IT’S BRADY OVER BILL
If not for Tom, Belichick would not be in same conversation as Lombardi
FOXBOROUGH — So, is it Tom Brady or Bill Belichick? The Patriots play the Steelers on Sunday night in the 11th AFC Championship Game — and record sixth straight — of the Brady-Belichick era, which started when Mo Lewis literally almost killed Drew Bledsoe late in the second game of the 2001 season.
They’ve been to six Super Bowls together and won four and Brady is one victory from passing Terry Bradshaw and Joe Montana for the most by a quarterback and Belichick is one away from passing Chuck Noll for most by a coach.
Who deserves more of the credit? The once-ina-generation coach or once-in-a-generation QB?
My vote goes to Brady. He wins the popular vote 1-0 and the Electoral College 1-0. See, the system does work every now and then. Brady is the greatest quarterback in NFL history and there are enough people who believe Belichick may have surpassed Vince Lombardi as the greatest coach. But if I had to choose with the expectation of being able to achieve the same success they’ve had over the last 16 seasons, give me Brady and send the sourpuss personality-deprived hoodie back to Cleveland and see what he can do with Josh McCown.
“I actually used to think it was Brady. I really thought it was Brady,” said Curtis Martin, who played one year when Belichick was on the staff in New England and three years when he was on the staff with the Jets, but never played with Brady. “What I’ve come to believe is that it’s Brady who wins championships. Belichick is so good I think he can make the playoffs even without Brady, but I don’t think he would win the Super Bowl without Brady. It sounds like a politically correct answer to say both, but they can have success without each other. I don’t think they can win championships without each other.”
Belichick was 37-45 from 199195 in Cleveland — including 1-1 in the playoffs — starting primarily Bernie Kosar and Vinny Testaverde. Then Belichick was 5-13 two games into his second year in New England with Bledsoe and there was fear inside the building that Robert Kraft would fire him at the end of the season, even though he had given up a first-round pick to get him.
Brady saved Belichick’s job by winning 11 of the last 14 regular season games followed by his first Super Bowl title.
To recap: Belichick was 42-58 in his first 100 games as an NFL head coach before Brady took control in New England.
Brady has never played for any coach in the NFL other than Belichick. The only relevant stat of Brady without Belichick: He was 20-5 when he finally became the starter for Michigan in his final two years in Ann Arbor. In the last game of his college career, he threw for four touchdowns and 369 yards in a 35-34 Orange Bowl victory over Alabama.
He lasted until the sixth round in 2000, the 199th overall pick, in the biggest mistake in the history of the NFL draft. Belichick gets credit for listening to QB coach Dick Rehbein and drafting Brady. According to a source in the Jets draft room, scout Jesse Kaye pleaded with Bill Parcells to take Brady even though Parcells had drafted Chad Pennington in the first round. Parcells wasn’t buying in. Brady was the seventh quarterback taken and the seventh player picked by Belichick. He wasn’t even the first player Belichick picked in the sixth round. Belichick then did a great job developing him.
The Patriots opened the 2016 season winning three of the four games when Brady was serving his ludicrous Deflategate suspension. It was eight years after Belichick was 11-5 with Matt Cassel subbing for Brady, who suffered a torn ACL in the first quarter of the first game.
The pro-Belichick faction shouted, “See, he can win without Brady. Hail to the Hoodie.”
Well, in 2007, the Patriots were the first team to finish 16-0 and if not for David Tyree’s Helmet Catch, they would have been 19-0 and won Super Bowl XLII. Belichick did an excellent job winning 11 games with Cassel, but the reality is Brady was the only important missing piece from the 2007 team and Belichick won five fewer games without him and missed the playoffs.
This season, the Patriots beat the Cardinals with Jimmy Garoppolo on the road to open the season, which was a quality victory with Arizona expected to contend for the Super Bowl. As it turned out, the Cardinals had a miserable season and finished 7-8-1.
Garoppolo started the second game against Miami, but injured his shoulder and was replaced by rookie third-round pick Jacoby Brissett. New England won that game, then with Brissett starting, beat Houston and were shut out by Buffalo. Miami and Houston each made the playoffs.
To recap: Belichick is 19-19 in New England in games not started by Brady, but 14-6 in the last 20. He is 202-60 with Brady.
Brady returned in the fifth game of the season in Cleveland and threw for 406 yards and three TDs. He was 11-1 on his Deflategate Revenue tour with 28 TDs and just two INTs. He is 39 years old but getting younger each week. He has never played better. His devotion to physical fitness and nutrition — avocado ice cream, yum — and the constant chip he carries around from being overlooked at Michigan for three years and then in the draft, has kept him obsessed with winning.
Belichick has proven that as long as he has Brady, he can win with interchangeable parts at just about every other position. He is very adaptable. He has changed the offense 3-5 times in 16 years and gone from a big, physical defense, to blitzing all the time to zones and a mix of big guys and little guys.
He can turn over the personnel, change systems and get
away with not paying big money to free agents because he has the security of knowing Brady will help make it all work. Other than the short time Brady had Randy Moss and the times when Rob Gronkowski is not injured, Belichick has not given him elite skill players.
“He is so clutch,” Martin said. “He’s like the Michael Jordan of quarterbacks as far as that killer instinct.”
Lawrence Taylor played for Belichick in his formative years as an assistant coach with the Giants.
“Even with all the accolades and achievements that Bill Belichick has had or will have, I will never have a better coach than Bill Parcells,” Taylor told the Daily News. “Call it bias, call it whatever you want.”
But he doesn’t consider that a slight to Belichick, who was LT’s position coach or defensive coordinator with the Giants from 1983-90.
“He is a great coach, one of the greatest in history,” Taylor said. “I’m not surprised at his success. I’m more surprised he has kept it going year after year. When it comes to defense, the man is a genius. Putting together a defense, putting together a game plan, putting together a strategy, he could do it all. It’s like a storybook thing. If you go to sleep at night and dream about being a football coach, Bill Belichick might be the guy you dream about. He’s got a system and can plug anybody into it. He can get a man off the street and survive.”
Nobody hangs around Belichick ever thinking they will be entertained.
“Bill has been the same way every year he’s been coaching,” LT said. “He’s dry. His jokes you don’t laugh at. But at the end of the day, you know what he’s there for. To coach the team. God damn it, he can do that.”
After last season, Belichick traded Chandler Jones, his best pass rusher. At the trading deadline this season, he dealt linebacker Jamie Collins, perhaps his best defensive player but too much of a freelancer. Even so, the Patriots gave up just 250 points, the fewest in the league.
Belichick has put together a sustainable philosophy of team building, but he is susceptible to game management meltdowns: Not calling timeout in the final minute of the Super Bowl two years ago against Seattle — he was bailed out by Pete Carroll’s awful decision to not give Marshawn Lynch the ball — and kicking off to start overtime against the Jets in the 15th game of the 2015 season, thus keeping the ball out of Brady’s hands.
The Jets immediately drove for the winning TD and the loss prevented the Patriots from securing the No. 1 seed. They were forced to then play the AFC Championship Game in Denver and lost. There was little chance Peyton Manning would have defeated Brady in Foxborough. Belichick likely cost the Patriots a chance to go back to the Super Bowl. As a result, they are one behind Lombardi and Bart Starr, who won a record five NFL titles together, which includes the first two Super Bowls.
Brady has the 183 regular season wins, three behind record holders Brett Favre and Manning. His 23 playoff victories are the most — seven more than Montana. He has won his four Super Bowls by just 13 points and lost his two to the Giants by just seven points, each time when the Patriots’ defense gave up the game-winning touchdown in the final minute.
The most alarming Brady stat in the playoffs: He has 30 INTs in 32 games with 22 of those in the last 27 games. He has thrown two interceptions in three of his last four playoff games, including two last week against the Texans after throwing just two in the regular season.
Could Brady or Belichick have won as many as two Super Bowls without the other?
Consider KC’s Andy Reid and quarterback Alex Smith: Pretty good in the regular season, but will never win a Super Bowl. Brady could have overcome Reid’s shortcoming as one of the worst playoff coaches and won championships but Belichick could not win a title with Smith.
Brady and Belichick are not particularly close — they have never had a beer and pizza together at a Route 1 joint in Foxborough — but they are perfect for each other because they are perfectionists. They each even have their own cheating scandal: Spygate and Deflategate. Outside of Patriot Nation, fans have found them easy to hate.
“Tom Brady has continued to be a great player, but the constant change in philosophy, managing the team and manipulating players, is what’s amazing about Bill,” said former Giants QB Phil Simms, now CBS’s No. 1 analyst. “It used to be, ‘Who wants to go play in New England?’ Now players are lined up and will take pay cuts.”
Players want to play for Belichick and play with Brady.
“You can’t separate them,” Simms said. “Why has it worked? One is the coach, the other one is the player. End of story. It’s like with Parcells. The line was never blurred.”
But if you had to break them up and pick just one, I’ll take the quarterback.