Bill Belichick wins SuperBowl #4 and ties Chuck Noll as one of 2 coaches with 4 Super Bowl victories.
Has Bill firmly established himself as the greatest coach of all time?
I suspect half the answers to the question will be - "but he cheated."
I say it's irrelevant. We cheated, they cheated, everyone in the NFL cheats on some level. Let's just look at what both men accomplished:
Bill Belichick - 20 years
Wins/Losses - 211/109
Win % - .659
Playoff Wins/Losses - 22/9
Playoff Win % - .710
Chuck Noll - 23 years
Wins/Losses - 193/148
Win % - .566
Playoff Wins/Losses - 16/8
Playoff Win % - .667
With equal amounts of SuperBowls, I'm not sure how you can give the edge to Noll any longer. He didn't win as high a percentage of games in the regular season or playoffs. Bill has been to 2 more SuperBowls.
Maybe you could argue the Patriot teams were not as dominant as the Steelers Super Bowl winners. But that takes away the context of the era of when they played. It's much more difficult to assemble a team in the era of Free Agency.
You can also argue Belichick has been far more consistent over a longer time. After his first season in NE, he's had 14 straight winning seasons. And incredibly, they were only under 10 wins in one of those seasons.
The length of their run is pretty amazing. And there's no reason to think they are going to drop off in production now. They will still be at the top of the AFC for the next several years contending for the Super Bowl.
Another thing to consider - after Chuck Noll's 4th SuperBowl, he coached another 12 seasons. In those 12 seasons, he had 1 season with 10 victories. None better than 10.
Bill B started out slow in his first 6 seasons, but has been amazing since. I hate the Patriots, so I'm basically looking for any argument that they suck. But I just can't find the story of the Patriots sucking in their numbers and results over the year.
I'm looking for evidence that has nothing to do with cheating. That's a cheap, weak, and lazy argument imho. So what have you got to make my day brighter?
The only cure might be winning another Lombardi...
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