How Belichick lost his place in posterity

1960Pats said:

It was the perfect storm of a big-brained taskmaster HC joining up with a big-brained, respect for authority QB. Every time I think back to those days a big grin comes to my face.

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I agree, it was beautiful. I'd add the owner shrewd enough to trade a 1st for a coach with a losing record, and ballsy enough to support him starting a 6th round pick over his 100m QB. Perfect storm of QB, HC and owner.

BB's downfall started with the worst draft pick in Patriots history, N'Keal Harry. This was the pick that drove Tom Brady out of town and I can hardly blame him. Tom wanted someone to throw to and it must have irked him that the Patriots passed on so many other great WRs to draft a guy that gave great interviews. But then BB kept making boneheaded moves and I am pretty sure that even a QB lke Brady could not have salvaged last season.

I don’t get why we need to keep doing this

Ian said:

That was a little different. Josh put his faith in Tebow, and then had a lot of other disfunction he created that led to his getting fired. Bill’s was out of his control.

Bill upset the Kosar fanatics by moving on to Testeverde who went on to win a playoff game there, and it’s not like he was a one-year wonder. He then went on to have success again under Parcells and other coaches. Again, another reminder that having a good QB helps.

But he also had an all star group of coaches and he did a great job flipping that roster. That’s not a myth. Again, if you watched the documentary, they were absolutely headed in the right direction.

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Who was this list of all star coaches he had in Cleveland? Nick Saban? I can't recall any of those Browns' coaches having any amount of success in the NFL as HC.

As for the 1996 Baltimore Ravens, 4-12 is heading in the same direction as the 2023 Patriots. It's not a good direction.

<Golf Clap>
Bill took over a team that had been over 500 4 out of 5 of the previous seasons. He coached that team to over 500 once in 5 years.
</Golf Clap>

OldEngland said:

I agree, it was beautiful. I'd add the owner shrewd enough to trade a 1st for a coach with a losing record, and ballsy enough to support him starting a 6th round pick over his 100m QB. Perfect storm of QB, HC and owner.

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Robert was firing on all cylinders back in the day....and ballsy as all hell.

Not many new owners have arrived in the league and implemented so many decisive and dramatic changes to their franchise as Robert did.

-Securing massive leverage by acquiring schitt-hole Schaefer
-Purchasing team
-Hiring Fat Tuna (and firing Fat Tuna)
-Building Gillette
-Trading for Belichick

And incredibly fortunate/lucky/blessed (take your pick) that a Mo Lewis hit was the mechanism that help launch the birth of a dynasty.

Note: Bledsoe signed his 10 yr/$103 million contract on March 7, 2021

FredFromDartmouth said:

BB's downfall started with the worst draft pick in Patriots history, N'Keal Harry. This was the pick that drove Tom Brady out of town and I can hardly blame him. Tom wanted someone to throw to and it must have irked him that the Patriots passed on so many other great WRs to draft a guy that gave great interviews. But then BB kept making boneheaded moves and I am pretty sure that even a QB lke Brady could not have salvaged last season.

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yeah, since that date, Bill's decisions were pretty odd and off the rails which is what lead us here.

Family said:

The documentary was unfair to Bill, but one moment clearly stood out that showed Bill's greatness.

He went with Brady over Bledsoe. How many coaches would have done that with the owner in his face considering the position Bill was in at the time? It was an unbelievable move by the greatest football coach of all time.

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Kraft wanted Bledsoe back in and told BB that his job was on the line if he was wrong about Brady.

Patriot Missile said:

Meh, think what you want. Everyone is entitled to an opinion.

Yes he has 6 rings as a head coach. Not 8 obviously. However, his game plan stopping the k gun offense is and always be enshrined in the Hall Of Fame.

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Parcells game plan on offense too.

Running the ball and controlling the clock to keep Buffalo and Kelly off the field. Buffalo had the ball for less than 20 minutes total.

At the end it came down to choke on a Bills FG to win, but we saw the same exact thing happen with BB and the Pats. The Colts kicker showing the money sign to the Pats sideline and then shanking the kick. The Ravens kicker missing the game winner. I call it making your own luck.

Patriot Missile said:

Helped add the key additions to complete the 01 Patriots. Another fantastic game plan which was a huge part of another superbowl. Defense scored 6 of the 20 points. Should of been 12 with Tebuckys fumble return. Coached Defenses that stymied Peyton Manning before the rule changes. The corners call to run vs Rams in 19. A lot of regular season and playoff games as well where his stamp was on the win. He was the greatest imo.

He definitely had his share of mistakes. It’s bound to happen in 20 years of coaching. The worst being the Butler benching imo.

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I just watched that game again.

It never comes down to 1 reason why you lost. Gostowski missed a bunny FG because the holder bobbled the snap after Brandon (they always 5hit themselves) Cooks tried to hurdle a Philly player on a 3rd down Jet Sweep.

StockingAnarchyNumber12 said:

I don’t get why we need to keep doing this

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Because cutting is so unseemly?

borg said:

Robert was firing on all cylinders back in the day....and ballsy as all hell.

Not many new owners have arrived in the league and implemented so many decisive and dramatic changes to their franchise as Robert did.


-Hiring Fat Tuna (and firing Fat Tuna)

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Otis hired Parcells

ahmed said:

I can savour the 6 SBs and still be butthurt about the end. The 2 are not mutually exclusive and people can't seem to grasp that. I am grateful to Bill for 6 SBs but does not mean he gets to do whatever he wants free of consequence which is what some people on here demand.

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You have a funny way of showing it. If you're so grateful maybe take it a little easy on your fellow patsfans members with your frustrations over the end. Maybe instead of calling everything and everyone out take a moment to remember you're grateful and to remember what BB has done to form such positive opinions from members of this board and why they would want to defend him.

borg said:

Robert was firing on all cylinders back in the day....and ballsy as all hell.

Not many new owners have arrived in the league and implemented so many decisive and dramatic changes to their franchise as Robert did.

-Securing massive leverage by acquiring schitt-hole Schaefer
-Purchasing team
-Hiring Fat Tuna (and firing Fat Tuna)
-Building Gillette
-Trading for Belichick

And incredibly fortunate/lucky/blessed (take your pick) that a Mo Lewis hit was the mechanism that help launch the birth of a dynasty.

Note: Bledsoe signed his 10 yr/$103 million contract on March 7, 2021

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First Bob deserves credit for keeping the team here amongst other things but I'm pretty sure everything you pointed out is extremely common amongst new owners. You list his accomplishments as:

-Securing massive leverage by acquiring schitt-hole Schaefer

-Purchasing team
Every owner who didn't inherit purchased their team and most would have bought the stadium at the same time.


-Hiring Fat Tuna (and firing Fat Tuna)
They all hire coaches at some point

-Building Gillette
New stadiums are pretty common for new owners too
-Trading for Belichick
They all hire coaches at some point not all by trade though.

OldEngland said:

This is an interesting comparison, thank you for developing the topic.

If you don't mind I'm going to move the goalposts slightly. The reason is x4 of these coaches are still active and with a decade less coaching than BB, also Holmgren and Dungy had shorter coaching careers. I also prefer to measure by non-winning seasons as a 0.500 record doesn't get you a shot at the SB. Therefore I'm going to suggest a fairer comparison is non-winning seasons compared to retired HOF coaches, as we could theorise non-winning seasons come at the beginning/end/change of a career.

So how does BBs % record of non-winning seasons compare within the top 8 winningmost coaches of all time?

Don Shula = 6 non-winning seasons in 36 seasons (0.166). X2SBs
Tom Landry = 9 in 29 seasons (0.310). X2SBs
George Halas = 6 in 40 seasons (0.100). x6championships
Bill Belichick = 8 in 29 seasons (0.276). x6SBs
Chuck Noll = 8 in 23 seasons (0.347) x4SBs
Curly Lambeau = 7 in 33 seasons (0.212). x6championships
Paul Brown = 5 in 25 seasons (0.250). x7championships
Andy Reid = 5 in 25 (0.200). x3 SBs.

Honourable mention for some other HOF coaches with multiple SBs.
Bill Parcels 6 in 19seasons (0.316) x2SB
Bill Walsh 3 in 10seasons (0.300) x3SB
Joe Gibbs 4 in 16seasons (0.250) x3SB

I'd conclude BBs amount of non-winning seasons is relatively consistent with the greatest coaches ever to be involved in the game. Halas, Shula and Reid are the only ones to go <0.200, while other HOF coaches such as Landry, Noll, Parcells and Walsh >0.300. While his x6 championships are unparalleled in the SB era and can only be compared with Brown, Halas and Lambeau. I'm not remotely suggesting BB's final seasons weren't poor and disappointing, but it seems this isn't that unusual even among HOF coaches.

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I appreciate the comparison, but non-winning seasons isn't a thing. There's been >10 teams that made it to the playoffs with an 8-8 record and even won playoff games.

If you were to do the same comparison with losing seasons, you would see the disparity.

1960Pats said:

In general, the first half of the dynasty was anchored by the defense and the second half the offense. The sad part is that the Pats' exceptional defense had it's last year without Brady. The timing of that was horrible.

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That first part is just not accurate. There's plenty of data that shows the O carrying or exceeding its own weight during the 1st dynasty. It's a myth that the D carried Brady during the 1st half of the dynasty.

DarrylS said:

Note there are only three coaches listed above in the post salary cap era..
Who deserves an asterisk the ones prior to salary cap or post salary cap??
Without regard many of these comparisons need qualification and are like comparing raisins to grapefruit.

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Maybe, but the rules were the same for all coaches during either era. Regardless, Belichick bridged both eras, and his losing record remained consistent pre- and post- salary cap. I think of bigger importance is that Belichick got to pick his own groceries during his entire coaching career, which isn't the case for many of these other coaches.

signbabybrady said:

You have a funny way of showing it. If you're so grateful maybe take it a little easy on your fellow patsfans members with your frustrations over the end. Maybe instead of calling everything and everyone out take a moment to remember you're grateful and to remember what BB has done to form such positive opinions from members of this board and why they would want to defend him.

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I have defended Bill many times on this board and very often with friends. My wife's nickname for him is "pure *******" so I do a lot of defending to her too.

Does not mean I will blindly defend him for things he has no business being defended on. Also annoying to see people irrationally excuse some of his decision making that no logical person would defend. Finally, I have been told that I like to argue so there is a bit of that too.

I don't call everything and everyone out either. Just occasionally. But I will listen a bit and reduce it on Bill... just for you!

See I do appreciate my fellow Pats fans!!!

Ivan said:

I have no doubt that Rehbein made a case for taking Brady, but pretending that it wasn’t Belichick who made the decision, when everyone knows he always did what he wanted with picks is really dishonest. Especially when those making that claim are the same people who have claimed Belichick was always responsible for every bad pick, and there were plenty of those for them to ***** about.

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"But in paying tribute to his colleague after Brady and another Rehbein find, receiver David Patten, destroyed the Indianapolis Colts that October, Belichick made it clear that **** was "the guy that's most responsible" for Brady being a Patriot."

Thank you, **** Rehbein. RIP

StockingAnarchyNumber12 said:

I don’t get why we need to keep doing this

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Doing what? Talking about the legacies and careers of the two main individuals that led the 2 decade dynasties, in a Patriots forum?

So people can discuss this topic on Reddit and national media, but not on a Patriot forum? You do know you can use the "ignore thread" feature, if the subject is too sensitive for you.

venecol said:

Sorry Ian, but I never saw Belichick play a single snap. You can't call a non player clutch in a game. It doesn't work that way. Now Brady is the clutchest player of all time. We can agree there.

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Belichick's in-game decisions absolutely made a difference - which also led to some big moments for Brady. I already mentioned the decision to put the ball in his hands when even Madden - an ex-NFL head coach - said to kneel on it and play for overtime. When you have a coach who can make the right decisions in key moments and also have a quarterback who can also handle the pressure and go execute, you dominate for two decades.

You can also point to them manipulating the eligible receiver rule against Baltimore, which Brady executed to a tee and it played a big role in them coming back to win that one.

You watch football every January, you know how much coaching matters in the postseason, albeit you also know you need a QB who can get it done when the pressure's on.

And what I find bizarre about the contingent that seemingly hates Bill is that none of you guys can say a single negative thing about Bowles, who certainly didn't help Brady's final two seasons there. Especially 2021 when even as bad as it was, they still should have gone farther than they did.

Brady overcame worse here with less, and Bill played a role in covering up some of those shortcomings on the other side of the ball. They absolutely should have gone farther.

h0c2000 said:

Who was this list of all star coaches he had in Cleveland? Nick Saban? I can't recall any of those Browns' coaches having any amount of success in the NFL as HC.

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Not head coaches, but there were some terrific assistants/personnel people who had success both in the league and in the college ranks.

h0c2000 said:

As for the 1996 Baltimore Ravens, 4-12 is heading in the same direction as the 2023 Patriots. It's not a good direction.

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Bill was here in 1996 and played a key role in Parcells taking that team to the Super Bowl. Also happened to be the same year Kraft realized he wanted to hire Bill.

h0c2000 said:

<Golf Clap>
Bill took over a team that had been over 500 4 out of 5 of the previous seasons. He coached that team to over 500 once in 5 years.
</Golf Clap>

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Again, I'm assuming if you watched the documentary, you know how that final season started and how it all fell apart. He shunned Kosar, started Testeverde, and they started winning. And Testeverde wasn't a stiff. He went on to have a solid career and it's why Parcells also grabbed him after the fact, and he was obviously even here at one point. They were also among the favorites in the AFC in 1995.

All I know is there wasn't a single negative discussion about Bill in that context here until he moved on from Brady, and all of a sudden, all the talking heads on the radio/television picked that road to start traveling down. Every single person here thought he got a raw deal in Cleveland until he irked the masses in 2020. There wasn't a single thread before that where people disagreed. That documentary was eye-opening, especially given what fellow coaches, players, etc. had to endure when the news broke.

I'm frustrated about the end of 2017 and will forever be, that's inexcusable in my mind. But I'm not naive enough to discount everything else that happened before that and attach it 100% to one guy. Again, all you need to do is watch the postseason to realize how much great coaching matters.

If you want to talk about a bad coach who was carried by a great QB, that does exist. Tony Dungy - who wouldn't even be among a reputable contingent of coaches save for Payton Manning, given all the talent he wasted during his time in Tampa (with John Gruden being the guy who came in and won it all as soon as he was gone) - absolutely falls into that category.

And for anyone who puts Dungy ahead of Belichick - and I know it's coming - I don't know what to tell you.