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His record in Cleveland means less than squat to me but sure it’s fair to include 2000 and 2001. That means 20-25. Definitely not great. But I wonder how much of the 25 losses are really from coaching? And if Josh was coach would they have won 11 games in 08 with a QB that was playing himself off the roster in preseason? I lean toward no.
I think at best Josh would coach any team to the level of their exact talent level, no more than that.
Maybe we can also start thinking about BB in terms of other possibilities. Maybe he isn’t significantly better than his peers at winning games with crappy or even middling QBs (unless he has a stacked team like 2008.). His coaching isn’t going to make up that large handicap at the game‘s most important QB, so all of the talk about that is quickly refuted until he actually does it. But again I wager that no coach can do that with any consistency, and I think an overwhelming amount of historical data backs that up. And if I have an “anti-Belichick“ or “pro-Brady“ agenda, it’s due to this line of thinking.
Maybe Bill is at his best when his teams are great and facing other great teams, which is a level playing field. We know that no other coach in NFL history has been as successful over so many years. Other coaches have seen some success with elite QBs but never at this level of sustained dominance.
No coach has done more with more than Belichick. That’s close to being a fact rather than an opinion. And since he’s also the personnel person, that statement is the ultimate compliment leaving no question marks or theoreticals.
A reasonable question to ask about Belichick’s coaching impact:
could any coach have attained the same level of success with Brady? I don’t think so, based on everything I’ve seen, and that’s good enough for me when it comes to Belichick’s greatness. I’d point to the championships, gameplans, team penalty percentage and how far away he obliterated the second place guy despite that other coaches often had elite QBs as well (at least for some time.)
I also prefer that question as opposed to
could Brady accomplish the same level of success with another coach? because we‘re comparing coaches to coaches, rather than some strange cross-breed thinking that mixes up who is supposed to do what.
I could ask, likewise,
could any other quarterback have achieved the same level of success with the Patriots? and the answer is also no, absolutely not, as you have to consider Brady’s absurd winning percentage (so much higher than anyone else’s) and also how great he had to play in the in the grandest games and how tough those games were despite who his coach and teamates were. Like with Belichick, you look at the games where he played elite teams and the playing field was equal, the coaching and talent advantage mostly neutralized.
