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

[TecmoSuperJoe]

4 hours ago, Bolts223 said:

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.

I'm saying if they were in a more competitive division that year, with at least one heavyweight team from the AFC that season like KC, Tennessee, or the Colts. It would have been interesting to see if the Patriots still got the number one seed. The 4 games between the Patriots vs Colts/Titans (most of them in Foxboro) came down to the wire in 3/4 of them. Don't think it's a guarantee they still get the number one seed that year. 

We aren't talking about the legacy of the Saints or Cardinals.

 

[Hunter2_1]

16 hours ago, Kiwibrown said:

Should have stuck with Bledsoe, better arm.

All Blacks should have stuck with Marty Holah over Richie McCaw because he had less distance to travel to the ball at a ruck.

 

That's what your statement sounds like to me 

[JAF-N72EX]

I don't care. I'm just glad we don't have to deal with it anymore.

[mtmmike]

I believe belichecks record without brady is about 500.00

[Bolts223]

6 hours ago, PapaShogun said:

"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. 

I was talking about every time they were a 1-seed and made the Super Bowl. 

[Soko]

7 hours ago, PapaShogun said:

The Dolphins, Bills, and Jets have largely been a joke over the last twenty years 

So the fact that they have a higher win % vs other divisions than anyone else (when you exclude division winners) is 100% irrelevant in your eyes? And the fact that the AFCE has the most multiple 10-win teams is irrelevant in your eyes?

[LD696]

1 hour ago, mtmmike said:

I believe belichecks record without brady is about 500.00

How can you win 80 games in a 16 game season?

[mtmmike]

I believe belichecks record without brady is about 500.00

at Cleveland he was 4 games below 500 winning percentage.

[lancerman]

17 hours ago, PapaShogun said:

True, but all teams did have the same advantage of building up a squad for sustained success. Like the Giants, Cowboys, 49ers, and Bears. Redskins didn't have to deal with a salary cap, but they still had to deal with stacked squads in their way to a Super Bowl. I think I'd take Tom Brady in my pocket in a salary cap era, compared to finding someone like him in a non-salary cap era. 

I guess despite the hardware for Bill, it's not that clear, cut, and dry to me. I know for a lot of people it is though. 

It’s more about sustaining success. You hit hard on two drafts including and you basically have a decade worth of SB titles. Look how fast a promising Seattle would be dynasty need to cut people after a couple years.

Imagine if I told you the 2012-2013 version of Seattle was going to stay completely intact as is from that point until a few years from now. 
 

Belichick had to reload multiple times 

[lancerman]

17 hours 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. 

This is unfair. The Jets has a good run in the late 2000’s. They could have won multiple divisions during that time frame. 
 

The fact is if I took every division and said “okay I’m going to drop a team in that is going to have a 12 game win floor and they will beat every team regardless of context at an extremely high rate. 
 

The AFC East is like most other divisions. A front runner, two mid tier teams that are around .500 (maybe one thinking about a wild card spot) and a bottom feeder. That’s pretty consistent. 
 

The Pats have swept the division twice. Twice in 20 years. One year they swept their schedule. 
 

2019: one of their 4 losses was to a division team. 
 

2018: one of their 5 losses was to a division team. 
 

Take out those two losses and they gain a bye in one case and homefield in another. The division hurt more than helped them 

2017 33% of their losses was to the division (1 of 3). They played a first place schedule. Why didn’t the rest of the league play better 

2016 1 of their two losses was against the division. One team outside their division beat them out of 13 games 

2015: half their 4 losses were against the division. Cost them homefield and likely a SB berth

2014 again half of their losses were against the division. They played a monster schedule that year. Why did the division do more heavy lifting? Still resulted in a 1 seed 

2013, again half their losses were against the division, it cost them homefield against a team they hear in the regular season 

2012. This is a year you can say the division helped them 

2011. 1 of their 3 losses was against the division. They were the 1 seed. The other 2 losses were against the 2 seed and the eventual SB champions. 
 

2010 1 of their two losses was against the division. They murdered nearly everyone 

2009. Two of their 6 losses were in the division 

2008. Brady was injured they lose a tie breaker 

2007. They swept their schedule. Can’t blame the division when they played all the AFC division winners, the number 1 seed in the NFC, the eventual SB champions and another NFC wildcard team and they still went undefeated

2006 Half their losses were to the division. They likely win the SB with homefield if they don’t have those losses 

2005. 1 of their 6 losses was in the division. They didn’t do much anyways 

2004. Super dominant team. Lost twice. Once to the 15-1 Steelers. Once to a division rival 

2003 again half their losses were to the AFC East 

2002 didn’t win their division 

2001. 2 of 5 losses were to the division. Likely would have had homefield without it. Won SB anyways 

More often than not the division outperformed the rest of the league against the Pats and were the crucial losses that cost them playoff standing. They hurt more than helped and you can’t say the rest of the NFL did it’s job 

[m haynes]

This is easy.  Tom Brady and Peyton Manning were considered by many as equals.

Peyton won 2 SBs

Tom Brady has 6 SBs

If they are equal players. BB is the difference by additional 4 SBs

BB  is the reason for Patriots success.

[lancerman]

2 hours ago, mtmmike said:

I believe belichecks record without brady is about 500.00

at Cleveland he was 4 games below 500 winning percentage.

He’s under .500 without Brady. 
 

after Cleveland he went 5-11 in 2000 and 11-5 in 2008. So still 4 games under. Then 3-1 in 2016. So he’s 2 games under total 

[lancerman]

4 minutes ago, m haynes said:

This is easy.  Tom Brady and Peyton Manning were considered by many as equals.

Peyton won 2 SBs

Tom Brady has 6 SBs

If they are equal players. BB is the difference by additional 4 SBs

BB  is the reason for Patriots success.

This awful logic. 
 

Many didn’t view them as equals and many viewed Brady as more clutch and a better winner with Peyton’s argument being centered around stats. Peyton was carried by defense in his only two SB wins. Belichick needed Brady to play lights out vs Panthers, vs Seattle, and vs Falcons. Also needed him to execute the final drive vs the Rams (something Peyton would have struggled with in his first season as a starter) 

You can’t just arbitrarily call two guys equals and say the coach was the difference. They had completely different play styles strengths, weaknesses, and abilities to execute in certain. Peyton always had INT problems (especially at bat times), Peyton never won a SB playing well. Etc.

[m haynes]

2 hours ago, lancerman said:

This awful logic. 
 

Many didn’t view them as equals and many viewed Brady as more clutch and a better winner with Peyton’s argument being centered around stats. Peyton was carried by defense in his only two SB wins. Belichick needed Brady to play lights out vs Panthers, vs Seattle, and vs Falcons. Also needed him to execute the final drive vs the Rams (something Peyton would have struggled with in his first season as a starter) 

You can’t just arbitrarily call two guys equals and say the coach was the difference. They had completely different play styles strengths, weaknesses, and abilities to execute in certain. Peyton always had INT problems (especially at bat times), Peyton never won a SB playing well. Etc.

Lance    I'm sorry my rules my logic!  Just kidding  I don't really believe what I wrote. It's more like a Ha Ha

[TecmoSuperJoe]

7 hours ago, Yin-Yang said:

So the fact that they have a higher win % vs other divisions than anyone else (when you exclude division winners) is 100% irrelevant in your eyes? And the fact that the AFCE has the most multiple 10-win teams is irrelevant in your eyes?

The fact that they couldn't challenge New England on a consistent basis, and even outside of that were never a threat to get a Super Bowl the times they made the playoffs against anyone else. The Jets are the only team to make a conference championship between the 3 since the 2002 realignment, both times on the road (yes I know they beat the Patriots to get there one year). Reminds me of the Lions in the 1990s. They usually made the playoffs, but were never a threat to win it all, and weren't going to outdo the Packers. 

Every other division in the NFL since the 2002 realignment has had at least two teams make a Super Bowl except the AFC East and AFC South, which was also largely dookey from when the time the Colts dominated the division. Winning percentage if cool, but how do teams do in a gauntlet is also important. Patriots haven't had a bully in the division in the Brady/Belichick era for maybe outside of two minutes that then turned out to be a hoax. 

Edited April 8, 2020 by PapaShogun