It’s All Tom Brady, Right?
By: Jason Krebs
Tags: NFL, Sports, Tom Brady, Bill Belichick, New England Patriots

Everyone says that the 2 people who were the best ever in football were on the New England Patriots at the same time. Those 2 people, who have been ruining my fandom, just happened to be in the same football division of my favorite team, The New York Jets. When I say, “everyone,” I mean analysts, reporters, players, agents, management, announcers, pundits, annoying Patriot-fan friends, cab drivers, Uber drivers, Lyft drivers, bus drivers…everyone agrees. So let’s talk about Bill Belichick and Tom Brady.

My pragmatic side kept telling me that something was amiss. How is it possible that the 2 best people in America’s most popular sport just happened to not only have careers that coincided with each other, but also be on the same team at the same time?

I needed to dive into numbers and facts, as it’s related to a subject I’ve written about before. I love understanding how coaching matters in the world, let alone in the world of sports (it’s already been proven that managers aren’t difference-makers in baseball). Many books have been written about the value of professional (not just sports) coaching and I don’t want to quibble with that abstraction. But in this instance, how much of this “Best Ever” label should be attributed to the future Hall of Fame player or coach?

At the beginning of the 2020 season, there had been exactly 500 head coaches in the NFL over the last 99 years, about 30% of whom have coached just 1 year.

Coaches and Quarterbacks

Regarding quarterbacks, let’s say there are 64 QB’s in the NFL every year (we know there are more, but let’s stick with 2 per team). Let’s be very generous and say that the average career of a QB is 5 years. So every 5 years, there are 64 new QB’s. That would be roughly 1,000 (64 x 15) quarterbacks over the past 75 years. We can cut that number by 20% to account for the number of franchises there used to be vs. the 32 we’ve had for almost 20 years. But we also know that there are more than 64 QB’s on rosters each year (there were 107 active QB’s listed on NFL.com for 2019 with 57 making at least 1 start).

We can agree that at least 1,000 men have played QB in the NFL and 500 men have coached in the past 75 years. Are we to believe that the 2 best ever just happened to have shown up at the same time on the same team? Quite the coincidence.

Now do all great QB’s have a terrific coach? No. But the opposite is more likely. There are 26 head coaches in the NFL Hall of Fame. Eighteen of them have coached from 1960-present day and 13 of them have had Hall of Fame quarterbacks playing for them (soon to be 15 of 18). In other words, 72% (83% shortly; see chart below) of the greatest coaches in the game just happened to have a Hall of Fame QB to help them along. What another coincidence? Flip a coin 18 times and tell me if it comes up heads 15 times.

Many of you might be thinking, “I know what I see and I know that Bill Belichick is a great coach.” Ok. Good for you. But you will have to acknowledge that a staggering 81% of Belichick’s wins as a head coach have come with Tom Brady as QB.

Let’s put that 81% into context. There are two coaches ahead of Belichick in career wins. One is Don Shula who won 56% of his 347 wins with not just one but two Hall of Fame QB’s (92 wins with Griese and 116 with Marino). The other is Paul Brown whose most successful QB (Otto Graham) won 35% of his 326 victories. Other successful coaching/QB tandems can be found here. Rest assured, nobody who has over 150 coaching wins comes close to 81%.

2008 — The year Brady was out.

If you are a Patriots fan and still reading this, you can’t wait to bring up 2008, when Brady went down in the first game and Belichick heroically coached that team to 11 wins. Well, 2008 was one year after the Patriots had an undefeated regular season and a Super Bowl appearance. The best coach ever went on to miss the playoffs with that team, while starting a QB who 2 years later was the 9th rated QB in the league and in the Pro Bowl with 27 TD’s (yes, that’s Matt Cassel). Those 11 wins in 2008 came against teams with a combined 40% winning percentage and their 5 losses were against teams with a 65% winning percentage. That’s right, the 2008 Patriots had an easy schedule and they only beat the bad teams. They still missed the playoffs 1 year after going 16–0.

Brady wasn’t that good early on. It was Belichick’s defense that won for them.

I’ve heard that reasoning a lot. It’s not true. In his first 6 years, Brady was never less than the 10th best QB in the league. You can see the numbers according to the QB ratings listed year by year on Pro Football Focus. I’ll also add in his ranking of his salary cap hits amongst other QB’s. In only 8 of his 19 years with the team was Brady even in the top 10 highest paid quarterbacks. This means that the Patriots have had the best QB ever while simultaneously having more money to spend on better players across the rest of the roster.

Playoffs, Coaches and Hall of Fame QB’s

Belichick’s coaching record in the playoffs without Tom Brady: One loss and 1 victory. ONE victory with the Cleveland Browns 26 years ago in 1994. Do you know how many NFL coaches have at least 1 playoff win without Tom Brady? 125. Bill Belichick is as good in the playoffs, statistically, without Tom Brady as 125 other coaches in NFL history.

Here’s one random coach I chose 😎 to show career playoff coaching victories without Tom Brady:

Rex Ryan — 4

Bill Belichick — 1

Coaches and Quarterbacks

Do you know how you can tell that success in the NFL is not about the coaches? Only 1 coach in the history of pro football has ever won a championship with 2 different teams: Weeb Ewbank (Colts & Jets). Only 3 coaches have won Super Bowls with more than 1 QB: Weeb, Bill Parcells and Joe Gibbs.

And isn’t it all about the quarterbacks? In the 54 Super Bowls played, 38 of them (70%) have been won by a team with their QB in the Hall of Fame (or sure to be like Roethlisberger, Brees, Brady, PManning). If we add Russell Wilson and Pat Mahomes then it goes to 40 of 54 (74%). I won’t add Eli Manning because...ok (Giants fans) I will, then it goes to 42 of 54 (78%).

When it comes to the Hall of Fame itself, there are 26 quarterbacks enshrined. 22 of them (85%) have won NFL, CFL, AFL or Super Bowl Championships.

Back to Tom Brady.

Is he the single best football player to ever play the modern game? His excellence doesn’t just end with his arm:

His ability to move out of bad field position makes his defense better.

His ability to call out defensive coverage makes his offensive line better.

His audibles into the right running play make his running backs better.

His knowledge of where to throw the ball and delivery of a perfect pass make his wide receivers better.

The year before Tom Brady went to the Buccaneers, they had the 29th ranked defense in the league. One year later with Tom Brady they were ranked 8th.

How many players leave Tom Brady and stay as productive on another team?

Yes, the entire point of this article is to show you that he makes his head coach better too.

Why is it that when coaches have terrible QB’s, they won’t win and are soon fired? Yet, we clearly have the greatest quarterback ever, who is still playing in what was by far the longest career of anyone of his stature, in a historically bad division through 2019, with historically bad competition, and everyone attributes an equal amount of that success to the coach.

Ask yourself: When have you ever thought an NFL coach did a good job for any stretch of time when there wasn’t a terrific QB playing for him? The short answer is, not often. Surely there will be some notable cases but largely the notion stands.

I just gave you over a thousand words of irrefutable facts and well-informed proclamations. But don’t just take it from me, a disgruntled Jets fan. How about Peter King, on 10/28/2019:

“Soon, maybe starting in 2020, Belichick will have to win without Tom Brady, who will be 43 in the 2020 season. The Patriots did win 11 games in the only season Brady missed due to injury, but Belichick has basically had the best quarterback of all time — arguably — for 18 of his 20 New England seasons, and 244 of his 300 wins. Can he win without him? As competitive as Belichick is, he has to feel what many around the league wonder in whispers.”

What about Bob Ryan’s thoughts, The Sports Reporters podcast — October 28, 2019.

“…Around here It’s just so weird trying to find reasonable people on the subject of the Patriots….all this winning has created so many cult-like people that think they can do nothing wrong.”

There you have my fact-based OPINION on this matter. If that’s not good enough for you, I’ll allow that it’s maybe a little bit of Belichick.

But it’s really ALL about Tom Brady.