One more losing season without Brady should confirm it. Fortunately he’s likely to have several in a row to leave no doubt with all except the sycophants.
Tom Brady improved the same team that was 5-11 the year before to 11-5; difference of 6 wins. Brady’s injury season of 2009 saw the Patriots decline by 5 wins. Brady’s final departure saw the Patriots decline from 12 to 7 wins; another decline of 5 wins. Brady’s impact on the Patriots has been worth 5-6 wins on three separate occasions. I don’t think you need much more evidence to validate the argument that Brady was the key driver that kept the Patriots above mediocrity that Belichick would have coached them to.
Patriots were definitely more Brady than Belichik. Whether Belichik can step it up a notch and win without Brady remains to be seen. Landing a good QB this offseason is probably necessary to avoid retiring next offseason.
Stafford reportedly refused to play for the Patriots. Maybe it had something to do with his former HC slinking his way back there. The Belicheat coaching tree still has no branches Fwiw I'm now officially on the Stafford bandwagon.
I'm willing to give Belichick 2 more years to see if he can overcome losing Brady. He went 7-9 in a season where a few key players opted out.
I used to think Belichick deserved around 60% of the credit to Brady's 40%. Now I'm leaning more like 70/30 in favor of Brady.
My personal shithouse lawyer opinion on this is that this season results have been a big plus for Tom Brady's lasting legacy, but it doesn't hurt Belichik's. Its not like Brady wouldn't have had a great legacy anyway if the Bucs had gone 4-12 Brady looked old and retired but after he's done what he's done even with a bad Super Bowl I think his legacy is just extra sparkles on it now that he will have played in another Super Bowl without the Patriot machine behind him. Belichik is still a great coach though. Just the simple eye test over the last 30-35 years shows that.
That includes 2 wins against the embarrassment that was Adam Gase, so truly (5-9) against actual NFL teams.
a lot of posters on here used to diss bill parcels, saying " how many vlt did he win without belichick " ? right now, i listened friday to boston spports radio ( felger & mazz) , and they are saying " how many vlt did bellichick win without brady? the answer is zero. i think weeb, lombardi, paul brown are all better than belicheck. none of them cheated to win the championship.
Beyond that, how many people have minimized Phil Jackson’s success because he never won without coaching a historically great player. But Jackson never coached a losing team (even if the Lakers weren’t looking too good before getting Pau Gasol). but Belichick was a losing coach before Brady and returned to being a losing coach immediately after Brady. Without Brady his ability is empirically bad.
Brady was basically a game manager in the SB and had a crappy game in the NFC Championship game. Green Bay basically choked. He's not such a large part of the Bucs success.
80% completion rate and 3TD in the first half is a game manager? That’s utter nonsense. and that doesn’t account for the sheer amount of intangibles he brings to a team — that the Bucs players have all touted as reasons for their success. Being great goes beyond just what you watch for 60 minutes on your TV.
