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Before we go any further here, let's give Bill Belichick some credit. That's something he apparently doesn't want too much of, but when it comes to the best NFL head coaches of all-time, there's a case to be made that Belichick is the best.
He, of course, had a ton of help from his soon-to-be Hall of Fame quarterback Tom Brady, and while both are off to new adventures — Brady has become a prime-time color commentator for FOX and minority owner of the Las Vegas Raiders while Belichick is now strangely the head coach at North Carolina (the college) — their time together was truly special.
Belichick and Brady won six Super Bowls together with the New England Patriots. That included Super Bowl wins in 2001 — Brady's first season as the starter in New England after he took over for Drew Bledsoe — 2003, 2004, 2014, 2016 and 2018. Oh. that's not to mention the Super Bowls the pair made but didn't win (it happens, apparently). That includes Super Bowl appearances in 2007, 2011 and 2017.
If it wasn't for that pesky Eli Manning and the New York Giants as well as a backup quarterback turned Super Bowl MVP in Nick Foles of the Philadelphia Eagles, we'd be talking about nine Super Bowl wins between Belichick and Brady. Oh, and there's those two Belichick won early on in his NFL career as the defensive coordinator of the New York Giants. Speaking of extra rings, we haven't even mentioned the one Brady went on to win for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in his first season as their quarterback in 2020.
Yes, they're legends of the game, without a doubt, and both Belichick and Brady know a thing or two about the Super Bowl. With that said, it is interesting to hear that Belichick doesn't put too much of the credit on himself, though. He recently joined the Let's Go Podcast and got into a discussion with co-host Jim Gray about some of his legendary teams with the Patriots.
As Belichick sees it, it's all about the players. Sure, he coaches them up and technically puts together the game plan and pulls strings in-games, but if you don't have great players, you can't have great execution.
“Players win games. You can't win games without good players. I don't care who the coach is, it's impossible. You can't win without good players,” Belichick said on the podcast, as transcribed by ESPN. ” You know, I found that out when I had [Lawrence] Taylor and [Carl] Banks and Harry Carson, Pepper Johnson, Jim Burt, Everson Walls, all those guys at the Giants. And same thing when we got good at Cleveland and then at New England.”
I mean, it's [Tom] Brady, it's [Willie] McGinest, it's [Mike] Vrabel, it's [Tedy] Bruschi, it's Corey Dillon, it's Randy Moss, Troy Brown, Lawyer Milloy, Ty Law, Rodney Harrison,” Belichick continued. “Those are guys that won the games, man. I didn't make any tackles. I didn't make any kicks. That was [Adam] Vinatieri that made that kick in four inches of snow.”
Belichick went on to say that a coach's job is to put those players in a position to win in order to give them a chance to do what they do best. It's all about the players.
To that, Gray brought up the fact that the Super Bowl trophy is named after legendary Green Bay Packers head coach Vince Lombardi, rather than legendary Packers quarterback Bart Star. Belichick then revealed that if he had it his way, perhaps the Lombardi Trophy would be named the Brady trophy.
“Maybe they should name it the Brady Trophy. He won seven of them,” Belichick said.
Bill Belichick undervaluing Vince Lombardi with Tom Brady take
While Belichick is right in theory — that it's the players that win the games — suggesting that Brady is a better representative of what it takes to win in the NFL rather than Lombardi is almost heresy. It certainly is in Green Bay, but that's another story.
Keep in mind, without a coach who preached winning and doing thing the right way like Lombardi did, there would certainly be no Belichick, and in that light, there may have never been a Brady.
“Winning is not a sometime thing, it is an all the time thing,” Lombardi famously said. You don't do things right once in a while…you do them right all the time.”
Lombardi was the head coach of the Packers from 1959 through 1967. It was that dedication to winning and playing football the “right way” that allowed Green Bay to be known as “Title Town”. It's a place where winning is expected and losing isn't tolerated. Lombardi instilled that mindset in the team, which became part of the mindset of the city. Sounds a little bit like what happened for New England, doesn't it?
Lombardi led the Packers to NFL championships in 1965, 1966 and 1967 and then Lombardi's Packers won Super Bowl I and Super Bowl II. He defined what it meant to be an NFL champion.
Without Lombardi there would have been no Starr, Paul Hornung, Jim Taylor or Ray Nitschke. Without Lombardi's influence on the game, there would have been no Tom Landy, Don Shula, John Madden, Chuck Knoll, Jimmy Johnson, Bill Parcells or Bill Cower. Without Lombardi there would have been no Johnny Unitas, Roger Staubach, Warren Moon, Jim Kelly, Joe Montana, Brett Favre, John Elway, Dan Marino or Peyton Manning.
Without Lombardi the NFL as we know it wouldn't exists, so there's a world in which there would be no Bill Belichick or no Tom Brady as we know them either.
It's the Lombardi Trophy for a reason. Let's keep it that way.
