I watched the special, in the end, it made think more about this actually, because I watched Felger & Mazz radio show
LOL, listening (watching?) to Felger & Mazz may be your first mistake. They are entertainers, not dispensers of any genuine, worthwhile sports information. I will say that Felger is a brilliant business person in his ability to perfect his contrarian persona, pushing people's buttons in order to get his audience to pay attention and respond. Mazz is a sad replica: a Felger wannabe that does not have that same talent, and has about as much sports knowledge as your average Tibetan monk.
where they mentioned that 3 out of the 4 previous years
Hmm, I wonder why they decided to use '3 out of 4' years; why not the three previous years, or the four previous years? Maybe because it didn't fit their agenda?
Here's a novel concept: research a topic with an open mind. No, it's a lot easier to form an opinion and then search for stats to back them up than it is to research stats and them come to an unbiased conclusion.
before Belichick went to the Pats, there records were:
9-6-1
10-6
12-4
Actually the Pats records in the years immediately prior to his arrival were 10-6, 9-7, and 8-8; I have no idea where those numbers above come from. In 1999 the Patriots were a team on an indisputable decline. For three straight years they won fewer games than the previous year. The roster was deplete of talent from the years of Bobby Grier drafting, with input from Pete Carroll. On top of that they were in a very poor salary cap position. On that's right, according to Felger the salary cap is a myth. It took a year to get the Pats in decent cap position; during that time they did indeed go 3-13. As long as you are going to bring up the previous years then for the sake of impartiality shouldn't you also bring up the following years? You know, 2001 to 2004?
They went 3-13 before Belichick came, and with Belichick:
6-10
7-9
7-9
11-5
5-11
Let's take a closer look at those teams.
1989: last hurrah for a snakebit Browns team that made the playoffs five straight years, but kept losing to Denver ('the drive', 'the fumble', etc.).
1990: the old and over the hill team goes 3-13 with a whopping -234 point differential, the NFL's worst defense, and the NFL's 2nd worst offense. These Browns are so bad they are arguably worse than the infamous 1-15 1990 Patriots.
1991: Browns double their win total in Belichick's first year, and dramatically improve on both offense and defense to about middle of the pack in the NFL. Team finishes the season with a -5 point differential.
1992: Belichick figures out that the Browns are never going to be a championship team with fan favorite Bernie Kosar at QB. Belichick sacrifices short team success and maybe a 9-7, one and done season to make the change; Browns go 7-9 with a -3 point differential and league's #10 defense.
1993: With Vinny Testaverde at QB the Browns start out 5-2. Testaverde gets injured, they're forced to go back to Kosar and they win two games the rest of the way, finishing 7-9.
1994: Belichick dumps Kosar, who had become a distraction and had reached the point where he was ignoring play calls from the OC and running whatever he felt like. Belichick finally gets the guy he wants at QB and the Browns go 11-5, and beat Bill Parcell and the Patriots in the playoffs.
1995: Browns start out 3-1 and are considered to be one of the NFL's best teams 1/4 of the way through the season. Art Modell pulls the rug from under the team, announcing the Browns are moving at the end of the year; Cleveland wins only two more games and finishes 5-11.
The reality is that there's quite a bit more to the story than the won-loss records for those five seasons, isn't there?
So as you see, the Cleveland '95 special kind of left out some stats.
Ever hear the phrase "lies, damn lies and statistics"?
When you base everything off a very superficial scratching of the surface you also you tend to omit some vital information.
