The Super Bowl trophy is named after Vince Lombardi, the legendary Green Bay Packers coach who led his team to wins in the first two Super Bowls.
However, Bill Belichick said coaches can’t win games without the players and suggested the Lombardi Trophy be renamed after Tom Brady, who won an NFL-record seven Super Bowl rings in his career — six with Belichick as his head coach.
Belichick, the former New England Patriots head coach who is now the coach at the University of North Carolina, made his comments on the “Let’s Go!” podcast this week in a conversation with co-host Jim Gray.
“Maybe they should name it the Brady Trophy. He won seven of them.”
Bill Belichick, on the Super Bowl trophy
“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,” said Belichick, who has won eight Super Bowl rings, including two as an assistant with the Giants. “And same thing when we got good at Cleveland and then at New England. I mean, it’s [Tom] 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. 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 4 inches of snow.
“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. 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.”
Gray, however, pointed out, “They don’t name it the Starr Trophy,” referring to Bart Starr, the Packers’ quarterback for those first two Super Bowl wins. “It’s named the Lombardi Trophy.”
Belichick responded, “Maybe they should name it the Brady Trophy. He won seven of them.”
Brady won six Super Bowls as the quarterback with the Patriots and another with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He is a five-time Super Bowl MVP, the most by any player in NFL history.