That Time BB Was Wrong

Quiddity

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Oct 14, 2008
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It's like we're on 98.5 the Sports Hub all of a sudden with all the "hot sports takes" going on here.

He absolutely fucked up by not giving Brady a 2-3 year extension.
How did the Pats do with Brady in 2019? Any such notion that Brady could have done the same he did with the Bucs with this year's Pats team is idiocy. Perhaps they win 2-3 more games and squeek into a Wild Card round exit like they had last year. But they may not even do that. You can make this take if the rest of the team was as good as the Bucs or Chiefs teams were around their QBs. The Pats didn't thave such a team.

we saw that here. Brady accomplished what he did with the pats, while having almost no “star” supporting cast. And more often that not they got over that hump because of Brady.
Like I said previously. I think Brady was tired of having to carry the load for the pats for a full season for 10+ years. I bet it was frustrating and very emotionally draining for him. which I bet is why he lobbied to get AB to the pats. So he could at least have that one “playmaker”.
He had a Hall of Fame Tight End for the last 10 years outside of 2019. He had two amazing slot receivers in Wes Welker and Julian Edelman. They had good offensive lines for many of those years, and good defensive players too. How did Brady do in the Rams Super Bowl? Last I checked they had only 3 points until very late in the game.
 

brandonchristensen

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Without Brady, the Bucs don’t have Gronk or AB. Do they win without them? Who knows.

Speaking of which...was Miller on the field? I don’t remember hearing his name.
 

rodderick

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This is the correct take on the situation. without Brady, KC rolls to a win, and the national media is talking about Mahomes as....the next Brady. With Brady, TB demolished KC and Mahomes looks like a frog roadkill. He was terrible tonight, heaving up passes under pressure for the sake of it, and scrambling all over the place, also for no reason. He looked like a cross between the Russell Wilson and Roethlisberger, except with the bad parts of each. Now—even if Mahomes wins a bunch of titleX he’ll always have the “couldn’t beat Brady when it counted” asterisk.
Man, that 3rd and 15 heave to Hill really saved Mahomes' bacon. 7 quarters of pretty horrible play in two Super Bowls, if he had back to back losses while playing poorly the narrative of his whole career would have changed.
 

CaptainLaddie

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Thrilled for Tom. Love him forever.

They wouldn't have won a title this year with this team, COVID opt-outs, cap issues, and Brady. Plain and simple. Business decisions all around.
 

Euclis20

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Eh, they finagled the cap for several years, and won 3 Super Bowls. They tried for one last ride last year, with AB, Sanu, etc., and it didn’t work out. I don’t think there was a fuck up, more that things end.

Being a Pats fan was such an immense joy for nearly 20 years, I just can’t work up the bile some of you do.
100%. I get it, fandom is irrational, but I can't begin to conjure up any enmity for any of the parties involved. This was the most successful partnership in NFL history. It ended, as all things do. Nothing that happens after that diminishes what came before. Even if people say it puts an asterisk next to Belichick, so what?
 

luckiestman

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Thrilled for Tom. Love him forever.

They wouldn't have won a title this year with this team, COVID opt-outs, cap issues, and Brady. Plain and simple. Business decisions all around.
Would they have had as many covid options outs? What is the timeline.
 

scottyno

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Dec 7, 2008
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Adding Brady to the current roster would have meant 15m or so of talent off a roster that we already saw didn't have enough to begin with without giving him any new weapons this year. They probably win 8-9 games instead of 7 and still miss the playoffs and then everyone would have been screaming that they should have let him go.
 

Silverdude2167

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Brady is great and TB does not win the SB without him...but he went to a team stacked with talent.

Brady wasn't winning anything here this year and this thread would be maybe it's time to move on from the QB who doesn't show up for OTA's, work with rookies, and cannot fully elevate those around him anymore.
 

SMU_Sox

queer eye for the next pats guy
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100%. I get it, fandom is irrational, but I can't begin to conjure up any enmity for any of the parties involved. This was the most successful partnership in NFL history. It ended, as all things do. Nothing that happens after that diminishes what came before. Even if people say it puts an asterisk next to Belichick, so what?
Well said.

Putting an asterisk next to Belichick would be stupid. I know you aren’t arguing this but people who do... I mean do you want to penalize a Coach/GM from keeping one of the greatest QBs ever? This TB team might be the best ever Brady has played on in terms of starting 22.
Look at the obstacles Bill had and his strategies to overcome them: It’s hard to pick where they do in the draft and get top end talent consistently from the draft. So Bill tried to counter that with trading down a lot and taking multiple cracks at the apple. He also always took advantage of the league's comp pick formula. W/R/T free agency aside from leading the league in middle class free agents Bill also used a strategy more often than others - he traded later round picks or pick swapped to get vets that otherwise would have been cut by their teams. JMC is a recent example of that working out (though he sucked in 2020 but that's a tangent). Bill's gming typically built well balanced teams with lots of middle class guys to build solid complete teams that helped maximize the superstar contributors on the team. In the 18 healthy Brady years they went to the Super Bowl half the time. In all 6 wins the Patriots had well-balanced teams with top 5 special teams units. In 2/3 SB losses those teams were not well-balanced. That to me speaks to Bill the coach and the GM because no other coach and GM had that kind of consistent track record even with a HOF QB.

Edit: didn’t even mention Bill’s innovations to the game and his knowing how to find inefficiencies and counter trends. The number of things they do to stay competitive is incredible.

In the end though players play and coaches coach. You can't really compare the two. Brady doesn't get an asterisk for playing in a well-run and well-coached organization... that would be absurd too, right?

Does Bill also need an asterisk for working for Robert Kraft vs say Jimmy Haslam?

I think it is fair to say Bill is the greatest coach and GM of all time and Tom is the greatest QB of all time. Kraft might also be one of the greatest owners of all time which is important too.
 

lexrageorge

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The premise is dumb. The Pats would still have an aging defense and be bereft of talent at WR and TE even with TB12 under center.

The Pats defense in 2020 was not in the same league as Tampa's. The Bucs front 7 generated consistent pressure and chased Mahomes all over the field; the Chiefs had a pretty good offensive line. TB12 doesn't fix that; neither would Hightower and Chung opting in.

Last time Belichick was coaching in the Super Bowl, he came up with a game plan that held an explosive Rams team to 3 points. Brady gave us great memories; I will always be a fan. His performances in the 2nd half of the Falcons win, in the 4th quarter against the league's best defense led by Richard Sherman, in the AFCCG in KC, and even in the loss to the Eagles were absolutely epic. I find no fault in his winning a 7th. I also find no fault in the Pats feeling they had no choice but to let him leave via free agency. I wish it were otherwise, but, man, it was 20 years of greatness at the most important position in the game. Fans of no other team have had that.
 

NortheasternPJ

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Brady has stopped the Chiefs from a very likely threepeat.
And now they’re already $18m over the cap for 2021 with 45 players counting to it and that’s before Mahomes extension really starts to hit the cap hard (25m next year then almost 40m). The Chiefs are a great comp to the 2014 Seahawks. Both were on the verge of a dynasty and stomped to pieces by Brady before their QB really got paid. Seattle has been good but never got back there. Will be interesting to see if the Chiefs can overcome.
 

Phil Plantier

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What a crazy sentiment. If the Pats had Tampa's roster and Gronk had never retired and BB moved on, then sure, he was wrong. But Brady would have been watching the SB from the couch like the rest of us had he stayed. The Pats were not, in any way, a $30M/yr QB away from winning the Superbowl. So how is that BB was wrong?
also. We had a crap load of players opt out this year for covid.
Brady would not have saved the pats this season. We had to many holes and weak spots all across the roster.
Brady is great and TB does not win the SB without him...but he went to a team stacked with talent.

Brady wasn't winning anything here this year and this thread would be maybe it's time to move on from the QB who doesn't show up for OTA's, work with rookies, and cannot fully elevate those around him anymore.
The premise is dumb. The Pats would still have an aging defense and be bereft of talent at WR and TE even with TB12 under center.

The Pats defense in 2020 was not in the same league as Tampa's. The Bucs front 7 generated consistent pressure and chased Mahomes all over the field; the Chiefs had a pretty good offensive line. TB12 doesn't fix that; neither would Hightower and Chung opting in.

Last time Belichick was coaching in the Super Bowl, he came up with a game plan that held an explosive Rams team to 3 points. Brady gave us great memories; I will always be a fan. His performances in the 2nd half of the Falcons win, in the 4th quarter against the league's best defense led by Richard Sherman, in the AFCCG in KC, and even in the loss to the Eagles were absolutely epic. I find no fault in his winning a 7th. I also find no fault in the Pats feeling they had no choice but to let him leave via free agency. I wish it were otherwise, but, man, it was 20 years of greatness at the most important position in the game. Fans of no other team have had that.
Just to pile on, I think if you compared all 21 starters for the Bucs and the Pats (minus QB), you could make an argument for 5 Pats (Thuney, Mason, Gilmore, JC Jackson, D McCourty) being better than the Bucs counterparts. For 6 Bucs (Evans, Gronk, Godwin, Barrett, White, David) the Bucs had all pros and the Pats had replacement players (at best). For the other 10 positions, in 9 of them the Bucs players are clearly better than the Pats players (esp if you think that health is a skill). I think C is a tie.
 

luckiestman

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Belichick gets no asterisk from me. I already had him as one of the greatest and likely 1 but do rate Walsh and Gibbs very highly. I always come back to Gibbs winning with 3 different QBs and none of them great. Then everyone views his second rodeo as bad but I don’t. He stabilized that shithead owner’s team for a while and made the playoffs with mediocre to bad QB play.

Belichick’s record without Brady only hurts him within the discussion of the ultimate top tier.
 

BaseballJones

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Walsh never won without Montana. So how could he rank higher than BB? Gibbs truly did something incredible - winning three Super Bowls with those three different QBs. But I don't think people put Gibbs in the same category as BB.
 

Ralphwiggum

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Last night was great. Brady gutting the Chiefs and their messiah (and I like Mahomes) for the 2nd time in three years. Sure I wish it had been the Pats doing it, but that was not in the cards and watching Tom win again was the next best thing. Seven Super Bowls is . . . I don't even have a word for it. Mahomes is damn good and assuming reasonable health will be in Canton one day and will probably have multiple rings, but I feel good saying he's not going to play in 10 Super Bowls or win 7. 7! That's a half decade plus two more years of only winning Super Bowls. It's fucking insane.
 

luckiestman

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Walsh never won without Montana. So how could he rank higher than BB? Gibbs truly did something incredible - winning three Super Bowls with those three different QBs. But I don't think people put Gibbs in the same category as BB.
Walsh revolutionized football, imo. That is why I rate him so highly. 3/10 is pretty good too.

Also, did you just deperson me? Am I not “people?”, lol.
 

Sille Skrub

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Mar 3, 2004
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Sour grapes. BB wasn't wrong and Tom wasn't wrong either. It was time to part ways. Tom might have made this years team a little better but the receivers sucked. BB needed to rebuild and Tom needed a change of scenery. Shit happens.
Yep.

BB will be winning playoff games long after Brady hangs 'em up. It sucks, but it was time.
 

Dotrat

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Well said.

Putting an asterisk next to Belichick would be stupid. I know you aren’t arguing this but people who do... I mean do you want to penalize a Coach/GM from keeping one of the greatest QBs ever? This TB team might be the best ever Brady has played on in terms of starting 22.
Look at the obstacles Bill had and his strategies to overcome them: It’s hard to pick where they do in the draft and get top end talent consistently from the draft. So Bill tried to counter that with trading down a lot and taking multiple cracks at the apple. He also always took advantage of the league's comp pick formula. W/R/T free agency aside from leading the league in middle class free agents Bill also used a strategy more often than others - he traded later round picks or pick swapped to get vets that otherwise would have been cut by their teams. JMC is a recent example of that working out (though he sucked in 2020 but that's a tangent). Bill's gming typically built well balanced teams with lots of middle class guys to build solid complete teams that helped maximize the superstar contributors on the team. In the 18 healthy Brady years they went to the Super Bowl half the time. In all 6 wins the Patriots had well-balanced teams with top 5 special teams units. In 2/3 SB losses those teams were not well-balanced. That to me speaks to Bill the coach and the GM because no other coach and GM had that kind of consistent track record even with a HOF QB.

Edit: didn’t even mention Bill’s innovations to the game and his knowing how to find inefficiencies and counter trends. The number of things they do to stay competitive is incredible.

In the end though players play and coaches coach. You can't really compare the two. Brady doesn't get an asterisk for playing in a well-run and well-coached organization... that would be absurd too, right?

Does Bill also need an asterisk for working for Robert Kraft vs say Jimmy Haslam?

I think it is fair to say Bill is the greatest coach and GM of all time and Tom is the greatest QB of all time. Kraft might also be one of the greatest owners of all time which is important too.
Stop making sense! :)
 

Sille Skrub

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Will he? Do you think Bill will be coaching in, say, five years? Because I don't think he'll be in the league for much longer than Tom.
Yes. I think he's going to top Shula's win record.

I only give Tom one, maybe two more years. Tom has stated he wants to play until he's 45.
 

rodderick

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Yes. I think he's going to top Shula's win record.

I only give Tom one, maybe two more years. Tom has stated he wants to play until he's 45.
We'll see. The oldest HC in history is Romeo this year for Houston at 73, I think Bill winning playoff games at 75 is possible, but a bit of a stretch. Having his kids in the staff might prolong his career though.
 

joe dokes

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Belichick sold out to get the team to the last Super Bowls they were in. Brady wasnt bringing any reasonable form of this team to the SB, Tampa put a ton of talent around him
Just as TB sold out to win SBs during the time Brady has left.
 

Average Reds

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Will he? Do you think Bill will be coaching in, say, five years? Because I don't think he'll be in the league for much longer than Tom.
I’m probably closer to your perspective than Skrub’s, but I don’t think it matters in any case.

Brady was great last night and proved - once again - that we have never seen anything like him ever before and are unlikely to do so again.

BB proved that long ago and any attempt to denigrate him based on last night’s outcome is a prime example of motivated reasoning.

That said, people will try.
 

rodderick

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I’m probably closer to your perspective than Skrub’s, but I don’t think it matters in any case.

Brady was great last night and proved - once again - that we have never seen anything like him ever before and are unlikely to do so again.

BB proved that long ago and any attempt to denigrate him based on last night’s outcome is a prime example of motivated reasoning.

That said, people will try.
Oh, I didn't mean it to denigrate Bill in any way. I just think he doesn't have that much time left to win a lot of playoff games while rebuilding the roster wholesale (including finding a QB). It's more a function of circumstance, not his ability.
 

Caspir

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Yep.

BB will be winning playoff games long after Brady hangs 'em up. It sucks, but it was time.
No way. I'd call it a toss up that Brady outlasts Bill at this point. I think it's more likely that Brady has already won more playoff games post-BB than BB will coach in post-Brady.
 

Sille Skrub

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BB proved that long ago and any attempt to denigrate him based on last night’s outcome is a prime example of motivated reasoning.

That said, people will try.
Yep. It's short-sighted thinking to try and discredit BB for any past success BB has had while Tom is in Tampa.

It's a team sport. They had 20 years of unprecedented, historic success together and without either of them, we don't get to nine Super Bowls.

For some reason, some people have been trying to pin it one way or the other. I guess if you're spoiled for 20 years, your perspective can get skewed.
 

bosockboy

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No way. I'd call it a toss up that Brady outlasts Bill at this point. I think it's more likely that Brady has already won more playoff games post-BB than BB will coach in post-Brady.
Agreed. BB isn’t sniffing the playoffs until he finds a QB and he’s 68. Brady can probably play the elite game manager 3 more seasons and will restructure his contract as needed to keep as much talent around him as possible.
 

loshjott

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Well said.

Putting an asterisk next to Belichick would be stupid. I know you aren’t arguing this but people who do... I mean do you want to penalize a Coach/GM from keeping one of the greatest QBs ever? This TB team might be the best ever Brady has played on in terms of starting 22.
Look at the obstacles Bill had and his strategies to overcome them: It’s hard to pick where they do in the draft and get top end talent consistently from the draft. So Bill tried to counter that with trading down a lot and taking multiple cracks at the apple. He also always took advantage of the league's comp pick formula. W/R/T free agency aside from leading the league in middle class free agents Bill also used a strategy more often than others - he traded later round picks or pick swapped to get vets that otherwise would have been cut by their teams. JMC is a recent example of that working out (though he sucked in 2020 but that's a tangent). Bill's gming typically built well balanced teams with lots of middle class guys to build solid complete teams that helped maximize the superstar contributors on the team. In the 18 healthy Brady years they went to the Super Bowl half the time. In all 6 wins the Patriots had well-balanced teams with top 5 special teams units. In 2/3 SB losses those teams were not well-balanced. That to me speaks to Bill the coach and the GM because no other coach and GM had that kind of consistent track record even with a HOF QB.

Edit: didn’t even mention Bill’s innovations to the game and his knowing how to find inefficiencies and counter trends. The number of things they do to stay competitive is incredible.

In the end though players play and coaches coach. You can't really compare the two. Brady doesn't get an asterisk for playing in a well-run and well-coached organization... that would be absurd too, right?

Does Bill also need an asterisk for working for Robert Kraft vs say Jimmy Haslam?

I think it is fair to say Bill is the greatest coach and GM of all time and Tom is the greatest QB of all time. Kraft might also be one of the greatest owners of all time which is important too.
Wait, BB the greatest GM of all time? Or do you mean greatest combo coach/GM or all time? The latter has more weight than the former. Just GM? Not so sure. Hard to compare pre vs post salary cap, but I'd rank Bobby Beathard of the aforementioned Gibbs Washington teams as higher. Maybe best in the salary cap era? After Ryan Grigson, of course.
 

Ralphwiggum

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Oh, I didn't mean it to denigrate Bill in any way. I just think he doesn't have that much time left to win a lot of playoff games while rebuilding the roster wholesale (including finding a QB). It's more a function of circumstance, not his ability.
This is where I am. I think Bill is the best ever and last night doesn't change that at all, but he's 68 and the team is in jail in terms of the QB situation.
 

Morgan's Magic Snowplow

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I don't think there is much valid reason to question the decision to part ways given all the circumstances that existed at the time.

I do think you can reasonably wonder whether we would have been able to keep Tom and compete for another ring with him had we turned three first rounders on the offensive side of the ball in 2018-19 into more than Isaiah Wynn, Sony Michel, and N'Keal Harry. BB has earned just about infinite slack so I can't really complain. But that "what if" does stick with me.

In any case, I was just happy for TB12 and Gronk to win another. And to see them deliver one more fuck you to the haters out there, of which there are still many.
 

Section30

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I want Tom to win again in the next two years so that he can have the same number of rings as BB when they go into the Hall of Fame. Each has won without the other and that's OK.

bill8.jpg
 

jsinger121

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I feel like Belichick will be essentially what Chuck Noll was when Bradshaw and the Steelers core got old and retired. He had many mediocre years and hung on longer than he should have. Noll only won 2 playoff games after 1980 and was 93-91 and 2-4 in the playoffs. Just shows you how important it is to have a real QB in place especially in today's NFL. Quarterback is everything. You don't have that you probably aren't going deep in the playoffs let alone the Super Bowl. As I have said I am pretty skeptical that BB can rebuild this roster to a Super Bowl caliber at this stage. His drafting record the past half decade hasn't been good. BB the coach is still good.
 

NomarsFool

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I don't fault BB for not giving Brady the kind of contract he got from TB - I think that was the right decision.

I don't fault TB (too much) for going to TB and getting a market value contract*

* The only thing I do "fault" him for (at little bit), is putting any priority on getting a market value contract. Tom Brady, to a degree unlike any other football player ever, really doesn't need money. He could have played for Cam Newton money (just to take the absurd example) and it would not have made any material difference in his life.

There are a couple caveats to all this:

1) I don't know how Brady felt about playing for BB. If it really was a miserable experience for him, then I completely agree with his decision to leave.

2) Coming into the season, I would have thought that if Brady had signed on for "Cam Newton money" (again, just to take the extreme example), they would have had the salary cap flexibility to put a really good team around him. Obviously, they signed Cam Newton for "Cam Newton money" and the team around him stunk. So, that part is a bit of a mystery to me. So, Brady may have accurately predicted that no matter what he signed for with NE, they were not going to put a team around him as good as the team in TB. So, if the equation came down to 1) The best team I can have around me is in Tampa Bay, and 2) the team that is willing to pay me the most happens to be TB as well - it's a no brainer.
 

Mystic Merlin

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I think the security/commitment that his Tampa contract gave him was the key, and not so much the specific dollar value. 2/50M fully guaranteed makes him immovable for two years if their goal is to compete.
 

bluefenderstrat

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Yeah. We had no cap space and no playmakers on offense. It was a miracle Brady could do what he did with the pats all this time with the lack of”playmakers” on offense.

IMO he was tired of carrying the team on his back for 10+ years.
The idea that Brady did not have "playmakers" on offense is ridiculous--he's had an absolute array of high quality receivers and running backs throughout just about his entire Patriots career, and of course he made them better. The last couple of seasons, sure, the writing was on the wall and he didn't have the inclination or time to go through a rebuild. And they still won the 6th Super Bowl.
 
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Captaincoop

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Brady picked a spot where he had great weapons around him and the ability to recruit a couple more on top of that. It wasn't happening in New England, if he came back we were looking at a year somewhere between what we got in 2019 and what Cam ball gave us.

He did an amazing job (especially for a 43 year old) so that's taking nothing away from him. Even as someone who didn't want to see him win in Tampa, it was fun to watch him crush one more wannabe "dynasty".

As for Bill, he is unquestionably the best coach in NFL history, but there is also no question that Brady just gave haters all the ammo they will ever need to denigrate his legacy. "He couldn't do it without Brady" but "Brady did it without Bill". Also, if you want to take a page out of the Phil Jackson hating handbook, Belichick only won Super Bowls when he had either the greatest defensive player ever (NYG) or the greatest offensive player ever (NE).

For the record, I am team Belichick forever and don't think there's much of a chance Tom Brady is Tom Brady (TM) today if he wasn't drafted and groomed by Belichick.
 

RedOctober3829

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I love and believe in BB to eternity.

He absolutely fucked up by not giving Brady a 2-3 year extension.

It is wrong on all levels that Brady is not still a Patriot.
I would have loved to have TB12 a Patriot for life. However, I don't blame him for leaving. The poor drafting left them with a situation where they needed a hard reset salary-cap wise and Brady for the first time could choose where he can play and chose a team that was pretty close to being good. All they needed was good QB play and that offense would be great.

They did offer a 2 year extension, but it was apparent Tom just wanted to leave. So be it. I'm just appreciative that we had him for 20 years.
 

joe dokes

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I feel like Belichick will be essentially what Chuck Noll was when Bradshaw and the Steelers core got old and retired. He had many mediocre years and hung on longer than he should have. Noll only won 2 playoff games after 1980 and was 93-91 and 2-4 in the playoffs. Just shows you how important it is to have a real QB in place especially in today's NFL. Quarterback is everything. You don't have that you probably aren't going deep in the playoffs let alone the Super Bowl. As I have said I am pretty skeptical that BB can rebuild this roster to a Super Bowl caliber at this stage. His drafting record the past half decade hasn't been good. BB the coach is still good.
That's quite a prediction. If BB finishes up with Noll's 12-season run of post-SB medocrity (one 10-win season, 4 playoff seasons (2-4 in 6 games)), then yeah.
 

Leather

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BB is currently a victim of his (and Brady's) success. Years of drafting at the end of the round (or having the picks taken away for no good reason) placed them in a situation where they couldn't draft many impact players or have the capital to trade for many.

In the past 5 drafts, Tampa Bay has had 10 picks in the top 50.

New England has had 5.