It wasn’t too long ago when LeSean McCoy would’ve been viewed as Public Enemy No. 1 around these parts for his commentary comparing Bill Belichick to Rex Ryan and Marvin Lewis. But after two-and-a-half middling seasons without Tom Brady, McCoy’s opinion doesn’t seem so antagonistic anymore.
Belichick will be coaching for more than a playoff spot in the second half of the season. The six-time Super Bowl champion will also be looking to push back against his long-standing trolls.
During a recent interview with Kay Adams on FanDuel TV (there are an infinite number of podcasts and lowly watched sports talk shows for the trolls to spew their venom), the ex-star running back said Belichick’s resume without Brady is less than stellar.
“I think now, that he doesn’t have Tom Brady, he’s like all the other coaches,” said McCoy. “All of the other good coaches: the Marvin Lewises, the Rex Ryans. I’m just being honest. People hate for you to be real about Belichick. I think he’s a good coach, but all of the ‘greatest’ and ‘we’ve never seen anything like him,’ that’s bullcrap.”
The scoreboard says McCoy’s take isn’t crazy. Belichick’s regular-season record without Brady is 63-77, discounting the 2008 season and first four games of the 2016 campaign when Brady was suspended for playing with slightly under-inflated footballs.
Factoring in those 20 games, Belichick’s record sans Brady improves to 77-83.
As McCoy said, that isn’t horrible. Ryan’s career record is 61-66, and Lewis sits at 131-122-3. They're not bad coaches.
But they're definitely not all-time greats.
For years, Belichick has been razed by the Bart Scotts of the world, and now they’re finally extracting their revenge.
Patriots fans may not owe them an apology yet; but it’s hard to shout them down when Belichick has gone 22-21 (including the playoffs) ever since Brady left for Tampa Bay.
“The six rings probably speak for themselves, but some holes have clearly been poked in the Belichick methodology,” said NBC Sports Boston’s John Tomase this week on my Sports Media Mayhem podcast. “Even now, watching [Josh] McDaniels struggle in Vegas as well, you’re like, ‘Man, his coaching tree isn’t great. He hasn’t been great without Brady. Mac Jones has taken a step back.’ I think it’s less, we owe them an apology, and more you just gotta sit there and take it when these guys come out.”
The biggest piece of criticism that's always been levied at failed Belichick disciples such as McDaniels, Eric Mangini, Matt Patricia and Joe Judge is that they act like their mentor without the rings. They bring Belichick's austerity and paranoia, but none of the winning.
But then again, they haven’t coached the best quarterbacks, either: Kyle Orton, Chad Pennington, Kellen Clemens, Brady Quinn, Derek Anderson, Tim Tebow, Daniel Jones, Matthew Stafford (the one outlier).
Mangini’s career head coaching record with Pennington, Clemens, a washed up Brett Favre, Quinn, Anderson, Colt McCoy, Jake Delhomme and Seneca Wallace is 33-47.
Do you think Belichick’s would be much better?
While most NFL coaches would be able to win a Super Bowl with Brady, not every one of them would be capable of steering a dynasty through 20 years of controversies and turmoil. The Patriots won six rings, played in nine Super Bowls, and 13 AFC Championships (including eight straight) while dealing with two NFL investigations, Trump Mania, TB12 Inc., and oh yeah, the murder conviction and suicide of their star tight end.
Belichick is better than Marvin Lewis or Rex Ryan, record be damned.
But there’s now a case to be made. The Patriots have played poorly after the bye week in each of the last three seasons (their record last year was 1-4). If that trend continues, the antagonists’ arguments will get even stronger.
“If they end up sub-.500, sorry Patriots fans, you just gotta suck it up and take it, because all of those guys who have been sharpening their knives for years are finally going to get to use them,” said Tomase.
We’ll see if Belichick can conjure up a game plan against that.
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Musk’s self-own: Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, has been tweeting out a lot of garbage since he purchased Twitter for $44 billion. But one self-own in particular shows how much Musk overvalues his favorite app.
Last week, Musk, in a now-deleted tweet, claimed Twitter is the “biggest click driver on the Internet by far.”
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Anybody in publishing could tell you that Twitter’s insular community doesn’t result in digital traffic surges.
That’s all Facebook.
With those numbers in mind, Musk’s continued self-created chaos could lead sports media companies and sports journalists to stop prioritizing the platform. The disastrous rollout of Twitter Blue produced a parade of parody accounts, ranging from LeBron James to Adam Schefter.
If Twitter is going to become even more of a troll farm, it’s just not worth it.
Bruins ratings are up big: Winning attracts eyeballs. The Bruins, who are enjoying the best start in franchise history, are also generating monster ratings. NESN says household viewership for Bruins games is up 34 percent over the last season. Most interestingly, impressions are up 44 percent over last year among women 25-54.
That shows the Bruins are attracting a much wider swath of fans than usual. They should keep that in mind next time they think about signing somebody as odious as Mitchell Miller.
Brady’s Crypto Bust: For more than a year, Tom Brady boasted laser-eyes on Twitter in a nod to the shady crypto community.
Now, Brady has switched his Twitter photo, and deleted all FTX tweets from his timeline.
Being listed as a defendant in $11 billion class-action suit will do that to a man.
