Who is the MVP (More Valuable Patriot), Brady or Belichick?
Belichick, without question.He’s a personnel genius. Throughout their run the team has only been short on cap a few times, and they’ve never had to rebuild - there isn’t another team in the NFL that’s gone over 15 years without a down year in the salary cap era. He’s doing all of this with affordable talent, and only a handful of real stars. Guys are worth a lot when they leave New England, but not very many of them are high dollar players when they get there.In spite of his reputation as an antisocial asshole, he’s extremely good at the intangibles of coaching. People talk about building a culture, the Patriots are one of a handful of teams others try to emulate. Guys who are considered uncoachable go there and buy in completely from day one. Knowing you have a very good chance at a ring helps, but the coach has a lot to do with it.He’s a great teacher, and he hires great teachers. Every time the Dolphins cut somebody my first thought is “Great, now he’s going to go to New England and become an All Pro.” Their number one receiver is a college quarterback who wasn’t invited to the combine, was drafted in the 7th round, and now can start on offense or defense for the best team in football. This is how they can keep winning no matter who they lose to injury.The Patriots wouldn’t win so much without Brady. But without Belichick they’d be like other teams - short on depth, running into salary cap issues every 5 years or so, and displaying one or two glaring weaknesses every year.
Why don't Belichick assistants ever pan out as head coaches? Don't they learn anything from him?
I think one causation Factor is that the Patriots offensive system is very complicated, and as mentioned by another contributor previously elsewhere, requires the receivers to recognize the defensive alignment and predicate their pass routes accordingly. So,Brady and the receivers have to be thinking as one, with this level of exactness requiring time to learn and execute the system. With less practice time allowable under the collective bargaining agreement, duplicating the Patriots system is highly problematic. In addition it requires team oriented unselfish receivers rather than Superstars demanding the ball. I noticed this phenomenon in baseball ,when none of Earl Weaver's ex players who went on to manage employed strategy that in any way resembled Earl's methodology. The only one who had particular success was Davey Johnson with the Mets. On the other hand most current offenses have elements of Bill Walsh’s West Coast offense, as a result of a coaching tree lineage. Bill Belichick has enjoyed a somewhat unique advantage in that , apart from a couple of outstanding years from the Jets, nobody in the division has mounted a serious challenge to the Patriots. This does not require the Patriots to obtain personnel that match up well against division opponents, allowing the Patriots do not have to deviate from their system and to concentrate their concerns with likely Conference playoff teams. This advantage is not likely to be present when ex -patriot assistants go elsewhere. One would think that some things would be emulatable, such as being unpredictable from game to game and predicating the game plan to take advantage of the other teams particular weaknesses. The Peter Principle, which states that people will be promoted until they reach their level of incompetence ,is no more apparent than in the NFL with it being somewhat rare for coaches to maintain consistent success over time. This Maybe over analyzing, with it just being a matter of Bill being a hell of a lot smarter than everybody else.
Does anyone else find it interesting that Belichick was never a good coach until he got Brady?
Think about it, Belichick had many chances but before the Brady era he had 3 losing seasons in Cleveland and compiled a 36-44 record with the browns. Now you must be thinking to yourself oh that's only because he had no one to work with right? No Top notch QB no defense? Well get this with Drew Bledsoe in 2 seasons, and it's fair to say Drew Bledsoe is a Top 30 QB of all time as he's around 10th in passing yards of all time, 15th in touchdown passes and 7th in completions that's not bad for a guy who only played 14 full NFL seasons. Well with this great QB in Belichick's so called great system they went 5-13 together. That's pretty embarrassing right? And this is Drew Bledsoe a guy who went to a super bowl I would hate to blame him so it must be this unproven coach in Bill Bellichick right? Then wait all of a sudden Brady get's thrusted into action and they go 14-3 to win a super bowl are you kidding me?!? Don't you guys see? Belichick does not make Brady? If anything Brady made Belichick. if Brady didn't have that great season Bill would of probably been fired. Brady has made him who is his today. They have been to 5 super bowls together, Brady has won 2 MVP's 2 Super bowl MVP's and has broken numerous records for touchdown passes in a season, most passes without an interception, highest winning percentage of all time, and soon to be most games with 1 TD pass he only needs I believe 6 more to break Bree's record. So for all of you people who say Belichick made Brady go look around. Look at the numbers Belichick had without Brady. If Brady wasn't training with Pro bowler with the Chiefs Matt Cassel for 4 years prior to when he was thrusted into starting action then I doubt they would of went 10-5 with him as a starter. This is just another reason why Brady is one of the best QB's of all time. Can we all just put our baised opinions aside and agree with me on this one? Thank you.