Bears are likely signing Nathan Peterman to their practice squad. They didn't have interest in bringing PJ Walker back. He was horrendous in camp and preseason games.

I was physically shocked by how horrible this picture of David Carr is, that CBS is using. The longer I stare at it the weirder his head look. Why is his face concave? How are all his features below his ears?

Matt Corral to the Pats isn't something that I figure was on many bingo cards

I don't think they were happe with Zappy as the backup. Also unlikely, even at his age, Belichick would mistake Matt Corral for Matt Cassel, who was Brady's understudy for a long time - even taking them to playoffs in 2008 when Brady suffered his only serious career injury in the season opener.

The connection is interesting. Carolina picked Corral in the third round last year after trading up with the Patriots. The Patriots used one of the picks they got back to get Zappe in the fourth round. Then Corral got hurt in a preseason game against New England and missed his rookie season.

Cassel had a good season in '08, the Pats went 11-5, but that was the only season they missed the playoffs between 2003 and 2019.

That's right. I had forgotten - they were the only 11-win team to miss the playoffs since the NFL went to 12 playoff teams in 1990.

I don't want to get too hyperbolic here, but as a Pats fan I feel this is kinda/sorta a make-or-break year for Belichick. Not just because Kraft is making noises about the lack of playoff experiences, but because it's starting to really feel like a big part of Belichick's success involved having Brady as QB.

Yes, it was always a good team, but also yes the fact that they were often able to skimp on offensive skill players because they had Brady and Brady gave them a relative discount anyway, take a little of the shine off the idea (IMO) that there was something sort of genius-level going on there.

Yes, he's still a very good coach, and at their best some of those Pats teams were relentlessly unstoppable, but I'm more-and-more of the opinion that without Brady it's probably 1-3 SB wins, not 6.

This is probably a shitty hot take, so feel free to cut me down, that's what we're all here for. :D

I don't think they get a single SB without Brady, or atleast an equivalent that would be able to take care of the ball and score points. It's hard to win SB's in the NFL. It's even harder to win them when you have a bad QB. It also has to be easier to win them when you have a legendary QB back there.

I think having both of them helped a lot, as did finally having stable ownership in New England. A lot of things have to go right to have a run like that.

And Belichick can always say that Bill Parcells got to 3 Super Bowls, but none without him.

Edit: And we still don't know exactly what the process was that led to the Brady pick (the QB coach was a big part of it, and he died shortly thereafter), though Belichick probably should get at least a lot of credit for that, as well as sticking with a 6th round QB into season 2 and making him the top backup.

I don't think it is taking anything away from him by acknowledging that NFL teams depend on great QB play to win Super Bowls. He is among the best ever (if not the best ever) when he has an elite QB, but between Cleveland and post-Brady New England, he is a hair under .500 in 8 seasons (with guys like Bernie Kosar, Vinny Testaverde, and Mac Jones).

Mike Shanahan and George Seifert looked like Hall of Famers with elite QBs and average or worse without. Hell, Chuck Noll spent about 10 years at .500 or worse once Bradshaw declined.

I'd bet Belichick would be right back in yearly contention if he had Josh Allen or Burrow.

Montana/Walsh
Brady/Belichick
Brees/Payton
Aikman/Johnson
Mahomes/Reid
Roethlisberger/Tomlin

There are certainly exceptions, but great coaches and great QBs tend to come in pairs for obvious reasons, and it is fair to say that neither would be as great without the other.

I was listening to a podcast that speculated about whether Arthur Smith would be on the hot seat if Atlanta goes under .500

What do we think?

On the one hand, my general sense is that people think he's a good coach. And Atlanta has been rebuilding, so no one expected him to win a ton right off.

On the other hand, you are what your record says your are, and starting out <.500 for three straight seasons isn't going to do it in a win-now league like the NFL.

So, if they win < 8 games, is his job in serious danger?

It seems like the best coaches are the ones that know when to get out of the game at the right time. Johnson, Walsh, and Payton got out at the right time (I'd maybe throw Dungy and Cowher in there, too, but they had some success without great QBs, too).

There's a lot of great QBs who don't get to a Super Bowl. There are probably a lot of great head coaches who don't get to a Super Bowl too, we just don't know who they are, because, unlike QBs, winning is the only metric we have to evaluate coaches.

Maybe the greatest head coach ever was some forgotten guy who gutted out some 8-8 seasons with garbage QBs.

Finding the best HC to never have a winning season might be an interesting exercise.

Greatest 8-8 coach? Jeff Fisher of course!

<----- did indeed look up Jeff's profootball-ref page before posting

Now I am looking to see who got the most years in without ever going over .500.

So far, I have Joe Bugel with five seasons and his best record was 7-9.

A lot of the guys that jumped to mind (Herm Edwards, Wade Phillips, Dave Wannstedt, Romeo Crennel, Dick Jauron, Leslie Frazier) had one or two pretty good seasons. Otherwise, guys don't seem to get more than 3/4 years.

It's probably going to be an older coach like Tom Landry (who went 6 years without a winning season).

Bruce Coslet would be a contender but for an interim year. 8+ years between the Jets and Bengals and had two 8-8 seasons and a 7-9 season and a 6-10 season, plus a playoff appearance with the Jets in the 90's (that has to count for something). But, he filled in for David Shula when he got fired by the Bengals in '96 and went 7-2.

The best quarterbacks that he had were Tony Eason, Kenny O'Brien, late career Boomer Esiason with the Jets and then Jeff Blake, Scott Mitchell, and Akili Smith with the Bengals.

Yeah, but we are going for never having a winning season. A lot of those guys listed got mileage (and 2nd and sometimes 3rd jobs) out of one or two good years where they hit 11+ wins and/or won their division.

Here's a guy that I have no recollection of, but never had a winning season in six full seasons and three partials (assuming he took over midseason once and was fired midseason twice): Marion Campbell Record, Statistics, and Category Ranks | Pro-Football-Reference.com

The Brady/Belichick argument is always a good one. Belichick was one of the first to realize that receiver play is more than creating mismatches.

He was a defensive backs specialist at first, but his dad had taught him obsessive, military-like scouting. So he knew exactly how opponents would react to his receivers. Belichick didn't create mismatches, he created scenes. Receivers would work in tandem, each crossing a throwing window in sequence.

Brady got it. His genius was in being able to make a smart decision faster than anyone else. He didn't have Peyton Manning's arm, but his arm was good enough. He didn't have Manning's receivers and he didn't obsessive scout opponents the way Manning did. But he worked just as hard and the results were similar.

It's hard to say how many titles the Patriots win without one of those two. Age is now a huge factor with Belichick. He and Pete Carroll are 71. The average of the other 30 head coaches is 48. Coaches don't really sleep during the season. I don't see how Belichick could be the same today he was ten years ago, with or without Brady. I'd hesitate to make any conclusions about his career based on how the team has done post-Brady.

Oh, I certainly remember the Swamp Fox (and I bet Jon does, too). It's easy to say he was a crappy HC, but I really don't know how much he was working with, at least on those Eagles teams.

I remember Marion Campbell. Good DC, not so good HC.

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It's kind of crazy that someone can coach football for decades and decades at the highest level. It's almost a different sport over the course of a 30-40 year period. If Belichick makes it to next season, it will be his 50th consecutive year as an NFL coach. He's already made it longer than anyone else, he's got a few years on Dick LeBeau. His career just feels a little different than some of the other older legend types because he's spent 20 of those seasons as an assistant.

Manning and Dungy went to and won a single Super Bowl in seven seasons right in the middle of Manning's prime.

Shula and Marino were together for 12 seasons (not counting 1993) and went to a single Super Bowl, which they lost.

Payton and Brees went to and won a single Super Bowl in fourteen seasons.

Montana and Walsh had three Super Bowls in eight seasons, but even that impressive run is surpassed by the Pats 2011-2018 in which the Pats won three Super Bowls, lost two Super Bowls and lost in the Conference championship the other three seasons.

Regardless of the quality of coach or quarterback, the kind of success that Brady and Belichick shared can't be achieved without both essentially being the very best at what they do (ie. based on history, a very good coach and an all-time great QB, or vice versa, does not reach the levels of success that Brady-Belichick achieved).

Belichick deserves more of the credit for their first dynasty. There's probably a list of 6-8 guys that the Pats could have won Super Bowl's with in that era. Brady deserves some credit for taking care of his role within the system, but he certainly had many peers at that time who were considered better quarterbacks.

I think however that Brady eventually became Belichick's equal and they share equal billing for that second dynasty. Each might have won a Super Bowl or two in that time span without each other, but no way do they get to five nor win three without each other.

In terms of Belichick, I think he also deserves a lot of credit for helping Brady reach his potential, and really far surpass any potential that anyone else ever saw in Brady. Let's put it this way. If the Pats had drafted Chad Pennington or Marc Bulger in 2000 and if Brady had been drafted by the Arizona Cardinals or the Chicago Bears, which scenario is more likely:

a. Bulger or Pennington being considered one of the all-time greats and winning multiple Super Bowls with the Pats while Brady went on to achieve very little; or

b. Brady still going on to be an all time great, winning multiple Super Bowls with the Bears or Cards while the Pats have nothing but a few middling seasons under Belichick leading to him eventually being fired around 2004?

And none of this is meant to take anything away from Brady, who I consider the greatest of all-time (at least until Patrick Mahomes plays a few more seasons) or the work Brady put in to get there.

yup

Oh absolutely.

GD summed him up pretty well I think. A successful DC, just abysmal as an HC.

I suspect he'd have been happier had he been a lifelong DC.

Even Belichick's record as a head coach in the non-Tom Brady years is nothing to write home about.

Team Year Regular season Postseason
Won Lost Ties Win % Finish Won Lost Win % Result
CLE 1991 6 10 0 .375 3rd in AFC Central — — — —
CLE 1992 7 9 0 .438 3rd in AFC Central — — — —
CLE 1993 7 9 0 .438 3rd in AFC Central — — — —
CLE 1994 11 5 0 .688 2nd in AFC Central 1 1 .500 Lost to Pittsburgh Steelers in AFC Divisional Game
CLE 1995 5 11 0 .313 4th in AFC Central — — — —
CLE total 36 44 0 .450 1 1 .500
NE 2000 5 11 0 .313 5th in AFC East — — — —
NE 2019 12 4 0 .750 1st in AFC East 0 1 .000 Lost to Tennessee Titans in AFC Wild Card Game
NE 2020 7 9 0 .438 3rd in AFC East — — — —
NE 2021 10 7 0 .588 2nd in AFC East 0 1 .000 Lost to Buffalo Bills in AFC Wild Card Game
NE 2022 8 9 0 .471 3rd in AFC East — — — —

Perhaps an interesting exercise would be to identify the best HC who didn't have a HoF QB.

(Or maybe not so interesting, right away I'd guess Joe Gibbs.)