Debate over. Tom Better than Bill

[Moranis]

Per Statmuse:

The New England Patriots are 22-8 with Matt Cassel all-time.

That is a pretty good record of winning without Brady.  And it is relevant as it is more or less the same timeframe of Brady with similar rosters in New England, similar talent and coaching.  Cassel has a 52-55 record overall (30-47 without Belichick).

Brady was smart.  He went to a very good situation in TB, and he won.  Now the team isn't so good and he is 8-9.  Let's see how he does if he decides to play for the Raiders.

Half that record should be thrown out due to mop up duty. It really should be his record as a starter.  He didn’t start 30 games for the Patriots.

Yep.  He was 10-5 as a starter though, so not exactly bad.

[Vermont Green]

Per Statmuse:

The New England Patriots are 22-8 with Matt Cassel all-time.

That is a pretty good record of winning without Brady.  And it is relevant as it is more or less the same timeframe of Brady with similar rosters in New England, similar talent and coaching.  Cassel has a 52-55 record overall (30-47 without Belichick).

Brady was smart.  He went to a very good situation in TB, and he won.  Now the team isn't so good and he is 8-9.  Let's see how he does if he decides to play for the Raiders.

Half that record should be thrown out due to mop up duty. It really should be his record as a starter.  He didn’t start 30 games for the Patriots.

You are probably right.  Statmuse gave me this and I did not look too deeply at it.  I believe that Cassel was 11-5 the season he filled in for Brady (he was 10-5 as a starter that season).  That is probably a better place to start.  He is 26-40 as a starter without Belichick, per Statmuse.

[GreenlyGreeny]

Bill deserves credit for drafting Tom, starting him in 2001-2002, and sticking with him instead of going back to Bledsoe, who many thought was the better QB at the time. In other words, Bill deserves much of the credit for giving Tom his start. But Tom made the best of the opportunity, and Tom is clearly why Tom is playing at an elite level into his mid-40s, something nobody has ever done before.

How many Super Bowls does Bill have without Tom? Zero. Can Bill win a Super Bowl without Tom? TBD, but we know for sure that Tom can win a Super Bowl without Bill because he did it two years ago  (and after seeing how good the Dolphins can be this past weekend in Buffalo, I suspect Tom’s going to do it again in Miami next year!).

That said, Bill deserves credit for giving Tom his start, plus building some pretty good teams around Tom and coaching them fairly well, including some exceptional defensive performances in the playoffs over the years. But there is the huge elephant in the room: Bill has a losing record without Tom. And it’s not a season or two of a losing record, but covers many seasons dating back many decades now. And he’s not exactly worthy of being deemed brilliant for drafting Brady because if he had any inkling whatsoever that Tom might become a great QB, he’d have taken him with a top 100 pick, not risk losing him before the 199th pick. And in the final analysis, Bill made the fatal flaw of letting Tom walk. What a blunder. Now his legacy is tarnished forever unless he somehow drafts another all-time great QB on a future roster and wins at least one Super Bowl without Tom, because when it is all said and done, Bill’s darn lucky he drafted Tom and Tom shines too bright to ever make up for the mistake of ever letting us see what Tom could do without Bill, and that was seeing Tom without Bill at age 42-43! (and it’s all now making Bill seem less impressive than his mentor Bill Parcells—never mind Don Shula, are you freaking kidding?—ever since we once again got Bill without Tom as his QB…).

Ultimately, it may be that Bill is just a decent defensive coach/GM who got incredibly lucky drafting the GOAT? 🐐 It may be like how Bill Walsh got lucky drafting Montana. Nobody calls Bill Walsh the greatest coach of all-time, do they, especially after George Seifert won a couple with Montana/Young? Same goes for Bill now that he’s allowed us to see Tom without Bill…