The best football coach of all time is...

[AngusMcFife]

28 minutes ago, lancerman said:

No it’s not.... winning a lot in a short period of time means you got a really good crop of players drafted and won a bunch with them. Lombardi got the benefit of no free agency and got to hold onto everyone for a decade to do all his winning. Belichick retained exactly one player for 20 years and has won with rosters that have been completely different.

 

Also you are out of your mind if you think the Pats had bad defenses from 2014-2018. Even 08 was solid. Really it was 09-12

Lombardi took over a 1-10-1 team. He built a championship from scratch, and coached those players up until they were great. Try again. 

And NE was 31st in defensive DVOA in 2017. Terrible defense. 

[AngusMcFife]

39 minutes ago, lancerman said:

No it’s not.... winning a lot in a short period of time means you got a really good crop of players drafted and won a bunch with them. Lombardi got the benefit of no free agency and got to hold onto everyone for a decade to do all his winning. Belichick retained exactly one player for 20 years and has won with rosters that have been completely different.

 

Also you are out of your mind if you think the Pats had bad defenses from 2014-2018. Even 08 was solid. Really it was 09-12

"The most amazing thing about Lombardi’s feat is he turned the team around with essentially the same players who were so awful before."

You are obviously ignorant of history. 

 

[lancerman]

23 minutes ago, AngusMcFife said:

"The most amazing thing about Lombardi’s feat is he turned the team around with essentially the same players who were so awful before."

You are obviously ignorant of history. 

 

Belichick had a 5-11 team and turned that around. I fail to see your point. He got a bunch of HOF’ers and rode them with the lack of a salary cap. 

[AngusMcFife]

1 hour ago, lancerman said:

Belichick had a 5-11 team and turned that around. I fail to see your point.

First off, Belichick didn't inherit a 5-11 team, he inherited an 8-8 team and then went 5-11. He didn't build that defense, it already had Molloy, Bruschi, Law, Johnson, McGinest, etc. 2000 was just another Brady-less season for Belichick in which he did absolutely nothing. 

Quote

He got a bunch of HOF’ers and rode them with the lack of a salary cap. 

"HOFers" who went 1-10-1 without Lombardi. He also found and developed many players during his tenure. Try reading a book. 

There's no point in comparing Belichick with coaches throughout history if you are obviously ignorant about older coaches like Lombardi and what they accomplished.

[Mr Bad Example]

21 hours ago, AngusMcFife said:

Also I don't really see him making any lasting coaching innovations that have transformed the league in any meaningful way. Part of coaching greatness involves creativity. 

Belicheck is a guy who works up custom gameplans for each opponent; I've spent 20 yrs watching him completely blindside opponents because they came in expecting the Pats to do (x) on offense and (y) on defense, and they come out with something no one has ever seen. 

Just because he hasn't done something thats replicable or has a snazzy name like the 46 Defense or the Veer offense doesn't mean he isn't creative. 

[Mr Bad Example]

3 hours ago, lancerman said:

No it’s not.... winning a lot in a short period of time means you got a really good crop of players drafted and won a bunch with them. Lombardi got the benefit of no free agency and got to hold onto everyone for a decade to do all his winning. Belichick retained exactly one player for 20 years and has won with rosters that have been completely different.

Lombardi actually won 5 in SEVEN years. And then left right when most of the primary players were starting to hit their sell-by dates. This is not to say he wasn't an amazing coach, but he timed things well - by 1968, key cogs Taylor, Hornung, McGee, and Kramer were gone, and that's just on offense. 

[AngusMcFife]

1 hour ago, Mr Bad Example said:

Belicheck is a guy who works up custom gameplans for each opponent; I've spent 20 yrs watching him completely blindside opponents because they came in expecting the Pats to do (x) on offense and (y) on defense, and they come out with something no one has ever seen. 

Just because he hasn't done something thats replicable or has a snazzy name like the 46 Defense or the Veer offense doesn't mean he isn't creative. 

I agree, and I'm support the idea that Belichick is clearly the greatest coach of the modern era (post-1993 free agency). 

But I think it is naive to think he is clearly the greatest of all time when you consider Lombardi's accomplishments, or consider that he didn't transform the game like the way Paul Brown or Bill Walsh did. 

I'm just arguing Belichick is among the greatest coaches, not head-and-shoulders above the rest of the field. 

[Jakuvious]

10 hours ago, AngusMcFife said:

Lombardi winning 5 championships in 10 years is much more impressive than Belichick winning 6 in 26 years. 

It's not clear to me why coaching in the modern era is harder than coaching in earlier eras. If you look at all time winning % of coaches, there are plenty of modern-era coaches in the ranks (Reid, Tomlin, Peyton, Jim Harbaugh, Sean McVay, John Harbaugh). I'll definitely grant you that Belichick is the greatest of the modern era coaches, no question.  

I'm not sure which game you are considering the "greatest defensive performances in Super Bowl history." The 2nd Rams one? It doesn't even come close to the Ravens demolition of the Giants. Having a good game against Goff just isn't that impressive. There are plenty of other better defensive Super Bowl performances. 

It has become clear that in the past 20 years, having an elite QB is the single biggest determining factor in a team's success. Belichick is the only coach lucky enough to have an elite QB for 18 years whose play never really deteriorated over that time. That's luck. And Belichick hasn't really done anything without Brady as a HC. 

Also, for a defensive mastermind, its remarkable that the NE defenses were mediocre to bad from 2008-2018, right after getting caught for Spygate. That's just a little suspicious, IMO.  

The easiest way to explain this is just quantity and level of competition. To win a championship in 1961, you had to be the best out of 14 teams, and you had to win one playoff game. Lombardi had 9 career playoff wins. I don't want to think about how many superbowls Belichick would have if the standard was just, have the most wins in conference, and then win one game. Statistically, your odds of winning a championship in 1961 are better than your odds of winning a conference in 2020. That's why teams repeatedly making and/or winning championships in short secession was so much more common back then. The Giants make 5 championships in 6 years around the same time. The Bobby Layne Lions made 4 in 6 years, winning 3. The Browns made 11 in 12 years. And it's the same on the opposite side, with teams that just perpetually sucked. Fewer teams just allows for more stagnation like that. Throw in no free agency, and you had less of a means for the bad teams to get better and good teams to get worse. I don't think it's necessarily that coaching now is harder, that's a good bit harder to say. But achieving consistent results was definitely easier back then, just from the setup of the league.

[AngusMcFife]

15 minutes ago, Jakuvious said:

The easiest way to explain this is just quantity and level of competition. To win a championship in 1961, you had to be the best out of 14 teams, and you had to win one playoff game. Lombardi had 9 career playoff wins. I don't want to think about how many superbowls Belichick would have if the standard was just, have the most wins in conference, and then win one game. Statistically, your odds of winning a championship in 1961 are better than your odds of winning a conference in 2020. That's why teams repeatedly making and/or winning championships in short secession was so much more common back then. The Giants make 5 championships in 6 years around the same time. The Bobby Layne Lions made 4 in 6 years, winning 3. The Browns made 11 in 12 years. And it's the same on the opposite side, with teams that just perpetually sucked. Fewer teams just allows for more stagnation like that. Throw in no free agency, and you had less of a means for the bad teams to get better and good teams to get worse. I don't think it's necessarily that coaching now is harder, that's a good bit harder to say. But achieving consistent results was definitely easier back then, just from the setup of the league.

Yes there were fewer teams. But the clearest and most obvious factor in winning games in the modern NFL is having an elite QB. Having one of the 3 or 4 elite QBs is such a colossal advantage in the modern NFL, and that makes the game very distinct from the game from the 1960s. Having 32 teams does not really offer up real competition when teams are led by JP Losman, EJ Manuel, Geno Smith, Chad Henne, etc. Having more teams in the league simply means that the QB talent is watered down to the extent that 20+ teams have no realistic shot at winning due to QB play.  

Lombardi coached in an era where you couldn't just ride one great player to 11+ wins every season. All his units had to be tight and coherent, not driven by a superstar. The coaches had a much bigger impact on the game in that era, and were more responsible for wins and losses than today, which is QB-driven.   

Belichick had a top-5 all time QB who more or less sustained his peak for 18 years. And the only reason he had him is because he was lucky nobody drafted him in the 5th round of the 2000 draft. That's not really his skill at coaching, just luck. 

If Belichick can show he can lead a great team without Brady, that'd be impressive. But he never has despite having many opportunities, and probably never will.  

[SBLIII]

14 hours ago, AngusMcFife said:

Lombardi took over a 1-10-1 team. He built a championship from scratch, and coached those players up until they were great. Try again. 

And NE was 31st in defensive DVOA in 2017. Terrible defense. 

NE did not have a single great defense from 2005 to 2018. His biggest coaching accomplishment were the elite defenses in 2003 and 2004, and the defensive SB performances in 2001 and 2018.

The reality is that Belichick won a ton with the greatest player in NFL history. How much of that is on him is impossible to say because said player got to a losing franchise TWICE in his career and won the SB in his first season TWICE. I've already read several times how great Byron Leftwich suddenly is now. Laughable.

I think Belichick is an elite coach. But there isn't even evidence that he ever was, much less the greatest coach of all time. 

I wouldn't take Lombardi either. To say he coached up Hall of Famers sounds nice but the reality is a different one. You can't coach up bad or even solid players into All timers. The Packers got incredibly lucky and drafted incredibly well. Lombardi would not have succeeded if they did not.

The clear greatest coach of all time in my eyes should be Joe Gibbs. 

It absolutely should not be possible to win SBs with 3 different QBs. 

 

I also still think to this day that the 1991 Washington Redskins team is the greatest team of all time.

[Mr Bad Example]

12 hours ago, AngusMcFife said:

But I think it is naive to think he is clearly the greatest of all time when you consider Lombardi's accomplishments, or consider that he didn't transform the game like the way Paul Brown or Bill Walsh did. 

Curly Lambeau was the first coach to REALLY popularise the passing game and won 6 championships, but I'm not seeing him mentioned here. 

 

And one last thing on Belicheck's innovation - he didn't come up with the spread, the slot WR, 2 TE sets, or positional flexibility, but the reason those concepts are so popular in 2021 are because he used them to great success over the past 15-20 yrs. So he's been innovating, just not "inventing." 

Edited April 26, 2021 by Mr Bad Example

[Mr Bad Example]

On 4/26/2021 at 6:07 AM, SBLIII said:

 

I also still think to this day that the 1991 Washington team is the greatest team of all time.

That team gets wildly underrated because it wasn't part of a dynasty of a multi-year run (I think they were 10-6 the year before and 7-9 the year after) or rife with Hall of Famers, but man they just crushed damn near everything in their path. 

[Nzd07]

Even as a Vikings fan, Belichick has to win one without Brady to be considered over Lombardi (hope he does )

Edited April 29, 2021 by Nzd07

[SBLIII]

9 hours ago, Nzd07 said:

Even as a Vikings fan, Belichick has to win one without Brady to be considered over Lombardi (hope he does )

At this point I would settle for a couple good seasons and be in contention. 

[ThatJerkDave]

Danny O'Shea was undefeated, and he did it using a bunch of castoffs and a girl, with no real practice facility.