This began almost 20 years ago when the media, baffled at how the Patriots were winning, began to take a really hard dive into the idea that Bill was transcendent, a coach who is so valuable that you have to consider his effect like he's a superstar player. This has really never happened in professional sports and was probably a big overstep by the general public in buying into it.
At the same time, he was always a goddamned good coach
and GM. Clearly an advantage for the Patriots but difficult to quantify. Quantifyng the effect of coaches is not a fully baked idea with any type of accepted method. Until it is, the discussion about Bill's impact has always been bound for polarizing opinions and likely a crash ending. And I would argue the unique perception also was a huge impetus for the massive overblown scandals.
Bill never should have been considered "the Scottie Pippen" of the dynasty, the perfect sidekick, capable of winning a lot by himself but winning at a legendary level as the ultimate enhancer. That has always been the implied view of the sporting world. The problem is it just never worked or made sense; it was a nice attempt to respect his abilities, but it was full of contradictions and inconsistencies. No other coach would have an implied impact like that. No other coach even had the implied impact of Toni Kukoc. Coaches are coaches; players are players. Except for Bill.
Now that it's been built up for so many years, or as I've called it for the last few a
deification of Belichick, it's bound to come crashing down when he can't maintain the impossible expectations and summon the powers he doesn't actually have as a coach.
Here's what I think Bill's best accomplishments have been and why he might be the best ever:
- #1 (emphasis). Bill provided a program for 20 years with ummatched continuity. Since Bill ran the program and made the decisions, the Patriots were always fully aligned with each other. No major restructures on the coaching staff; no changes in offensive or defensive strategy every three years (with a new coordinator or coach, like most teams) resulting in a reset button where you now don't like half your roster because they don't fit The New Way.
- Bill had a dual role as a coach and GM. While there are some drawbacks to this at times, overall no coach was better able to understand his GM and no GM better able to understand his coach. When it worked, it was a thing of beauty, and it often worked. Most teams need to hit twice; they need to hit on the player, and then they need hit on the player's value to their own system. The Patriots really only needed to hit once because the player and the player's value to them was the same thing.
- Bill was ahead of his time as a GM. For years, no one understood player value and cap economics like Bill. It was all about cost and value rather than simply paying market. I've written a lot about how he values cornerbacks, linebackers, and up front run stoppers on defense and why that leads to less points scored (red zone dominance) and on offense how the investment in Brady saves costs on investments for receivers. Both have proven to be brilliant. I would argue he was similar to Billy Beane, even if not so systematically, and he was certainly one of the forerunners to today's market, cap conscious approach to personnel and drafting. And this is also why I think he isn't as effective as he used to be...because after 15 years, teams catch up. They hire egg heads and cap crunchers and rely less on smashmouth football guys.
Here are things that I think cause that "recoil effect" where overcrediting him is now leading to an opposite undercrediting him:
- Bill is a great coach, for sure, with gameplans, preparation, etc. But let's put things in perspective...even the best coaches are a lot closer to .500 than to 1.000 on their playcalls and strategic decisions. There are a lot of very smart people on both sidelines, and football is still very much an imperfect game that rarely has perfect execution. Maybe Bill is the most brilliant coach, but it should be looked at like he was the best hitter in baseball with a .325 batting average while maybe the next guy is at .319. The exaggerated estimates of his value there seems to be like he's a .500 hitter and the rest of the league is .250. That's bound to get this recoil that we're seeing now in the media.
- Bill did not create Brady or any players or enhance them through coaching beyond what any NFL coach does. Good coaches work with players to maximize their potential. Bill certainly did a good job of putting together teams that were complementary of each other and finding players who fit in well. But any coach is going to surround his quarterback with players who fit in well to his strengths, and finding players who fit has always been the very first concern, dating back to the beginning of football.
- Bill isn't really capabable of winning at a higher rate than his roster allows for, or perhaps only to a small extent. Sports are all about players; coaches don't play. Small edges, usually cut into by another team's small edges, just aren't enough. That doesn't diminish his accomplishments at all; it's just reality. All teams prepare and break down film; all teams practice situational football. Stonewalling the media is a style and not an actual advantage, like a bunch of other eccentricities that are thought to somehow impact the scoreboard but do not.
