I'm also not saying "Tom Brady is a bum replace him with Matt Cassel and nothing changes!"
I'm saying "Tom Brady is very good but there are other comparable players in the league even during the time he was active, and swap in someone like Aaron Rodgers or Drew Brees and I doubt anything would change."
Meanwhile there is absolutely no one I would even consider near Belichick's level. There is no comparable person I'd say "oh, yeah, if person x had built the Patriots around Brady instead of Belichick I bet they'd have also been a dynasty too."
You need both for the dynasty, to have a multi-decade run like this, you need both the best coach and the best QB.
Belichick nails a few things... he changes the Pats systems every few years so they don't have to overpay for the level of quality he wants. If everyone runs the 3-4, he switches to the 4-3 (not always.) He also values versatility, which helps sub packages, which means they don't usually get caught the same way other teams do. He also kept away from drives that ended in long field goal attempts, because they tended to yield the same average field position as turnovers. That has changed a little bit, but, for a while a lot of coaches would be happy to drive 45 yards and try a long FG. Remember the old 'blame the kicker' mentality, but Belichick would rather blame the coach.
They also understand that the success of the offense relies on the success of the QB. That sounds obvious, but many teams just try to get a good QB and good WRs and a good OC, and don't really play to everyone's strengths. Almost every NFL QB is a good QB, and a few are great. But how many offenses are truly cohesive?
Who would I pick? Falcons were up 28-3 and the players were explicitly afraid of Tom Brady beating them. And Brady by far had a better 2017 than Billy Billy.
The Patriots came back not because oh Tom Brady remembered he was good but because Belichick is literally the best second half adjuster of all time. Again, Im not even convinced Brady is the best quarterback of his era, while Belichick unquestionable is the best coach.
Name QBs as almost good or better than Brady while he was playing and I could rattle off a decent list.
Name coaches almost as good or better than Belichick while he was coaching and no one even comes close.
Obviously Brady is very good, but tell me he gets swapped out for Manning, Brees, Rodgers, etc and the Patriots have likely almost just as many Super Bowls.
Say Belichick gets swapped out for literally any coach you want to name I dont care who at the beginning and they are responsible for the team building around Brady and they likely have zero.
Brady is not a transcendent player. Belichick is a transcendent coach. Its sort of the opposite of Green Bays situation, where I think almost any other coach in the league right now could get more out of Rodgers than what theyre currently getting. ---
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