Maybe It Was Brady

Bill Belichick is going to the Hall of Fame when he's done coaching.  That's obvious.  He's won six Super Bowls and been to nine as a head coach, he's third all-time in regular season wins, and the Patriots had a two-decade stretch of dominance unlike anything we've seen before (and may not see again).  A lot of that success, of course, came with future Hall of Fame quarterback Tom Brady.  In fact, as we've seen in the four years since Brady left New England, he might've been the cause of the Patriots' success.  Not Belichick.

In the 19 seasons Bradichick were together, the Patriots never finished lower than second in the AFC East.  They only missed the playoffs twice (going 9-7 and 11-5 in those two years, with Brady injured in one of them).  Outside of that 9-7 season, they won at least 10 games every year, which included four 14-2 seasons and that ridiculous 2007 campaign where they went 16-0 before losing to the Giants in the Super Bowl.  The Patriot Way became synonymous with excellence.

Brady left in 2020, signing with Tampa Bay.  The Patriots brought in Cam Newton as his replacement, but quickly learned life without Brady wouldn't be the same.  They went 7-9 (their first losing season since 2000) and missed the playoffs for the first time since 2008.

The next season, they drafted Mac Jones and things were looking up.  New England went 10-7 and made the playoffs as a wild card team.  Last season, the Patriots were 8-8 and in playoff contention going into the final game, but they lost to the Bills and missed out.  Which brings us to this year, which has been nothing short of disastrous.  The Patriots are 2-9 and the days of them dominating the NFL seem like a distant memory.

As for Brady, he won another Super Bowl in his first season with the Bucs.  The next season, Tampa Bay went 13-4, won the NFC South, and lost to the eventual champion Rams in the playoffs.  They finished 8-9 last year (after Brady retired, then unretired), but that was good enough to win the NFC South again.  The Bucs went a combined 32-18 in three seasons with Brady.  New England's record since the start of the 2020 season?  27-34.

Mac Jones is clearly no Tom Brady.  He's been benched multiple times and thrown 12 interceptions compared to just 10 touchdowns.  The Patriots are one of the lowest-scoring teams in the league, too, and their offense has looked anemic more often than not.  It's also worth noting that one of their wins, came on a 75-yard touchdown on the last play to beat the Jets.  Otherwise, they'd be 1-10.

New England is looking at a Top 5 pick in the draft.  Right now, they'd be picking third, but they have a realistic shot at No. 1.  And, seeing as this is expected to be a quarterback-heavy draft, Mac Jones' days in New England are pretty much done.  Turns out, he's not Brady's successor after all.  

Whether this is Bill Belichick's final season with the Patriots is another question.  Even before the season started, there was speculation he might retire, and that's starting to look more and more likely.  This obviously isn't how he wanted to go out.  But, with the way this season is going, it sure looks like Belichick's two-decade tenure in New England is coming to an end.  He is, after all, 71 years old.

Heading into this season, it was a foregone conclusion that he'd get his 300th win.  Most people figured it would come pretty early.  Instead, he had to wait until Week 7, when the Patriots upset the Bills 29-25.  Now it seems crazy to even think about the question of whether he'll catch Don Shula as the NFL's all-time coaching wins leader (which would be a reason for him to stick around past this season).  Shula's at 347.  Belichick's at 331.  He'd be looking at two, maybe even three seasons to get there.

Robert Kraft has said that Bill Belichick can coach the Patriots as long as he wants to.  Which sure makes it sound like whatever decision about Belichick's future is completely up to him.  That was several years ago, however.  While I have no doubt that Kraft meant it then and means it now, that doesn't mean he won't give Belichick a little nudge towards retirement.  He won't fire him.  That would show a complete lack of respect for Belichick and what he's done for the franchise.  But he can strongly hint that the franchise may want to move on after two decades with Belichick in charge.

I get why Belichick is still coaching.  He obviously loves it, but that's not the only reason.  The Patriots dynasty existed because of Bradichick.  But it was always a question over which one was mainly responsible, as well as whether one could win without the other.  So, after the divorce.  They both had something to prove.  Brady proved it.  Belichick still hasn't.

None of this takes anything away from what Bill Belichick has accomplished over his career.  He's earned the right to go out on his own terms.  If he wants to come back, mentor that young quarterback they draft in the first round and prove that this year was a fluke, that's his prerogative.  Likewise, if he's not interested in a rebuild at his age and decides now's the time to retire, that's also his prerogative.

But, what the last four years have proven is that Belichick can't be given all of the credit for the Patriots' dynasty.  If it was all him, they wouldn't have missed a beat when Brady left.  There, of course, was going to be a bit of a drop off when you go from arguably the greatest quarterback in NFL history to someone who's decidedly not a Hall of Famer.  But I don't think anybody expected it to be this much.  And this quickly.

This season has done nothing to diminish Bill Belichick's legacy.  He's still the second-winningest coach in NFL history and he'll still have a bust in Canton.  But he didn't build that Patriots dynasty alone.  Tom Brady is just as, if not more, responsible for those two decades of sustained excellence.  The last few years have shown just important Brady was.