The Evolution of Tom Brady's Patriots

The Drew Bledsoe Era (2000)

For the longest time the New England Patriots were a terrible organization. I mean Washington Redskins and pre-2011 Detroit Lions terrible. No, it wasn't Bill Belichick that brought the Patriots out of their slump, it was Bill Parcels and a number one overall pick named Drew Bledsoe. In 2000, the Patriots drafted Tom Brady in the 6th round. Even though the team already had their franchise quarterback and had no use for Brady, the team drafted him anyways. Further proof how much the Patriots loved Bledsoe (besides the numbers he was putting up), they offered him a record (at the time) ten year/$103 million dollar salary in March of 2001. Whoops.

Tom Brady's Stats: N/A

The Defensive Era (2001-2003)

Bill Belichick has always been a defensive guy. It may not seem like that now but Belichick won a Super Bowl with the Giants as Bill Parcells defensive coordinator before he ever was a head coach. Belichick came into the Patriots with two main goals: establish a great defense (slash a great team) and do it as cheaply as possible. In free agency he went out and got veterans like Mike Vrabel and Roman Pfifer to go along side linebacker/defensive end guys already on the roster like Tedy Bruschi and Willie McGinest. In 2001 Belichick drafted in the first round a kid out of Georgia named Richard Seymour (DT). Belichick set up a 3-4 scheme with an emphasis on versatility. Linebackers and defensive ends that were dropped by other teams flourished in Belichick's system which focused heavily on confusing opposing offenses.

Belichick went out and got some scrubs to help out his offense, guys like wide receiver David Patten and running back Antowain Smith to low but heavily incentive-laden deals. Plus, the Patriots already had an elite wide receiver on their roster- Terry Glenn.

Belichick originally designed his system around a versatile and cheap defense and around his franchise quarterback- Drew Bledsoe. Reports indicate that Belichick was not thrilled with the huge contract Bledsoe received considering how economically fiscal he was trying to be, but he had a franchise quarterback nonetheless.

Then Bledsoe gets injured in Week One of the 2001 season and never started another game for the Patriots.

Jets DE John Abraham tackled Bledsoe hard in the middle of the game which caused Bledsoe to gt a concussion and have internal bleeding. Belichick puts in this youngster from Michigan by the name of Tom Brady. Then wouldn't you know it, the Patriots not only go on and make it to the Superbowl, but they defeat the Greatest Show On Turf.

People forget many things though about Brady early in his career. First, Bledsoe didn't go away in 2001. Bledsoe was eligible to play later in the 2001 season but Belichick chose to stick with Brady because his team was winning. Also, Bledsoe played in the second half of the Patriots/Steelers 2001 AFC Championship game and led the Pats after Brady got injured to a game-winning drive towards the end of the game.

Second, Brady was not *that* good of a quarterback early in his career.

While the Brady-led Patriots won both the 2001 and 2002 Superbowls, Brady was really only good in the fourth quarter of those games. Most of the early Brady-led teams were won by defense and special teams, not offense. The Pats needed something called "The Tuck Rule" in order to defeat the Raiders during the AFC Divisional Round.

Tom Brady's Stats: 61.9 completion percentage, 3,409 passing yards/year, 23 TD/year, 12.67 INT/year, 1.82 TD/INT, 6.64 YPA

The Corey Dillon Era (2004-2006)

The Patriots finally had a running back! Most of the Patriots offense was centered around Brady and his passing attack. Sure the Patriots had guys like Kevin Faulk, backs who were versatile enough to block and catch, but were really not all that great at running. You know that essential skill every running backs needs to have. So in 2004, the Patriots traded away a second round pick for Bengals running back Corey Dillon. Rudi Johnson was emerging in Cincy after Dillon got injured and Dillon got upset so the Bengals traded away their "troubled" back.

Before we move on, I just need to go on a tangent real quick. When Dillon was complaining about his reduced role in Cincy before he got traded, he made it public that he wanted out. Then, when he came to New England, he was quiet as a mouse. You didn't hear a peep out of him. Commentators and those in the media use Dillon as an example now of how Belichick can take on troubled athletes. Bullshit. Not that Belichick can't take on troubled athletes, but the fact that Dillon was labeled a troublemaker. Same logic that because Chad Ochocinco danced in the endzone he was automatically deemed a hindrance to his team. Dillon just wanted to be the main guy and as history as shown us, it sucks to be in Cincy and that front staff is stubborn to the point of retardation. (Hell, Marvin Lewis is still their head coach). Maybe Corey Dillon should not have make his frustrations public, but he was never a troublemaker from the getco.

Anyways, off tangent. Brady now has started to emerge as an elite regular season quarterback, the Patriots finally have a running back that's legitimately Pro-Bowl worthy (Dillon did go to the Pro Bowl in 2004), and the Patriots defense full of former nobodys is still holding strong.

The 2004 Patriots was the most well-rounded team Tom Brady has ever played for and that showed when the Patriots won their third Superbowl in three years.

Dillon played two more years with the Patriots but never replicated his 2004 season again and was cut by the Pats in 2007 with Laurence Mauroney now becoming the main back for the Patriots.

During this time we also start to see signs of a shift away from a defensive oriented team to an offense oriented team which is almost epitomized by Brady's stats. Brady went to his second and third Pro Bowls in 2004 and 2005 and in 2005 Brady, for the first time in his career, had a 4,000+ passing yard season.

Although do not get it twisted, the Patriots were still good from 05-06 and they were still winning games and going to the playoffs. In 2005 the Patriots won the AFC East with 10 wins and in 2006 they won the division again going 12-4.

Tom Brady's Stats: 61.9 completion percentage, 3,777 passing yards/year, 26 TD/year, 13.33 INT/year, 1.95 TD/INT, 7.45 YPA

The Record Breaking Season (2007)

During the off-season the Patriots traded a 4th round draft pick to the Oakland Raiders for Randy Moss and offered free agent Wes Welker a one year/1.35 million dollar contract. Finally Brady had some legitimate receivers to throw to. As well as David Patten and Deion Branch worked within Belichick's offensive system, these guys would barely be number three recovers for most other franchises (In fact, look how well Branch ended up in Seattle).

Then Spygate happened. The Patriots were playing the New York Jets- led by former Patriots defensive coordinator Eric Mangini- and whooped them 38-14. Eric Mangini then decided to be a little bitch and ratted out Belichick for stealing signals. So what did Belichick do? He said to everyone "fuck y'all" and starting running up the score on everyone. This caused the magical record breaking season for the Pats.

We all know how this season went. Brady threw for a record 50 touchdowns. Randy Moss caught a record 23 touchdowns (just FYI Jerry Rice caught 22 touchdowns in 12 games. Moss did it in 16. Barely). The Patriots went 16-0 and won their first two playoff games leading to Tom Brady's fourth Superbowl appearance.

Sadly, the Patriots lost to the Giants. While the defense was able to hold and contain Eli Manning for the vast majority of the game (I mean, come on, Eli needed a no-name to catch the ball on his head slash have Pats safety Rodney Harrison be an idiot and not knock the ball down in order to win), the Giants defense did what no team was able to do throughout the 2007 season- put a halt to the Tom Brady and the Patriots offense.

This brings me to the Pats defense. While statistically we do not to start to see the Patriots defense falter, philosophically we do. As we will see later, this will bite them in the ass. This change of philosophy was evidenced by the Pats signing linebacker Adelius Thomas to a five year/35 million dollar contract. The Patriots hadn't needed to pay big money for a linebacker before because they were able to find versatile, hungry guys to play for them. After New England starting winning Superbowls, signing veteran linebackers was even easier. New England was the place you could come to in order to retire on a high note (at least that was their sales pitch). But Thomas was a big name. He was extremely talented yet versatile enough and willing to play in a Belichick defense. However, two years later Belichick got pissy at him, starting benching him, and eventually released him after the 2009 season. This was just an indication and a foreshadow of what was later to become of the Patriots defense and its philosophy.

Tom Brady's Stats: 68.9 completion percentage, 4806 passing yards, 50 TD, 8 INT, 6.25 TD/INT, 9.4 YPA

The Matt Cassel Era (2008)

During the first game of 2008, Chiefs safety Bernard Pollard dives at Brady's feet in an attempt to sack him. However, what Pollard ended up doing was three things. First, he caused Brady to tear up his knee which in turn caused Brady to miss the entire 2008 season. Second, he changed the way officials and referees call penalties for quarterbacks. Now if a defender looks at a QB wrong his team is charged with a 20 yard penalty. Third, we finally got to answer the question: What was the cause of the Patriot's success: Tom Brady or Bill Belichick? The answer: both.

First, let's take a look at what this offense looks like without Tom Brady. This team still had Wes Welker and Randy Moss as wide receivers. Plus, the Patriots had one of the best offensive lines in the game. What's been going unnoticed throughout Belichick's tenure in New England was his stock piling of offensive lineman.

The Pats drafted Dan Koppen in the fifth round of the 2003 draft. He has been to a Pro Bowl. The Pats drafted Matt Light in the second round of the 2001 draft. He has been to three Pro Bowls. The Pats drafted Logan Mankins with their first pick in the 2005 draft. He has been to three Pro Bowls. Three-fifths of this offensive line are Pro Bowlers and the other two lineman who started for the Patriots in 2008 (Dan Connelly and Nick Kaczur) no slouches themselves.

With the great O-line and wide receivers the Patriots had, it's no wonder they were still able to put up points. While Cassel ended up putting good end-of-the-year numbers, those numbers are skewed a bit by two 400 yards passing games he had in Weeks 10 and Weeks 11. Throughout Cassel's first ten games he only averages 200 passing yards per game (Also, as a Cassel fantasy owner this year and as a guy who rode Cassel to a fantasy championship, I can tell you that I was not starting Cassel until Week 12)

Cassel wasn't losing games for the Patriots and the defense hadn't completely fallen off yet as the Patriots went 11-5 yet missed the playoffs (even though San Diego got to go to the playoffs at 8-8 just because they won their division)

Tom Brady's Stats: N/A

Everybody Leaves (2009)

Things change. It's the way of the world. Offensive Coordinator Charlie Weis and Defensive Coordinator Romeo Crennel left after the 2004 season to pursue head coaching gigs after they won three Superbowls with the Pats.

In 2009, everybody seemed to have left.

Another aspect of this entire post that has not been mentioned was the Pats Vice President Scott Pioli. Belichick brought in Pioli when he got hired by the Patriots to help run the front office. The two clearly brought magic and great things to the franchise. Then, in 2009 Pioli leaves the Patriots to become the Kansas City Chiefs GM. Offensive Coordinator Josh McDaniels also leaves to become the new Denver Broncos head coach. The Pats then trade QB Matt Cassel to Pioli's Chiefs which in turn caused the Denver Broncos to trade away their Pro Bowl and franchise QB Jay Cutler to the Chicago Bears (Thank you Josh McDaniels!) Rodney Harrison and Tedy Brushci retired in 2009 and the Patriots shipped Mike Vrabel to Kansas City in the Cassel trade.

These changes did not seem to have any short term effects as the Patriots won ten games in 2009 and again won the AFC East. But these changes become extremely important for what the Patriots are today.

One of the main reasons Tom Brady and the Patriots won three Superbowls was because of Belichick's defense and his ability to pick linebackers/defensive lineman to fit his scheme. However, after 2004, Belichick stopped doing that. As mentioned earlier, the Adelius Thomas signing was the beginning of the end for Belichick's defensive scheme. The loss of the scheme along with losing most of his core defensive nucleus of guys caused the Patriots to start to lose their defensive identity.

Tom Brady's Stats: 65.7 completion percentage, 4398 passing yards, 28 TD, 13 INT, 2.15 TD/INT, 7.8 YPA

The Defenseless Era (2010-2011)

For the past season and a half, Belichick's team has focused so heavy on the offensive side of the ball to win games and watched his defensive side suffer. Everything the Patriots had done defensively since 2004 has now started to catch up with the team.

In 2010, we saw that the Patriots didn't need their defense to win games like they did in the early 2000's. The Pats won 14 games and earned the #1 seed in the AFC. Tom Brady only threw four interceptions during the 2010 regular season and only threw an interceptions in two regular season games. They shipped out Randy Moss early in 2010 and created an offense around Wes Welker and Deion Branch; an offense that didn't turn over the ball. There have only been two quarterback seasons where a quarterback finished the season with a TD/INT ratio above 6:1- Tom Brady in 2007 and Tom Brady in 2010.

To further emphasize the offense, BenJarvis Green-Ellis emerged as an elite running back for the Patriots scoring 13 rushing touchdowns and also did not fumble the ball. The Patriots also signed RB Danny Woodhead off of the Jets practice squad to make their 2010 team one of Tom Brady's most explosive seasons ever.

The Patriots also drafted two great tight ends to help the offense (Rob Gronkowski and Aaron Hernandez) in 2010 who have become great players for the Pats. In the 2011 draft, Belihick drafted an offensive lineman in the first round and two running backs in the second round.

However, the lack of defense caused the Patriots to lose to the Jets in the first round of the playoffs in 2010. The Jets defense shut down Tom Brady and the Patriots defense was so bad that they were not able to shut down Mark Sanchez. As Jets LB Bart Scott famously said after the game:

[Haters] talk crap about the defense, like we ain't the third best defense in the league. All we here is about they defense, they can't stop a nosebleed! 25th in the league, and we the ones that get disrespected!?

Scott's comments would hold especially true for the Patriots 2011 season. As of the writing of this post, the Patriots defense is 17th in terms of points allowed, 9th in terms of rushing yards allowed, and last in terms of passing yards allowed.

Tom Brady's Stats: 66.0 completion percentage, 278.08 yards/game (Brady has only played 25 games through these two seasons. This number extrapolated to a full seasons would average 4,449.28 yards/season), 59 TDs, 14 INT, 4.21 TD/INT, 8.14 YPA
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So what does this all mean? I don't know. In 2011, the Patriots still look like they are going to win their division. They may not be winning games like they used to but they're doing better than their AFC East rivals the New York Jets and Buffalo Bills.

What about going forward? I think as long as Bill Belichick is the Patriots head coach, they will continue to win games and win a lot of them. He's an extremely smart man and knows how to run an offense (even though he might now know how to pick wide receivers). He knows first and foremost that nothing happens without an offensive line. In the 2011 draft he drafted Colorado offensive lineman Nate Solder who looks amazing. I feel like the the quarterback has eight seconds to throw the ball of every play for the past ten years. I believe Belichick will continue to draft offensive lineman because he knows that is his bread and butter. He also has an elite quarterback waiting in the wings- Ryan Mallet. I have no doubt that in 3-5 years when Brady starts being washed up, Mallet will take his place and help the Patriots score points and win games.

However, the Patriots defense going forward scares me. Since 2004, the Pats have not focused on their defense (at least like they used to) and have not been doing anything close to what the did a decade ago in order to help them get back to winning Superbowls. To me this 2011 season looks like a trend, not an outlier. Since 2007, the Patriots have shown that if they do not improve their defense, they will not win another Superbowl.

The Exact Odds Of The Bill Belichick Call

I stumbled upon a great website called footballcommentary.com. They have a "Go For It" table that calculates the exact odds of a team winning a football game given the time left in the game and how many points the team is up by. New England was up by 6 with 2:08 left to go. The Colts got the ball back on New England's 29 yard line. Unfortunately, the site does not have the exact odds at every time limit, but we can get very close. The site measures the odds on specific yard line. A team on their own 20 yard line with three minutes left to up by six has about a 66% percent chance of winning the game by going for it on fourth down. A team on their own 40 yard line with three minutes left to go up by six has about a 59% of winning the game by going for it. Considering the Pats were on their own 30 with about 2:00 minutes to go, the Pats probably had about a 63% chance of winning the game by going for it on 4th down.

However, I can do one better. According to the Win Probability Calculator, one can actually calculate the exact odds of the Pats winning that game. At that moment, the Pats had a 77% chance of winning that game. However, they only had a 7% chance of making the first down and by going for it, they were expected to LOSE by .9 points. They did end up losing by 1 point. They also had a 2% chance of getting a TD and a 0% chance of making a field goal (I don't know how the odds of making a TD were higher, but whatever).

On the flip side, you change 4th down to 3rd down in the Win Probability Calculator (thus, the odds of the Pats winning if they had punted instead of going for it on 4th down), the Pats had a 85% chance of winning that game and were projected of getting 0.0 points, thus, they would have probably won that game.

In my original post, The "Bright" One said that in the future when robots are coaching, they'd even know to punt it. Well, I guess that day is here when coaches can just use the calculator and realize that Belichick actually made the wrong call. When you look at the qualitative aspects of that game- that the D was letting Peyton throw all over them towards the end of the game and the Pats offensive looked awesome. But who cares about the qualitative aspects when you have stats!

I therefore rescind all my defense of Belichick after figuring out that by going for that 4th down, the Pats theoretically gave the game away to the Colts. And obviously, they did.

Bill Belichick Does Not Live In His Mothers Basement

The greatest football coach in the history of the NFL does not like stats. Cause stats dont win games, points win games. Wait, points are stats so stats do win games? I'm confused. But Bill Belichick is never confused. Anyone who thought the Patriots' success is a product of statistical analysis, you would be wrong. The hooded sweatshirt tells us how it is after being questioned about Randy Moss' questionable performance.

"Everybody can't have high stats every week," he told the Web site. "It's impossible. We can always pick out somebody and say, 'What happened to them?'..."Stats are for losers[who live in their mother's basement]," Belichick said. "The final score is for winners."

When you have the intangibles of Tom Brady on your team, who needs numbers. Joe Girardi doesnt need numbers. It's Derek Jeter's perpetuate clapping in the dugout that wins games. Obviously this website is a waste of time. It's not like we have won any championships with our number crunching. Looks like there wont be a 2nd anniversary for Game of Inches. Boo hoo : (

The Bill Belichick Call vs. The Jack Del Rio Call

Even you even remotely have an inkling for sports, you all know of the 4th and 2 call Belichick made vs. the Colts this past weekend. And being the loyal GOI blog followers you are, you should also be aware of the Jack Del Rio call telling MJD to kneel at the 1 with about a minute left so they can waste time and kick a field goal to win the game. To me, these two calls seem just as risky, yet no one really is criticizing Del Rio, but essentially everyone is criticizing Belichick. You know why-only because Belichick's gamble failed and Del Rio's suceeded.

Now I shouldn't be this hyperbolic, the Del Rio call was not nearly as big of a gamble as Belichick's was. The few dumb critics of Del Rio's call (like I think Skip Bayless is one of them), say that, "What if the field goel gets blocked, or they miss, or something goes wrong. At least MJD scoring the TD would have guaranteed the team to be up" And what if martians come down from the sky and butt fuck the kicker in the middle of his kick. Or what if an earthquake happenes right before MJD scores that TD and he falls into the center of the earth. What if. The reason Del Rio's call was the correct one (besides the fact that it succeeded and he won the game), was because he was minimizing his risks. If MJD had scored, then the Jets would have had a minute to march down the field and score- or even worse, a kick return for a TD. And the risk of his kicker missing like a 20 yard FG is slim to none.

Belichick also made the right call because he was minimizing his risks as well. The only way the Pats would have guaranteed themselves a win is by holding on to the ball and keeping the ball out of Peyton Manning's hands. How do you do that- you keep your drive alive and the Pats offense on the field. So its an obvious risk because if you fail to convert, you end up doing the thing you tried to avoid. But the Pats have a great offense and a shitty D.

When you're making the call, you don't know what the result will be. A bad call can wind up in a good result and a good call can wind up with a bad result. But you make calls to minimize your risks to win the game. And as far as I'm concerned, both coaches made the right call.

NOTE: Hey football "experts" on TV, stop fucking telling me how the Pats defense feels. "Oh, Belichick doesn't have confidence in his defense." What are you basing this off of? Even if Belichick doesn't have confidence in his D (and maybe he shouldn't because Peyton was raping them in the 4th quarter), that doesn't mean anythng. Unless you report to me info from players actually in the Pats locker room, stop fucking making up stuff. In fact, Balichick seems to have an amazing abaility to control his players minds and actually believe in everything he tells them. So if Bill Belichick tells his D he has confidence in them, his D will probably believe him.

Defending The Bill Bellichick Call

For all those who saw the Patriots/Colts game tonight (what else would you be doing? Homework? Hanging out with loved ones? Why?), The Pats were up 34-28 with a little under two minutes left to go. The Pats were on there own 30 and Belichick decided to go for it on 4th and short. They don't convert and surprise surprise, Peyton Manning, with only 30 yards and a minute left to go, scores a TD and the Colts win the game 35-34. Now I can imagine that people all over this blogosphere and on ESPN will be criticizing Belichick for this awful decision. Now if I was the coach and I'm sure everyone else would have punted it on fourth down, but I'm going to sort of defend Belichick.

It has actually been statistically proven actually to never punt on 4th down, and some high school coach never punts and his team is amazing and wins State like every year. The reason behind this is that the extra yards a team has to go after a punt (assuming not an awesome run back which is always plausible) is not worth the risk of not keeping your drive alive. So if mathematicians from Universities tell you not to punt, why punt?

The Pats have an amazing offense and they almost converted that 4th down. And if they converted, they were guaranteed to win the game. And just because the Pats punted the ball doesn't mean they WOULD have won. The punt return could have been amazing/ brought back for a TD. And even if a fair catch was called, who's the say that Peyton Manning still wouldn't have scored a TD like he's done so many times before? Plus, Belichick probably didn't trust his defense (and I don't blame him). If the Pats had punted and still lost the game, people wouldn't criticize him. So why criticise him for going for it? It's obviously a huge risk and one that ended up backfiring, but I don't think the decision itself was as bad as people said. And if Faulk had held onto the ball, then that decision would have made amazing for the Pats.

Again, I would have punted it and I'm sure if Belichick knew he wouldn't convert the 4th down, he would have done so as well. But I'm gonna say it was as bad of a decision as people make it out to be.

Coaches Discussion Part I- 2008 NFL Coach of the Year

Originally I was going to do a top five list of who I thought were the five best coaches and use by previous post to determine that. But after looking at the teams and the head coaches, I could only come up with three. See, just because I team is good doesn't mean the head coach deserves praise. And just because a team did terrible last year and great this year does also not warrant coach of the year credit (although that's usually a determinant for who does get the CoY award). The vast majority of teams that have winning records is the result of great talent on the field. The New York Giants, for example. Their offensive line is amazing. They had TWO running backs go over 1000 yards. TWO! Most teams don't even have one. They also have some of the best talent and depth in pass rushers. That organization simple knows talent. Tom Coughlin deserves some credit for easing up on his harsh personality to create a cohesive locker room, but your personality alone should not get you CoY votes. So without further ado, here's my top three

3) Jeff Fisher, Tennessee Titans. I think the Hall of Fame praise he got in the beginning of the year is somewhat unwarranted, but the fact remains he did an excellent job this year. First of all, any team that dethrones the Indianapolis Colts deserves a HUGE pat on the back. But Jeff Fisher did it with essentially the same players as last year, where they only went 8-8. He helped develop his defense to put pressure on the QB (even AFTER losing pro bowl defensive end Kyle Van De Bosch) and still have a phenominal secondary just in case a QB ever got away. This defense was more than just talent alone because this same talent was never THIS good. He also did a great job playing to his strengths on offense. Kerry Collins is really not that good. But Chris Johnson and LenDale White are. And teams knew this. Yet Fisher was still able to run over teams and make sure his QB didn't throw picks. And in games where teams stopped his great running attacks (ie the one vs Chicago, he helped change strategy to end up winning the game in the second half. His team absolutely deserved to be the best team in the NFL.

2) Tony Sparano. Miami Dolphins. This roster from top to bottom was really not that good. They had some talent here and there (i.e. Ronnie Brown, Joey Porter) but their best weapon, Jason Taylor, was traded away. The only real difference between last year's squad and this year team was two things: Chad Pennington and not hearing a peep from Ricky Williams. Chad Pennington is not THAT much of a difference maker to just accrue 11 wins. So what does Sparano do with his lackluster squad- he plays to their strengths. A lot of dink and dumps and a lot of trickery. A lot of designing schemes to utilize your best defensive weapon (Porter) to attack the QB. The reason the Wildcat offense was prevalent throughout the NFL? Tony Sparano. You think the Dolphins would have scored five TDs on the Patriots without it? Nope. And when teams starting getting wise to the Wildcat, Sparano adjusted and played gold ol' smash mouth running football. Sparano has done so much with very little and helped turn this franchise around

1) Bill Belichick. New England Patriots. No coach is better at attacking his opponent's weakness. Oh, he's going to throw the ball. But where the ball is thrown and where he tells his receivers to run to is the few places you don't want the Patriots to be. Are you weak up the middle? Well, a lot of screen passes to where the receiver runs from the sideline to the middle. Is your right tackle not that good of a blocker? Well, guess which player his blitzes are going to attack. And he did this with lots of injures. Not only to Tom Brady but he lost a lot of his great star defensive players to free agency or the injury bug, yet STILL was able to thwart his defensive will. Are you beating the Patriots by 24 with one quarter left to go? Don't be surprised if the game is tied or if you lose at the end. No coach is better at half time and game time adjustments than Bill Belicheck. And his players love him. LOVE HIM. It's crazy to think but if Belicheck told his players to strip naked and do the Chicken Dance during half time, all 53 players would. Without question. (The only reason Bill probably doesn't do this is because he needs his players to make half time adjustments!)

Oh, and who makes the Patriots better: Tom Brady or Bill Belichick? Both. Belicheck helps the team win games, Brady helps the teams be absolutely fucking amazing. Plus Tom Brady doesn't play defense.