Is Belichick proving his worth with each passing game?

[Rob0729]

It might have been a fever dream, but didn’t the Pats go 4-13 with Bill Belichick last year?

Belichick is the greatest coach of all time, but he was part of the problem his last few years.

 

[ahmed]

Cry me a river!!!!

 

[Ray Ray 717]

Many of you turned on Belichick over the last couple of years. Stating that the game had passed him by, etc.

Over that same span, I personally felt that Belichick was doing some of his best coaching the last 3 seasons. Looking at the Patriots roster, seeing the lack of talent, and seeing him putting together 8 and 10 wins seemed like practical magic.

To win 10 games and 8 games in 2021 and 2022 was very impressive, in my opinion, with the lack of talent the roster had. I don’t think Mayo gets 4 wins with the current team.

Long story short: I’m curious on your thoughts now. Is your appreciation for Belichick, and what he got out of the roster the last 3 years, growing?

Interesting you mention “lack of talent” when BB picked out the groceries himself. Kind of a double edged sword.

BB the GM put up historically awful drafts on the offensive side of the ball, so abhorrent that if he wasn’t the head coach he would have been fired as a GM quite a while ago.

 

[sb1]

He “proved his worth” with a 4-13 record last season. In other words it’s not much in 2024.

 

[mister clyde]

That’s irrrelevant to my point though.

My point is that, in my opinion, the teams SHOULD have been 30th or so in both categories those years, and Belichick elevated the limited talent.

You don't get a pass for having garbage players if you have 100% say on the roster.

 

[p8ryts]

Many of you turned on Belichick over the last couple of years. Stating that the game had passed him by, etc.

Over that same span, I personally felt that Belichick was doing some of his best coaching the last 3 seasons. Looking at the Patriots roster, seeing the lack of talent, and seeing him putting together 8 and 10 wins seemed like practical magic.

To win 10 games and 8 games in 2021 and 2022 was very impressive, in my opinion, with the lack of talent the roster had. I don’t think Mayo gets 4 wins with the current team.

Long story short: I’m curious on your thoughts now. Is your appreciation for Belichick, and what he got out of the roster the last 3 years, growing?

I never lost any appreciation for Belichick. His only fault was not getting a competent QB.

 

[maust]

Oh yay, another BB the GM screwed BB the HC discussion...

 

[TheRainMaker]

"The Dynasty" showed that Bob and Bill didn't have that great of a relationship and Bob was ready to fire Bill after the 2001 season had they missed the playoffs. That was a bad look on Bob.

After knowing this know, Bill should've parted ways with Bob after Brady left ala Phil Jackson and the Bulls.

 

[GreenCow]

It might have been a fever dream, but didn’t the Pats go 4-13 with Bill Belichick last year?

Belichick is the greatest coach of all time, but he was part of the problem his last few years.

If I ask you to make a cake, but the only ingredients you have is 1 egg, 2 tons of moldy feces, and flour made from the rotten flaked-off skin of coachroaches… should I judge you by the taste of the cake?

 

[GreenCow]

You don't get a pass for having garbage players if you have 100% say on the roster.

To me, that’s a failure of Kraft.

 

[reflexblue]

Many of you turned on Belichick over the last couple of years. Stating that the game had passed him by, etc.

Over that same span, I personally felt that Belichick was doing some of his best coaching the last 3 seasons. Looking at the Patriots roster, seeing the lack of talent, and seeing him putting together 8 and 10 wins seemed like practical magic.

To win 10 games and 8 games in 2021 and 2022 was very impressive, in my opinion, with the lack of talent the roster had. I don’t think Mayo gets 4 wins with the current team.

Long story short: I’m curious on your thoughts now. Is your appreciation for Belichick, and what he got out of the roster the last 3 years, growing?

No, the last two years bb was here the team played like this. Almost no difference

 

[maust]

To me, that’s a failure of Kraft.

Then you clearly don't know what you are taliking about

 

[Rob0729]

If I ask you to make a cake, but the only ingredients you have is 1 egg, 2 tons of moldy feces, and flour made from the rotten flaked-off skin of coachroaches… should I judge you by the taste of the cake?

If I asked you to shop for the groceries for the cake and that is what you buy, should I judge you for the taste of the cake?

And I am sorry, the Patriots were a poorly coached team the last few years of the Belichick era. They were not a smart and disciplined team. Belichick created an unnecessary QB controversy in Zappe's rookie year. He arrogantly lost games last year by putting Jones in games when you knew he was toast only to pull him by half time like four games in a row.

And it isn't like this is a talented team this year. I would argue they are less talented on defense after trading away Judon and Bentley and Barmore on IR.

But I do not want to rehash the last few years. Belichick is gone and it was his own doing.

 

[sb1]

If I asked you to shop for the groceries for the cake and that is what you buy, should I judge you for the taste of the cake?

And I am sorry, the Patriots were a poorly coached team the last few years of the Belichick era. They were not a smart and disciplined team. Belichick created an unnecessary QB controversy in Zappe's rookie year. He arrogantly lost games last year by putting Jones in games when you knew he was toast only to pull him by half time like four games in a row.

And he stopped talking to Jones completely. That's not a well coached team at all. Actually the coaching in general since 2022 was absolutely terrible, not just Bill. That kind of dysfunction has not been seen around here for a very long time.

And it isn't like this is a talented team this year. I would argue they are less talented on defense after trading away Judon and Bentley and Barmore on IR.

But I do not want to rehash the last few years. Belichick is gone and it was his own doing.

Yep.

 

[Ras-IR Dowling]

If I ask you to make a cake, but the only ingredients you have is 1 egg, 2 tons of moldy feces, and flour made from the rotten flaked-off skin of coachroaches… should I judge you by the taste of the cake?

Maybe he should’ve gotten better ingredients. You buy the store brand items like Nkeal Harry and Cole strange and pass up the better quality items (AJ Brown, Deebo, McDuffie) you deserve to be judged accordingly.

 

[AQPE]

Ask yourself how many players on the team over BB's last 5 years improved. much less became a star in the league. I can think of a few such as Stevenson, Barmore, Bentley, Wise, Jon Jones, and (my opinion) Duggar that became good players, but not a single one that became a star in the league.

The Mac Jones experience was a fiasco due IMHO to the lackings of the kid upstairs. Too immature to be a Chad Pennington with meager physical skills, but he was poorly coached after McDaniels took off, and BB has culpability with that. BB dropped the ball in not having a succession plan for McDaniels leaving and taking key people in the organization with him, replacing him with the execrable (as an OC) Matt Patricia. He also never really came up with a good replacement for Scarnecchia, and bad decisions regarding the OL came one after the other. When you have to fire your line coach in the middle of a season and replace him with a player, that isn't good head coaching.

It isn't all about drafting, it's also a lot about teaching and developing guys. It wasn't good enough, and as much as I am grateful to BB for the incredible job he did up till then, he didn't give much reason to believe it was going to improve this year or the next couple. I'm glad they parted ways, I'm just not sold yet on Mayo or any of the offensive coaches they brought in, and they obviously miss BB and possibly Steve B. on defense though I think that's more about being gutted up the middle with injuries.

 

[Rob0729]

Ask yourself how many players on the team over BB's last 5 years improved. much less became a star in the league. I can think of a few such as Stevenson, Barmore, Bentley, Wise, Jon Jones, and (my opinion) Duggar that became good players, but not a single one that became a star in the league. I think the best of that we saw came from BB's sons and Covington, and not Jerod Mayo.

The Mac Jones experience was a fiasco due IMHO to the lackings of the kid upstairs. Too immature to be a Chad Pennington with meager physical skills, but he was poorly coached after McDaniels took off, and BB has culpability with that. BB dropped the ball in not having a succession plan for McDaniels leaving and taking key people in the organization with him, replacing him with the execrable (as an OC) Matt Patricia. He also never really came up with a good replacement for Scarnecchia, and bad decisions regarding the OL came one after the other. When you have to fire your line coach in the middle of a season and replace him with a player, that isn't good head coaching.

It isn't all about drafting, it's also a lot about teaching and developing guys. It wasn't good enough, and as much as I am grateful to BB for the incredible job he did up till then, he didn't give much reason to believe it was going to improve this year or the next couple. I'm glad they parted ways, I'm just not sold yet on Mayo or any of the offensive coaches they brought in, and they obviously miss BB and possibly Steve B. on defense though I think that's more about being gutted up the middle with injuries.

How is the development of the players who were successful under Belichick were because of Covington and Steve and Brian Belichick and not Mayo? Bentley is a LB and Mayo was the LB coach. And from reports, Mayo was the guy running the meeting room and Steve Belichick was the play caller.

 

[lancerman]

If I ask you to make a cake, but the only ingredients you have is 1 egg, 2 tons of moldy feces, and flour made from the rotten flaked-off skin of coachroaches… should I judge you by the taste of the cake?

Belichick bought the ingredients. So yeah I would judge him by the taste of the cake.

 

[upstater1]

Bill needed a QB. He had competent QB play Mac's first year and we made the playoffs. I think that gave the Krafts a false sense that Mac was gonna be a franchise QB and tied Bill's job with Mac's success. Unfortunately, Mac's physical limitations and weak mental fortitude cost Bill his job.

Maye looks like he's gonna be good. At least he's got the physical tools and isn't afraid of his own shadow. It's too bad we got rid of Bill and hired a staff who look like they don't know what they are doing.

100% agree. You need a QB in the NFL. I don't care if you're 2x the coach Lombardi was, you're not going to win without a competent QB. Belichick was not going to overcome that.

I still think fans underestimate what QB play means in the W/L column. Belichick already had that experience when he moved on from Kosar and immediately went to the playoffs with Testaverde.

Our QBs have been laughably bad the last few years.

Today, even with an OL that was truly a head scratcher (I didn't know the first names of 4 of the OL, and two of them [Thomas and Brown] I'd never heard of), you could see that the QBs mere presence, and the respect the defense afforded him by backing off, was giving him much more time to throw than our previous 4 QBs (Brissett, Newton, Zappe and the execrable one).

The QB is everything.

 

[AQPE]

How is the development of the players who were successful under Belichick were because of Covington and Steve and Brian Belichick and not Mayo? Bentley is a LB and Mayo was the LB coach. And from reports, Mayo was the guy running the meeting room and Steve Belichick was the play caller.

You may be right but my understanding was that Steve was coaching he inside LBs while Mayo had the OLBs. I may be incorrect but I took notice of that last year precisely because Mayo himself played ILB. Anyway I think I will edit my post above to be more fair to Mayo since I’m not sure I was on the mark on that.

I do think it’s fair to say that the Pats LBs whom I thought were going to be the strength of their defense this year have not played well this season and even worse since Bentley went down. They are getting gashed in run defense and don’t seem to have good answers. Meanwhile Uche and Jennings aren’t doing much to make up for the loss of Judon.