Shannon Sharpe issued a heartfelt apology to Tom Brady for not giving him a big enough slice in the credit pie for the Patriots dynasty.
Sharpe appeared on ESPN’s “First Take” on Monday, after the Patriots got their doors blown off for the second straight week to fall to 1-4, and was asked if the team’s performance shows that Bill Belichick is “just another coach” without Brady.
“No, I don’t think he’s just another coach, I think the success he’s had with his team over the last two decades is something to be applauded and commended,” Sharpe answered.
“I think what has happened, and I can just speak for me, is I owe Brady an apology because I don’t think I gave him enough credit. I should’ve given him even more credit, because what Brady allowed coach Belichick to do, Brady is the largest eraser in pro sports.”
Brady and Belichick won six Super Bowls together in New England, and there has been a never-ending debate about which side, if any, deserves more credit for the dynastic run.
Sharpe analogized Brady to an “eraser” of Belichick’s personnel mistakes from the front office.
“Every mistake that coach Belichick made during those two decades, Brady could erase it,” he continued.
“You took a bad receiver? Brady would take a mistake that you made in the first, second, or third round, and erase it with Julian Edelman.”
Brady won his seventh Super Bowl, in Tampa Bay, in 2021.
Sharpe gave Belichick a lot of praise for devising defensive schemes to defeat high-powered offenses such as the Rams’ “Greatest Show on Turf” but said Brady made the biggest plays when the Patriots needed them most.
“A regular coach can’t have this level of success for two decades,” Sharpe concluded.
“But what it does go to show you is that no matter how great of a defensive or offensive mind you are, if you don’t have a guy that’s 6’4 and 200-plus pounds with an arm, you’re whistling in the wind.”
