Fair point. Not really criticizing the method and more criticizing not doing whatever it took to keep TB12 until his arm fell off. BB was great at pivoting from strategies on the field. Might have wanted to do it off the field as well. In fairness, we’re also hearing only 1 side of the story and we’ll never know BB’s thoughts on this. Maybe TB12 was too sensitive.
yes, I can see that style not working when things are not going well. Clearly it worked for a very, very, very long time.
no doubt Brady was an enormous part of this both on and off the field. I guess my question is, if Belichick was always this brutally difficult to play for him everybody hated it, why the hell did so many players keep coming back for more under him? Answer: because they won like nobody else in the history of the league.
Yup. We all watched Pete Carroll’s style ruin a SB team so zero complaints about how BB ran the operation. But he probably should have given a little towards the end, if he didn’t, to keep TB12 happy. But maybe it was too late anyways. In any event, now that we are GOAT-less, I’m good with a new style.
Also helps to explain the struggles of BB assistants who get HC opportunities. When success is not immediate, the approach wears thin quickly.
It’ll always be a bit of chicken or the egg. But clearly once Tom left, the winning ceased. Like Amendola says in one of these trailers “We worked for Bill, but we played for Tom.”
The team had just made 4 SB in 5 years and won 3 of them. Maybe the coaching style, as well as his football knowledge, helped…
Obligatory reminder that Saban did well (wasn't his fault the Dolphins signed Culpepper), Daboll got a Daniel Jones team to win a playoff game, and Flores was undermined by his GM and owner the minute he arrived in Miami.
These are worthless platitudes. Bill created the roster and helped coach all elements of the game, including those over which Brady had absolutely no control. Also, they were there to work, so I don’t even take that as an insult. I think many of the players will acknowledge that he was a giant pain in the ass, but also made them better at their job and more likely to win. I don’t think this went over Bill’s head btw, I think he purposefully had leaders who could ease the pain with teammates and I also don’t dismiss the possibility that Bill might have thought having him as the bad guy might have brought the team closer together.
Yeah, I have a hard time believing Matthew Slater is going to take time out of his day to endlessly shit on BB, especially considering he was still playing for him at the time.
I do recall players praising Bill's hard ass preseason workouts after the comeback from 28-3. I do recall Jason McCourty saying he had a lot more fun winning a Super Bowl than playing for a team that went 0-16 the prior season.
You didn't really make a point other than seemingly Bill drove Tom away and ruined everything, did you? My counterpoint is that there very likely would have been far less to ruin had BB not coached the way he did. Also, Brady was here for 20 years, so is it really fair to say he drove Brady away? He stayed for 20 years and 9 Superbowls, and BB got him to stay at a reduced contract rate. Of course Brady himself gets credit for that, but I have to think at some point Tom Brady made these decisions because he saw the benefits of having Bill Belichick as his coach.
I clarified my point in subsequent posts.- my original point was an admitted driveby. For all we know, BB the GM made a poor evaluation and that’s what drove all this. But none of us will truly know the dynamic.
Bingo.
When did Brady throw Guerrero to the curb? I thought they were still friends and business partners?
Yeah...I don't think I ever suggested that or think that happens, but ok?
https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/tom-brady-alex-guerrero-dissolve-business-partnership-as-tb12-store-in-foxborough-shuts-down-per-report/
I'm aware of that. My point, as Lex was saying above, is I highly doubt that the full story of what Matthew Slater is going to tell about BB reflects in that single quote. I'm not doubting that playing for BB was difficult, but I am certainly doubting that Slater's appearances on this documentary, unless selectively edited, will reflect an overall negative outlook towards BB. Matthew Slater made the choice to re-sign here a billion times, including after Tom left.
Agreed, I don't think looking at both the upside and downside of Belichick's approach is somehow trashing Bill or the organization. "it grew old and wore thin on Brady that he could never get Belichick's unqualified approval" is a theme with a lot of echoes throughout sports and, like, human relationships and history. That they made it all work for 20 years together is the remarkable thing, not that it eventually ended in something other than a Hollywood "lived happily ever after" fashion.
I mean the team the team played hard till the end of this season.
They certainly could have cracked around 2009-2010 with everything that was going on with the team at that point. That was basically their low point in terms of performance overall. I wonder if the Scottish Game had gone differently they actually might have separated then.
In one of those Football Life specials on Bill Walsh, he talked about how he had very little contact with most of his former players. Walsh acknowledged that he was mainly to blame for that because the job required sacrificing personal relationships.
And unless Slater was totally BSing me, I can tell you he holds BB in the highest regard. It still may have been so demanding that at times it was brutal, but then Slater did keep coming back for more, because he knew this was the way.
My guess is that it's a pretty even split of players who appreciate that style and players who find it really grating. I also think that some of these quotes are referring to the fact that Brady played for Bill for 20 years. I imagine that the level of critique and demands can become tiring.I mean, Jabrill Peppers was quoted after the Steelers win saying how good it felt to get a win for Bill and the coaches because they were drawing up good game plans all season but the players weren't executing, sure doesn't sound like a guy who was dreading coming to work every day. The "Brady was like an abused dog" quote I mean come on. I'm sure some players hated Bill (especially ones like Welker who Bill had clearly soured on) but I'm sure there were a bunch who liked being pushed to be their best. And I keep thinking of the video of Bill in training camp commenting on Mayo not spending his money and then being told he had 3 trucks and joking with him, "who needs 3 trucks?" It was light hearted and I know I've seen a bunch more of those moments throughout the last 20 years. If this is a bash Bill fest for 6 episodes it's going to really bum me out
My heart hurts reading both those sentences. Man it was a fabulous run!! I hate it had to end badly!!
Unless BB retired after winning a championship (or close), it was always going to be a situation where people were unhappy, and the press, of course, eats that stuff up. Especially the press who were not treated very well by Belichick and who have been waiting for decades to give him his comeuppance.
Great point.
The only thing is that people tend to be a package. Bill is a package: his tactical brilliance is unquestionable. His overall approach to a season in terms of keeping a team focused deserves to be applauded. He's known as an outstanding teacher, especially on defense. Along with that comes a distant personality, which is necessary as he was also the one buying the groceries. And he had a reputation of being difficult to play for. But the overwhelming majority of his ex-players still have high praise for him.
The Chiefs have another what 10 to 15 years to replicate what the Pats do, maybe a bit early to question BB's approach.
If KC has Mahomes, they will be competitive. For the 20 years Brady was with the Pats, they were competitive every year. Then they didn't have Brady and were marginally competitive, at best.
They have good since 2013 starting with Alex Smith with records of 11-5 (WC Loss), 9-7 (missed playoffs), 11-5 (loss Divisional), 12-4 (lost WC), 10-6 (lost WC). Insert Mahomes in 2018 and the Chiefs have elevated into a super power.
Eh, I'm not sure I agree. I take your point; there are a million ways to run a team and certainly there are some highly successful ones that don't include BB's infamous joylessness. And sure, perhaps if you just subtract the joylessness out, it would have run the same. But also, perhaps not. Kind of a big assumption. Just because Reid and Mahomes can make it work that way does not mean that it would have worked here. Perhaps BB's forever-criticism inspired TB to max out his body in a way that wouldn't have otherwise happened, or his brutal conditioning may have been the only thing that allowed a player to make a key late-game-winning play. We simply don't know. But just because some people can win "the Chiefs way" as it were, doesn't mean that it will work for anyone or that specific parts of "the Patriot way" not present in the chiefs way were unnecessary.
I’d bet Reid approac is a lot closer to Belichick’s than say McDaniel wanting to be invited to hang out with his players.
Of course, neither you nor I were in the building and had to deal with whatever work conditions were present at Patriot Place. All I know is:
What interests me is Kraft's role in this too. How much did he apprehend what was happening? Why did he choose BB (who even then was in his late 60s) over TB in 2020? The runway for both was short. He's always seemed to tolerate BB personally, while obviously respecting him and benefiting greatly from his efforts, but I think he'd always choose the guy who was more like a son than the guy who he struggled to connect with on a personal level. I know there were some comments recently that suggested regret over the decision but they were still vague.
The move to a 17 game schedule and the adjustments to the playoff format will also make it more difficult over time. It's much harder for a team to avoid catastrophic injury when you are potentially playing up to 21 competitive games. Although I'm sure we'll get two more playoff teams eventually and go back to the top 2 seeds getting a bye.
