NFL

There has long been hate towards Belichick and now that things are on the down turn for him they have taken advantage of the time to pounce on him. Whether that's jealousy because the Pats beat their team over and over again, or due to extreme media bias because he doesn't make their job easier.

Fact of the matter is that Belichick drafted Tom Brady. Belichick kept Brady as the fourth quarterback on the roster his rookie season. Keeping a fourth quarterback on a roster is virtually unheard of, yet Belichick did it. When Brady got his chance to start the next year expectations were in the toilet. Bledsoe was not only the number one pick in the draft but also signed the biggest contract in NFL history recently. By the time Bledsoe was healthy and ready to return the Pats were around .500. Belichick kept Brady in as the starter and got absolutely demolished by the media and fans for doing so. While there was a decent amount of Brady support the majority was on the Bledsoe side, especially among those with influence. There were calls for Belichick to be fired over picking Brady over Bledsoe. The Pats first Super Bowl contained a grand total of 1 Tom Brady TD pass the entire playoffs. In the Super Bowl, the Pats scored 20 points, of which 7 was on a pick six, 10 were off of short fields produced by the defense forcing turnovers and 3 points were on the last drive of the game where even John Madden was doubting Brady could do it. When the season was over Belichick traded Bledsoe to the Bills and kept Brady and once again faced a lot of heat over it.

With all that said, in what universe can it be said Brady made Belichick? At that point it was the other way around. Belichick was the one who had faith in Tom Brady and stuck with him despite all the people blasting him for doing so. It is total revisionist history to act like it was simply luck that Brady became the QB rather than Belichick drafting and developing him and putting him in the position to succeed despite the claims from so many "experts" that Belichick was an idiot for relying upon Brady.

Now Brady certainly improved his game significantly over time and I would say that the dynamic eventually changed such that Brady was more important to the team than Belichick was. But Brady doesn't become that if Belichick didn't develop him and put him in that position. If Brady isn't drafted by the Pats odds are pretty good as a sixth round draft pick that he's out of the league within a couple of years and never gets the chance to become the GOAT.

Also as a Pats fan who has been supporting Brady since 2001 I can say for a great many years I heard non-stop that he was just a system QB. That Peyton Manning was better. That Donovan McNabb was better. That Michael Vick was better. Insert numerous other QBs throughout the years. I also heard non-stop that Brady had an unfair advantage because he had Belichick as his coach. That he could rely on great defenses while other QBs could not (ironicaly if you look at Peyton Manning and all the failing he had in the playoffs up until he finally won it in 2006, it was nearly always the offense letting the team down, so people were often totally wrong on that anyway). Years later people want to pretend like none of this ever happened. Years later people who blasted Brady for years, in some cases decades suddenly now act like they always claimed he was the GOAT.

To me it's never been all or nothing. The Pats won 6 Super Bowls and went to 3 more because of Belichick and Brady being there together. Neither would have had the success without the other. By the end of his career Brady gets the nod over Belichick because he won a Super Bowl without him. And he was always the one on the field actually getting it done. But this recent mentality that its all or nothing and that Belichick rode on the coat tails of Brady and deserves 0 credit for developing him is absurdity.