It’s the ultimate barroom argument.
Who deserves the most credit for the Patriots’ 21st century double-dynasty, Tom Brady or Bill Belichick?
On Tuesday, three-time Super Bowl champion and WEEI Afternoons co-host Ted Johnson set Pats Twitter ablaze, as he gave out his percentages for who gets what for credit:
- 60% Tom Brady
- 30% “Others”
- 10% Bill Belichick
Johnson’s perspective here is obviously unique, having been a part of the first three Super Bowl winning teams in part one of the dynasty.
But for those on the outside looking in, it seems crazy to give the greatest coach of all-time such a small piece of the credit percentage pie.
So on Wednesday, both The Greg Hill Show and Jones & Keefe weighed in on Johnson’s bold claims. And 24 hours after making those claims, Johnson made an addendum to his original numbers.
To top it all off, former Patriots offensive coordinator and current Boston College head football coach Bill O’Brien gave his thoughts on Johnson’s percentages on Thursday morning’s edition of The Greg Hill Show.
Here’s how it all unfolded, in chronological order:
The Greg Hill Show
There’s two schools of thought on this show, there’s no doubt about it.
In one corner is Super Bowl champion and Greg Hill Show co-host Jermaine Wiggins, who played tight end on the 2001 team that got this whole thing started.
He’s a firm believer in Belichick’s immense impact on the dynasty, saying that none of this happens without his former head coach as the brains of the operation.
“I give more credit to coaching than Ted does,” said Wiggy. “That’s why I said - I feel like if you’ve going to say it’s about having good players, but we’ve seen so many teams with good players, but they don’t have the right coaching. But if you have the right coaching, and you - like, were we a better team on paper than the Rams [in 2001]?”
“No, you were not,” said WEEI’s Greg Hill.
“But we were a better coach,” Wiggy responded, eventually diving into his numbers.
“I would give Bill, like, 50% [of the credit],” said Wiggy. “And then the players would be the other 50%.”
On Wiggy’s percentage pie, Brady is lumped in with the rest of the team, pointing out that Brady didn’t become the GOAT-version of Brady until part two of the dynasty.
In the other corner is WEEI’s Chris Curtis, who has long-been on the record as someone who gives far more credit to Brady than Belichick.
“I would say 20% for Bill Belichick,” said Curtis. “I’ll double Ted Johnson, because what people forget is because Tom Brady became the greatest quarterback, we view his performances in a different light.
“What Tom Brady did when he came in in ’01 was he removed the mistakes. He eliminated the interception, the back-breaking pick. The Bledsoe-padding of the ball, getting focused on one receiver before getting sacked. He enabled that team to compete because of his ability to work within an offense and not make mistakes on a team that had a great defense. But if you look at those games, and you go back in hindsight, we can all say things. Bill Belichick was on the verge of losing his second job in his second year if not for Mo Lewis. So we can all look back, but - and now we have the rest of the NFL showing us, in living color, what they think of Bill Belichick.”
Jones & Keefe
Before diving into how much credit Belichick deserves, WEEI’s Adam Jones took issue with the piece of the pie that had gone mostly unnoticed by the online crowd.
“30% for ‘others’ is - that’s a wild number,” said Jones.
“You think that’s too high?” asked WEEI’s Rich Keefe.
“Way too high,” Jones answered back with no hesitation.
“So play the game for a minute. In Tampa, just to not make it about biases for the Patriots, how much are we giving, like, other players in Tampa, and how much are we giving Brady? I’d be like 90-10 Brady, is what I would be. And I just kind of think that’s the way it is here, too. Giving 30% to others just feels like a bit much. And I get Ted’s part of those ‘others,’ I get it. I get why he feels that way. I just, I don’t feel that way.”
In addition to disagreeing with the percentage being handed out to “others,” Jones went on to explain why his piece of the pie would be bigger for Belichick, albeit still smaller than Brady’s.
“That’s the biggest thing to give him credit for - not drafting Brady, [but] keeping him on the roster [after his rookie season],” said Jones. “Sticking with him, I do think, is slightly overrated. It doesn’t mean it wasn’t a good decision, but they were winning a bunch of games with Brady. Bill had just gone through a year-plus of losing with Bledsoe [in 2000]. He was finally winning with Brady. And so I do give him credit for that, I just do think the context of it gets a little lost, that they were winning a ton with Brady with Bledsoe out.
“Here’s what I’d say - Wiggy, if you’re listening. Wiggy and Curtis were going back and forth pretty good this morning, and I’m on the Curtis side of the street with that. But, you know, Wiggy was there, Wiggy knows. I don’t dismiss his guess.”
“How much would you give Bill, just for the sake of argument?” asked Keefe.
“I mean, I’d probably go, like, 50-40-10,” said Jones. “If we’re giving ‘others’ credit, like 50-40-10, something like that. 50% Brady, 40% Bill, 10% for the others. Something like that?”
“I like 40%,” said Keefe. “I think 40% is very fair. I think you could even say, like, 35-33%. If you really wanted to really - depending on how much you want to lean on Vinatieri, Wiggy, Corey Dillon, Gronk - like, if you really wanted to, like, get into that, that’s fine.
“Brady should have the biggest number. And maybe Brady should have 51%, just so you can be like, ‘Alright, he had - add up everybody else, he was still the most important.’”
WEEI Afternoons
After a day of both public pushback and self reflection, Johnson returned to the airwaves to make an addendum.
“I am going 50% Tom Brady, so he’s going down 10%,” said Johnson. “I am still staying at 30% [for ‘others’], OK? So, I have 15% - I’m giving Bill Belichick 5% more credit. And then, of all things, I can’t believe I didn’t think of this, Robert Kraft gets 5%.”
With Brady getting a 10% smaller piece of the pie, Johnson is now giving half of that percentage to Belichick, and half to the team’s chairman and CEO.
“And if anybody’s questioning why I would give Robert Kraft credit, let me just ask you this, and Fitzy I’m curious what you think, ‘Do you think Bill Belichick is responsible for bringing Tom Brady to the Patriots?’”
“In part, yes,” said WEEI’s Nick “Fitzy” Stevens. “Because he was still the head coach at the time, and part of the general managerialmanship, if you will, alongside many other guys that did the drafting. So yes, in part. Absolutely.”
“So then you would have to say, you give credit to Robert Kraft for thus bringing Bill Belichick to the New England Patriots, correct?” said Johnson.
Fitzy agreed, saying, “And, also, for shepherding the team through the double dynastic run, and being the orchestrator from that famous plane ride of the contracts Brady took less on for a long time. And for those reasons alone, he deserves to be part of the dynasty. When you think of the dynasty, I don’t just think ‘Tom or Bill.’
“I think all three, and I always thought - we know it’s gonna be the Superman-esque-double-Rocky-sized Tom Brady statue that’s gonna bring men to their knees weeping when they see it outside of Gillette next season. But there also really should be something of - I know they don’t all get along perfectly these days - but there should be something of the three of them together, because they were really a brilliant triumvirate that put those two decades together.”
“He’s right when he says he was the sheppard through those years,” said Johnson. “Those years where, I think, Bill wanted to get rid of Tom a lot earlier than he ultimately did. And there were players that Robert Kraft - that he had influence on the roster. A lot of people don’t think he did, but I know for a fact that he did. And so I give Robert Kraft more credit for keeping this thing together.
“He’s kind of led us all to believe that he was kind of the orchestrator behind the scenes to bring Tom and Bill to the table to negotiate deals and continue their partnership. And he’s right when he says that’s what he has done, so he should get more credit then I think he does. So I’m willing to give him at least 5% of the credit in the credit pie for the success of the Patriots.”
Bill O’Brien on Thursday’s Greg Hill Show
With O’Brien having coached under Belichick during two different stints with the Patriots, as well as having a personal relationship with Johnson, his perspective on this topic is unique.
“That’s ridiculous,” said O’Brien. “I mean - you know, look, I know Ted Johnson. He was on radio in Houston when I was there. He’s a good friend, but he’s wrong on that one.
“I mean, you know - having been there and having coached there and knowing how Bill, you know, coached the team, taught the team, offseason, in-season, how he met with the quarterbacks, how he taught the quarterbacks from a head coach perspective. You know, I think everybody’s got a fairly equal piece of the pie. Look, at the end of the day, there’s no correlation between winning and bad players, right? So you gotta have great players to win. So we have the greatest quarterback of all-time, and Tom went out there and carried out the mission, and won the mission way more times than he didn’t. And so yeah, Tom gets a lot of credit. But Bill should get just as much credit, in my opinion, for how he coached the team and prepared the team when they were winning.”
The best part of this whole story?
There’s no right answer.
It’s safe to assume that this type of conversation will happen again, and this type of response will, indeed, follow.
There’s members of Camp Brady, members of Camp Belichick, and members of Camp Kumbaya. All of them think they’re right, and none of them are changing their minds any time soon.