Bill Belichick and his decision making: Have we learned anything?
- Thread starter RedOctober3829
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I really hate that virtually every mistake BB makes is attributed to "arrogance".
He makes a draft pick that goes against the grain: "arrogance".
He decides to go for it on 4th and 2 against Indy: "arrogance".
He lets Brady walk instead of doing whatever it took to re-sign him: "arrogance".
He has MP handle the offense: "arrogance".
He may be arrogant but it really seems that every criticism of him comes down to "arrogance". Sometimes people just make mistakes and have poor judgment and it's not borne out of arrogance.
They won't ever admit this, but a ton of folks who publicly called out BFB for 4th and 2 then routinely call him out now for being too conservative in how rarely he goes for it on 4th down.
Except that in this instance to think that coaches with no experience could successfully run an offense was actually pure arrogance. I don't care about the other times other people use that word.
How else could what he did be taken? To think that he could just stick Patricia and Judge in the positions they were in and expect everything to be fine is arrogance.
I wouldn't call it anything. I have no idea what was going through his head. As noted up above, Josh took a huge chunk of the O staff with him, leaving him in an unusual situation. For all we know, he panicked to cover the gaps. Or he saw an image of Patricia burned into his breakfast toast the day he decided who to hire. Just because he doesn't share his thinking or make a mea culpa in public doesn't make him "arrogant." It just means he's not telling us what he was thinking.
It was bad judgment clearly. But until someone makes a reasonably informed case that Belichick tried out those guys as his offensive braintrust because he figured that his pure genius was the grease that would make the whole thing work, I just don't get the basis for using that word. Belichick's genius has always been in trying to find the right guys and the right plays for the right situations, regardless of conventional wisdom. He took an all-pro DROY Cornerback and turned him into an all-pro safety, milked a bunch of 1000yd receiving seasons out of a college quarterback, the intentional safety, giving Manning the ball in overtime, etc. He doesn't do that shit because he's arrogant. He makes the decisions because he thinks it's the best way to win. Sometimes he's wrong. It has nothing to do with arrogance.
He fucked up. He was wrong about their skills transferring. "Arrogant," is a Rorschach-y explanation and a cop-out that takes actual thinking out of the equation. It suggests that Belichick really didn't think it would work. "Arrogant" would be to compound fucking up by denying that you fucked up and just keep fucking up the same way.
Was it really arrogance? Or did he just think that MP was a good football coach and thought he'd pick it up pretty quickly? How do you know it was "pure arrogance" and not just a mistake?
My basis is because it is arrogant to think that you can just put people in positions of leadership over a side of the ball where they have next to no experience doing so and think it would work. It's a little bit different than the examples you gave. You can call it bad judgment, I call it arrogant.
If Bill thought that they could do the job because of his presence, you would be right. Nobody has provided any evidence of that.
So you're a manager of a restaurant. You need to hire a new maitre d. You interview the candidates and you are impressed with someone from the kitchen, who, even though she doesn't have experience as a maitre d, seems to have the personality and temperament and qualities you'd want in a maitre d. So over someone with experience, you hire her as your maitre d.
Was your decision made due to your "arrogance", or due to you just making the best judgment you could?
I don't get the idea that Judge and Patricia had no offensive expertise at all. They were head coaches in the NFL for a combined 5 years. They would have been involved in everything, from overall scheme to personnel to situational play calls. It's not the same as someone like BoB or McD, who spent their entire careers on the offensive side, but there was I'm sure a lot of learning and involvement on their parts during their time as head coaches.
Last year was also a weird spot. They didn't go out and get Patricia in an OC search, he was already on staff working both sides of the ball as the assistant head coach. Then Josh left in February taking several other offensive staff with him. Bill was now into the offseason having to decide whether he was rebuilding the offensive staff or not. He chose what he THOUGHT would be a level of continuity by moving Patricia from Ast. Head coach to offense full time, he brought in Judge as well to assist. His thought process was pretty clear, that he had a couple former head coaches with an understanding of how things had worked in New England's offense, and experience on both sides of the ball. He thought that could help him continue the path... he was wrong, he underestimated their ability to translate head coach to offensive coordinator type tasks. I don't think it's that arrogant though.
Edit- they failed, but people pretending that head coaches just hand the offense or defense off to some guy and have no input and don't coach that side at all are just silly. Every head coach has input on everything, they coach all the players and they are part of all the strategy and planning.
Except... they aren't guys from the kitchen, they're guys who used to be managers at other restaurants. And yes there are reasons to think that someone who was never a maitre d, but ran a whole restaurant including supervising over maitre d they hired would be able to do the job.
Edit- they failed, but people pretending that head coaches just hand the offense or defense off to some guy and have no input and don't coach that side at all are just silly. Every head coach has input on everything, they coach all the players and they are part of all the strategy and planning.
I just don't see "arrogance" used in any other head coaching decision-making process besides Belichick. A Jets' coach makes a terrible decision and it's laughed at for being stupid, but never "arrogant". Another coach decides to go for it instead of kick the field goal and the decision is criticized, but not on the grounds of "arrogance". That is only attributed to Belichick, for some reason.
No one is drawing conclusions about anyone's character. Relax. If you want to call it a bad decision hiring MP and JJ instead of arrogance, fine you can do that. I have no problem. The actual data and info is how the offense performed this year.
There is an element in the media and fan base that actually believes showing that he is smarter than everyone else is BB’s primary motivation for what he does, and not genuinely trying to improve the team and win, within the parameters of what he has to work with at any given time. It’s patently absurd, of course. No coach could’ve achieved everything he did with that as a modus operandi. But it’s out there, and his often gruff and dismissive personality has certainly added some fuel to the fire. His judgement is completely fair game to criticize and question, and he had, IMO, a really bad year in that department. But I strongly doubt his day to day motivation for doing the job has ever changed.
Funny reminds me of @Super Nomario and a conversation we had last night. Hope you don't mind me sharing here but Bill is the antithesis of arrogance. He believes in constantly innovating, going against the grain, trading down, finding inefficiencies, and not standing pat on his preferred scheme or trading up because he knows best about which prospect (Bill trades up but trades down more). He would delegate authority to coaches and take input from his staff on gameplans. He believes in being going against the herd but if he were arrogant he would think - well I can use the system de jour and just run it better than everyone else even though I am picking 32nd in line and we're fighting over the same players. He used a 3-4 because he could get pick of the litter on nose tackles for example. He rarely if ever trades up in the first round which, again, to me is a sign of not being arrogant. He made a mistake trusting two former head coaches with transferable skills. He made a mistake drafting Ron Brace "I fucked up on that one". He trusts people he is comfortable with like say believing in his friend when drafting N'Keal Harry. If you fail because you believed in someone you trusted that's not arrogance.
It could be taken in many ways man, many ways. The most likely is just that he trusted that two former head coaches would have enough transferable skills to run the offense and/or he might have been trying to get BOB and when that fell through he was left in a spot where he didn't have much else of a choice to do anything but trust his friends could get through it. He fucked up. He fucked up so much he immediately changed things after the season. Arrogant people tend not to admit their mistakes or double down on them.
I think the simplest explanation is just that he was in a rough spot with not a lot of qualified guys he liked available and he made a mistake in trusting Matty P and Joe Judge. That's not arrogance. And given what we know about his other decision making processes it's hard for me to think that's the default answer.
BB goes AGAINST the grain and a lot of times the NFL eventually follows suit. It's ARROGANCE to change things up thinking you are smarter!
BB doesn't change things up because he's always done it this way. It's ARROGRANCE to stick with your way and never change!
See how annoying this shit is?
Can the mods break out the BB is arrogant talk into a separate thread and the rest of us can discuss the new and hopefully improved offense here?
BB doesn't change things up because he's always done it this way. It's ARROGRANCE to stick with your way and never change!
See how annoying this shit is?
Can the mods break out the BB is arrogant talk into a separate thread and the rest of us can discuss the new and hopefully improved offense here?
The against the grain decisions he's made in the past are one thing. The thing I can't get past in this situation is thinking putting two career defensive coaches in the position of running an offense. It appears that we'll all agree to disagree in my phrasing of why he did what he did, but there can be no disagreement in saying that it was a disaster.
Patricia and Judge happened and its probably a good bet that most of us would like more color behind BB's decision making. Belichick is almost certainly not going to address this - at least not now - and we have enough data to know that nobody here will have much insight. So where does this discussion go beyond speculating on BB's reasoning?
Not arrogent. Stupid.
But the situation has been rectified. It was really stupid to think Patricia could be an offensive coach. Alas, he was terrible and now BOB is on board. I have faith in him. This team wasn't winning the SB anyway, although with a real OC they very very likely would have made the playoffs.
But the situation has been rectified. It was really stupid to think Patricia could be an offensive coach. Alas, he was terrible and now BOB is on board. I have faith in him. This team wasn't winning the SB anyway, although with a real OC they very very likely would have made the playoffs.
I also got the impression that Patricia and Judge were stopgaps to fill in the coaching drain. It was a need to replace the following positions coachingwise:
OC
QB Coach
WR Coach
OL Coach
RB Coach
Some people were ready for promotion, others weren't. (As I recall, the OL coach was the second-in-line after Cole Popovich, as well, before being elevated that spot because Popovich refused to comply with COVID vaccination.)
Probably could have alleviated a lot of issues if Bill O'Brien had been willing to come aboard -then-, but it sounded like BOB turned it down at that time, and with other coaching staffs having filled up, I'm not really sure what Bill could have done. "Next Man Up" is easy enough to say except that 'next man up' coachingwise was already drained on the offense end. It struck me, mostly, as Patricia and Judge being used as duct tape placeholders until Bill O'Brien was ready to leave Alabama.
Honestly, I still think there's a problem with other coaching positions, which I imagine is why Adrian Klemm interviewed -again-, this time for OL. Would be nice to bring aboard Shawn Jefferson for WR as well.
Wouldn't call it arrogance as much as 'next man up stunk because there were too many 'next man up' being drained away coaching-staff wise. At some point you're stuck with a Patricia and a Judge because your OC took all the potential replacements with him and your preferred replacement isn't available.
Put a different way, who was available in February who would both fit what Bill needed -and- could fill the roles needed?
Four things that stand out to me:
per the herald article judge was essentially fired by November
-per the Perry/Curran podcast Yates essentially became the oline coach after game one.
-Based on one and two BB was seeing problems and changing them in real time
-seeing that we’re just learning one and two nowwe really do know nothing about the
Inner workings of the team
per the herald article judge was essentially fired by November
-per the Perry/Curran podcast Yates essentially became the oline coach after game one.
-Based on one and two BB was seeing problems and changing them in real time
-seeing that we’re just learning one and two nowwe really do know nothing about the
Inner workings of the team
This was in Albert Breer's column today. We had heard mixed signals of whether or not he pursued BOB last offseason and whether BOB said no so Bill pivoted to Judge and Patricia. Albert says that Bill did not even pursue BOB for fear he'd leave if he did well. So, if he did not pursue BOB did he pursue anyone else outside of the organization after McDaniels left or did he just default to giving it to those two?
https://www.si.com/nfl/2023/01/30/nfl-championship-sunday-takeaways-49ers-eagles-rodgers-jets-mmqb
https://www.si.com/nfl/2023/01/30/nfl-championship-sunday-takeaways-49ers-eagles-rodgers-jets-mmqb
I don't think there's any way to put a good spin on BB's management of his offense last season.
Not only did he put in 2 people who hadn't coached offense before, but he alsao had them revamp the offense (changing terminology, removing line calls, etc, in a way that had not been done during BB's entire tenure. And trying to install a system that none of them had ever coached! With a second year QB.
It just doesn't make sense.
Not only did he put in 2 people who hadn't coached offense before, but he alsao had them revamp the offense (changing terminology, removing line calls, etc, in a way that had not been done during BB's entire tenure. And trying to install a system that none of them had ever coached! With a second year QB.
It just doesn't make sense.
I don't think he made the right choice but you can see the plan and the decision making. He had two people who he thought were excellent coaches. They had both been head coaches as well as handling other position groups etc. in the past. He thought, incorrectly it turns out, that these two "excellent" coaches could make the transition. He was wrong but I don't think that it's as easy as stating that it doesn't make sense when you can walk the process with him.
Sometimes it doesn't work out. Was it a risk? Yes. Did it fail? Undoubtedly. But that doesn't mean that Bill had gone away from his process here.
Aren't some of the hallmarks of arrogant people that in reality, they lack confidence and are unwilling to change or do things differently?
I think we can describe BB in a lot of ways, but lacking confidence and being unwilling to do things differently are not on that list.
Arrogant, belittling, condescending when dealing with the media. Absofuckinglutely.
Arrogant when making football decisions, no chance. Patricia and Judge were bad, horrible decisions, not arrogant decisions. If they were arrogant decisions, his response would be "fuck you, I'm running it back again."
I think we can describe BB in a lot of ways, but lacking confidence and being unwilling to do things differently are not on that list.
Arrogant, belittling, condescending when dealing with the media. Absofuckinglutely.
Arrogant when making football decisions, no chance. Patricia and Judge were bad, horrible decisions, not arrogant decisions. If they were arrogant decisions, his response would be "fuck you, I'm running it back again."
If ownership hadn't stepped in, do you think he definitely would have made changes? I would have to think he would have.
BB wants to be surrounded by FOBs, I think it's as simple as that. I think when McDaniels left, he looked at the options and decided that a guy who can coach offense but he doesn't trust is a greater risk than guys he can trust but may not be able to coach offense. That was the calculus. It didn't work, so he got lucky and found the one guy out there who can do both. He was never bringing in some hotshot Shanahan/McVay/Lafleur underling to show him some new tricks.
Is putting Patricia (failed coach, and guy who coached defense) in charge of the offense the worst managerial decision Belichick ever made? I think yes.
It might be the worst thing he's ever done, period, as the head coach and GM of the Patriots.
The team did give a big contract to a literal serial killer so there is some competition.
I would need to know what you mean by "ownership stepped in." I don't believe for one second that anything the Krafts do, whether it's release a statement, talk to the media, etc. isn't run by BB first when it comes to football operations. It's now how they've handled BB or the team in 20+ years.
BB saw what we saw, he was talking about how he couldn't make major changes to things during the season back in November. He knew it didn't work out, but he didn't have a choice but to let it play out at that point. I believe if the team was sitting at like 2-8 after week 10, we would have seen changes in season, but they were still in the playoff mix at that point.
The end of 2015 (deferring in overtime, etc), and the benching of Malcolm Butler cut me to my core....
By ownership stepping in, I mean that they pushed for changes to be made, a more experienced and established coordinator and position coach staff to be hired, titles to be given out and announced to the public, and a more transparent process. I think we've seen all three of these things happen or in the process of happening. I think it was a collaborative effort between the Krafts and Bill, but a contrast in how things have happened in the past.
I was referring to the meeting at the end of the season. While I believe that Robert and Jonathan did not explicitly direct Bill to do anything, I think each party had an understanding that changes needed to be made. What has been different than in the past about the whole process is how it has been conducted starting with the statement released a couple of weeks ago. I think it's a good thing how this process has played out.
I'm going to push back on this slightly. I think one thing we're seeing right now is just how stale Bill's coaching network is. He's been relying on retreads and people he trusts - including his kids and former players - rather than bringing in different points of view or new concepts. It's really hard to innovate when you have a closed off feedback loop, and I don't think that he still really "believes" in these things when he doesn't try to refresh the brain drain that the franchise has been experienced for years with new blood.
I don't know if that can be chalked up to "arrogance" or whatever but he's clearly being/has been very conservative with his recent hires and I don't think that kind of attitude will result in future innovation. Doing that requires taking risks.
Also, it's frustrating that he keeps his coaching staff so small, which decreases the likelihood that new voices can join the staff and introduce new ideas.
Well, all of the facts line up with my hypothesis. What is yours?
The idea that Belichick decided it was better to roll the dice and move two of his trusted coaches into a new position rather than bring an outsider in to fill McDaniels' void isn't exactly a revolutionary concept. To me, it is by far the most logical rationale for doing what he did.
And since this thread got started by asking how to define "arrogance," I'll only submit that the perception of arrogance comes from BB making decisions that go against the grain of what seems to be universally accepted wisdom or actions. When BB takes an injured CB from a DIII school in the 2nd round when he was projected to go in the 7th, that's perceived as arrogance in the sense that he knows better than everyone else. When the rest of the NFL would never make a move to put guys like Judge or Patricia in a position to run an offense, it's perceived that BB believes he can do something that no other coach in the NFL would or could do.
It aligns with being one of 3 teams that don't subscribe to a national scouting service, being the only coach who won't lend his name to a video game, and being the one coach who skips the annual coach's meeting photo. We think it's cute. The rest of the NFL observing universe thinks it's him being an absolute arrogant prick.
It aligns with being one of 3 teams that don't subscribe to a national scouting service, being the only coach who won't lend his name to a video game, and being the one coach who skips the annual coach's meeting photo. We think it's cute. The rest of the NFL observing universe thinks it's him being an absolute arrogant prick.