Is it the coaching or the talent?
 

I looked at the five games so far this year. I think BB outcoached Atlanta, the way he took Gonzales out of the game and disrupted the Atlanta offense. I'd call the Baltimore game a push--the game came down to a couple of plays and a couple of calls. Against Buffalo, NY, and Denver, NE looked like they got outcoached. The coaching record to date: 1-3-1.

To evaluate the talent, I took the H-O-F QB out of the equation. I agree that it may not be fair to evaluate the team that way, but I'm trying to gauge the talent level of the rest of the team, without the effect of a player capable of making the players around him look a lot better than they are. What would a Brady-less team do for the rest of the year? Here's my guess:
Tenn-loss
TB-win
Mia-loss
Ind-loss
NYJ-loss
N.O.-loss
Mia-loss
Carolina, Buffalo, Jax, Houston: win two or three out of those four.

Without Brady, and with the current coaching staff, this appears to be a 5 or 6 win team.

Is the talent level on this team overrated? If so, hope I haven't overrated BB's ability to do something about it over the course of the next couple of years.

Re: Is it the coaching or the talent?
 

Take away a Rivers, a Manning and see how good those teams are...Take away Brees...it's a team game..not sure what your point is by doing that. Any big time QB taken away drops that team down far...

Re: Is it the coaching or the talent?
 

i think they will win 10 or 11 game's with brady maybe 8-8 with out him

Re: Is it the coaching or the talent?
 

"Outcoached" is another of the mega dumb things to constantly surface in recent years.

Taking Derrick Mason and TO/ Evans out of the equation were master strokes.

If you were "outcoaching" someone shouldn't you maybe at some point hold a lead for maybe one second in regulation? Was McDaniels saving something for an Elway moment?

Re: Is it the coaching or the talent?
 

I agree--if Brady returns to form, this team can get to 10 or 11 wins and win the AFC East. But that's more of an indicator of how good Brady is, and not an indicator of the overall talent level on this team, which is looking like it's in the average to below-average range. I think the talent at LB, CB, RB and WR is pretty marginal.

Re: Is it the coaching or the talent?
 

Well, with a subpar Brady, not playing to his potential, you can see that this is a team that is maybe just above-average in terms of overall quality. It is not playoff-caliber as things currently stand .... (or at least not a team that will go very far in the playoffs).

Re: Is it the coaching or the talent?
 

How long have some of you guys been watching the Patriots? In the first half of the year, this team always has it's ups and downs. Right around mid November everything jells for this team. The defense usually finishes the year strong. Just look at the won-loss record for the Patriots in November/December during the Belichick era. They usually get stronger as the season goes. 2007 was the exception. We started off really strong, but tailed off during the end.

Re: Is it the coaching or the talent?
 

To evaluate the talent, I took the H-O-F QB out of the equation.

While Cassel is not HOF, yet, we would probably be 5-0 with him in place of Brady.

Re: Is it the coaching or the talent?
 

The talent at WR is marginal?
Really.....you REALLY think the WR talent on the pats is "marginal"

LBS-Mayo was ROY, and Thomas isn't that removed from being a multi talented player, I'm not the coach, but it seems to me like he's not being used to his full potential.
CB looks to be decent, maybe not the superstar shutdown corners.
RB is not the greatest, but I'm thinking if the run the damn ball the team will be top 10 or so overall, if they don't run they won't!

Re: Is it the coaching or the talent?
 

Is that really a fair way to judge BB or this coaching staff, by predicting outcomes without their starting QB? If you're going to do that then you need to compare to how you think every other team in the league would fare without their best player also.

Now you're predicting the team can win 10-11 games with average to below average talent at multiple positions. If that is the case then I'd say that is a very strong argument that the coaching staff is doing an above-average job.


One other thing: if the coaching staff is so horrible and win simply because Brady is good, then how did they ever win eleven games last year with a QB that hadn't started a game since high school, Deltha O'Neal at CB, and so many other players injured or on IR? Did the staff all take stupid pills this off-season? Was Josh McDaniels the only thing keeping them from duplicating the Lions '08 performance?