New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick reportedly turned down an in-person meeting with Tom Brady before the longtime Pats quarterback announced his free-agent move to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2020.

ESPN's Seth Wickersham reported in his upcoming book, It's Better to Be Feared, that Belichick told Brady on the phone he was the "best player the league had ever seen," but the fact that the goodbyes didn't come in person was "telling" to Brady about how much his relationship with his former coach had deteriorated.

Belichick told reporters that the description of the phone call with Brady was not accurate but would not say how.

The book provides behind-the-scenes details about how the relationships between Brady, Belichick and team owner Robert Kraft began to fade while the team continued to win championships, including Super Bowl LIII at the end of the 2018 season. It's Better to Be Feared is scheduled for an Oct. 12 release.

Although the Patriots' on-field success continued, Brady informed those close to him as early as 2017 he didn't "want to play for Bill anymore," per Wickersham.

"Tom Brady had been curious if there was another way of winning, and while nobody was arguing that Bruce Arians was a better coach than Bill Belichick, or even close, the seamlessness of Brady's proficiency and performance was making his former coach's methodologies look antiquated, even silly," an excerpt from the book reads. "It was better to be feared—but was it necessary?"

Another excerpt noted the future Hall of Fame quarterback was "tired of taking team-friendly deals with no input into how the money saved was spent."

Brady's trainer, Alex Guerrero, shed further light on the situation last week when he told Karen Guregian of the Boston Herald that Belichick's "emotions or feelings never evolved with age."

"I think in time, with Tom, as Tom got into his late 30s or early 40s, I think Bill was still trying to treat him like that 20-year-old kid that he drafted. And all the players, I think, realized Tom was different," Guerrero said. "He's older, so he should be treated differently. And all the players, none of them would have cared that he was treated differently. I think that was such a Bill thing. He never evolved. So you can't treat someone who's in his 40s like they're 20. It doesn't work."

Meanwhile, as Brady struggled with his relationship with Belichick, the Patriots coach was also frustrated because he felt Kraft had "meddled" with the decision-making process. That caused a separate rift that led the team owner to vent his frustrations to confidants during a conversation before a September 2018 game against the Detroit Lions.

"I hate leaving here," Kraft told friends at a conference in Aspen, Colorado, per Wickersham. "You leave here and you leave some of the most brilliant people you've ever met. You pick up so much knowledge from all these brilliant minds. And I have to go to Detroit to be with the biggest f--king assh--e in my life—my head coach."

In the end, Brady left the Patriots to sign with the Bucs in March 2020, and he guided Tampa Bay to a Super Bowl title during his first season with the organization. It marked his NFL-record seventh championship as a player after winning six with Belichick and Kraft in New England.

The legendary quarterback returns to Gillette Stadium on Sunday night for one of the most highly anticipated games of the 2021 regular season. Whether he embraces his former head coach on the field before or after the contest will be closely watched.

While Brady's time in New England didn't end in storybook fashion, there's no doubting the success he enjoyed with Belichick over the course of two decades.