Brady vs Belichick: The Verdict

[sb1]

Nobody can trust the opinions of a biased hater. You stink at this, stick to basket weaving.

Not hating to point out that the defense in 19 was simply the product of a very easy schedule. That’s because it was.

 

[Actual Pats Fan]

Credit for the success and dynasty:

Kraft 33.3%
Belichick 33.3%
Brady 33.3%
Me 0.1%*


*because I bring good luck

 

[Actual Pats Fan]

damn ....beat me to it. also a mahomes v. reid verdict.

Well, there are tiers of how actually good somebody is.

There's Shula vs Griese, Coughlin vs Manning...

...Ditka vs McMahon, Gruden vs Johnson, Billick vs Dilfer...

 

[Actual Pats Fan]

This is like saying Bill's legacy will go down as the coach who pushed the GOAT QB out the door when he couldn't win before or after him. The reality is more people will remember it going as long as it did than that it inevitably ended. If Brady had some long career in Tampa or Bill was ever going to have some Andy Reid style resurgence on another team, maybe it would be looked at differently. But the truth is, nobody is going to weigh losing 3 years of Tom (imo only 2 being good) while probably seeing Bill's final NFL game coached and saying that is bigger than the 20 years they had.

I don't think Vince Lombardi's legacy is a guy who left Green Bay prematurely, wasn't prudent about his personal health, and didn't do that much with the Redskins.

 

[Actual Pats Fan]

Now, we need

Halas vs Luckman: The Verdict

Parker vs Layne: The Verdict

Wilson vs Layne: The Verdict

Brown vs Graham: The Verdict

Lombardi vs Starr: The Verdict

Stram vs Dawson: The Verdict

Landry vs Staubach: The Verdict

Noll vs Bradshaw: The Verdict

Walsh vs Montana: The Verdict

Gibbs vs Whoever Happened To Be His Quarterback At The Time: The Verdict

NFL Head Coach Who Never Existed vs Flutie: The Verdict

 

[h0c2000]

I don't think Vince Lombardi's legacy is a guy who left Green Bay prematurely, wasn't prudent about his personal health, and didn't do that much with the Redskins.

I mean Lombardi did take a Redskins team that was 4 games under 500 to 2 games over in the single season before his fatal heart attack. Or a legacy where Vince is still over .500 with QBs other than Bart Starr.

 

[upstater1]

Mac Jones has gotten 2 Super Bowl winning coaches fired so far.

If he makes it to 3 (for instance, maybe Pittsburgh wants him as a starter), they'll still be discussing how he played for so many inept coaches.

 

[signbabybrady]

Belichick is far greater than Lombardi. It's not even close.

Lombardi won 2 Superbowls.

His other 3 championships were before the SB era and compare more to a conference championship than Superbowls because the league had half the number of teams.

Even if we assume they would have won the SB 3 more times Bill still has 6 and 3 other conference titles.

 

[lancerman]

I don't think Vince Lombardi's legacy is a guy who left Green Bay prematurely, wasn't prudent about his personal health, and didn't do that much with the Redskins.

Exactly. People are going to remember the 20 years they ran the NFL, not the ending. Especially with it being doubtful as **** any of them get close to matching it later. If Kraft has another 20 year long dynasty it might impact it. If Bill comes back to the NFL and wins 3-4 Super Bowls somewhere else, it might effect it. If Brady played 5-10 years somewhere else and established another dynasty it might have effected it. If any of those happened the world might look back and say "damn they screwed up and left a lot on the table".

That isn't going to happen. Realistically if the Pats have another dynasty, Jonathan will be running the team for most of it. Brady's career is over. Belichick is probably done in the NFL, but IF he comes back, he's probably only staying long enough to get Shula's record.

 

[sb1]

Exactly. People are going to remember the 20 years they ran the NFL, not the ending. Especially with it being doubtful as **** any of them get close to matching it later. If Kraft has another 20 year long dynasty it might impact it. If Bill comes back to the NFL and wins 3-4 Super Bowls somewhere else, it might effect it. If Brady played 5-10 years somewhere else and established another dynasty it might have effected it. If any of those happened the world might look back and say "damn they screwed up and left a lot on the table".

That isn't going to happen. Realistically if the Pats have another dynasty, Jonathan will be running the team for most of it. Brady's career is over. Belichick is probably done in the NFL, but IF he comes back, he's probably only staying long enough to get Shula's record.

And I can’t think of any team who would sign BB just for that. Doubt that record puts one butt in a seat tbh

 

[lancerman]

And I can’t think of any team who would sign BB just for that. Doubt that record puts one butt in a seat tbh

The problem for Bill right now is that nobody hires a "win now head coach". The HC establishes the program, the systems, the staff, the culture. That's too much overhaul for a short term guy because you think you have the right team. The Bills once thought they had all the right players and got Rex Ryan because he's supposed to be a stud defensive coach. Turns out once you add him, he puts his system in and it changes the math on everything.

 

[TheRainMaker]

Bills still wants to roll with McDermott. Ownership needs to step up and get Bill out of North Carolina.

 

[jmt57]

Belichick is far greater than Lombardi. It's not even close.

Lombardi won 2 Superbowls.

His other 3 championships were before the SB era and compare more to a conference championship than Superbowls because the league had half the number of teams.

Even if we assume they would have won the SB 3 more times Bill still has 6 and 3 other conference titles.

I hear what you are saying, but will slightly disagree.

Lombardi and the Packers were still competing against every other coach, and every other team. He and GB were still better than all the other clubs. It's not as if there was no other good coaches or good teams; Paul Brown and the Cleveland Browns come to mind right away, for example.


However, there IS indeed a mile-wide difference when comparing the two coaches and two eras. Lombardi (and Brown, Landry, Shula and Halas) never had to deal with the salary cap or any genuine free agency. During their time it was very easy to keep a good team together for a long time, which resulted in their dynasties (and legacies). It also resulted in bad teams rarely moving up to threaten the elite, and if they did so it took a very long time to accomplish that goal.

The double-edged sword of free agency (1993) and the salary cap (1994) was supposed to make it easier for bad teams to move up and topple the king of the hill. Everybody would get to take a turn being the champion. No more long periods of being bad would generate more fan interest (and therefore more revenue). Belichick obliterated that narrative.


Belichick was way ahead of his peers in terms of making what was supposed to be an obstacle into a useful tool for building and maintaining a roster. Shula for example retired right after (1995) those rules were put into place - probably not a coincidence. Lombardi once traded a player literally five minutes after he found out that the player hired an agent to negotiate his contract. Would he have been able to adapt to free agency? Perhaps he would adapt, but I'm guessing he more likely have taken a low-cost approach, and would have been more on par with the Hugh Culverhouse Tampa Bay Bucs of the 80s, or the Bidwell family Cardinals.


Those guys listed above are all good coaches, and still would have been innovative and found ways to come up with winning schemes relative to their peers. But I also believe their winning numbers would have been significantly diminished if they had to play by the same rules that Belichick did.


To only look at the raw numbers without considering the significance of the cap/FA when comparing Belichick vs Lombardi et al is disingenuous. It's no different than if one were to compare old-time QBs like Johnny Unitas to modern QBs. If one only looks at the numbers without considering context, then Unitas is the 25th best QB all time, Joe Montana is #24 - and Kerry Collins is #23.

 

[sb1]

Mac Jones has gotten 2 Super Bowl winning coaches fired so far.

If he makes it to 3 (for instance, maybe Pittsburgh wants him as a starter), they'll still be discussing how he played for so many inept coaches.

Jones didn’t get Bill fired. Bill got Bill fired.

 

[lancerman]

Not hating to point out that the defense in 19 was simply the product of a very easy schedule. That’s because it was.

2019 was the beginning of what I sort of view as the Patriots "Paper Tiger Defense" era. We had Belichick so we were always schemed well and disciplined enough that if we played an offense that didn't have much talent we could look like 2000 Ravens shutting them down. But we were so lacking in raw physical talent that if we played any team with real speed and strength on offense we wouldn't just have an off game, we would get lit up and massacred like we were bottom tier defense.

I remember all 2019 the prevailing sentiment in the NFL was that the Pats defense looks really good and has incredible stats, but they played a bunch of scrubs and haven't been tested. With most NFL fans saying the Ravens game would show if they were legit or not. It surprised no one that they looked like they were on amateur hour once they had to play an offense with fast players. That season was the biggest example of a mirage and why you shouldn't blindly look at stats. Everyone knew the Patriots were going to be a pretty easy out come playoff time because they weren't going to play teams like the Jets, Skins, Dolphins, Browns etc.

That kept going on for years. 2021 was a good example where they looked respectable shutting down the Jets but you play a team like Buffalo and they have a historically bad playoff loss.

That's not even hating btw. Those defenses only looked so good against bottom feeders because Bill was coaching and scheming them. There's a reason why a pretty mid talent ground fell apart and couldn't do that once the GOAT wasn't dialing up their schemes.

If there is a mark against Belichick for that season it's that it really showed he was off the mark on his estimations of talent evaluation. All off season there were reports about how he thought this was one of the most talented rosters he ever had. It turned out that it ended up being one of the least talented offenses of the Brady era and the defense specifically only lost when it became less about scheme and more about talent.

But it's a testament to Bill's coaching that he kept squads as poorly talented as ours looking at least respectable and even dominant against weaker teams. It's just the bottom eventually fell out

 

[TheRainMaker]

2019 was the beginning of what I sort of view as the Patriots "Paper Tiger Defense" era. We had Belichick so we were always schemed well and disciplined enough that if we played an offense that didn't have much talent we could look like 2000 Ravens shutting them down. But we were so lacking in raw physical talent that if we played any team with real speed and strength on offense we wouldn't just have an off game, we would get lit up and massacred like we were bottom tier defense.

I remember all 2019 the prevailing sentiment in the NFL was that the Pats defense looks really good and has incredible stats, but they played a bunch of scrubs and haven't been tested. With most NFL fans saying the Ravens game would show if they were legit or not. It surprised no one that they looked like they were on amateur hour once they had to play an offense with fast players. That season was the biggest example of a mirage and why you shouldn't blindly look at stats. Everyone knew the Patriots were going to be a pretty easy out come playoff time because they weren't going to play teams like the Jets, Skins, Dolphins, Browns etc.

That kept going on for years. 2021 was a good example where they looked respectable shutting down the Jets but you play a team like Buffalo and they have a historically bad playoff loss.

That's not even hating btw. Those defenses only looked so good against bottom feeders because Bill was coaching and scheming them. There's a reason why a pretty mid talent ground fell apart and couldn't do that once the GOAT wasn't dialing up their schemes.

If there is a mark against Belichick for that season it's that it really showed he was off the mark on his estimations of talent evaluation. All off season there were reports about how he thought this was one of the most talented rosters he ever had. It turned out that it ended up being one of the least talented offenses of the Brady era and the defense specifically only lost when it became less about scheme and more about talent.

But it's a testament to Bill's coaching that he kept squads as poorly talented as ours looking at least respectable and even dominant against weaker teams. It's just the bottom eventually fell out

While I generally agree with the birth of the paper tiger era, defenses aren’t going to shut down good offenses every week.

The 2003 Pats which was their best defense of the BB era gave up 30 points or more twice. Not including those games, they gave up at least 20 points per game 4 more times to some pretty mediocre teams.

The 2019 defense probably wouldn’t have matched up well with the Ravens in the playoffs, but they would’ve with the Chiefs. Had they had an offense, opposing teams would’ve fallen into the trap of having to throw which was the Pats strength.

After that season was when the talent level really dropped off and they are what we see now.

 

[Actual Pats Fan]

Belichick is far greater than Lombardi. It's not even close.

Lombardi won 2 Superbowls.

His other 3 championships were before the SB era and compare more to a conference championship than Superbowls because the league had half the number of teams.

Even if we assume they would have won the SB 3 more times Bill still has 6 and 3 other conference titles.

Joking, right?

 

[signbabybrady]

Joking, right?

No

 

[Actual Pats Fan]

No

I think you're much smarter than that. When comparing eras, we have to take everything into consideration - and all things being equal.

It's not any athlete's fault what era he/she found him/herself in. It's what they did in it.

It's not Michael Jordan's fault he's terribly overrated. Great player, but there are at least a dozen other guys I would choose before him to start a team.

I think we simply have to look at each player/coach/team through the lens of that era, exactly how the game was being played then, and last but not least, what the stakes were at the time.

It's a fact that modern day pro sports athletes and coaches have it much easier today than they did sixty years ago. As great as Tom and Bill are, I wouldn't necessarily rank them at the top. Would I honestly take Tom over Bobby Layne, or Otto Graham? Or Bill over Vince Lombardi or Curly Lambeau?

To me, Pete Sampras won a lot of matches. Would I ever expect him to beat Rod Laver in a match for all the marbles?

No.

 

[signbabybrady]

I think you're much smarter than that. When comparing eras, we have to take everything into consideration - and all things being equal.

It's not any athlete's fault what era he/she found him/herself in. It's what they did in it.

It's not Michael Jordan's fault he's terribly overrated. Great player, but there are at least a dozen other guys I would choose before him to start a team.

I think we simply have to look at each player/coach/team through the lens of that era, exactly how the game was being played then, and last but not least, what the stakes were at the time.

It's a fact that modern day pro sports athletes and coaches have it much easier today than they did sixty years ago. As great as Tom and Bill are, I wouldn't necessarily rank them at the top. Would I honestly take Tom over Bobby Layne, or Otto Graham? Or Bill over Vince Lombardi or Curly Lambeau?

To me, Pete Sampras won a lot of matches. Would I ever expect him to beat Rod Laver in a match for all the marbles?

No.

Everything I stated was facts. Not really sure what you're going off of other than perhaps nostalgia.