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Who deserves more credit for the Patriots' success: Brady or Belichick?


notthatbluestuff

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11 hours ago, MikeT14 said:

We'll find out soon enough if there is a season.

If indeed.

9 hours ago, dtait93 said:

There will be

More and more, it's starting to look to me like the season may get delayed or even abbreviated.  No way there's not some football though.  Too much money to be made.

8 hours ago, Elky said:

Why can't it equally be both? This is like asking what makes a cake taste better between the icing and the actual cake.

Bad example; actual cake by a landslide.

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1 minute ago, PapaShogun said:

True, but playing in a pathetic division and acquiring homefield advantage almost every year partly because of that is a huge bonus that no other team in the league has had the last 20 years. Maybe ever in that span. They did have to deal with tough teams at times yes, but usually at their place. 

3/6 times they won the Super Bowl they won on the road.

2001: Won @ Pittsburgh

2004: Won @ Pittsburgh (Had to play a road game even with a 14-2 record)

2018: Won @ Kansas City

Edited by Bolts223
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6 minutes ago, Bolts223 said:

3/6 times they won the Super Bowl they won on the road.

2001: Won @ Pittsburgh

2004: Won @ Pittsburgh (Had to play a road game even with a 14-2 record)

2018: Won @ Kansas City

What about getting to the Super Bowl? How many road championship games did they lose? My argument wasn't that they couldn't win a road game. It's that only having to play two games most years (mostly at home) to get to the Super Bowl partly because 3 other inept franchises can't get their **** straight over the course of 20 years is a nice feather in your cap to have. The Patriots have been a great team, and they've been getting help from their division rivals. It's not their fault, it's just what happened. If we're gonna talk about what advantages/disadvantages dynasties have/had, I think it's fair to list that as one of them. 

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27 minutes ago, PapaShogun said:

What about getting to the Super Bowl? How many road championship games did they lose? My argument wasn't that they couldn't win a road game. It's that only having to play two games most years (mostly at home) to get to the Super Bowl partly because 3 other inept franchises can't get their **** straight over the course of 20 years is a nice feather in your cap to have. The Patriots have been a great team, and they've been getting help from their division rivals. It's not their fault, it's just what happened. If we're gonna talk about what advantages/disadvantages dynasties have/had, I think it's fair to list that as one of them. 

Honestly the only instance to where I think being in a bad division helped them get the 1-seed is 2011.

All the other times I think they were pretty clearly the best AFC team except for maybe 2017. But the Steelers choked in the divisional round anyways.

Like are you really going to tell me that in seasons like 2003, 2007 and 2016 that they wouldn't have gotten the #1-seed in any other division? 

 

Nobody criticizes the Chiefs for the AFC West being hot garbage this year which likely played a gigantic role in them stealing a first round Bye at the last minute.

But everyone will just dismiss 20 years of dominance with "Oh well the AFC East sucks."

 

Edited by Bolts223
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The Answer will always be Both because Neither would of accomplished what they did Together, Without the Other.  Could both have had success,  Won a SB or two, possibly,  probably.  But the 20 year 2 Decade Dominance of making 9 SB and winning 6, Absolutely Not!

It's the Chicken and Egg Dilemma. 

Who was more important Bill Walsh or Joe Montana?  Does Joe win 4 SB not playing in the WCO with Jerry Rice as a Bill, Buc, Viking or Lion? Walsh win 4 SB with any of the other 14 QB taken in the 79' draft including Phil Simms 2 rds earlier? No!

Them splitting this year will not change that answer either unless 1 actually Wins the SB. Which is unlikely!

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3 hours ago, Bolts223 said:

Honestly the only instance to where I think being in a bad division helped them get the 1-seed is 2011.

All the other times I think they were pretty clearly the best AFC team except for maybe 2017. But the Steelers choked in the divisional round anyways.

Like are you really going to tell me that in seasons like 2003, 2007 and 2016 that they wouldn't have gotten the #1-seed in any other division? 

 

Nobody criticizes the Chiefs for the AFC West being hot garbage this year which likely played a gigantic role in them stealing a first round Bye at the last minute.

But everyone will just dismiss 20 years of dominance with "Oh well the AFC East sucks."

 

2003 would be interesting. If they played in the AFC West in place of the Raiders or whatever, well they would have had to compete with the 13-3 Chiefs that year and the 10-6 Broncos. AFC South had two 12-4 teams. Yes the Patriots beat the Colts that year twice, and Tennessee in Foxboro twice. Doesn't necessarily mean they would have gotten the number one seed in the AFC, especially if it's the Colts, Titans, and Patriots in place of let's say Jacksonville. Don't think that year it's that easy. NFC that year in 2003 maybe. Depends what division they'd be in. 2007 they were the best team in the AFC. Same with 2016 and 2017.

2001, 2002, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2009 they definitely weren't the best team in the AFC to me. 

Chiefs did play in a bad division here which helped them this past year. We'll see if it continues for the next 15 to 20 years. 

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1 hour ago, Nabbs4u said:

The Answer will always be Both because Neither would of accomplished what they did Together, Without the Other.  Could both have had success,  Won a SB or two, possibly,  probably.  But the 20 year 2 Decade Dominance of making 9 SB and winning 6, Absolutely Not!

It's the Chicken and Egg Dilemma. 

Who was more important Bill Walsh or Joe Montana?  Does Joe win 4 SB not playing in the WCO with Jerry Rice as a Bill, Buc, Viking or Lion? Walsh win 4 SB with any of the other 14 QB taken in the 79' draft including Phil Simms 2 rds earlier? No!

Them splitting this year will not change that answer either unless 1 actually Wins the SB. Which is unlikely!

How did you decide which words to capitalize? I was trying to find a pattern.

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23 minutes ago, PapaShogun said:

2003 would be interesting. If they played in the AFC West in place of the Raiders or whatever, well they would have had to compete with the 13-3 Chiefs that year and the 10-6 Broncos. AFC South had two 12-4 teams. Yes the Patriots beat the Colts that year twice, and Tennessee in Foxboro twice. Doesn't necessarily mean they would have gotten the number one seed in the AFC, especially if it's the Colts, Titans, and Patriots in place of let's say Jacksonville. Don't think that year it's that easy. NFC that year in 2003 maybe. Depends what division they'd be in. 2007 they were the best team in the AFC. Same with 2016 and 2017.

2001, 2002, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2009 they definitely weren't the best team in the AFC to me. 

Chiefs did play in a bad division here which helped them this past year. We'll see if it continues for the next 15 to 20 years. 

This is the problem - when you are division swapping its really dishonest to just be like, "Let's switch out this divisions best team with this divisions worst team and see what happens." That's unrealistic and you could make many divisions look historically stacked if you did this. What if we swapped the Saints and Cardinals this past year? Imagine that NFC West. Chances are that the Chiefs/Broncos would have been hurt more by the swap than the Pats would have been because if you put the 2003 Patriots in the AFC West they would still be favorites over the Chiefs in Broncos in every game they played. The Patriots ultimately did beat the Broncos in Denver that year anyways, and it would be likely they'd beat them in New England as well. Being that they probably still hold the tiebreaker over Indy in this scenario yes they probably still are the 1-seed in 2003.

Edit: For what it's worth the 2003 AFC East was actually better than the the 2003 AFC West. Dolphins and Broncos both were 10-6 and second place in each division. Chargers and Raiders were both 4-12 and among the worst teams in the league that year. Bills and Jets were 6-10. By no means great but certainly better bottom dwellers of a division than what the Chargers/Raiders were.

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36 minutes ago, PapaShogun said:

2001, 2002, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2009 they definitely weren't the best team in the AFC to me. 

Not really sure the relevance here?

With the exception of 2001, none of these teams made the Super Bowl. Two of them didn't even make the playoffs.

And even in 2001 - the AFC East was actually a really strong division that year. Dolphins Patriots were tied atop the division at 11-5, the Jets were right behind at 10-6. That's 3 playoff teams from that division. The Patriots had to win a road game in Pittsburgh to get to the Super Bowl as well. To act like the AFC East being weak is the reason the 2001 Patriots were able to win is ridiculous. Maybe they weren't the best AFC team that year, but the division wasn't what enabled them to go on the improbable Cinderella run that they did.

My point was that in a lot of the years that they were the 1-seed and went to the Super Bowl they were just easily the best team in the AFC. 2003, 2007, 2014 and 2016 they were simply the best AFC team and it wouldn't have mattered what division you put them in.

2011 I'll say yeah, I think the Ravens were probably the better team than the Pats but that's one time in twenty years where this has happened. Big deal.

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4 hours ago, PapaShogun said:

My argument wasn't that they couldn't win a road game. It's that only having to play two games most years (mostly at home) to get to the Super Bowl partly because 3 other inept franchises can't get their **** straight over the course of 20 years is a nice feather in your cap to have. The Patriots have been a great team, and they've been getting help from their division rivals. 

Ive grown tired of posting the whole laundry list every offseason, so I’ll cliff note it. Everything since the Brady/Belichick.

- AFC East has the highest win % vs non-division opponents of any division when you exclude each division’s winner. 

- AFC East is T-4th in win %, if you take away each team’s most winningest franchise in that span out of the equation. 

- AFC East has the most multiple 10-win teams.

- NE has a higher win % vs 5 other divisions (AFCS, NFCS, NFCE, NFCW) than the AFC East. The lowest, and only percentage lower than .700, is the AFC West at .660.

- NE also has an NFL best win % against both teams that would make the playoffs that season and teams that would finish the season above .800 (Steelers are second in both categories, but not close with a % under .500). 

The argument to be made is that there hasn’t been a consistent threat the way Baltimore/Pittsburgh (and evening Cincy) have been to each other at times and that there’s no franchise QB to be seen, for the most part. Those are true. But over the last 20 sum odd years, actual W/L says the AFCE hasn’t been the dumpster fire it gets pushed as. There have been other teams, it’s just usually not the same one year-to-year.

Edited by Yin-Yang
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4 hours ago, Yin-Yang said:

Ive grown tired of posting the whole laundry list every offseason, so I’ll cliff note it. Everything since the Brady/Belichick.

- AFC East has the highest win % vs non-division opponents of any division when you exclude each division’s winner. 

- AFC East is T-4th in win %, if you take away each team’s most winningest franchise in that span out of the equation. 

- AFC East has the most multiple 10-win teams.

- NE has a higher win % vs 5 other divisions (AFCS, NFCS, NFCE, NFCW) than the AFC East. The lowest, and only percentage lower than .700, is the AFC West at .660.

- NE also has an NFL best win % against both teams that would make the playoffs that season and teams that would finish the season above .800 (Steelers are second in both categories, but not close with a % under .500). 

The argument to be made is that there hasn’t been a consistent threat the way Baltimore/Pittsburgh (and evening Cincy) have been to each other at times and that there’s no franchise QB to be seen, for the most part. Those are true. But over the last 20 sum odd years, actual W/L says the AFCE hasn’t been the dumpster fire it gets pushed as. There have been other teams, it’s just usually not the same one year-to-year.

The Dolphins, Bills, and Jets have largely been a joke over the last twenty years and haven't threaten the division on a consistent basis. That isn't because New England is just an unstoppable force as much as it's also the three franchises have just sucked plain and simple. Number crunching isn't necessary to see that. The last paragraph you wrote pretty much says it all. The Patriots haven't had a team like Baltimore/Pittsburgh/Colts in their own division during the Brady/Belichick era to push them around. That's an advantage. Just like the 49ers didn't in the 1990's NFC West with the Saints/Falcons/and Rams tripping over themselves for 10 years. That was an advantage. 

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5 hours ago, Bolts223 said:

Not really sure the relevance here?

With the exception of 2001, none of these teams made the Super Bowl. Two of them didn't even make the playoffs.

And even in 2001 - the AFC East was actually a really strong division that year. Dolphins Patriots were tied atop the division at 11-5, the Jets were right behind at 10-6. That's 3 playoff teams from that division. The Patriots had to win a road game in Pittsburgh to get to the Super Bowl as well. To act like the AFC East being weak is the reason the 2001 Patriots were able to win is ridiculous. Maybe they weren't the best AFC team that year, but the division wasn't what enabled them to go on the improbable Cinderella run that they did.

My point was that in a lot of the years that they were the 1-seed and went to the Super Bowl they were just easily the best team in the AFC. 2003, 2007, 2014 and 2016 they were simply the best AFC team and it wouldn't have mattered what division you put them in.

2011 I'll say yeah, I think the Ravens were probably the better team than the Pats but that's one time in twenty years where this has happened. Big deal.

"All the other times I think they were pretty clearly the best AFC team except for maybe 2017."

Your statement. You made it relevant when you said it. 

2001 is one year out of like twenty. The early 2000's was really the last time the division was even remotely competitive. I didn't imply that a weak AFC East was the reason the 2001 Patriots were able to excel. As you pointed out, their division was tough that year. I just don't think they were the best team in the AFC. 

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