TommyD420
Well-known member
Not only that, Belichick let him walk the second he looked like he was losing half a step.
All things Belichick
- Thread starter LordSensei1958
- Start date
Belichick was/is a tremendous prep and game day coach. His problems are pretty much everywhere else, which is not what it used to be. The areas where he was far above average, or even just above average, are much fewer in number, for different reasons.
For example:
His ability to pilfer castoffs and coach them into top end players has been limited by the changes to the passing rules that have resulted in the general need to move away from the bigger linebackers that BB used to love. This is not a knock on BB the coach in terms of a decline, or an inability to adjust, or anything like that. It's just an understanding that the game has changed because of rules and enforcement changes, and BB's superior ability to use the true 3-4 with big linebackers has been drastically curtailed.
There are obviously others, but I just wanted to make the point that the coaching gap had obviously become smaller over the years. And that's important to note, because, when you combine it with Kraft's adoration of Brady, even without anything else, you get a situation where the owner is likely to begin taking a dimmer view of his head coach once the coach is wrong about such a high end and beloved player. I get the the BB bobos are going to white knight every chance they get. My problem with what's been going on is that the normal Patriots fans have fallen for the sucker play of "Kraft mean, because noting the obvious" combined with "Well, we've never just swallowed whole a lot of the bullshit that ESPN has written, and we've often been proven right to be skeptical, but we're going to buy into 100% of what this dubious writing crew just put out there".
HSanders
Cracker bitch
he was still doing that and if anything is still innovative defensively. he did scrap the 3-4 and even while doing that,he was always looking for those "big nickel" type safeties so he'd have more versatility with not having to change personnel. the pats were one of the first teams to play mostly nickel/6 dbs as their "base" as the passing game became more and more primary. he was "rehabbing" careers of talented dbs like gilmore and revis and fitting in castoffs like van noy and ninko. in their last sb win,they held one of the best offenses in the nfl to 3 pts while their own o was held at bay. gilmore commented recently about how brilliant a strategy it was to go from playing mostly man all year to playing zone in that game. i'm a bill girl and there are valid criticisms of some of his decisions.
but i don't agree that this is one.
Not sure what you're saying you disagree with here. You acknowledge the point about the 3-4, which is the example I gave.
HSanders
Cracker bitch
i was disagreeing that the loss of the 3-4 has curtailed his defensive creativity. but now that i read your post again,i see that i misunderstood what you wrote.
i was disagreeing that the loss of the 3-4 has curtailed his defensive creativity. but now that i read your post again,i see that i misunderstood what you wrote.
No worries. I think that, while there are things that are true failures on the part of Belichick, we need to acknowledge that some of the issue is just that not everything the man has excelled at is even viable in the league anymore, and that the league has gone much more to the side of offense which has never been BB's particular area of expertise. Had the league moved more towards defense, we might be saying something like his game coaching was having as much impact as ever.
Now I have to have the fucking Manningcast on Monday nights. Fuck!!!
View: https://twitter.com/ESPNNFL/status/1788997324653432864
View: https://twitter.com/ESPNNFL/status/1788997324653432864
HSanders
Cracker bitch
if bb is in a situation where eli is at a loss for words,i wish bb would say "not so easy without tyree to bail you out,huh?"
then eli could say" or without samuel to drop the ball".
The underwhelming end of Bill Belichick’s tenure with the New England Patriots should never overshadow the historic journey.
Belichick helped guide New England to unprecedented success that might never be matched, and his partnerships with quarterback Tom Brady and owner Robert Kraft were integral to a championship formula that spanned the better part of two decades. It all came to a close, of course, Thursday when the Patriots and Belichick parted ways following New England’s disastrous 4-13 season that ended in a 17-3 loss to the New York Jets.
This should never be a referendum between Belichick and Brady or even a debate over which party deserves a bigger share of the credit pie. Rather, they should be celebrated as an interlocking of greatness, two separate entities who never would have stockpiled so much hardware without the other.
Brady, like any inexperienced quarterback, needed time to develop upon taking over for Drew Bledsoe in 2001. Offensive coordinator Charlie Weis maintained relatively conservative game plans that banked on the running game, quality field position — thanks to Belichick’s tremendous defense and special teams — and a hodgepodge of trick plays. When it was time for clutch performances, whether it was Brady’s third start against the Chargers, the Snow Bowl against the then-Oakland Raiders or Super Bowl XXXVI against the then-St. Louis Rams, the quarterback delivered.
And it was Belichick who continued to construct a well-rounded roster. In 2003, as free agent Rodney Harrison waited outside Raiders owner Al Davis’ office and was on the phone with Denver Broncos coach Mike Shanahan, the safety put the league on hold to take a call from Belichick. The Patriots coach convinced Harrison to get on a red-eye flight and visit Gillette Stadium, where Belichick won him over. Harrison left money on the table with the Broncos because of his instant connection with Belichick.
The roster-building extended far beyond Harrison, of course. After the Patriots went 5-11 in 2000, their established veterans felt strongly enough about their trajectory under Belichick that they recruited linebacker Roman Phifer and defensive lineman Anthony Pleasant, among others. Belichick transformed linebacker Mike Vrabel from a role player with the Pittsburgh Steelers into a defensive star in New England. He resuscitated running back Corey Dillon from a falling out with the Cincinnati Bengals into a dominant role with the 2004 Patriots.
Meanwhile, inherited pieces such as cornerback Ty Law, linebacker Willie McGinest and linebacker Ted Johnson continued to flourish under Belichick, as rotational contributors such as linebacker Tedy Bruschi, wide receiver Troy Brown and running back Kevin Faulk evolved into Patriots Hall of Famers.
Add in early-2000s NFL Draft selections Richard Seymour, Matt Light, Deion Branch, Jarvis Green, Ty Warren, Eugene Wilson, Asante Samuel, Dan Koppen and Vince Wilfork and the Patriots developed a deep and talented core. They won three Super Bowls from 2001 to 2004 and were the last team to claim back-to-back titles.
“The first three Super Bowls,” Law said in 2018, “we were considered more of a defensive team than anything as far as the leadership, the plays being made out there, the guys who had the experience, and we carried the team. Tom came into his own, and the rest is history.”
Quarterback Tom Brady and coach Bill Belichick won 249 games and six Super Bowls together with the New England Patriots. (Jim Rogash / Getty Images)
Law and Seymour are the only members of the early dynasty enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, though Brady will eventually join them and Harrison is a finalist for the 2024 class. Also, remarkably enough, the Patriots averaged four Pro Bowlers per season on those first three Super Bowl winners.
“We gave up a lot of individual accolades and didn’t care about those individual accolades for the sake of the team,” Law said in 2022. “That’s why we were successful. We were a good team. We were winning championships.”
The shortage of Pro Bowlers was not an indictment of the Patriots’ talent. Rather, as Law pointed out, it was due to their total team buy-in to Belichick’s philosophy. They were unified in their pursuit of a dynasty.
Belichick kept them pointed in their approach. As the Patriots steamrolled their 2004 opponents, they became unaware of their complacency, which struck in a late-season loss to the Miami Dolphins. The night before Super Bowl XXXIX against the Philadelphia Eagles, Belichick mesmerized the roster with his speech in the team meeting, pulling a pair of Lombardi Trophies from underneath a table and waltzing to the front of the room. The message was simple — the trophies were the goal — but the delivery fired up every player far more than Belichick alluding to Philadelphia’s planned parade route.
It didn’t last forever, though.
Belichick helped guide New England to unprecedented success that might never be matched, and his partnerships with quarterback Tom Brady and owner Robert Kraft were integral to a championship formula that spanned the better part of two decades. It all came to a close, of course, Thursday when the Patriots and Belichick parted ways following New England’s disastrous 4-13 season that ended in a 17-3 loss to the New York Jets.
This should never be a referendum between Belichick and Brady or even a debate over which party deserves a bigger share of the credit pie. Rather, they should be celebrated as an interlocking of greatness, two separate entities who never would have stockpiled so much hardware without the other.
Brady, like any inexperienced quarterback, needed time to develop upon taking over for Drew Bledsoe in 2001. Offensive coordinator Charlie Weis maintained relatively conservative game plans that banked on the running game, quality field position — thanks to Belichick’s tremendous defense and special teams — and a hodgepodge of trick plays. When it was time for clutch performances, whether it was Brady’s third start against the Chargers, the Snow Bowl against the then-Oakland Raiders or Super Bowl XXXVI against the then-St. Louis Rams, the quarterback delivered.
And it was Belichick who continued to construct a well-rounded roster. In 2003, as free agent Rodney Harrison waited outside Raiders owner Al Davis’ office and was on the phone with Denver Broncos coach Mike Shanahan, the safety put the league on hold to take a call from Belichick. The Patriots coach convinced Harrison to get on a red-eye flight and visit Gillette Stadium, where Belichick won him over. Harrison left money on the table with the Broncos because of his instant connection with Belichick.
The roster-building extended far beyond Harrison, of course. After the Patriots went 5-11 in 2000, their established veterans felt strongly enough about their trajectory under Belichick that they recruited linebacker Roman Phifer and defensive lineman Anthony Pleasant, among others. Belichick transformed linebacker Mike Vrabel from a role player with the Pittsburgh Steelers into a defensive star in New England. He resuscitated running back Corey Dillon from a falling out with the Cincinnati Bengals into a dominant role with the 2004 Patriots.
Meanwhile, inherited pieces such as cornerback Ty Law, linebacker Willie McGinest and linebacker Ted Johnson continued to flourish under Belichick, as rotational contributors such as linebacker Tedy Bruschi, wide receiver Troy Brown and running back Kevin Faulk evolved into Patriots Hall of Famers.
Add in early-2000s NFL Draft selections Richard Seymour, Matt Light, Deion Branch, Jarvis Green, Ty Warren, Eugene Wilson, Asante Samuel, Dan Koppen and Vince Wilfork and the Patriots developed a deep and talented core. They won three Super Bowls from 2001 to 2004 and were the last team to claim back-to-back titles.
“The first three Super Bowls,” Law said in 2018, “we were considered more of a defensive team than anything as far as the leadership, the plays being made out there, the guys who had the experience, and we carried the team. Tom came into his own, and the rest is history.”
Quarterback Tom Brady and coach Bill Belichick won 249 games and six Super Bowls together with the New England Patriots. (Jim Rogash / Getty Images)
Law and Seymour are the only members of the early dynasty enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, though Brady will eventually join them and Harrison is a finalist for the 2024 class. Also, remarkably enough, the Patriots averaged four Pro Bowlers per season on those first three Super Bowl winners.
“We gave up a lot of individual accolades and didn’t care about those individual accolades for the sake of the team,” Law said in 2022. “That’s why we were successful. We were a good team. We were winning championships.”
The shortage of Pro Bowlers was not an indictment of the Patriots’ talent. Rather, as Law pointed out, it was due to their total team buy-in to Belichick’s philosophy. They were unified in their pursuit of a dynasty.
Belichick kept them pointed in their approach. As the Patriots steamrolled their 2004 opponents, they became unaware of their complacency, which struck in a late-season loss to the Miami Dolphins. The night before Super Bowl XXXIX against the Philadelphia Eagles, Belichick mesmerized the roster with his speech in the team meeting, pulling a pair of Lombardi Trophies from underneath a table and waltzing to the front of the room. The message was simple — the trophies were the goal — but the delivery fired up every player far more than Belichick alluding to Philadelphia’s planned parade route.
It didn’t last forever, though.
In 2000, Kraft was motivated to hire Belichick because of his strong defensive pedigree under Bill Parcells but also because of Belichick’s thoroughly detailed plan to build a team around the constraints of the relatively new salary cap. During the interview process, Belichick showed Kraft which players on the team were too highly paid relative to their performance, including some who had become fan favorites, and why that was a liability elsewhere on the depth chart.
To the chagrin of the locker room and fan base, Belichick later cut ties with the likes of Law, McGinest and Branch over salary disputes. The 2006 season marked a turning point. Brady had become one of the league’s best quarterbacks but couldn’t overcome a lackluster group of receivers, and the defense burned out late as the Patriots blew an 18-point lead in the AFC Championship Game against Peyton Manning’s Indianapolis Colts.
Belichick added receivers Randy Moss, Wes Welker and Donte Stallworth in 2007, and the Patriots got their only mildly productive season out of free-agent linebacker Adalius Thomas. But a couple of fluky plays in Super Bowl XLII against the New York Giants cost them a perfect season before Brady tore his ACL in 2008, and the majority of the veteran core had retired or was on its last wind by 2009.
After a lost season in 2009 when Moss and Thomas became particularly disgruntled, it felt like the Patriots were in the early stages of a long rebuild, but the 2010 draft class — headlined by safety Devin McCourty and tight end Rob Gronkowski — reinvigorated them. The Patriots were the AFC’s No. 1 seed with a 14-2 record, and Brady won his second MVP, becoming the first player in history to earn a unanimous selection.
Brady continued to keep the rebuild ahead of schedule in 2011 when wide receiver Julian Edelman and special teams captain Matthew Slater were thrust into defensive roles in the playoffs. The Patriots ranked 15th in points allowed (their worst mark between 2006 and 2022) and a Belichick-worst 31st in yards. Yet, for the second time, Brady delivered a fourth-quarter lead in the Super Bowl before the defense coughed it up — again to the Giants.
Despite a roster with shortcomings, sometimes compounded by injuries, the Patriots made back-to-back AFC Championship Games in 2012-13. A string of successful draft classes that included the likes of left tackle Nate Solder, running back Shane Vereen, defensive end Chandler Jones, linebackers Dont’a Hightower and Jamie Collins, cornerback Logan Ryan and safety Duron Harmon injected new life.
And similar to the early-2000s Patriots, the 2014 squad also had an important mixture of former role players turned starters (safety Patrick Chung, defensive end Rob Ninkovich, cornerback Kyle Arrington) and star additions (cornerbacks Darrelle Revis and Brandon Browner) to complement the draft core. The Patriots fielded their best team in nearly a decade and won a classic Super Bowl XLIX against the Seattle Seahawks, who were attempting to win back-to-back titles and lay claim to one of the greatest defenses in history.
Though Belichick assembled the roster, Brady deserved credit for keeping everyone driven. Belichick has always been candid that his program prioritizes winning over everything — typically at the expense of fun amenities or innocent workplace distractions for mental breaks that are offered by other organizations — but the rewards were paid in February at an unparalleled pace.
Belichick and Brady should be celebrated as an interlocking of greatness, two separate entities who never would have stockpiled so much hardware without the other. (Christopher Evans / MediaNews Group / Boston Herald via Getty Images)
Brady’s teammates knew they always had that opportunity with him in Foxboro. He led the first 10-point, fourth-quarter comeback in Super Bowl history against the Seahawks, miraculously kept the Patriots motivated when they trailed the Atlanta Falcons 28-3 in Super Bowl LI and ushered tremendous confidence during a 2018 AFC title game thriller against the Kansas City Chiefs to eventually lead to New England’s sixth Super Bowl victory two weeks later. Belichick, to his credit, stymied Sean McVay’s high-octane Rams offense on the game’s biggest stage.
The defensive mastermind with Hall of Fame game plans who has annually hindered some of the game’s greatest quarterbacks is unmatched as a head coach with six Super Bowl victories, nine conference championships and 17 division titles. His 333 wins, including the playoffs, trail only Don Shula. And Belichick accomplished these feats during a time when evolving rule changes were designed to increase league-wide parity.
Belichick was hardly perfect, of course. Some players believed his controversial benching of cornerback Malcolm Butler cost them Super Bowl LII against quarterback Nick Foles and the Eagles. Belichick also refused to fully guarantee Brady’s contract during negotiations in 2019, which led to the departure of the greatest player in NFL history.
Belichick failed to have a succession plan for Brady, Gronkowski and offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels upon their departures. The coach also lost key members of his front office because of an unwillingness to promote or appropriately recognize their contributions, league sources said over the years.
His recent draft performance — and subsequent reluctance to extend a few homegrown hits — is the primary reason the roster has had so many glaring weaknesses at prominent positions for two seasons, and Belichick’s inability to plug enough of those holes during a massive spending spree in 2021 free agency also drew Kraft’s ire.
It most certainly didn’t help Belichick’s case when Brady immediately won a seventh Super Bowl with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. However, not even Brady could overcome the Bucs’ coaching issues in his final season in 2022. As much as Belichick’s detractors might not want to hear it, that season was a prime illustration of the importance of a high-level coach-quarterback combination.
They relied on each other, the way Bill Walsh needed Joe Montana, Mike Shanahan paired with John Elway and Andy Reid counts on Patrick Mahomes. Individual greatness from a coach or quarterback can sometimes be enough for a season, but a partnership of greatness in the most prominent positions can create levels of success that become sustainable for much longer.
It will always be about Brady and Belichick.
It should never be Brady or Belichick.
To the chagrin of the locker room and fan base, Belichick later cut ties with the likes of Law, McGinest and Branch over salary disputes. The 2006 season marked a turning point. Brady had become one of the league’s best quarterbacks but couldn’t overcome a lackluster group of receivers, and the defense burned out late as the Patriots blew an 18-point lead in the AFC Championship Game against Peyton Manning’s Indianapolis Colts.
Belichick added receivers Randy Moss, Wes Welker and Donte Stallworth in 2007, and the Patriots got their only mildly productive season out of free-agent linebacker Adalius Thomas. But a couple of fluky plays in Super Bowl XLII against the New York Giants cost them a perfect season before Brady tore his ACL in 2008, and the majority of the veteran core had retired or was on its last wind by 2009.
After a lost season in 2009 when Moss and Thomas became particularly disgruntled, it felt like the Patriots were in the early stages of a long rebuild, but the 2010 draft class — headlined by safety Devin McCourty and tight end Rob Gronkowski — reinvigorated them. The Patriots were the AFC’s No. 1 seed with a 14-2 record, and Brady won his second MVP, becoming the first player in history to earn a unanimous selection.
Brady continued to keep the rebuild ahead of schedule in 2011 when wide receiver Julian Edelman and special teams captain Matthew Slater were thrust into defensive roles in the playoffs. The Patriots ranked 15th in points allowed (their worst mark between 2006 and 2022) and a Belichick-worst 31st in yards. Yet, for the second time, Brady delivered a fourth-quarter lead in the Super Bowl before the defense coughed it up — again to the Giants.
Despite a roster with shortcomings, sometimes compounded by injuries, the Patriots made back-to-back AFC Championship Games in 2012-13. A string of successful draft classes that included the likes of left tackle Nate Solder, running back Shane Vereen, defensive end Chandler Jones, linebackers Dont’a Hightower and Jamie Collins, cornerback Logan Ryan and safety Duron Harmon injected new life.
And similar to the early-2000s Patriots, the 2014 squad also had an important mixture of former role players turned starters (safety Patrick Chung, defensive end Rob Ninkovich, cornerback Kyle Arrington) and star additions (cornerbacks Darrelle Revis and Brandon Browner) to complement the draft core. The Patriots fielded their best team in nearly a decade and won a classic Super Bowl XLIX against the Seattle Seahawks, who were attempting to win back-to-back titles and lay claim to one of the greatest defenses in history.
Though Belichick assembled the roster, Brady deserved credit for keeping everyone driven. Belichick has always been candid that his program prioritizes winning over everything — typically at the expense of fun amenities or innocent workplace distractions for mental breaks that are offered by other organizations — but the rewards were paid in February at an unparalleled pace.
Belichick and Brady should be celebrated as an interlocking of greatness, two separate entities who never would have stockpiled so much hardware without the other. (Christopher Evans / MediaNews Group / Boston Herald via Getty Images)
Brady’s teammates knew they always had that opportunity with him in Foxboro. He led the first 10-point, fourth-quarter comeback in Super Bowl history against the Seahawks, miraculously kept the Patriots motivated when they trailed the Atlanta Falcons 28-3 in Super Bowl LI and ushered tremendous confidence during a 2018 AFC title game thriller against the Kansas City Chiefs to eventually lead to New England’s sixth Super Bowl victory two weeks later. Belichick, to his credit, stymied Sean McVay’s high-octane Rams offense on the game’s biggest stage.
The defensive mastermind with Hall of Fame game plans who has annually hindered some of the game’s greatest quarterbacks is unmatched as a head coach with six Super Bowl victories, nine conference championships and 17 division titles. His 333 wins, including the playoffs, trail only Don Shula. And Belichick accomplished these feats during a time when evolving rule changes were designed to increase league-wide parity.
Belichick was hardly perfect, of course. Some players believed his controversial benching of cornerback Malcolm Butler cost them Super Bowl LII against quarterback Nick Foles and the Eagles. Belichick also refused to fully guarantee Brady’s contract during negotiations in 2019, which led to the departure of the greatest player in NFL history.
Belichick failed to have a succession plan for Brady, Gronkowski and offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels upon their departures. The coach also lost key members of his front office because of an unwillingness to promote or appropriately recognize their contributions, league sources said over the years.
His recent draft performance — and subsequent reluctance to extend a few homegrown hits — is the primary reason the roster has had so many glaring weaknesses at prominent positions for two seasons, and Belichick’s inability to plug enough of those holes during a massive spending spree in 2021 free agency also drew Kraft’s ire.
It most certainly didn’t help Belichick’s case when Brady immediately won a seventh Super Bowl with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. However, not even Brady could overcome the Bucs’ coaching issues in his final season in 2022. As much as Belichick’s detractors might not want to hear it, that season was a prime illustration of the importance of a high-level coach-quarterback combination.
They relied on each other, the way Bill Walsh needed Joe Montana, Mike Shanahan paired with John Elway and Andy Reid counts on Patrick Mahomes. Individual greatness from a coach or quarterback can sometimes be enough for a season, but a partnership of greatness in the most prominent positions can create levels of success that become sustainable for much longer.
It will always be about Brady and Belichick.
It should never be Brady or Belichick.
OK, not everybody. But it sure gets a lot of airplay. And the people who use the line generally do so with a harrumph of finality, as though theirs is the last word on the topic, case closed, no more calls, we have a winner. They also would have you believe it’s a brainy sports statistic they’ve come up with on their own, this after studying the rosters, crunching the numbers and watching hours of game film. And then they deliver their findings as an urgent, we-interrupt-this-program news bulletin, or as if they’re belting out the big song in a hit Broadway musical, the kind that theatergoers are humming as they filter out to West 44th Street.
Without context — and hang on, as I’ll be providing context in a moment — Belichick’s record in games without Tom Brady as the primary quarterback, counting the playoffs, is 85-102. This includes Belichick’s five seasons with the Cleveland Browns (37-45), his inaugural 2000 season with the Patriots (5-11), the first two games of 2001, which includes the Mo Lewis hit that landed Drew Bledsoe in the hospital (0-2), the 2008 season in which Matt Cassell came off the bench in the first quarter of the season opener following the Bernard Pollard hit that ripped up Brady’s left knee (11-5), the first four games of the 2016 season while Brady was sitting out his Deflategate suspension (3-1) and the mostly messy four seasons of the post-Brady era (29-38).
View: https://twitter.com/agerney/status/1745485914392961219
There it is. All you need to do is roll out these numbers and then quickly leave the room before anyone gets a chance to say, “But, hey, wait a minute,” and you can strut through the rest of the day feeling quite pleased with yourself.
But, hey, wait a minute.
Cue the context in 3 … 2 …
The problem with caterwauling about what Belichick failed to accomplish without Brady is that it takes an awkward detour to avoid discussing what these two men, working as a coach-quarterback tandem, did accomplish. And what they accomplished was nine trips to the Super Bowl and six championships.
I am here to tell you there’s no way, just no way, Brady would have quarterbacked the Patriots to six Super Bowl victories without Belichick. And I know what you’re thinking: How could anybody possibly make that statement!!?? And you’re right. To do so requires the creation of an alternate timeline, the sort that led to many great adventures for Marty McFly and Doc Brown but doesn’t work here in the real world. Agreed? Good. But accepting that premise requires that we also accept this: There’s no way of knowing how many times Brady would have quarterbacked the Patriots to the Super Bowl winner’s circle had there been another head coach in residence.
Since both scenarios are make-believe and unknowable, they must be discarded to have an intelligent discussion. What we need to do, then, is limit ourselves to events that actually happened. As in:
- Yes, Belichick’s record as a head coach without Brady is 85-102.
- Yes, the Belichick-Brady tandem has combined to win six Super Bowls.
Kevin Faulk, the former Patriots running back who played in three Super Bowl winners during his 13 seasons in New England, had this to say about the “Bill without Brady” argument: “A lot of people have that opinion about that subject. I laugh at it.”
Why?
“Defense,” Faulk said. “Defense, defense, defense. We all know who designed the defense for those great teams. That’s what he did. That’s how he made his mark (with the New York Giants), and that’s what he did with the Patriots.
“Now look, Brady is Brady,” Faulk said. “Nothing changes that. But those two matched up was like a match made in heaven. Now they’re saying, ‘Oh, Brady went to Tampa and Bill had nothing after Brady left.’ Yeah! Right! Exactly right! But what nobody talks about is that Brady had the opportunity to pick the team he went to, and he picked a pretty darned good team with some really good receivers. And it worked out. Bill, on the other hand, had to start from scratch.”
I agree with most of that. As in, the Patriots did have some great defenses during the Super Bowl seasons. Don’t know about you, but in Super Bowl XXXVI there was a specific moment when lots of folks who were certain New England was going to get clobbered by the St. Louis Rams suddenly believed the Pats might actually win. That moment arrived in the second quarter when Ty Law intercepted a Kurt Warner pass and returned it 47 yards for a touchdown.
Ty Law waves to the crowd after intercepting a pass and running it in for a touchdown in the Patriots’ 20-17 win against the St. Louis Rams in Super Bowl XXXVI. (Nancy Kerrigan / Getty Images)
Yes, Brady took the Pats on a pulsating drive in the last 1 minute and 21 seconds of regulation. Yes, Adam Vinatieri connected on a 48-yard field goal that clinched New England’s first championship. But it all began with the pick six by Law. It began with defense.
I’m not going point out the many big plays the Patriots defense has made on the Super Bowl stage — (clears throat) strip-sack by Dont’a Hightower against Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan (clears throat) — because it would be a waste of time and space. Besides, these tricky facts are bothersome to the Belichick haters on social media who enjoy making all-caps pronouncements. Sorry about that. It’s just that Belichick and Brady were a history-making, coach-quarterback tandem for two incredible decades, and I doubt anybody’s going to surpass what they did.
If your counterpoint is that all that winning was still, oh, I don’t know, 70 percent Brady and 30 percent Belichick, or 80 percent Brady and 20 percent Belichick, or, heck, 90 percent Brady and 10 percent Belichick, go right ahead. In this case, we’re just making up numbers, so knock yourself out.
Now then, I did say I agree with most of what Faulk said. Where I disagree is the part where Brady picked a potential winner when he went to Tampa Bay whereas, to quote Faulk, “Bill, on the other hand, had to start from scratch.”
But while Brady picked the right team, Belichick picked the wrong players. There’s no getting around that. And if we include the 2022 decision to hand the offense to Matt Patricia and Joe Judge, Belichick didn’t pick the right coaches, either. Or to put it another way, he picked the right coaches but put them in the wrong jobs.
But to take that and to toss in Belichick’s Cleveland years and other game days in which Brady was not doing the quarterbacking conveniently leaves out the two decades in which the Patriots, under Belichick, were an all-phases-of-the-game powerhouse.
I write these words as someone who absolutely believes it was time for the Patriots to make a coaching change.
I write these words as someone who chooses to see the big picture, not the edited and sliced-up picture whose sole purpose is to diminish Belichick’s career.
This is largely a BB tongue bathing thread. And, after those posts, there's not a speck of dirt on him anywhere, I'm sure.
HSanders
Cracker bitch
There's 2 separate articles both from the Athletic.. They would have been behind a paywall, so I just put the whole article in here.
If you're interested, the Athletic subscription is only $1.00 per month. It's well worth the price for the content they have. Here's a link: https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/?redirected=1
HSanders
Cracker bitch
another ignorant moron heard from! i
mean who the hell should listen to HIM????
View: https://twitter.com/SavageSports_/status/1790511224267968944
mean who the hell should listen to HIM????
View: https://twitter.com/SavageSports_/status/1790511224267968944
