1. Him and Kraft had a toxic relationship. Kraft at the time was way too hands on. It took Parcells leaving for Belichick later to be able to have roster autonomy later from Kraft. Both guys had to learn / grow
2. Can't count on all the success later and for Parcells to assume he would have gotten even some of that. He's a great team builder to get to the playoffs but never won a ring without Belichick
3. Team would never had had the balls to draft Brady as a 4th QB or to start him when Bledsoe came back
Overall: Goes without saying, counterfactuals aren't provable. Fortunately for us, we're not Parcells. For him, they probably occupy a huge spot in his mind. He
had to point out the pieces
he put in place on that team... almost like a guy stuck on personnel. "Except Brady, that first Patriots run was all me, sort of. And I coulda done it sooner, maybe."
Not that I took losing Parcells lightly. To me, it's weird that way back when, I thought "OMG our obvious HoF coach has abandoned us! What can we ever hope for!" And then I thought later, when we ended up with BB "Oh great. Martin's gone forever and we get this re-tread Parcells
assistant... sigh."
Boy was I wrong. PS, I was also all about how Robert Edwards was going to be this savior at RB... no idea that "triplets" weren't THE model for success, that's all you ever heard: 1 great QB, 1 great WR, 1 great RB... and you too can be a dynasty. Still sad what happened to R.E., and I appreciate what he did while here, and all the hard work he did to make a career happen in the CFL.
So that said, to the above points:
1. Yes this is a good point - Kraft went the opposite direction with BB's HC appearance. He could have gone back on that word at any time, and rumors say that he has done so, but very infrequently. I believe that BB demanded the control that Parcells also demanded and never got.
2. He's woolgathering here on what might have been - to his credit, that's all he says, not that it
would have been. Still somewhat disrespectful of his old disciple. Sorry, Coach Parcells, turns out "Gloom"
will be a head coach in the NFL. In fact, he's going to go down as the gold standard. You? Not so much -- starting with completely trashing the greatest HC in NFL history at every opportunity.
3. (a) unproven, but any term in this "Drake Equation of the Dynasty" would be sensitive to change. So as you say, possible that we'd never carry 4 QBs, and Brady would be out. Just not proven.
(b) HOWEVER, it's a very well-known phenomenon that if you think a guy is the last coach's guy, he's less protected by concepts like "You can't lose your job to injury" (Considered a universal truth at the time.) BB saw an opportunity in this thinking: Just don't do it. The league isn't there yet, but you are. FA/Salary cap era introduced this brutal swee
ping away of everything but business, as other Patriots continually discovered. Now "you never lose your job to injury" sounds quaint.
I recognize this introduces another counter-factual, but if Parcells stays and starts Drew, I think we lose that SB. Or maybe we win, but a totally different way. Here's the real counter-factual it raises: Keep Belichick's roster ruthlessness out by keeping BB down, and are we still living in "you never lose your job to injury," and players being paid after the math goes bad?
Hmmmmm.
