Former New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick, who currently coaches North Carolina, could see it as fitting for his longtime former quarterback Tom Brady’s name to supplant Vince Lombardi’s for the Super Bowl trophy.
Brady won six Super Bowls with the Patriots under Belichick in nine appearances between 2000 and 2020. Then, Brady won one more with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2021.
Lombardi, who coached the Green Bay Packers, won the first two Super Bowls. The late coaching legend won three NFL titles before the Super Bowl era began, and he had a career record of 96–34–6.
Belichick notably passed Lombardi during the Patriots dynasty. Second all-time for wins at 333–178, Belichick also has six Super Bowl wins as a head coach and two more as an assistant with the New York Giants.
“Players win games. You can’t win games without good players. I don’t care who the coach is; it’s impossible. You can’t win without good players. You know, I found that out when I had [Lawrence] Taylor and [Carl] Banks and Harry Carson, Pepper Johnson, Jim Burt, Everson Walls, all those guys at the Giants,” Belichick told podcast host Jim Gray.
“And the same thing when we got good at Cleveland and then at New England. I mean, it’s Brady, it’s [Willie] McGinest, it’s [Mike] Vrabel, it’s [Tedy] Bruschi, it’s Corey Dillon, it’s Randy Moss, Troy Brown, Lawyer Milloy, Ty Law, Rodney Harrison,” Belichick said. “Those are guys that won the games, man. I didn’t make any tackles. I didn’t make any kicks. That was [Adam] Vinatieri that made that kick in four inches of snow.”
Belichick notably built the Patriots roster since he was essentially the general manager during the dynasty. He drafted, signed, or traded for most of the aforementioned players, including Brady, an unheralded sixth-round pick out of Michigan in 2020.
After an injury to Patriots quarterback Drew Bledsoe in 2001, Brady took over and led the team to a first-ever Super Bowl win. Brady’s prowess grew amid three MVPs, five Super Bowl MVPs, three All-Pro honors, and 15 Pro Bowl selections.
“You got to have good players and as a coach, you want to give your players a chance to win. You want to put them in a position where if they go out there and play well, they'll have a chance to win,” Belichick said. “That’s what Coach [Bill] Parcells taught me, is there’s always a way to win. You just got to figure out what it is, and you have to give the players a chance.”
The Giants Super Bowl teams that Belichick served as an assistant with had Hall of Fame players plus two different championship quarterbacks. Phil Simms won the Super Bowl MVP when the Giants beat the Denver Broncos 39–20 in 1987, and Jeff Hostetler played for an injured Simms in a 20–19 win over the Buffalo Bills in 1991.
While quarterbacks play a critical role in Super Bowls, Gray noted that the trophy wasn’t named for the late Packers great Bart Starr, who led the team on the field to those first two wins. That said, changing it to a quarterback’s name could pose challenges.
Brady’s record seven Super Bowl wins may not last, however unlikely. Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, 29, seeks a fourth Super Bowl win on Feb. 9 against the Philadelphia Eagles. Mahomes has reached five Super Bowls and seven AFC Championship Games since he took over as the starter in 2018.
Time will tell whether Mahomes can catch Brady, but the Chiefs at least believed enough in Mahomes’ potential for longevity when the team gave him a 10-year, $450 million contract extension in 2020 that will last until 2031. In addition, if Mahomes and the Chiefs win on Feb. 9, he will already have achieved something Brady couldn’t do in two attempts—win three-straight Super Bowls.
No NFL team in the Super Bowl era has pulled that feat, and the Chiefs have a shot to hoist a Lombardi Trophy for a third straight year.
