NFL Open Thread: Bill Belichick mutually parts ways as HC of the NEP edition

There has been some good stuff out there on the legacy of one of the greatest coaches in NFL history — Barnwell in podcast form, this for the visual learners.

The idea that Belichick is just an ordinary coach who was propped up by Tom Brady is almost too stupid to even be worth rebutting, not that this has stopped us from doing it anyway. I actually think Paul is conceding too much here — as a coach qua coach, I think Belichick has mostly still got it. The Patriots defense was 9th in DVOA despite his best edge rusher and best corner being injured for the season in Week 4, after being 5th last year. The offense is terrible because it has no talent, which does reveal that Belichick has clearly lost it in the de facto GM department, and will not succeed at his next job if he doesn’t delegate a lot more on the personnel side (which I assume he understands, although we’ll see.) It’s interesting to note that Pete Carroll, who has had a renaissance on the personnel side the last two years, lost his job anyway because the fundamentals and attention to detail on the defense went completely to shit. It’s amazing these guys were able to be two-hats majordomos for as long as they did (albeit with more collaboration in Pete’s organization), but time waits for no one it’s clear that they couldn’t do both anymore.

Belichick and Brady obviously are both integral to the greatest dynasty in NFL history — the most one can say that Belichick was the dominant partly early (in his first Super Bowl year Brady threw for 6.4 AYA/A with an 18/12 TD/INT ratio, and yes people will tell you with a straight face that any coach with that caliber of QB play is pretty much guaranteed a Super Bowl) and Brady more important late:

Who deserves more credit for the New England Patriots dynasty: Tom Brady or Bill Belichick?

For true scholars of the NFL, as well as many fans, such a question is pleading, pedantic and pointless. The legacies of great coaches and quarterbacks are bonded at the molecular level, their era-defining accomplishments forever intertwined. 

[…]

Unless you believe that Brady sprang from the womb with the magical ability to inspire special-teams highlights and cause opposing Hall of Famers to turn the ball over, it’s obvious that the Patriots won Super Bowl XXXVIII thanks to Belichick’s outstanding coaching in support of a novice game-manager quarterback. To suggest otherwise would be flying in the face of evidence, the impressions of the time and common sense.

Once we recognize that Belichick deserves immeasurable credit for the first Patriots Super Bowl, it’s downright silly to deny him credit for the next two. 

The Patriots allowed the fewest points in the NFL in 2003, while Brady’s offense finished 12th in points scored. The Patriots finished 14–2 en route to their second title. You can count the number of 12–0 and 9–3 victories yourself. The Patriots defense allowed the second-fewest points in the NFL in 2004, helping fuel another 14–2 record and Super Bowl. 

Brady really became BRADY in 2004, with a spike in touchdown rate and yards per attempt. He was not even selected to the Pro Bowl the previous year.

We’re now at three championships, and calling Brady and Belichick “equal partners” at this point would be charitable to Brady. 

The quarterback continued to ascend, enjoyed a historic 50-touchdown, 16–0 season in 2007, and then … tore an ACL. The Patriots went 11–5 with journeyman Matt Cassel at quarterback in 2008. An early-season loss to the Dolphins and an overtime loss to Brett Favre’s Jets kept them out of the playoffs. Does that sound like a poorly-coached team or poorly-run organization that is hopeless without its quarterback to you?

As the 2010s rolled on, the Patriots grew more dependent upon Brady, and Belichick’s coaching staff grew more insular and less innovative. Still, the Patriots defense allowed the fewest points in the NFL in 2016, when they won the Super Bowl. That was the DeflateGate year, and the Patriots went 3–1 without Brady, their only loss coming when they sent an injured then-third-string-rookie Jacoby Brissett onto the field against the Buffalo Bills instead of fishing for a fourth-stringer. 

Belichick’s record in the 2020s is much less defensible. But it does not need to be defended. Coaches can grow complacent and predictable, get stale and lose touch with younger players and tactical advances. It happens to even the best ones after about a decade. It took two decades to catch up with Belichick. If Brady was propping the system up a bit in the final years, it was a fitting bookend to a partnership that started when Brady was the one who needed propping up.

As for the lack of a coaching tree: It’s certainly notable, but they don’t hang “Coaching Tree” banners in stadiums. Belichick’s job was to win Super Bowls, not make Matt Patricia smarter. Coaching trees make a fine supporting argument for a Mike Shanahan or Marty Schottenheimer Hall of Fame case. Belichick doesn’t need a supporting argument.

Even so, it was still a partnership in which both were critical at every point — Brady had numerous efficient, clutch performances in the early Super Bowl years, and they won their last Super Bowl together scoring only 13 points against an offense that scored more than 500 because Belichick spent 3 hours dunking Sean McVay’s head in a toilet.

It is trivially true that Belichick was only able to create a consistent winner with great QB play, because nobody creates a consistent winner without great QB play. It does not follow from this, however, that Super Bowls follow great QB play like night follows day — Peyton Manning, after all, won only one in which he wasn’t a replacement-level QB carried by a historic defense. The case for Shula over Belichick is not unreasonable, but by far the weakest part of Mike Sando’s is his yadda-yadding over Shula going 0-1 in Super Bowls with Dan Marino. Citing the zero-time Super Bowl champion Buffalo Bills as an excuse ain’t gonna fly, even leaving aside the fact that Marino was 29 the first time they won the AFC. As Bryan Knowles pointed out in explaining why the Kelly-Levy Bills ranked surprisingly low on his greatest dynasty list (RIP Football Outsiders), they were an excellent offensive team with a generally ordinary defense who made it to 4 Super Bowls (1 of which they were competitive in) in part because their conference competition was so weak. Belichick/Brady had to beat numerous teams (The Greatest Show on Turf, Manning’s Colts, The Legion of Boom) that were clearly better than the Levy/Kelly Bills, as well as multiple teams of similar caliber (Schottenheimer’s Chargers, Reid’s Eagles, McVay’s Rams.) And note too that Brady’s incredible comeback against the Falcons would have be foiled had Kyle Shanahan’s offense been able to get a single first down (or indeed not immediately getting knocked out of field goal range) after the Julio Jones circus catch. Belichick is one of the greatest coaches in North American pro sports ever, the end.

W/R to today’s games, now playing with hypothetical house money, I’ll take Dallas -7 and those damned McVay Rams +3, and I hope I’m wrong about the latter. Preview pod is here.