James Harrison got plenty of flak for joining the New England Patriots after the Pittsburgh Steelers released him. The Patriots were the Steelers’ boogeyman for basically all of the 2000s and 2010s. They often prevented the Steelers from making the Super Bowl. Therefore, some might’ve been upset when Harrison crossed sides and joined the Patriots. However, he still might’ve helped the Steelers in the end, unknowingly contributing to New England moving on from superstar quarterback Tom Brady.

“When I was in New England, [Patriots owner Robert] Kraft pulled me to the side, and he was like, ‘James, I want to talk to you,’” Harrison said recently on his Deebo and Joe podcast. “I’m like, ‘Cool, what’s up?’ He said, ‘Why is it that we were able to beat you guys even though, for the most part, you guys were more talented altogether than we were?’

“And he said, ‘Do you think it’s Tom [Brady] or do you think it’s Bill [Belichick]?’ He basically was telling me, at that point, that was 2017, he was thinking about moving on from one or the other. He’s trying to make a decision. And I’m like, ‘I think Bill does a great job of coaching. He puts his players in positions to be able to get out of them what it is they do best…’ I was like, ‘He’s good. He’s damn good.’”

Brady is arguably the greatest NFL player of all time, and he was one of the biggest reasons for the Patriots’ success. He played with them for 20 years, but hit free agency after the 2019 season. New England opted not to re-sign him, and Brady joined the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

That decision was a mistake for the Patriots. Despite being over 40 years old, Brady proved that he hadn’t lost a step. He won a Super Bowl in his first season with the Bucs and threw for over 5,000 yards in his second season there.

Meanwhile, the Patriots regressed in the years following Brady’s departure. They had their first losing season since 2000 in their first year post-Brady. While they made the playoffs in 2021, they lost in the first round. Belichick struggled to rebuild the Patriots, and he parted ways with them after the 2023 season.

There’s no telling how much Harrison’s opinion weighed into Kraft’s decision to let Brady leave. However, it couldn’t have hurt. There’s no telling what the Patriots would’ve done had they kept Brady.

Unfortunately for the Steelers, it didn’t take long for the Patriots to get back to the top of the mountain. They made the Super Bowl last year, and while they lost, they’ve got an exciting young core of players. Quarterback Drake Maye, in particular, looks like an ascending star.

It’s too early to say whether New England will retake the throne of the best AFC team for years to come. It feels unlikely that the team will recreate the success it had with Brady and Belichick, though. That was a special union. Thankfully, it didn’t last forever, and Harrison might deserve some thanks for that.