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.
I think there’s a couple factors that are influencing this:
The failures of these patriots teams are heavily on Belichick’s hands. The Matt Patricia OC era was completely unforgivable and while you can blame that on Patricia himself for the bad offense you really have to blame Bill for placing him there in the first place. As a GM, Bill has done a very poor job in almost every area. So not only do these patriots lack talent because of Bill, but the offense specially is struggling because of Bill’s complete lack of effort/incompetency in fixing it. Week to week, he’s definitely still an amazing defensive coach, and his defenses are incredibly well put together, but that’s one half of a football team.
The patriots have dominated for so long, that everybody roots on their downfall probably 10 times as hard as any other team. Only the cowboys (for whatever reason) get even close to as much hate as the pats get. For two decades people have been wanting to see the day where they can watch the patriots and go “Wow this guy needs to be fired!!! This team stinks!”