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USA Today Names Bill Belichick “Best GM in Football”

By Matthew Rewinski

Dec 27, 2015; East Rutherford, NJ, USA; New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick argues a call with an official during the first half of their game against the New York Jets at MetLife Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Ed Mulholland-USA TODAY Sports
Dec 27, 2015; East Rutherford, NJ, USA; New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick argues a call with an official during the first half of their game against the New York Jets at MetLife Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Ed Mulholland-USA TODAY Sports /
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New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick, who also serves as the team’s de facto general manager, is the best in the biz, according to USA Today.

Everyone’s up to their eyeballs in mock drafts this time of year, so take a second and read about something else you hear all the time – Bill Belichick is good at his job.

(Seriously, enough with the mock drafts already.  We get it.  The Rams will either take Carson Wentz or Jared Goff.  They will probably have a good defense again and their offense will score 10 points per game again.  Tavon Austin will do two cool things per season and screw your fantasy team in the process.  They will most likely go 8-8 again.  Such is life.)

Bill Belichick’s on-field credentials are beyond reproach at this point – the Hoodie has taken New England to six Super Bowls games, ten AFC Championship games, and thirteen AFC East titles in 15 years – but his work as the Patriots general manager tends to fly a bit under the radar.  Unless, of course, Bill’s busy trading, cutting, or lowballing your favorite player, whether that’s Richard Seymour, Wes Welker, Lawyer Milloy, Ty Law, Asante Samuel, Logan Mankins, or…you get the idea.

USA Today’s For The Win column ranked every NFL GM – from “Worst to First”, as they put it – and, shocker, Bill Belichick’s work with the Patriots landed him in first place.

Here’s why:

"“The Patriots have won four Super Bowls under Belichick and have never been in cap trouble. That’s a testament to his cold approach to team-building. Decorated veterans are dropped at the first sign of decline — and sometimes before. Some former players, including Ty Law, have claimed that approach has cost the team Super Bowls, but I’d argue it has prolonged this run of excellence.Best move: Drafting Tom Brady 199th overall in 2000.Worst move: Signing Adalius Thomas for $35 million in 2007.”"

Hard to argue with that.

If we’re going to step into hot-sportz-take-land, though, it’ll always be amusing when folks talk about the Tom Brady pick as a Belichick masterstroke.  First off, if the Patriots knew Brady would be as good as he’s turned out to be, they wouldn’t have waited until the draft was almost freaking over to draft him at pick 199.  Second, it’s well-documented that New England basically flipped a coin on picking Tom Brady or Louisiana Tech quarterback Tim Rattay.  Third, Tom Brady was chosen with a compensatory pick, which the Patriots only got because their cap was screwed at the time and they couldn’t re-sign a couple decent, experienced players after the 1999-2000 season.  In other words, if the Patriots weren’t trying to squeeze under the salary cap by letting some veterans walk, they wouldn’t have even had the draft pick they ended up using on Brady.  Calling the Brady pick Belichick’s best move when you can set your watch by Bill drafting Pro Bowl players in the early rounds of the draft is hindsight at it’s finest.

It gets better, though – check out where the rest of the AFC East teams ranked:

Mike Maccagnan (New York Jets) – 16th.

Doug Whaley (Buffalo Bills) – 24th.

Mike Tannenbaum (Miami Dolphins) – 32nd.

Keep in mind that these guys are regularly praised as the GMs that “win” free agency, whether it’s signing Ndamukong Suh, bringing Darrelle Revis back for a monster contract, or trading for LeSean McCoy.

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Also, if schadenfreude is your thing, Colts general manager Ryan Grigson, who’s spent his entire career in Indy either chasing the Patriots on the field or accusing them of cheating, is ranked a lowly 28th out of 32.  For perspective, that means Grigson ranked below David Caldwell of the Jaguars (!), Mickey Loomis of the Saints, and Les Snead of the aforementioned Rams.

Put another way, according to FTW, there are literally only four people in the entire NFL that are worse GMs than Ryan Grigson.

Trading a first-rounder for Trent Richardson will do that to a guy.

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