Belichick criticism mega-thread

[XLIX]

I used to watch that show all the time but Wilbon (if he is still on the show) just became unbearable. It's not even his constant Patriots hate it's his smug takes and the fact that he is just flat out wrong a lot of times. I remember when Sean Taylor got killed he said something along the lines of "he deserved it" because of some off field issues in the past. It turned out that it was a home invasion and Taylor had nothing to do with it but to my knowledge Wilbon never apologized.

Those 2 fools might be the least insufferable of the bunch, but insufferable nonetheless.

I can't get sucked into a back and forth Andy fight.

eh, just put him on ignore like I did. His not-fully-developed mind honestly believes getting the last word = "winning the argument".

 

[Ring 6]

Those 2 fools might be the least insufferable of the bunch, but insufferable nonetheless.

eh, just put him on ignore like I did. His not-fully-developed mind honestly believes getting the last word = "winning the argument".

As you try to pretend you have me on ignore so you can’t throw an insult to get the last word and win the argument.
comedy gold.

 

[Brandon_Cox]

Right or wrong, fairly or unfairly, this is how Bill is perceived by players around the league...

 

[venecol]

Right or wrong, fairly or unfairly, this is how Bill is perceived by players around the league...

View attachment 30480

Which player was this?

 

[upstater1]

Not true, free agency had not started.

That's not how this works. Players make deals ahead of free agency. And it's legal. Brady went to Kraft's house to tell him he was leaving. Are you honestly not aware of this?

 

[Ring 6]

That's not how this works. Players make deals ahead of free agency. And it's legal. Brady went to Kraft's house to tell him he was leaving. Are you honestly not aware of this?

So your argument is that the team let Brady leave because he had a deal in place before he spoke to them?
And you think that because he was negotiating with other teams he couldn’t let the patriots match?
You are letting your feelings and agenda warp the facts.

It was also stated at the time he did not have a deal but new other teams had interest so he bailed.

 

[RobertWeathers]

Right or wrong, fairly or unfairly, this is how Bill is perceived by players around the league...

View attachment 30480

I don't think that true.

Under Bill players work hard and they buy in.

Ron Meyer...now that was a taskmaster.

 

[crawhammer]

Lombardi had Sonny Jurgensen after Starr. 0 SBs afterwards
Landry had Danny White after Staubach. 0 SBs afterwards
Noll had Cliff Stout and Mark Malone after TB12 v1. 0 SBs afterwards
Brown had Ken Anderson after Graham. 0 NFL titles afterwards
Shula had Marino after Griese. 0 SBs afterwards
Walsh had Deberg before Montana. 0 SBs before
Jimmy Johnson had old Marino/Jay Fiedler after Aikman. 0 SBs afterwards
Shanahan had Plummer after Elway. 0 SBs afterwards

The greatest coaches off All-Time won zip without their HoF QBs.

Spare me that manufactured, lazy narrative.

None of those players are Tom Brady. Brady is arguably the GOAT of GOATs across all sports. The football argument is over, probably forever.

Aside from that, I said the impression. I'll argue it to be true until we're all blue in the face but you and I agreed to disagree on the point. So all I can say to you is while you call it a "lazy narrative", it's just a fact that the general impression of Belichick as the GOAT head coach has been tarnished with the outcome of the 2020 season. Are you denying the impression exists?

If he isn’t the GOAT because his winning included having good players then please explain who is the GOAT now that he had his first sub 500 season in 20.

It's not because he had "good players." It's because he had the single best player ever. And he's had 8 seasons without Brady and he did nothing with all 8.

I think part of what you're getting at is if Belichick isn't the GOAT of head coaching then who is? To that specific question I don't have an automatic reply. On paper alone, it's Belichick, because of the titles, even though he had the GOAT. We know what Belichick looks like without Brady for 8 seasons... an average head coach at best. We don't know what Belichick would have looked like with a different quarterback for those 18 seasons he had Brady but we can speculate. Same with Brady without Belichick for those 18 seasons.

But we now know Brady can win a Super Bowl with an average head coach. Do with that what you will but I'm considering it supportive evidence of the narrative that 1) Brady was more important than Belichick, 2) Belichick's legacy is tarnished until he's able to provide evidence to the contrary, and 3) if he never changes #2 then it's fair to say he was an average head coach.

 

[skinnydog]

I’m not convinced he did screw up, football-wise.
We weren’t winning a SB in 2020. We are overhauling this team in 2021 likely upgrading half of the roster spots (starters and depth).
While “Brady is Brady” is certainly an argument is entering that era with a 44 year old QB the best plan?

If you are talking about the emotional attachment to Brady only playing for one team and a great kumbaya among the herores of the dynasty, sure he botched that but that has no value to me.

Actually, the best plan would have been to go all in on Brady and giving him some help on offense and trying to squeeze another SB or 2 out of it. Getting to 7 and beating out the Steelers who also have 6 would have been sweet!

 

[RobertWeathers]

None of those players are Tom Brady. Brady is arguably the GOAT of GOATs across all sports. The football argument is over, probably forever.

Aside from that, I said the impression. I'll argue it to be true until we're all blue in the face but you and I agreed to disagree on the point. So all I can say to you is while you call it a "lazy narrative", it's just a fact that the general impression of Belichick as the GOAT head coach has been tarnished with the outcome of the 2020 season. Are you denying the impression exists?

General impression by whom? Skip Bayless? Nick Wright? Felger? Fauria? Mary from Topeka, KS?

You and Biffins are so caught up in what the world thinks and their outside assessment of Dynasty 1, Dynasty 2, BB, TB12, etc it's crazy.

WHO CARES?

The only perceptions I care about and give legitimate consideration to are those emanating from knowledgeable, incorruptible, resilient, long-standing Patriots fans and my own.

Everyone else.......I don't care WTF they think.

 

[skinnydog]

We saw what was behind Butler and it wasn’t pretty. Did you actually watch any of the games that year? Butler was not good. Check out his nightmare Denver game, as a starting point for your film review. Would he have made the third down tackle that Bademosi whiffed on? Probable, but that isn’t to say that he wouldn’t have given up a big play at another point in the game. I remember reading a report either after the Jacksonville game (or maybe after benching) that Bill was pissed about Butler’s continued poor play vs. the Jags and wanted to pull him during that game.

The bigger loss was not sitting Butler, it was losing J. Jones to injury in the Tenn game. If Jones had been healthy, he would have covered Agholor in the slot and and Chung would have stayed where he belonged, covering Ertz.

Sitting Butler the whole game COULD have cost the Pats the SB but adding him to the mix changes the whole game and the big plays that occurred without him wouldn’t have been the exact same plays with him in the game. You can’t just inject him into that Bademosi 3rd down play because that probably never would’ve existed. Nobody here has watched Sliding Doors with Gwyneth Paltrow?

Butler had his struggles that year, but he was still far, far better than the alternative. And benching him caused a cascade on the roster in terms of reshuffling players on the fly. Whatever Butler did, i was not bad enough to show up in police log or keep him from being allowed to suit up on game day. The defense was clearly not ready to play without him. That was pretty obvious early on in that game.

 

[RobertWeathers]

Butler had his struggles that year, but he was still far, far better than the alternative. And benching him caused a cascade on the roster in terms of reshuffling players on the fly. Whatever Butler did, i was not bad enough to show up in police log or keep him from being allowed to suit up on game day. The defense was clearly not ready to play without him. That was pretty obvious early on in that game.

100% agree.

The problem is Malcolm was not mentally ready to play the game. Can't put players out there that aren't ready. Bill had no choice but to sit him.

 

[skinnydog]

Can't understand at all why Patriots fans are engaging in this idiocy after seeing league domination for 20 years.

TWENTY FREAKIN' YEARS!!

If Brady had retired and the Pats had the exact same season, the conversation would be different. Anyone who has been a Pats fan since before 2000 (since the 70s for me) knows what ts like to be just like all the other teams or rather worst than most. But the reaction is really because many here wanted the Pats to go all in to get every last bit of QB play out of Brady before he retired. It was the opportunity to see this otherworldly run continue if even for just a few more years. This was especially true because there was no Aaron Rogers to Steve young in waiting on the roster when the pats decided to move on from Brady. Also some of the frustration at BB is that he seems to have bought into his "do your job" mentality in the sense that someone like Brady was not special and that Brady could be replaced as easily as any other aging player. That the Patriots were better that the 31 other teams because they were smarter than all the others in terms of roster building and because they werer simply the smartest team of all it was oK to never deviate from their cost structure and to not recognizing that maybe, just maybe the QB at the heart of all of their success might, just might, have had quite a lot to do with all of that success.

 

[skinnydog]

100% agree.

The problem is Malcolm was not mentally ready to play the game. Can't put players out there that aren't ready. Bill had no choice but to sit him.

How do we know that? He was crying during the anthem after being told he was sitting. What exactly was the mental issue? He played more snaps than any other defensive back that year. He Mentally knew the defenses the Pats would run. A less than mentally ready Butler woudl have been better that what was out there. if you know what it was he did or what mental issues he was distracted by, please let us all know.

 

[venecol]

Butler had his struggles that year, but he was still far, far better than the alternative. And benching him caused a cascade on the roster in terms of reshuffling players on the fly. Whatever Butler did, i was not bad enough to show up in police log or keep him from being allowed to suit up on game day. The defense was clearly not ready to play without him. That was pretty obvious early on in that game.

Butler messed with Bill's little boy, "little Mohawk." Probably told him to go F himself, that he was nothing if not for daddy. That's a no-no.

I'm convinced a bunch of coaches and players bailed "as soon as they could" because of that act of blatant nepotism that cost the entire team.

 

[Boomer B]

How do we know that? He was crying during the anthem after being told he was sitting. What exactly was the mental issue? He played more snaps than any other defensive back that year. He Mentally knew the defenses the Pats would run. A less than mentally ready Butler woudl have been better that what was out there. if you know what it was he did or what mental issues he was distracted by, please let us all know.

I agree. Patrick Chung covering Nelson Agholor was a sin against the football gods. DBs played out of position because Bill sat Butler.

 

[Ring 6]

None of those players are Tom Brady. Brady is arguably the GOAT of GOATs across all sports. The football argument is over, probably forever.

Aside from that, I said the impression. I'll argue it to be true until we're all blue in the face but you and I agreed to disagree on the point. So all I can say to you is while you call it a "lazy narrative", it's just a fact that the general impression of Belichick as the GOAT head coach has been tarnished with the outcome of the 2020 season. Are you denying the impression exists?


It's not because he had "good players." It's because he had the single best player ever. And he's had 8 seasons without Brady and he did nothing with all 8.

I think part of what you're getting at is if Belichick isn't the GOAT of head coaching then who is? To that specific question I don't have an automatic reply. On paper alone, it's Belichick, because of the titles, even though he had the GOAT. We know what Belichick looks like without Brady for 8 seasons... an average head coach at best. We don't know what Belichick would have looked like with a different quarterback for those 18 seasons he had Brady but we can speculate. Same with Brady without Belichick for those 18 seasons.

But we now know Brady can win a Super Bowl with an average head coach. Do with that what you will but I'm considering it supportive evidence of the narrative that 1) Brady was more important than Belichick, 2) Belichick's legacy is tarnished until he's able to provide evidence to the contrary, and 3) if he never changes #2 then it's fair to say he was an average head coach.

You have so much wrong here.
The success is as much belichicks as it is Brady’s. You can’t take the success away because it coincided with Brady being here unless you take away coaching credit for any winning coach who had good players.
Secondly you want to look at belichicks career without Brady and ignore context. He took over a terrible team in Cleveland and had to rebuild it without free agency. He did, made them a playoff team and has the rug pulled out from under him when the owner moved.
In New England you want to count the year he took over an awful team with severe cap problems and cleaned house and then not count the fruits of that. Then you want to count a season with a qb who had not started a game since high school and they went 11-5. Finally you want to count only the year after the cap caught up to the dynasty. It’s a ridiculous take. Let’s eliminate everything that is good and assess a guy on what’s left and give him no credit for leading the greatest dynasty ever.

How about this. Let’s eliminate Brady’s completions and only count his incompletions and interceptions. So we conclude he ducks and was only successful because of his receivers.
Guess what. I just reduced Brady’s career to about 35% of what is it was. Unfair? You are reducing belichicks to 29% of his.

What I truly don’t understand though is why a Patriot fan, after all of the success we have been gifted, would feel any need at all to trash any participant in that success. As a fan you were handed success you don’t deserve. Instead of appreciating it you spend your free time trying to knock down the architect of it.
Can you explain why?

 

[Ring 6]

Butler messed with Bill's little boy, "little Mohawk." Probably told him to go F himself, that he was nothing if not for daddy. That's a no-no.

I'm convinced a bunch of coaches and players bailed "as soon as they could" because of that act of blatant nepotism that cost the entire team.

There is zero evidence that coaches and players bailed as soon as they could that I see. Do you want to give some examples? I can’t think of any.

Where are you getting this story about belichicks son from?

 

[RobertWeathers]

How do we know that? He was crying during the anthem after being told he was sitting. What exactly was the mental issue? He played more snaps than any other defensive back that year. He Mentally knew the defenses the Pats would run. A less than mentally ready Butler woudl have been better that what was out there. if you know what it was he did or what mental issues he was distracted by, please let us all know.

Sorry I thought people saw this.

Butler went on to take the blame, saying he probably was not "locked in and focused 100 percent".

“I wasn’t feeling too well," he said. "I felt like that was kind of part of it. Not to blame anybody. I accept full responsibly for myself. I am not blaming the New England Patriots or no one. It could have been just me, you know. It could have been anything, but I was not feeling too well and the New England Patriots are all about doing their job and they want everybody locked in and focused 100 percent and that probably was not the case. I am glad to be a Tennessee Titan.”

He says he wasn't ready. Bill agreed. It's not one specific person's fault. It's just the way the week went down.

Malcolm Butler admits he wasn't ‘locked in and focused 100 percent' for Super Bowl LII

It didn’t take long for Malcolm Butler to be hit with Super Bowl LII-related questions in Tennessee. The ex-Patriots cornerback had his introductory press conference with the Titans on Thursday, a day after opening up to the Boston Herald about being benched in the big game. He went even more...

www.nbcsports.com

 

[Ring 6]

I agree. Patrick Chung covering Nelson Agholor was a sin against the football gods. DBs played out of position because Bill sat Butler.

Chung covered slots all the time. The guy who was in the field instead of butler was bademosi. Rowe replaced butler. Bademosi replaced rowe. The safeties played exactly the same as they would have and did all year had butler played. The problem was we attacked Philly like the chiefs and used the Ill-fates 4 safety scheme that was invented to defend that offensive scheme.

My instinct had always been that due to a bad week of practice (and evidently focus and effort) Butler was replaced by Rowe and would have been the 3rd corner, but when he was told this before the game he melted down and belichick just sat him.