Shannon Sharpe tackles the question of whether Belichick or Brady means more to the Pats

Published Feb. 1, 2017 5:03 p.m. ET

Sam Gardner

With seven AFC championships and four Super Bowl wins (so far) in the past 16 seasons, Tom Brady and Bill Belichick are unquestionably the most decorated coach-player duo of their era, if not in NFL history.

But is there any way of determining whether one or the other has been more critical to the New England Patriots’ success?

On Wednesday’s episode of “Undisputed,” Skip Bayless, Shannon Sharpe and Ray Lewis debated whether Tom Brady or Bill Belichick has been a more valuable Patriot, and after the show, Sharpe expanded an argument in an interview with FOXSports.com.

“It’s really hard to definitively say unless one stays for an extended period of time while the other goes,” Sharpe said. “We’ve only had a small sample size (of that) … Brady has missed 19 games, they went 13-6 in those games. But Coach Belichick has always been there. So to definitively say who’s more responsible, it’s really hard to say because they’ve always been together.”

When pressed, however, Sharpe said he gives the nod to Belichick, who is 201-71 in the regular season and 24-9 in the playoffs with New England and also serves as the Patriots’ de facto general manager.

“Although he doesn’t throw passes, he doesn’t tackle anybody, he’s the mastermind that’s putting all of this together,” Sharpe said. “Anybody that comes there, anybody that leaves there, you know it’s because of Coach Belichick. And he’s done a great job of surrounding Tom Brady.

“I know people seem to think that if it’s not Julio (Jones), it’s not Ezekiel Elliot, they’re not football players,” Sharpe continued. “But when you think about it, there’s only 1,700 people who do what (NFL players) do in the entire world, out of 7 billion people. So although they’re not those guys, they’re very, very good players. They’re still at the top of the entire world.”