Posted on 01/11/2024 8:08:23 AM PST by Red Badger
No fan of the Pats or Belichick. But after 23 years and all those Super Bowl wins, he deserves better than being fired.
A strong suggestion for a retirement would have been appropriate.
I can say this objectively because I remember Belichick from his early days as an NFL assistant in the 1980s. I think the guy has always been a very overrated coach who owes his success largely to the mediocrity of his peers among NFL head coaches. There were just too many times -- and that Super Bowl fiasco with Seattle was a classic case of it -- where opposing coaches were just flat-out intimidated by the overblown mystique of coaching against the mythical genius named Bill Belichick, and they felt like they had to develop special game plans and run unpredictable plays to beat him when they could have won just on talent alone.
To me, the most noteworthy statistic from Belichick's career as a head coach is his 0-2 Super Bowl record against inferior New York Giants teams coached by the decent (but hardly spectacular) head coach, Tom Coughlin. The only difference between Coughlin and the other head coaches in the NFL is that Coughlin was never intimidated by Belichick. He probably wasn't even overly impressed by him. Coughlin is six years older than Belichick, and they both worked as assistant coaches for the Giants under Bill Parcells before they were head coaches.
Vince Lombardi is the greatest sports coach of the last century in North American sports, and it probably isn't even close. Lombardi was a superior coach on the field as well as a legendary builder of character among his players. This was the man who lost his first NFL championship game with the Packers, then promised his players that it would never happen again ... and it never did.
If he was fired, this article holds the world record for not getting to the point.
At least it sounds like it was handled better than when Jerry Jones fired Tom Landry.
It would have been even better had he not benched Malcolm Butler against the Eagles for disciplinary reasons. His replacement couldn’t cover a cooked ham. Bill’s ego screwed his entire team.
I’m hearing Alabama.
Aaron Rogers quits and runs for senate vs. Baldwin-Wisc. We can dream.
Certainly a HOF coach, but I give more credit for all those Super Bowl titles to Brady than Belichick.
Yep, when Brady left the Pats became a third rate team..........and Brady won another ring..............
Semantics, either way...............
What is Bill Belichik’s record without Tom Brady, both in Cleveland and in New England? Does he even have a winning record in games without Brady? Of course, any head coach needs good players to win, but calling Belichik the greatest NFL coach of all time is ridiculous - Tom Brady could have made any number of halfway decent head coaches into perennial winners.
Whatever else is said of the Patriot Belichick years, that is true. In an age of parity across all sports no one else comes close (maybe Alabama and Nick Saban).
Atlanta, Washington, the LA Chargers..... He'll be able to define the terms of his employment and I think it will depend on whichever franchise gives him the degree of control he wants.
You are what your record says you are: Bill Parcells after his first season as the Giants head coach going 3-12.
Giants fan here and always admired Belichick's dedication to winning which made beating him in SB XLII all the more sweeter.
They are BFFS......................
Could he? Would Brady if he had gone to a QB graveyard franchise like Chicago or Cleveland or Atlanta? I think it was a near-perfect symbiosis. They complemented each other.
From BRAVE AI:
As of 11 Jan 2024, Bill Belichick’s record without Tom Brady is 82-98, according to a Reddit post from 13 Nov 2023.1 Belichick’s record with Brady is 219-64, a 77% winning rate, equivalent to winning 13 games for each 17-game season. However, he has a pedestrian 80-93 regular-season record without Brady, equivalent to going 8-9 every year for a decade, according to a post from 17 Oct 2023.
So, without Tom, he’s nothing special.....................
A: This is the beauty of sports, we'll never know as you can't separate the two so the debate will go on but will always end up in the same place. As Parcells has said: "you are what your record says you are." Period, end of story - there are no yea but's...especially in life....
Exactly. I remember Brady at Michigan, the debate was whether he or a local guy (Drew Henson, from Brighton, just outside Ann Arbor) should start - of course many wanted the local guy. Tom’s career could have misfired before he was even eligible for the draft. Drew ended up going into baseball...
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