Does Belichick Last Beyond 2023, and What Needs to Happen?

[Steve102]

I would not be holding your breath, bud, otherwise we can change your name to Blue Venecol.

He's not going to fire him, it'll be a reassignment of responsibility. And, as always, it'll be on Bill's schedule.

 

[BizmoFunyans239]

I mean Bill is 71, I think he has 2 years left in, 3 max. Once he passes Shula's win record, he's absolutely hanging them up. By that time we should know if Mac gets a second contract or not, but as a head coach replacement? I have no idea. A part of me wants someone younger like Sean McVay, who can resonate with the newer/younger guys.

 

[crawhammer]

I agree. Basically the Cincinnati game they were knocking on the door and lost the ball. Had the fiasco at the end of the Raiders game. Had the two kickoff returns Sunday. Three wins they could've had and they were competitive against two potential AFC Championship teams. People can downplay those, but as you said, these are what-ifs that will be frustrating all the way through the offseason.

I think you could nitpick any team's results from every season. The Patriots very well would have lost to the Cardinals had Murray not blown out his knee on the third play of the game. Tua probably has the Dolphins scoring in the mid-to-high 20's which would have been enough to win that game. The Patriots were that close to an 0-7 finish. Just like had they not made game-crippling mistakes in those 3 losses then they could have won them. Problem is they made those mistakes.

Tampa Bay won 3 games on scores with 9 seconds or less left in the game. If not for those dramatic last second comebacks, they could have finished an embarrassing 5-12 and missed the postseason. They also were a 2-point conversion away from tying two other games late. Could have won those games and finished a more respectable 10-7. But they failed on the 2-point conversions so they lost.

Etc.

You lose games you could have won and you win games you could have lost. But for the most part it evens out and you generally are what your record says you are.

One counterexample to this is the Vikings. Their 4 losses they lost by an average of 22 points per game. Their 1st and 13th wins they won by an average of 16 points. Wins 2-12 (11 games) were all one-score games that they won by an average of 4 points per game. 8 of those 11 wins were 4th quarter comebacks. Here's a team who had pretty much everything go their way which drove their record up by probably a handful of wins. Which is unusual.

 

[RobertWeathers]

Agree, at least talent at specific positions. I think overall, the team is pretty good talent wise. Not the upper echelon of the league, but certainly not as bad as they make it look

The NEP have a ton of B+ players.

They have 1, maybe 2 A players.

 

[JarOfMayo51]

Exactly. There’s no other answer. Belichick’s coaching seat is the coldest in all of the four major sports. Patriots could go 2-14 next year and that would still be the case.

Belichick makes his seat warm because of his incredibly high salary. You can't be paid like Belichick is and not produce, even Kraft as a businessman is not going to be ok forking over $25m/year to BB for losing seasons

Belichick is also 71 and nearing the end, so Kraft would also factor that into any decisions he would make. Its not like BB is in his 50s, in which case I would agree with you

The calculus for this team has changed dramatically over the last couple years

 

[TomPatriot]

The offense was the same. There were some changes, just like every year. The problems were the OL and the indecision of the QB.

The blocking scheme, playcalling, technique (or lack of it), route running, audibles we’re all different for much, if not all, of the season.

You’re right that Mac was more indecisive. Why? I’d bet a big part of the reason is he went from playing with Sarkisian and McDaniel to inexperienced offensive coaches. Pretty big dropoff.

 

[JarOfMayo51]

Brady went to Evans, Godwin, and an excellent D. Brady didn’t ‘go to a Jameis Winston team’.

I was talking hypothetical : if BB goes to a loaded team. Like Brady did.

The team Brady took over was coined the Tampa Bay "Suckaneers", they had losing season after losing season until Brady came, and now they were a stacked team?

Hell, even the Broncos made it to the divisional round of playoffs with TIM TEBOW before Manning took over and lost in the same divisional round that Tebow did in his first season. That was a stacked team.

The Bucs were a doormat team until Brady made them champions

 

[venecol]

I would not be holding your breath, bud, otherwise we can change your name to Blue Venecol.

He's not going to fire him, it'll be a reassignment of responsibility. And, as always, it'll be on Bill's schedule.

I'm not even convinced he'll be reassigned.

 

[Pats1971]

I think you could nitpick any team's results from every season. The Patriots very well would have lost to the Cardinals had Murray not blown out his knee on the third play of the game. Tua probably has the Dolphins scoring in the mid-to-high 20's which would have been enough to win that game. The Patriots were that close to an 0-7 finish. Just like had they not made game-crippling mistakes in those 3 losses then they could have won them. Problem is they made those mistakes.

Tampa Bay won 3 games on scores with 9 seconds or less left in the game. If not for those dramatic last second comebacks, they could have finished an embarrassing 5-12 and missed the postseason. They also were a 2-point conversion away from tying two other games late. Could have won those games and finished a more respectable 10-7. But they failed on the 2-point conversions so they lost.

Etc.

You lose games you could have won and you win games you could have lost. But for the most part it evens out and you generally are what your record says you are.

One counterexample to this is the Vikings. Their 4 losses they lost by an average of 22 points per game. Their 1st and 13th wins they won by an average of 16 points. Wins 2-12 (11 games) were all one-score games that they won by an average of 4 points per game. 8 of those 11 wins were 4th quarter comebacks. Here's a team who had pretty much everything go their way which drove their record up by probably a handful of wins. Which is unusual.

Yep, especially in the NFL today, there are so many games that are one or two plays from going either way. The good teams make those plays the bad teams do not.

 

[Ian]

I listed all the QBs drafted those years outside of round 1 in another post. He was right to not draft them.

You posted three posts as if I'm mad Bill didn't draft someone. Again, didn't see it coming, obviously thought highly of Stidham given the leaks and then something clearly happened. My point is if there was someone he wanted, he definitely would have taken the guy high considering they drafted Garoppolo. I'm assuming there was no one they felt as positive about, so they didn't. Again, is what it is.

 

[crawhammer]

You play who you play, obviously, you have no control over that and it's a bad argument because you could negate much of the entire 20-years due to the AFC East argument that people make all the time - which I feel like all of us hate. It's not our fault those other teams were terrible. It is what it is.

You can't negate the 20-years because of the postseason success against the other elite teams in the NFL. If their regular season success was just a product of a weak division then they wouldn't have also dominated every other team outside of the division and postseason opponents through the Super Bowl.

 

[Ian]

Cam was also better before he got Covid. Didn't Edelman have his most yards in a game ever with Cam?

Not sure, I'll have to go back and look. But Covid didn't cause him to throw balls into the ground. If you look at how strong his arm was against Seattle and how bad it was almost from that point on, it's just bizarre. He denied any physical issues but it was just odd.

 

[Ring 6]

You posted three posts as if I'm mad Bill didn't draft someone. Again, didn't see it coming, obviously thought highly of Stidham given the leaks and then something clearly happened. My point is if there was someone he wanted, he definitely would have taken the guy high considering they drafted Garoppolo. I'm assuming there was no one they felt as positive about, so they didn't. Again, is what it is.

I didn’t post anything implying anything about what you thought.
I was responding to a different poster who argued he should have done sonething but wouldn’t and couldn’t list anything

I didn’t disagree with you at all. In fact we appeared to be in complete agreement.

 

[Pats1971]

The team Brady took over was coined the Tampa Bay "Suckaneers", they had losing season after losing season until Brady came, and now they were a stacked team?

Hell, even the Broncos made it to the divisional round of playoffs with TIM TEBOW before Manning took over and lost in the same divisional round that Tebow did in his first season. That was a stacked team.

The Bucs were a doormat team until Brady made them champions

yeah I never got this notion that Tampa was rattling off wins and Brady jumped on for the ride. This team went 18 years without a single playoff win. In that time period the pats won over 30. The bucs since their 2002 superbowl had the worst record in the NFL over that span. Everyone says how great the D was, the year before Brady got there the D was 27th in scoring. There were very few people outside of Tampa that even knew any of the guys on the team. But Brady goes there and wins and all of the suddent he was going to the 85 bears. lol Its funny because for years, I heard that about the pats. Oh its only because Brady went to a stacked pats team in 2000.....lol

 

[Steve102]

I'm not even convinced he'll be reassigned.

Nor am I.

 

[Ring 6]

The blocking scheme, playcalling, technique (or lack of it), route running, audibles we’re all different for much, if not all, of the season.

You’re right that Mac was more indecisive. Why? I’d bet a big part of the reason is he went from playing with Sarkisian and McDaniel to inexperienced offensive coaches. Pretty big dropoff.

It was the same offense, there was nothing really new. They called different plays that were always in the playbook but they didn’t create a new offense.

 

[Pats1971]

Not sure, I'll have to go back and look. But Covid didn't cause him to throw balls into the ground. If you look at how strong his arm was against Seattle and how bad it was almost from that point on, it's just bizarre. He denied any physical issues but it was just odd.

Ah the covid excuse for Cam, tons and tons of players got covid but only Cam was affected. Its quite amazing

 

[Ian]

You can't negate the 20-years because of the postseason success against the other elite teams in the NFL. If their regular season success was just a product of a weak division then they wouldn't have also dominated every other team outside of the division and postseason opponents through the Super Bowl.

Obviously, I'm not. But the regular season is what it is, you have no control over that. I'm not a fan of all the pundits using that argument against us about the regular season, the AFC East, etc., which is why I'm not a fan of us doing it in here, either. No one was complaining when we were racking up wins, getting a top seed, and then tearing it up during the postseason.

At the end of the day, it comes back to the fact there are people like yourself who are mad Brady's gone. Many of us are, myself included. But spending anymore time complaining about it isn't going to bring him back. It is what it is.

 

[Ring 6]

There are always going to be posters you or I don’t like or who challenge our experience here.

And when they dominate the conversations, and nothing can be discussed without them hijacking, this place becomes a disaster.

 

[Kontradiction]

My “sabbatical” wasn’t wasted at all. It was thoroughly enjoy able to not deal with the disaster this place has become because of posters like you. My return was triggered by the prospect of the changes Ian is going to make that will mitigate the damage people like you do to this site. But thanks for your concern.

You’ve quite clearly been lurking every day. The posters here are the same they’ve always been. The performance of the team is what has changed your “enjoyment of the team.”