The tragedy is not that he can't win without Brady, but that while he was winning he seemed determined not to enjoy it
When it comes to the GOAT among NFL coaches, there really is no debate: Bill Belichick of the New England Patriots is without doubt the Grouchiest of All Time. Sunday may well be his final game as the Patriots head coach. At age 71, it could be his final game, period. The most successful sourpuss ever to stalk the sidelines, the game will be happier for his exit.
On Sunday he will complete 24 seasons as head coach of New England in a nearly 50-year coaching career, including five seasons as head coach in Cleveland in the 1990s. No one has ever been more successful. He holds the coach’s record for Super Bowls at eight; two as an assistant with the New York Giants, six as head coach in New England.
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Such is his longevity that he is second on the list for most wins of any NFL head coach and, should he lose his game on Sunday, would also be tied for the most losses. You can only reach those numbers after decades of survival in an occupation where coaches are hastily fired for a multitude of reasons, not all of them valid.
Belichick coached Tom Brady for 20 seasons in New England. Quarterbacks are strange creatures; even the brightest minds in football cannot predict which ones will be stars. Brady was Belichick’s backup until an injury to the starter gave him a chance in his second season. He led New England to a Super Bowl victory and never looked back, leading the Patriots for the next generation, winning five more Super Bowls.
In 2019, Brady left New England for Tampa Bay, apparently fed up labouring under the constantly cranky Belichick. Had Belichick retired when Brady left, he would have been celebrated as the greatest coach of all time, basking in his Super Bowl records. He stayed on though, keen to demonstrate that he could have success without Brady. He didn’t.
Brady won another Super Bowl the next year in Tampa, proving that Belichick was, for him at least, a Super Bowl superfluity. The quarterback could win without the coach. And it turned out that without the quarterback, the coach was not as good as was thought. Perhaps he knew that all along, explaining his perpetual foul mood.
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Whether he knew it or not, now all of football does. While Brady won a Super Bowl without Belichick, Belichick has not won a playoff game since Brady left. The Patriots have a 4-12 record and will not make the playoffs. And while it has always been a fact, this season has been so poor that New England fans are saying out loud what was only before whispered: As a head coach, Belichick has a losing record when Brady is not his starting quarterback.
Rarely do statistics so definitively resolve the perennial arguments fans have about sports. That Belichick is a brilliant football mind no one doubts. Yet the end arrives with it indisputably confirmed that the great key to his success was the sheer good luck to coach Brady.
He did not discover Brady’s brilliance. No shame in that; no one else did. Brady was taken in the sixth round of the NFL draft. An afterthought, 198 lesser players were selected before him.
The successful in all fields like to credit their hard work and their cleverness. But good luck plays a large role, too, even the largest role. After all, the talents we have and the families we are born into are not our own doing. Hard work is necessary for success, but the coach with the worst record in the league likely works as many hours as the coach with the best.
It’s no embarrassment to be lucky; both Canada and the United States have heads of government whose political success it would be impossible to explain any other way. In sports the luck is more evident and, in Belichick’s case, quantifiable statistically. Brady, too, was lucky. What if the quarterback ahead of him had never got injured?
The proper response to good fortune is gratitude, not grumpiness. If Belichick ever realized that to coach football full time is an astonishing gift, let alone to become fabulously wealthy doing so, he never gave the impression that he knew it.
The tragic quality to Belichick’s career is not that he can’t win without Brady, but that while he was winning he seemed determined not to enjoy it. He refused to share the joy of playing games for a living with those for whom the games are a diversion from the onerous ways they must work for a living. People who play, or coach, sports for a living are amongst the most blessed on Earth.
When they were flying high, they spoke in New England of the “Patriot Way.” It amounted, in essence, to Belichick’s supposedly remarkable insight that the team does better when each player does his job well. The real Patriot Way was being lucky enough to have Tom Brady land in your locker room. But luck runs out. Belichick’s did in 2019.
National Post
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