The Bill megathread (HC at UNC, girlfriend, etc.)

[signbabybrady]

Important to call out what Brady had that all those other QB’s didn’t.

Tell us you have no clue how team sports work without actually telling us.

Funny how it's a 2 way street. Both GOATs!

 

[RobertWeathers]

Parcells never had a HOF QB.

My bad yep.

 

[Palm Beach Pats Fan]

There's only so much you can use that excuse. If you want to give him a break for 2020, fine.... but he was here 4 years after Brady. They had a slight improvement year two, but a severe decline years 3 and 4. Brady's 2019 cap number didn't cause 2023 and 2024.

I'm not excusing Bill, or even defending him. The poor drafting, which I mentioned up front, was probably a bigger factor, but the cap hell was significant in the roster depletion as well.

I am merely saying that the coaches that you cited, all in their heyday well before the cap era or even before a strong players union, had a much easier job holding a talented and deep team together, as long as the owner would sign the checks.

 

[lancerman]

Joe Montana went 2-6 his first two years with Bill Walsh.

Drew Brees led the entire NFL in passing three years in a row on a top five scoring offense, his defenses were ranked at or near 32nd worst… those teams went 7-9, 7-9 and 7-9.

The Patriots went an entire decade without winning a ring with Brady and Bill. Winning rings is hard.

After Brady left Jonathan and the collaboration took over personnel, started making coaching hires and hassled the head coach. That was a collaborative effort.

It’s a team sport, watching the haters here try to diminish to accomplishments of the team they claim to root for is like watching a labradoodle try to hump a basketball.

You must have been cheer squad captain back in high school while others were out there playing.

Nobody is really diminishing the accomplishments of the team. Assigning more credit to the QB over the coach doesn't change the overall accomplishment.

Also let's be real, most people you are arguing with are using 11 years without Brady to sum up Bill's non Brady career. Using 2-3 outlier years for other guys before things clicked isn't exactly the same. Montana starting out the gate slow is a lot closer to if people were just harping on the 2000 season to to dock Belichick. They aren't.

 

[lancerman]

My bad yep.

Flipside is Parcells has the GOAT defensive player and he was winning in an era that was not like the modern era where QB's were just an outsized value to a team winning.

 

[RobertWeathers]

Flipside is Parcells has the GOAT defensive player and he was winning in an era that was not like the modern era where QB's were just an outsized value to a team winning.

Yep and that also applies to Joe Gibbs as well but those Redskins teams of the 80s and early 90s had talent all over the roster. Bobby Beathard was a great GM. George Young for the Giants as well but didn't start winning until Tuna got there.

 

[sb1]

Important to call out what Brady had that all those other QB’s didn’t.

Tell us you have no clue how team sports work without actually telling us.

Lemme guess... a "defensive-minded" coach whose only playoff appearance post Brady saw his defense give up the only perfect offensive game in the history of the league? What do I win?

.426 win pct post Brady. Speaks for itself. You got nothing.

 

[signbabybrady]

Lemme guess... a "defensive-minded" coach whose only playoff appearance post Brady saw his defense give up the only perfect offensive game in the history of the league? What do I win?

.426 win pct post Brady. Speaks for itself. You got nothing.

He always has those 8 rings. Speaks for itself.

 

[sb1]

He always has those 8 rings. Speaks for itself.

2 are coordinator rings which don't mean much, 6 as a HC with brady

 

[signbabybrady]

2 are coordinator rings which don't mean much, 6 as a HC with brady

He wears them with pride. Beautiful display of his greatness.

 

[sb1]

He wears them with pride. Beautiful display of his greatness.

Do you think he'll be inducted in the Tom Brady wing of the Pro Football HOF? I think he should. Of course he'll have to get permission from Jordon first.

 

[signbabybrady]

Do you think he'll be inducted in the Tom Brady wing of the Pro Football HOF? I think he should. Of course he'll have to get permission from Jordon first.

So many, that people lose count.

 

[maust]

Yep and that also applies to Joe Gibbs as well but those Redskins teams of the 80s and early 90s had talent all over the roster. Bobby Beathard was a great GM. George Young for the Giants as well but didn't start winning until Tuna got there.

Parcells is a .460 HC without Belichick (58-68). Without BB he is an overrated blowhard. The man is a back stabbing POS Jersey guy with no honor. His name doesn't belong in the same paragraph with Joe Gibbs. Gibbs was the real deal, the true architect of Air Coryell. He could beat you with his and take yours and beat his. He won a SB with D, he won one running the ball down his opponent's throat and he won one throwing the air out of the ball. Gibbs is one of the true greats of the game, Tuna isn't fit to tie his shoes.

 

[captain stone]

Exactly. There's falling off and then there's the cliff of a .426 W-L record and 1 playoff demolition loss after your star QB leaves. Embarrassing.

I also don't think Joe Gibbs gets enough credit for his 2007 season with Washington. Jason Campbell was his QB. The Pats whipped them like they did almost every other team that season but other than that game every one of his team's losses were by 1 score or less. Won their last 4 games to get to 9-7 and a playoff berth. Awesome coach.

Yep; and I thought that fake spike at the end of the 1st half of their game was unnecessary, if not out-right classless... Kinda like the on-sides kick vs Dead Man Walking Chip Kelly after going up 14-0... Some folks just never learn; or is it What goes-around comes-around...?

 

[RobertWeathers]

Parcells is a .460 HC without Belichick (58-68). Without BB he is an overrated blowhard. The man is a back stabbing POS Jersey guy with no honor. His name doesn't belong in the same paragraph with Joe Gibbs. Gibbs was the real deal, the true architect of Air Coryell. He could beat you with his and take yours and beat his. He won a SB with D, he won one running the ball down his opponent's throat and he won one throwing the air out of the ball. Gibbs is one of the true greats of the game, Tuna isn't fit to tie his shoes.

I do think Gibbs is a better coach than Tuna and yes- BB was a major asset to him and he knew it.

 

[Huckleberry1]

Joe Gibbs won three Super Bowls with a different quarterback each time and none are in Hall of Fame - and never will be.

There are always outliers.

 

[maust]

I do think Gibbs is a better coach than Tuna and yes- BB was a major asset to him and he knew it.

Yet in true Jersey guy fashion he pissed on Bill's head at every opportunity until Bill left him in the dust, then he sucked up. I got nothing for Parcells. He believed his own press

 

[sb1]

Hope Bunny didn’t see this. Lol

 

[Thelonious]

The answer to the question, "Was Bill a great head coach?" depends simply on what year you are talking about. For a while he was, then he wasn't. This is a classic case in which a simple clarification of the question makes the answer - answers - clear.

As for the Tom-vs-Bill controversy - "Which guy is really responsible for the dynasty?" - this is akin to asking, "Which is more essential if you want to make salt, sodium or chlorine?" Both are ill-formed questions to which any answer is incomplete, erroneous. To return to our evaluation of Bill, the manner is which he was able to coach was dependent on Tom's remarkable skills and character. Because he was a great coach - for a time - Bill took advantage of Tom's skills and approach to the game. That is precisely what a wise coach would do. Then he stopped doing so, seemingly motivated more by an increasingly childish, even pathological need to retain his standing as the alpha in the relationship than by any commitment to "what is best for the team." He brought the same irresponsibly emotional and personal and ultimately petty motivation to the several bonehead moves with which we are all too familiar - from his ill-use of Mac, to his delusion that Tom was unnecessary to the manner in which he had such great success, to indulging in a Superbowl -losing snit with a DB who had dissed his fat Pal (or some such transgression), to assuming that his ass-kissing acolytes were so brilliant that he could dispense with simple diligence in building a coaching staff, and so on.

I taught a philosophy class for 25 years. Most of the useful work in that discipline is the yield of the simple practice of defining your terms and clarifiying the questions to which you are seeking answers. If you don't do that work, every argument is mere posturing, and every discussion just becomes a pissing contest.

As for for the present state of affairs, it's just very sad and embarrassing. Because death is literally inconceivable, it tends to remain abstract for we human beings, which a little paradoxically makes its inevitability comparatively painless to acknowledge because its reality is unavailable to thought. Not so with with the decline which precedes it with equal inevitability. A man's decline is protracted, generally ugly in various manners, painful, and plain for all to see. It is discouraging and relentless. How much worse it must be for a man with Bill's celebrity, where that decline becomes fodder for essentially idle banter and such pontification as this post might be. For celebrities, the private becomes public. How painful that must be.

 

[Wozzy]

Nobody is really diminishing the accomplishments of the team. Assigning more credit to the QB over the coach doesn't change the overall accomplishment.

Also let's be real, most people you are arguing with are using 11 years without Brady to sum up Bill's non Brady career. Using 2-3 outlier years for other guys before things clicked isn't exactly the same. Montana starting out the gate slow is a lot closer to if people were just harping on the 2000 season to to dock Belichick. They aren't.

This is false, the fanboys here diminish the “team” aspect of football regularly. Moreover my annoyance with this take has less to do with Bill and more to do with the countless other players who contributed to this run.

Ty Law, Seymour, Adam V and on and on… these guys were studs. They weren’t good because Tom made them good. Tom was a snot nosed kid in 2001 and so were most of these fanboys recalling how it supposedly was. SB1 was clearly ten years old and only remembers a superhero appeared and saved the day. It’s hero worship… pure foolishness. Tom needed Seymour, Mankins and Wilfork as much they needed him.

And most importantly… where did Brady come from? Did he appear from the mist like Excalibur, did he land on the lawn of Foxboro like Superman? No, he was a developmental QB who needed a lot of work to become who he was. If he landed in Arizona instead of New England, anyone outside of a Michigan fan would not even know his name.