How many times are BB guys going to have to fail before it becomes clear that NE is not a place where guys develop a broad set of skills?
I have a problem with the "BB guys aren't good HCs" for several reasons:
1) We are still talking small sample size.
2) MOST hires fail. About half of hires never make the playoffs. There is an asymmetry problem where winning percentage is 50% on average, but the successful coaches get to coach so much longer.
I looked at this a couple years ago and found median win percentage was about .465.
Just 1) and 2) are sufficient to show that having something like 2/7 coaches or whatever beat the average tells us nothing, but I'll also add:
3) It's kind of arbitrary who falls under whose tree. Schwartz, mentioned above, is not typically associated with Belichick. Crennel is, even though he was hired by Ray Perkins and coached under Perkins, Bill Parcells, Ray Handley, Parcells again, and Chris Palmer before Belichick hired him at the age of 54.
Vrabel played for Belichick for 8 of his 10 years as a starter (after having never started in Pittsburgh), was viewed as future coach material at the time, and went into coaching the minute his playing days were over. If you want to argue that he learned more from 3 years under Urban Meyer or 4 years under Bill O'Brien than he did in 8 years as Belichick's defensive play caller, go ahead, but I think we can still call him part of the Belichick tree.
Because Vrabel's pro coaching career was under O'Brien and O'Brien is a Belichick guy, Vrabel is at least a branch on the Belichick tree. But again, it's kind of arbitrary.
4) We have to consider context on some of these records, right? Crennel went 10-6 with the Browns, the only 10-win season Cleveland has had since they rebooted the franchise. He should get a medal for that; instead we're talking about him as a failure.
5) If we're going to talk Pioli, are we going to bring up Ozzie Newsome and Thomas Dimitroff? Fully like 1/4 of the league's GMs are on the scouting scale Belichick developed