I hate that too. It’s just a way to try and minimize Brady or Belichick. People just use whatever fits their argument at the time – either Brady is just a system QB or Belichick stinks as a GM and having Brady has saved his team every season.
What we see with BB and TB in NE is how it’s supposed to be. The ideal. You have a coach and quarterback who are of the same mind. They’re relentless. They see the game the same way. They respect each other. The know how to attack defenses.
Brady is not the perfect quarterback. There are things he does better than others. He’s not going to be a “bombs away” QB, throwing 60 yard darts to deep receivers running free.
Instead, what we see in the New England is an offense that is tailored specifically to Brady. It plays to his strengths – reading the defense and hitting the open receiver quickly. That’s what Brady does well so that’s what they run their offense as.
You can change the parts and it will add new dimensions, but the core philosophy remains the same. Still, football is football and the simplest truth to an attack is that you want to stress all areas of a defense.
Deep, short, the seam, running backs who can run or catch. That is what makes an unstoppable offense. The Pats haven’t always been perfect, and in recent years they certainly would be able to attack the perimeter and deep a little better, but overall they know what they do best and that’s what they model their offense and game plans around.
If someone wants to call him a system quarterback that’s fine. He’s one of the best quarterbacks of all time, playing in a system expertly made to suit him.
But to say you can plug any quarterback in and he’d have the same results/success is idiotic.