Super Bowl XLVI: What's At Stake For Bill Belichick

Already one of the greatest coaches of all time, how much will a fourth Super Bowl help Bill Belichick's legacy?

As I concluded yesterday, a win Sunday would nearly lock up a Hall of Fame spot for Tom Coughlin.  Bill Belichick, on the other hand, has had a place reserved in Canton for some time now. He's one of only four coaches with three Super Bowl wins, and a victory in this game would tie him with former Steelers coach Chuck Noll for the most all-time. That begs the question: if Bill Belichick wins Super Bowl XLVI, is he the greatest coach in NFL history?

From a pure stats perspective, Belichick has already placed himself in the debate for greatest coach of all time. He is 10th in career regular season wins with 175. His .643 winning percentage ranks 11th among men who have coached at least 100 games. Notable names ahead of him in these categories are George Halas, Curly Lambeau, Paul Brown, and Chuck Noll. Belichick's postseason resume is even more impressive.  He's 3rd all-time in  playoff wins, behind only Don Shula and Tom Landry. A win Sunday would give him a 16-8 record in the postseason. Three men, including Vince Lombardi, have a better mark than that, but none of them coached more than 10 playoff games. And winning that elusive fourth championship would lift Belichick past three-time Super Bowl winners Bill Walsh and Joe Gibbs.

All of the coaches I mentioned above have legitimate arguments for being the greatest of all time. But what makes Belichick's career the most impressive is that he did it in a more challenging era than any of those who preceded him. The level of competition and pressure in the NFL has never been higher, and thanks to free agency and the salary cap, coaches have to deal with massive turnover from year to year.

Belichick's trophy case may never be as large as that of Halas or Lambeau, who each won six championships, but he also never had the benefit of coaching in the pre-Super Bowl NFL. Halas won his first title in 1921, when the Chicago Bears were still the Chicago Staleys, the NFL was still the American Professional Football Association, and teams went bankrupt in the middle of the season. Lambeau won his championships when the league consisted of 12 teams or less. Even Brown, Belichick's idol, won four of his seven titles in the now-defunct All-America Football Conference. With 32 teams and a 12-team tournament to decide the champion, winning a title in today's NFL is harder than it's ever been.

Even other Super Bowl era coaches, like Lombardi, Shula, Landry, Noll, Walsh, and Gibbs, did not have to deal with the roster decisions and turnover that comes with free agency and a salary cap. Lombardi had seven players, all future Hall of Famers, who started for his five championship teams in Green Bay. Noll had a whopping nine players (five of them Hall of Famers) start for all four of his Super Bowl teams. If he wins on Sunday, Belichick will have had just two starters that contributed to all of his championships (Tom Brady and Matt Light). In fact, Belichick is returning to the Super Bowl with only six players from the team that started his last Super Bowl four years ago.

Lombardi's contract squabbles with future Hall of Famer Jim Taylor were the stuff of legend, but tough negotiations and roster decisions back then were few and far between. When a coach like Shula, Landry, Walsh, or Gibbs drafted a top notch talent, they simply kept him for his entire career. Many times, Belichick has had to let a good player go because the Patriots could not afford to keep him under the salary cap (see: Richard Seymour, Asante Samuel, Deion Branch).

Belichick's greatness lies in the way he's adapted his schemes to deal with this turnover. Most of the other coaches mentioned above had a specific system that brought them success.  Lombardi's Packer sweep. Landry's 4-3 defense. Noll's Cover Two. Walsh's West Coast offense. Gibbs' counter trey run game. They discovered a system, found players that made it work, and held onto those players. 

Belichick has succeeded with an ever-changing roster because he has no system.  His early Patriot teams won with an efficient offense and a top five defense. He captured the 2004 Super Bowl behind Corey Dillon's 1,600 yards rushing.  He made the Super Bowl again in 2007 with a Brady-to-Moss connection that shattered passing records. And now he's made it back with an offense centered around his two tight ends.* Belichick's genius is that he changes his scheme to fit his players, not the other way around.  It's why, while many teams would collapse after losing their Hall of Fame quarterback at the beginning of the season, the Patriots finished 11-5 in 2008 with Matt Cassel.

*Rob Gronkowski and Aaron Hernandez have 256 receptions, 3,346 yards and 40 touchdowns in the last two seasons. Patriots tight ends had 254 receptions, 3,086 yards and 32 touchdowns in the previous five seasons combined.

With a victory this Sunday, no one will have more Super Bowl wins than Belichick. Few coaches have had as much playoff and regular season success as he has, and none of those men had to overcome the competition of a 32 team league with salary caps and ever-changing rosters. We can debate it now, but a Patriots win in Super Bowl XLVI will erase all doubt: Bill Belichick is the greatest coach in NFL history.

Coaching stats courtesy of Pro Football Reference.

Image found here.