Listen, i’m not saying his time isn’t coming to an end at the elite level. But one poor season in 23 years does not call for some of the revisionism occurring here lately. Arguably, the defences he’s still producing (2022, 2021, 2020) have kept the Patriots from rebuilding properly. It isn’t easy in this league to escape from 8-8 hell without a franchise QB.
“Brady made him”. You can use whatever stat you want here, but let’s use the most basic one. Points allowed per game. Of course there are influences here. Time of possession, special teams, ability to generate turnovers. But at its most basic level this is what determines the result of a game.
Brady had 20 seasons as a Patriot. He had a top 10 defence in 17 of them. In 3 super bowl victories, the Patriots played 3 of the top 15 offences in NFL history. 01 Rams, 16 Falcons and 18 Rams. 17 points, 22 points(pick six), 3 points. Even throw the record breaking 04 Colts in there, 3 pts. If we change to PTS per drive, he still has 15 top 10 defences!
Manning had 4, Rodgers had 3, Brees had 2. All three had great ball security and time of possession.
Is Brady the GOAT, yes. His consistency in clutch moments puts him ahead of the likes of Peyton and Rodgers. Did he make Bill the greatest defensive mind in history, no!
Brady record when scoring 20+in the playoffs: 32-4. Rodgers is 12-9 in this statistic for a direct comparison.
Average finish in points per drive among notable QBs
Brady: 9th
Rivers: 15th
Peyton: 18th
Rodgers: 18th
Brees: 20th
Mahomes: 20th
And we are trying to pretend Bill didn’t give Brady a significant advantage over his peers? Another 2 super bowls as a DC.
Here's the thing: Belichick followed his dad around, while his dad coached the US Naval Academy football team as a DC, and while Bill was a teenager. The Naval Academy, if you don't know college ball, is made up of guys who can graduate and work on submarines (or ships, or planes). In the modern era, sure they have a few man-mountains who get weird waivers... but basically Navy has always been an undersized team who run Triple Option against whoever they play, be that West Coast, pass-first, whatever. Navy's going to run the damn ball. Which means their defense better be pretty good.
Belichick's dad coached that defense, and wrote the book that most coaches cite as their favorite football book (Football Scouting Methods, about how to spot your adversary's weakness. I've read it. It's great.)
If you've ever been a teenage boy and laser-focused on something because you were passionate about it, or worked your ass off because you wanted your dad's approval... you know what's coming. Bill Belichick started becoming Bill Belichick when he was a teenager, watching film with his dad, laser-focusing as only a teenage boy can, working his ass off for his dad's approval, building neural pathways with tireless mental reps. He watched how his dad shaped Navy's defense week to week, trying to teach brilliant-and-determined-but-undersized engineering students how to brutally disassemble an opposing offense of meatheads.
You want to go into a laboratory and build a head coach who understands leadership, motivation, and football defense... you drop him into Annapolis -- one of the premier leadership schools in the world -- and you attach his father's approval, his possibly-on-the-spectrum-levels-of-focus, and his passion to the game of football, and then you give him 10,000 reps before he's 25.
Anyone who believes that guy got carried by a quarterback for two decades is delusional.