Things clearly soured a bit over the course of Tom Brady’s last few years in New England, and that’s part of the reason why the quarterback is getting ready to play his first NFL season with a team not named the Patriots. But what exactly contributed to the relationship deteriorating toward the end?

According to a report this week, Brady may have been growing tired of one of his coaches — and that coach wasn’t Bill Belichick.

• Former New York Daily News reporter Gary Myers reported, per “an excellent source,” that Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels was part of the reason Brady left New England
• Myers notes that Brady was “worn out by Josh after all these years” and wanted to have more input into the game plan

But Brady was quick to address that report yesterday and was quite emphatic in shooting down the notion that McDaniels drove him out of Foxboro. He posted a screenshot of an article about the rumor and chimed in with his thoughts.

• Brady via Instagram: “Please stop this nonsense! Please be more responsible with reporting, 19 years together and brothers for life” (he tagged McDaniels)

It’s not the strongest report, but let’s say it is true: Would that be the most shocking thing in the world? Probably not.

Brady’s frustration had to stem from somewhere and we’ve seen the quarterback get into incredibly heated battles with McDaniels on the sidelines on a few occasions, so they’re not strangers to butting heads. Sure, you might say that those sort of blowouts can happen when you’re ultra competitive and have worked with a person long enough, but fractured relationships can also happen when you’re ultra competitive and have worked with a person for long enough.

Brady and McDaniels seem to have a lot of mutual respect for one another (and they really want the public to know that) and they’ve managed to accomplish great things together over the years, but it’s not exactly crazy to think that they’d grown kind of tired of one another and were ready to move on. There have long been rumors and reports that things were strained behind-the-scenes in Foxboro.

At some point down the road maybe we’ll get a “The Last Dance”-style documentary on the Patriots that helps explain what transpired toward the end of Brady’s days in New England, but until then we’ll have to keep guessing and throwing s–t at the wall until Brady smacks it away on his IG story.