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maverick4

Sorry Felger, but the core is Belichick. Pioli, McDaniels, and even Brady included in this are all top 5 at their jobs and will do well after leaving the Pats, but what makes the Pats go is Belichick. He coaches up players, he coaches up his colleagues to become better coaches or GM's... we'll be fine. Also, Belichick is one of the most well connected people in football, he's probably got someone lined up for all football and also personnel/coaches in case they leave.

Sean Pa Patriot

Sorry there I dont think you replace a Tom Brady, I know what Cassel did and it was nice, but the loss of tom brady did cost the pats 2-3 games this year.. Belichick is the heart and brains , but please dont discount what Pioli ment to Belichick and the Pats

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We going to take it one game at a time

Ghost of Ben Dreith

I agree.

While there will never be another Tom Brady, the coaching of BB helped turn Matt Cassell into a pretty good representation.

spacecrime

Which 2-3 games would we have won with Brady that we lost with Cassel?

Not the Chargers of the Dolphins, those were defensive nightmares, so I guess you mean the Jets, Colts and Steelers?

STFarmy

I'm sure Felger is just hoping they tank without Pioli so he can gleefully point out all of their failings.

Runt.

Sean Pa Patriot

I think both the Charger and Dolphins would have been differnt games, with Brady, and also the Colts game would have not been so conservative game plan, the jets game is what it was, if we won the toss we won the game.. The Steelers game, that just was awful because of turnovers.. But you seem to think less of Brady in those games.. I know the defense was awful, but the chargers game was close until that goal line stand.

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We going to take it one game at a time

BradyFTW!

Agreed, although I'd place a little more emphasis on Brady. Not to discount the great job that those other guys have done, but Belichick (and maybe Ernie Adams to a great extent, but we'll never really know where Belichick ends and Adams begins) is what makes the organization go.

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BradyFTW!

The second Jets game and the Colts game, for sure. As far as the first Dolphins game, that was very early in the season, when Cassel's pocket presence was nil. If Brady had been in there, I think we would have had the firepower to keep up with the Dolphins.

Also, the Steelers game was competitive in the first half, and it would have been an entirely different game if Moss had caught that touchdown pass at the end of the first half. I can't help but think that, if Brady had been QB, that might have happened, plus he probably wouldn't have been strip-sacked twice in the second half.

Not that it really matters, at the end of the day, but I don't think that it's at all unreasonable to say that the Pats would have been 2-3 games better with Brady.

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AFPatsFan12

I went into a mini-rant about this a while ago, so I won't replicate it, but the truth of the matter is that no one can possibly predict how this season would have progressed if Brady were healthy.

A Brady-led team may well have won every game on the schedule this year. The gameplans, the play selection, everything is different if Brady is the starting QB. If the Patriots get up 14-0/21-0 on the Dolphins, are they able to break out the Wildcat? Similar examples can be applied to the other losses.

But on the flip side, perhaps Brady loses those games and 5 more. What if the Patriots attack the Jets in Week 2 heavily through the air, but Revis picks off 2, taking 1 to the house? What if Brady can't make a throw up in Seattle to pull that one out? What if, what if...?

In the aftermath of the Week 17 debacle, when everyone was commiserating about which single plays cost the Patriots a loss here or there, I argued that you can't play that game, because any little change to one play can make monumental changes to the entire season, to history, even. The example I used was how the manner in which the ref flipped the coin in Week 1 cost Brady his season.

You know who else I blame for Brady's missed 2008 season? Asante Samuel. If he holds on to that INT in the Game Which Shall NOT Be Named, the Patriots get the Thursday night opener in Week 1 of 2008, which is likely NOT against the Chiefs, and even if it is, it's at a completely different time, under completely different circumstances. Chances are very high that Bernard Pollard doesn't get near Brady's knee, and he stays healthy all year. Or maybe someone ELSE from a different team... maybe Dwight Freeney, or Joey Porter, goes at Brady and does even MORE damage to his knee... ending his career, perhaps. Who knows, perhaps Brady being injured in the manner he was helped save his career... no one really knows.

I think we'd all agree that a healthy Brady would give the Pats a better chance at winning than Matt Cassel, and that BB/Pioli give the Patriots a better chance at winning than BB/whomever, but there's no real way of knowing that... not now, and not even after the fact.

But the one thing that remains is Felger is a douche, lol, and I didn't even read this column... I don't think ANY chain of events could change that...