How did the Patriots maintain a top team for 17 years?

[The Jokeman]

2 hours ago, Success said:

 

That is very true. The Pats always played great defense during that run.

 

Over 17 years, that's kind of amazing.  I have to wonder how much of that was coaching over personnel.

 

Belichick's formula for winning was strong defense and in the end be down less than one score and count on Brady (and good kicking) to win games in the end with a drive to win it, you can see it in their first two Super Bowl wins played to a T yet over the years Brady became a better QB and was scoring more earlier and didn't always need to make the drive or in the case of losing to the Giants, Eli did them one better by winning with late heroics because the Giants D help the Pats O in check. 

[Chaos]

Superb game day coaching and clock management.  I am hard pressed to think of a patriots game during the Brady era that the coaches blundered away.  Certainly not the most important part of the run. But also not trivial. 

[B-Large]

Conditioning- Their guys NEVER looked gassed at home in the playoffs...

Edited February 6, 2023 by B-Large

[JohnNord]

2 hours ago, Success said:

I thought it might be interesting to put our loathing aside and really analyze how they pulled it off.  What they did is what I want the Bills to do - dominate for many years, and as long as they have Allen at QB.

 

They didn't have the ebb & flow that a team normally has, even w/ a top QB.  Their window was wide open for most of those 17 years. They made 9 SB's, and probably should have made 1-2 more.  My own thoughts:

 

1) Obviously, Brady took less pay so the team could afford better players.  I still don't see that being as impactful as it's made out to be - he was still paid a lot.

2) Aging vet stars took pay cuts just to play w/ Brady. Will we see that w/ Allen?

3) The Patriots made very few investments in bigtime skill players.  Moss was the exception, not the rule.

4) One of the hallmarks of Belichick was letting players walk before they started to decline.  Almost exactly what we're looking at w/ Poyer.

5) Their biggest priority, year after year, was making sure the O-line was strong.  That's just what you do when you have a top QB.

 

Still, the run is somewhat mystifying.  Belichick was not a great drafter, which is usually needed once a QB gets past the rookie contract.  Superior coaching clearly played a part. I think BB got the best out of his players (which is something we aren't doing right now - we see players leave the Bills and perform better than they did here).

 

Thoughts?

Don’t be foole…just like Josh Allen it’s mostly Brady’s ability to help cover up weakness.  To his credit, Brady did it more with his mind as a cerebral passer but he was able to elevate the players around him.    

 

Outside from Gronk and Moss for a few season he never really had a elite weapons, but he’s always find a way to elevate the weapons he had like Edleman, Chris Hogan, Danny Amendola, Brandin Cooks etc…

 

It also didn’t hurt that their offensive line was always very good.  I’d say this is mostly a reflection of Belichick and Dante Scarneccia.
 

On defense, Belichick was always very good at finding undervalued players that became stars in his defense.  Besides Judon the last few years, NE never really a top pass rusher but they always pressured QBs.  They also always had a good secondary.   You can argue he still is good at this today.  

[TheWeatherMan]

3 hours ago, Success said:

I thought it might be interesting to put our loathing aside and really analyze how they pulled it off.  What they did is what I want the Bills to do - dominate for many years, and as long as they have Allen at QB.

 

They didn't have the ebb & flow that a team normally has, even w/ a top QB.  Their window was wide open for most of those 17 years. They made 9 SB's, and probably should have made 1-2 more.  My own thoughts:

 

1) Obviously, Brady took less pay so the team could afford better players.  I still don't see that being as impactful as it's made out to be - he was still paid a lot.

2) Aging vet stars took pay cuts just to play w/ Brady. Will we see that w/ Allen?

3) The Patriots made very few investments in bigtime skill players.  Moss was the exception, not the rule.

4) One of the hallmarks of Belichick was letting players walk before they started to decline.  Almost exactly what we're looking at w/ Poyer.

5) Their biggest priority, year after year, was making sure the O-line was strong.  That's just what you do when you have a top QB.

 

Still, the run is somewhat mystifying.  Belichick was not a great drafter, which is usually needed once a QB gets past the rookie contract.  Superior coaching clearly played a part. I think BB got the best out of his players (which is something we aren't doing right now - we see players leave the Bills and perform better than they did here).

 

Thoughts?

You take the long term continuity with the best QB in NFL history, willing to take a major discount, and the best coaching staff in the NFL, sprinkle in some questionable tactics to exploit the rules to gain a competitive advantage and finally fold in a commissioner that’s in your owners pockets and you got yourself a recipe for long term success in the NFL.  

[PatsFanNH]

8 minutes ago, TheWeatherMan said:

You take the long term continuity with the best QB in NFL history, willing to take a major discount, and the best coaching staff in the NFL, sprinkle in some questionable tactics to exploit the rules to gain a competitive advantage and finally fold in a commissioner that’s in your owners pockets and you got yourself a recipe for long term success in the NFL.  

I agreed with everything till you said the commissioner in Krafts pocket. Ya the harshest punishment TWICE in NFL history with the second one being open for discussion with how the NFL did it. (commissioner lying, using a hack lab, lying about getting the data from Brady phone). I don’t consider that being on the pocket, but I do believe the NFL exaggerated everything to make the Patriots the villain of the NFL to pump up watch numbers.

[section122]

2 hours ago, Gugny said:

 

The six "gimme" wins/season obviously helped them with getting into the playoffs and vying for postseason byes.  

 

But ... as our beloved Bills have shown us over the past few years, getting into the tournament is one thing; winning in the tournament is another.

 

I agree with your overall point but the Patriots never won the super bowl when they had to play in the wild card round.  They only won when they had a first round bye.  Now that the #1 team is the only one to get a bye, it is even more difficult.  In previous years, that bye would have been a tremendous help to this year's Bills team.  In fact 2 of the 3 years under the new format, the Bills would have had a bye.  Who knows how beneficial that could have been.

 

Here are some I haven't seen mentioned:

 

1. Ernie Adams - he was the voodoo master.  I have mentioned before but he was someone who broke down film each week.  I believe he was obsessive and searched until he found tendencies that could be exploited.  The weird thing is, it was never really revealed what he did.

2. Dante Scarnecchi (sp?) - possibly the best OL coach of all time.  Retired for a year or 2 and the line performed noticeably worse.  Returned and the OL returned to form.

3. Gronk - love him or hate him he is in the top 5 at the very least greatest TEs of all time. 

4. BBs ability to adapt.  He was always ahead of the game seemingly and willing to zig when others zagged.  

[White Linen]

One of the all time great QB'S and elite coaching created a dynasty.  They adjusted their offensive and defensive game plan based on the personnel on each year's team.

 

We don't adjust and it's why we fail.  We have made adjustments at half time and such but they had a year by year plan and got the players to execute. 

[PatsFanNH]

13 minutes ago, section122 said:

 

I agree with your overall point but the Patriots never won the super bowl when they had to play in the wild card round.  They only won when they had a first round bye.  Now that the #1 team is the only one to get a bye, it is even more difficult.  In previous years, that bye would have been a tremendous help to this year's Bills team.  In fact 2 of the 3 years under the new format, the Bills would have had a bye.  Who knows how beneficial that could have been.

 

Here are some I haven't seen mentioned:

 

1. Ernie Adams - he was the voodoo master.  I have mentioned before but he was someone who broke down film each week.  I believe he was obsessive and searched until he found tendencies that could be exploited.  The weird thing is, it was never really revealed what he did.

2. Dante Scarnecchi (sp?) - possibly the best OL coach of all time.  Retired for a year or 2 and the line performed noticeably worse.  Returned and the OL returned to form.

3. Gronk - love him or hate him he is in the top 5 at the very least greatest TEs of all time. 

4. BBs ability to adapt.  He was always ahead of the game seemingly and willing to zig when others zagged.  

I dare say Scar was by far the most important. When he retired the first time was when the Pats lost by 2 to Denver and Brady was hit like a piñata that game  I always thought of Scar had been here that year the Ats have 7 SB wins and not 6.  Out O line been Meh ever since he retired the man was a o line genius! 

[mjt328]

4 hours ago, PBF81 said:

The rest of your points are valid, but I think that this one is paramount.  I'll list the QBs in our division on the Jets, Fins, and us during Brady's years in NE before Brady left, and not including Allen's first couple of seasons where he wasn't good.  Look at the number of different starting QBs in that 19-year stretch.  

 

Bills:  Van Pelt, Bledsoe, Holcomb, Losman, Edwards, Fitzpatrick, Manuel, Orton, and Taylor 

Fins:  Fiedler, Feeley, Frerotte, Harrington, Lemon, Pennington, Henne, Moore, Tannehill, Cutler, and Fitzpatrick 

Jets:  Testeverde (old), Pennington, Bollinger, Favre (old), Sanchez, Smith, Fitzpatrick, McCown, and Darnold  

 

None of 'em were any good when they were on those teams.  

 

That's an easy 6-games/season that are typically "tough division games" that weren't tough for NE.  

 

The AFC East was an absolutely HUGE reason.

None of the other teams had a franchise QB (much less an elite one) during the entire length of the Patriots championship run.  They pretty much had a guaranteed Division title every single season.  And with 5-6 easy wins, it was much easier for them to get a bye in the first round (back when they had two).  New England rarely ran into another elite QB (Peyton Manning, Ben Roethlisberger, Phillip Rivers) until the Championship round.  

 

While most teams fell into the salary cap and age issue, the Patriots purposely built their roster to get around that pitfall.

 

The playmakers on New England were generally the Tight End and Slot Receiver... two of the lowest paid positions in the NFL.  O-Line was always a priority in the draft.  They drafted LOTS of running backs and cycled through them constantly, so they never had to pay one big bucks.  Outside of Randy Moss, they never really splurged on a flashy outside receiver either.  

 

On defense, Bill Belichick looked for bargains and often let his stars walk.  Then he would build a defense AROUND the talents/skills he had on the roster, instead of splurging on free agents to fit his scheme.

 

Mix all that with a Hall of Fame QB who seemingly never aged, and was willing to accept a contract well below market value.

Edited February 6, 2023 by mjt328

[Charles Romes]

They spent nothing on weapons for many of the years, letting Brady handle the O alone. BB always assembled a capable running back by committee so no RB built up stats that had to be paid for.  The quick passing game was a central ingredient. Helped Brady stay healthy and make due with lower funding. 

[LABILLBACKER]

1 hour ago, Chaos said:

Superb game day coaching and clock management.  I am hard pressed to think of a patriots game during the Brady era that the coaches blundered away.  Certainly not the most important part of the run. But also not trivial. 

Trust me Chaos it's more important than you think. After your QB, coaching,  game management and strategy are probably your 2nd most important area. Establishing a dominant OL to protect your #1 investment is 3rd.  We got the first one right but have failed in the next two.

[iinii]

44 minutes ago, mjt328 said:

 

The AFC East was an absolutely HUGE reason.

 

Sounds like the early nineties and why the Bickering Bills made four straight appearances. 

[frostbitmic]

Through clean living and following the rules.

[Governor]

Buy low, sell high.

 

For instance, they would’ve traded White 2 seasons ago. You don’t stay good by falling in love with players.

Edited February 6, 2023 by Governor

[Don Otreply]

The patriots/Brady, never lost site of the need to move the chains by taking what an opposing defenses gave them for every one of those seasons. Something Dorsey and Allen should take to heart…, 

 

GO BILLS!!!

[Xwnyer]

5 hours ago, GreggTX said:

Brady's top priority was winning, not money.

 

and he dumped off alot of passes to likes of Welker, Gronk, Eleman(sp) and other bit characters they also stayed balanced with running the ball making Brady an very effective play action passer.   Add in the cheating and headsets not working or not going off at the 15 second mark

[Einstein]

4 hours ago, Gregg said:

 

Brady also had Giselle who made more money then he did. I don't know what Allen's GF does for a living if she does anything at all. 

 

People have made this argument for a long time but Brady signed at least his first contract extension before marrying Giselle. 

 

Brady just cared more about winning than he did being the richest player. 

 

Gotta admire that.

4 hours ago, Mango said:

 

Just as a percentage of cap, his highest year with the Pats was about 17%. Which is Josh's "onboarding" year into his big deal, and relatively low. A lot of years Brady gave the team another 10% of the entire cap back. 

That's right. 10% of the entire salary cap, not his pay cut. That would be $22.5M per year in today's terms.

His discount is a very important piece to his story. 

 

Yep.

 

Brady was incredibly generous to the Patriots.

 

It would be awesome if Allen did the same, but again, I don't blame him. 

[Einstein]

1 hour ago, mjt328 said:

 

The AFC East was an absolutely HUGE reason.

 

I don't agree.

 

If I did my maths properly, Belichick is 100-41 (70.9 win %) against the AFC East and 189-76 (71.3 win %) against the rest of the NFL (including the postseason).

 

He dominated everyone, and he dominated teams outside the AFC East moreso than the teams inside it.

 

 

[strive_for_five_guy]

8 minutes ago, Xwnyer said:

and he dumped off alot of passes to likes of Welker, Gronk, Eleman(sp) and other bit characters they also stayed balanced with running the ball making Brady an very effective play action passer.   Add in the cheating and headsets not working or not going off at the 15 second mark

^This, combined with a solid OL, they were frequently in position to win games.  Gronk was especially a key ingredient for the middle and later stages of their run.