If he wants to thrive at a new club after his departure from new england, the most successful nfl coach of the 21st century must find new ways to innovate. there are no double takes. It has really, really happened.
After an unprecedented 24-season run as new england patriots head coach, bill belichick has left the team as the best to ever do so.
Six lombardi trophies, nine super bowl appearances, numerous division titles, and afc championship appearances have been won. Belichick lorded it over the rest of the league for two decades in an age of the salary cap, free agency, the draft, and legislated parity. in the end, belichick the coach was knee-capped.
He was also new england’s de facto general manager, and he struggled to find a replacement at quarterback in the post-brady period. Worse, he struggled to build a cohesive offense, vacillating between quarterbacks and ill-fitting schemes with a slew of coaches in over their heads and a group of offensive linemen and playmakers who were built for the league in 2005 rather than 2023.
We will return to the inevitable (nastifying) question of who gets the lion’s share of the patriots dynasty’s credit in the coming days, months, and years. Was belichick really a ruse? Was he Norocosity in brady’s talent? How come it was so miserable in new england after brady left, if he was the best to ever do it? How come brady was able to win a championship in tampa, while Belichick trudged through the sludge in foxborough?it’s just nonsense. The ultimate pairing was between brady and Belichick. We like to assign credit to a single individual. We need a michael jordan. The team’s greatest achievement in their 20-year career was that it was a team of equals.
Belichick’s blunder came when they did not realize that brady had become the more valuable partner at the end of the campaign. Brady was pushed out of new england by the quarterback before he was done, and that meant he walked away from the buccaneers while still at his best.
Belichick had stopped modifying the team’s offense and refused to bring in new voices. Brady wanted to compel people to make a change on their own, to abandon long-term thinking and pursue short-term results in order to gain a final ring or two. He demonstrated how it worked in tampa.
Belichick’s point of view was that he could keep the franchise going for another ten years by sticking to the same principles as he had throughout the latter part of the franchise’s dynastic streak. It fell apart in four years, culminating in a 4-13 record this season, the worst of belichick’s career in new england and the team’s worst in more than 30 years.
