Oh, good one. I think the single greatest strength of Belichick is breaking down an opponent to just a few key things that his team needs to do to beat them. I’ve read a lot of different former players talk about this and you can also see it a bit in BB’s Football Life.
He simplifies the game for his players and nine times out of 10, if they execute his handful of keys to the game, they’ll be successful.
As for weakness, I think it’s his conservative philosophy on defense. I don’t think they need to be an all-out blitzing defense like the Jets can be, but I don’t think teams are afraid of the Patriots defense any more. Really since 2008.
Maybe it’s just because they aren’t as good as they were with Bruschi/Vrabel/Seymour/Vince/Rodney. That he was coaching the same way with those guys, but because they had more talent they were able to win their matchups more consistently. It’s possible.
I also think things have improved a bit since Talib arrived and they started playing more press man. The combination of mostly zone coverages and a passive defense that doesn’t blitz often was a formula for giving up yards upon yards.
Nowhere is this deficiency more apparent on third down. You can read more about how bad they’ve been on third down here.
We need to see more creativity and more pass rushing talent on the team. So that goes back to BB the GM and BB the coach.
