Post by Rey Kahuka on Nov 20, 2019 0:28:32 GMT
How does that suggest a system? Cassel inherited a team that had an all time offense the previous season and had an established culture of winning. With all that, he lost five more regular season games than Brady did the previous year. The Patriots went 5-11 the year before Brady became a starter, and they were 0-2 when he became a starter. He went 11-3 as a starter and went on to win the Super Bowl.
What system was Belichick running as he racked up a 41-57 record as a head coach pre-Brady?
It suggests a system because they still won 11 games after losing the player who is being argued as the best ever the drop off is pretty god damn minimal, especially when we are talking about the drop off in quarterback. If the difference between the greatest who has ever played and a footnote in NFL history is 18 and 1 to 10 and 5; then yes, that suggests a successful system.
I get the argument for Brady being more important, but the idea that you could put anyone in Belichick's place and it wouldn't make a difference is as absurd as expecting that you could put anyone into Brady's place and they could replicate going 18 and 1.
There are 16 games in a season and a drop off of 5 games, basically a third of a season of losses is minimal? Ok. If it's so minimal why didn't they just keep Cassel? They brought in some serious offensive firepower to compliment Brady and all he did was throw 50 TDs and go 18-1. Cassel went 11-5 and threw 21 TDs-- 5 more losses and less than half the production on offense. That isn't a significant drop off? And for the record, I didn't say you could replace Belichick with anyone. But he's far less important. I started an entire thread on this topic a couple weeks ago. Here are some bullet points:
- As stated earlier, Belichick had a career losing record as a head coach before Tom Brady, and that included having all-pro Drew Bledsoe for a season. Where was his system then? He started winning championships when Brady became his starter. Again, 5-11 the previous season, 0-2 that season; enter Brady 11-3 in the regular season and a Super Bowl championship.
- Brady has the second most 4th qtr comebacks in history. If his defense is always so great, why is he always coming back in the 4th qtr? Brady's career passing yds and TDs suggest the Patriots weren't hurting for offense all this time.
- The Patriots made it to Super Bowl 46 with the 31st ranked defense in the league, the lowest ranked defense to ever make a Super Bowl. What did Belichick contribute that season, and they made it to the Super Bowl anyway.
- Why has the Belichick coaching tree been a total failure? None of his assistants have come close to replicating the success they had here, with Brady on their team. Belichick, as mentioned earlier, has not come close to replicating the success he's had with Brady.
Look at Brady's career path starting in college. He started out 7th on the depth chart and worked himself into the backup role. He got jerked in and out of games and kept bringing the team back during the Henson fiasco. He finally earned the starter's role and again he excelled, culminating in a bowl game against Alabama where he led them back from two TDs down twice. Do you see a trend forming here? Maybe the guy rises to the challenge and keeps getting better?
Fast forward to 2001. Absolutely a game manager. That's what they asked him to do, that's what he did. Even in that season, there's a clip of Bledsoe asking him what plays he liked, and Brady names off a bunch of plays, and Bledsoe jokes about Brady wanting to air it out. He knew what he could do. So after a dink and dunk Super Bowl winning drive, they make it back to the Super Bowl two years later and all Brady does is lead the Patriots to 18 points in the 4th qtr alone (because the defense had given up 19 in the 4th qtr alone). Maybe that's when the light came on for Belichick, and he realized Brady could do anything asked of him?
So for the next 15 years he's been lighting up scoreboards, coming back from 25 down in Super Bowls, taking the worst defense in the league to a Super Bowl, coming back in the 4th qtr 35 times, and so on. Brady had instant success in the NFL. Instant. As soon as he took the field, his team started winning games including the Super Bowl his first year as a starter. He's won as a game manager, and later as one of the most prolific passers in history (again, what was that system?). Meanwhile, Belichick's success as a head coach began...when Brady became his QB. That fact is inescapable. Cassel inherited a culture of winning built by Brady and accomplished nothing. Brady inherited a culture of losing and won a Super Bowl. Both had Belichick as a head coach.
I know I'm on an island with this argument and I always will be. I respect your opinion and if I hadn't spent this much time thinking about it I'd probably think I was crazy, too. But there are two sides to the argument (well, not counting 'selling your soul' or 'Brady ain't shit' or whatever else has been said in this thread). Pro-Brady and pro-Belichick. It's sports so it's all conjecture and nothing can ever be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt. But of the two sides to this argument, the raw data only backs up one case, and it sure as hell isn't Belichick's.