't about to relinquish any of his total control – apparently even to appease the star quarterback, who routinely played under contracts that were significantly less than market value.

As Montana told me back then, processing Brady's departure, "I don't know what's going on inside there, but somebody made a mistake."

It turns out that Belichick couldn't win big again in New England without his special quarterback. At least he couldn't with deficient personnel in so many areas, which also fell under his watch and control.

What now? Belichick, 71, has nothing to prove about his status as one of the greatest coaches ever. Sure, he had Brady. But he knew what to do with him for so many years, retooling the team in multiple ways during their magnificent run.

Yet, given his recent admission that he still has the juice to coach, Belichick can still prove something else that hopefully will be worth watching as he chases Shula's record.

Go ahead, BB: Show the world that you can still win big again without Brady.

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