For twenty years we who are fans of the New England Patriots were blessed to have both the greatest Head Coach and Quarterback combination of all time in Bill Belichick and Tom Brady. With the unprecedented success in winning six Super Bowls in nine trips to the big game also came a question: which one was more important?
Celtics President Danny Anige has pointed out the stupidity of this debate. He stated that people don’t generally ask if Red Auerbach or Bill Russell was more important racking up all those earlier Celtic Championships. Yet the debate was often used as a form of attack when anyone wanted to downplay the accomplishments of one or the other. “Belichick isn’t that great of a coach, he just has Brady. Look at his record with the Browns anybody could look good with Brady as their quarterback.” or “Brady isn’t that great he just had Belichick all those years. If Peyton Manning had Belichick as his couch how many do you think he could have won?”
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| Mutual admiration |
When asked the two normally will give credit to the other one. Belichick will often utter the line, “Players win games, not coaches” and Brady will say that he owes Belichick for teaching him everything he knows.
With Brady leaving the Patriots for the Buccaneers this year and leading them to the Super Bowl this Sunday the debate is now tipping in Brady’s favor and will continue to do so if they win. If the Bucs lose with Brady performing well but fail to keep up with Mahomes’s offensive onslaught, then it might swing back to Belichick with people remembering how the Patriots defense handled the Chiefs in the AFC Championship game two years ago.
In my own view the two compliment each other they both bring a certain level of success to the team and together they augment each other's greatness. I have watched every game that the two were in together and saw nine trips to the Super Bowl. My take of the six victories three of them both men were equally responsible for, two Belichick was more responsible for, and one Brady was primary. Of the three losses one was more Belichick’s fault, and two were Brady’s. Let us take a look at each of these to explain why.
2001 New England Patriots
2/3/2002
More responsible for win: Belichick
The memory that most have about Super Bowl 36 is Brady in the final minutes of the game driving his team down the field to set up the winning field goal with no time remaining. It had been a hell of a year. The franchise quarterback, Drew Bledsoe had been injured in the first game following a return to football after the 9/11 attacks. Taking over the backup quarterback, a sixth round draft pick named Tom Brady, showed some promise by almost winning that game. The Patriots went on a Cinderella run, a team that never won the Super Bowl before was going to become one of the positive stories about the year 2001. To his critics Brady was a game manager who made quick short passes and whose long ball was questionable at best. However he was effective and supported by a shutdown defense, Belichick elected to keep him in even after Bledsoe was healthy to return. Although Bledsoe got to come in and have some heroics in the AFC Championship game after Brady was hurt, Brady was still selected to start the Super Bowl after some debate.
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| Moment of Victory! |
He may have been selected MVP but you would hardly see why watching the first 50+ minutes of the game. During this time the Patriots offense was like a car with a poor starter. They were repeatedly three and out, and when they actually got a first down it was normally followed by a punt three plays later. I think they may have had one drive in the first quarter where they had two first downs but I am not sure. The story of that Super Bowl was not its offense but its defense.
The Rams of this era were known as “The Greatest Show on Turf” but the Pats defense, led by the likes of Ty Law, Richard Seymore, and Lawyer Malloy, overwhelmed them. Kurt Warner was able to move his offense up and down the field but were prevented from scoring with forced stops and turnovers. As the first quarter came to a close the Rams offensive juggernaut was limited to just two field goal attempts, and one of them was missed.
In the second quarter the Pats offense was not providing much assistance while the defense was doing all that it could. Not only did they hold the Rams scoreless but Ty Law intercepted Warner for a pick-six to put the Patriots on top with a 7-3 lead. As the quarter came to an end Antwan Harris forced the Rams to fumble in their own territory and the Pats were able to recover. Starting in their opponent’s territory Brady was able to drive it down the field and complete his first touchdown pass to David Patten. The first half ended with the Pats up 14-3.
The third quarter was a replay of what the earlier game had been with the Rams moving it up the field with no result but still holding on to the ball longer than the Patriots. Otis Smith intercepted a pass and brought it back to the Rams 30. Brady and the offense went three and out again, so the Patriots settled for a field goal. 17-3.
By the fourth quarter the defense of the Patriots started to show signs of exhaustion but they weren’t done yet. With the Rams at the Pats goal line about to score, the Patriots forced another fumble and Tebucky Jones ran it all the way back for another 97 yards touchdown to put the game out of reach for the Rams. Or would have if there hadn’t been a penalty for holding on the play. The Rams now had first and goal from the goal line and were able to punch it in to put them down by a score. When the Pats had the ball back they did a quick three and out and it went back to the Rams again. The Rams marched down the field and tied the game with a 1:30 left in the quarter. The Rams comeback win seemed inevitable. The way the Patriots were playing it didn’t seem like they had it in them to win by way of their offense. But then they did. In a now legendary drive Brady drove it up the field to set up a game winning field goal by Adam Vinatieri.
Brady deserves credit for those last minute plays to secure the victory but the lion’s share of credit for that win belongs to Belichick.
If I were a sports documentarian I think a good documentary would be about the 2003 New England Patriots and the 2003 NFL season as a whole. After the Bucs beat the Raiders in Super Bowl 37 there was a good deal of discussion about how the era of great quarterbacks was over and from now on it was going to be strong defenses with okay or moderate quarterbacks. It turns out we were heading into the Brady-Manning era which would be led by great quarterbacks with the rivalry between the top two as the centerpiece. Yes the two had faced off twice in 2001 but those were Brady’s first start and first road start with no one expecting anything from him and the Colts were an off year that would lead to the firing of their head coach, Jim Mora.
Despite the disastrous start where they were blown out 31-0 in the opener they rallied back and finished with a 14-2 record. In the playoffs they beat the co-MVPs that year Payton Manning and Steve McNair.
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| Happy? |
The Super Bowl against the Panthers was one of my favorites. Two great defenses tore into the offenses at the start of each half and continued half way into the 2nd and 4th quarters respectively. It was nearing the end of each half that the two defenses were worn down leading to a quarterback duel between Tom Brady and Jake Delhomme. At the end of the first half Brady and the Pats were on top 14-10, but during the shootout in the second half Delhomme and Panthers managed to see it tied 29-29. That is when Brady led the Pats offense on another miracle drive that ended with another game-winning Vinatieri-kick.
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| Again! |
That year the offense and defense were equals that complimented on another. Both the Head Coach and Quarterback deserve equal credit for this one.
“Yes, it is a dynasty!” The announcer said after the Patriots secured their third win in four years. Very much like the previous year’s team, except for a better running game with the acquisition of Corey Dillon, the Patriots finished this season 14-2 and took down the Colts and Steelers led by the likes of Peyton Manning and Ben Roethlisberger respectively.
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| A master at work! |
The Super Bowl was a duel between two evenly talented teams who in the first two quarters matched each other score for score. In the fourth quarter the Pats were able to pull ahead by ten and the Eagles were only able to pull within three as the game ended on a Rodeny Harrison interception. Like the season before the offense and defense were perfect complements and the Head Coach and Quarterback deserve equal credit.
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| On the wrong side of sack for Mr. McNabb |
The Super Bowl that we Patriot fans hate talking about the most: the loss of the perfect season. I am going to make this quick. In Brady’s defense you could say he had his team up by four with less than three minutes to go. However like Super Bowl 36 I am judging this by the whole performance not just then end of the game. If your defense holds your opponents to under twenty points and you have one of the most explosive offenses in the history of the game (with Randy Moss and Wes Welker as your star receivers)then that needs to be a win. Yet, they were only able to put up two scores. Ironically, earlier that week Brady joked about a Giants player’s 20-17 Giants prediction when he said, “You think we’re only going to score 17 points?” If they did they would have tied and gone to overtime.
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| One of the worst days of my life! |
2011 New England Patriots
2/5/2012
More at fault for loss: Brady
Rubbing salt in the wound the Patriots fall again to the same team that denied them their perfect season four years prior. The same thing almost happened again. The Pats got three more points this time but you had a great offense that for some reason couldn’t beat a team who your defense held to under twenty points. (Yes I understand the Giants scored 21 but 2 of those came on a safety when Brady threw out of bounds in his own end zone on the opening their drive.) God, it was an ugly game.
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| Here we are again. |
Like Super Bowl 36 everyone remembers how this one ended. The Malcolm Butler interception at the goal line the game’s last moments to seal the win. You might think we would credit Belichick more. The Coach gets credit but the lion’s share of this one belongs to Tom Brady. The way the sliced threw the so-called “Legion of Boom” leading the team back from a ten point fourth quarter deficit to a four point lead by the way of two touchdowns. The game that truly ended the Manning/Brady debate as the same defense had squashed Manning’s Broncos in the previous Super Bowl.
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| Whose the GOAT? |
No chance...
28-3 that is what everyone remembers about this game and for good reason. The Patriots down 28-3 in the third quarter rallied to the greatest comeback in the history of the Super Bowl. With this game, both Brady and Belichick were both equally responsible for both getting themselves in the deep hole and also equally responsible for getting them out. It was a unique combination of offense to assemble the points combined with a defense that held the other side to none and created opportunities with turnovers.
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| ...at all |
Yeah this loss is on Belichick. When your quarterback throws for over 500 yards and the offense scores 33 points and you’re supposed to be a defensive genius then it is on you to win. When your big decision before the game is to bench one your top corners who won you the Super Bowl three years ago. I don’t know who else to blame but the coach in this situation.
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| This one is on the coach |
Like their first Super Bowl appearance when they also played the Rams, Brady and his offense couldn’t score more than 13 points. Those are normally losing numbers but when you have a defense that performed as well as theirs did that day it was nine points more than needed. That one was “In Bill We Trust.”
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| Defense wins championships! |
