conace21 wrote: ↑Wed Oct 11, 2023 10:24 am
But I think the whole narrative has been altered due to revisionist history.
Again, reasonable people can disagree. I remember it going down pretty much as advertised. People can draw their own conclusions as to whether they think Belicichik is good/great coach but as far as Cleveland 1995, IMO there is no doubt the announcement killed the team.
People can make an argument that maybe they were not going to do well in POs that year and maybe they were not going
to challenge for SB in 96-97 based on talent level of QB and all the things we like to speculate on.
But the announcement preceded the collapse in the '95. I get it, they didn't come out of the gate on fire in 95, but no way do they blow up
if it does not happen. Would they be 9-7? 11-5 like the year before? I don't know for sure, but my opinion is somewhere in there -- they were a team that were better than the sum of the parts in my opinion.
Guys that most fans didn't think were all that good were in fact, pretty good especially on the lines and in secondary.
Sometimes, and I don't mean you ... I mean media and fans over the years liked to connect the Brady/Belichick thing to Cleveland.
Pro BB people would point to Cassell and the anti-BB folks would say "It's Brady" and point to Cleveland - i.e. "What has BB done w/o Brady?"
All were fair questions. But I never saw the Cleveland era as any kind of failure. It was going to be a long-term thing there.
Now, with Brady gone for a decent amount of time there is mounting evidence in the BB/TB debate. To me, now is a more fair apples-to-apples
comparison. back then it wasn't. All they had was a short time without Brady. Now, much more of a timeline to make a case.
Either way, though, however people come down it's a fascinating discussion.