Bill Belichick’s foray into college football caused a lot of second-guessing across the industry, but the logic behind his decision may have been both surprising and simple.
“He’s a football coach,” a source close to Belichick said. “He’s going to coach somewhere.”
Belichick, who spent 49 seasons in the NFL, made a major career change Wednesday by accepting the head coaching job at the University of North Carolina.
Welcome to Chapel Hill, Bill Belichick!
The eight-time Super Bowl champion has been officially named the next @UNCFootball head coach. #GoHeels x #ChapelBill pic.twitter.com/cnngQI7gnC
— UNC Tar Heels (@GoHeels) December 12, 2024
At 72 years old, Don Shula’s pursuit of a winning record has been put on hold, likely forever. Belichick needed 15 wins to surpass his NFL all-time record of 347 wins.
The record meant a lot to Belichick, especially in recent years when it seemed more attainable. So why did he stop tracking?
It may be more important to assess the situation from the opposite perspective.
NFL teams with coaching vacancies have already denied interviews with Belichick, league officials said. Officials at several other teams with potential head coaching vacancies did not believe there was enough internal support to hire Belichick. The New York Jets would be hiring a coach and a general manager, a possibility that was never considered due to their shared animosity towards each other over the years.
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And of last year’s seven coaching vacancies, aside from the New England Patriots, who fired Belichick, the architect of the greatest dynasty in league history received serious interest only from the Atlanta Falcons. Several teams quickly dismissed the idea of interviewing Belichick, league sources said. Some expressed relief that Mr. Belichick would not disrupt the organization’s power structure.
Belichick, perennially the most prepared man in the NFL, had to acknowledge a chilling reality. That means it will once again be difficult to get a job in the league’s upcoming recruiting cycle. It’s common for coaches to use tentacles to gauge their attractiveness to an organization.
“(Belichick) built a lot of bridges in his career,” a team executive said.
But Belichick still wanted to be a coach, so it was important to make the move. North Carolina State, which employed his father in the 1950s, was the hottest program with an opening. Belichick turns 73 in April and couldn’t risk being shut out of another recruiting cycle.
Another team executive said, “If he wanted to coach again, he had no choice but to accept this job.”
Another longtime colleague of Belichick thought the move to UNC made sense for other reasons as well. Belichick will essentially have unilateral control of the program, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he will if he ever gets another NFL chance. And Belichick’s closest friends — Nick Saban, Greg Schiano, Chip Kelly, Kirk Ferentz and Jed Fisch — have gone on to success at the college level. He can use them as a resource as he adjusts to a different world of football.
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Belichick also could have waited to see if teams like the Dallas Cowboys, New York Giants, or Jacksonville Jaguars had availability, but it may not have been a great fit in the end. I would like you to consider that as well. Cowboys owner and general manager Jerry Jones has no plans to relinquish control of the front office, and if more fundamental changes are in the works, we’ll find out what the power structure will look like going forward for the Giants and Jaguars It is too early.
“Some owners may want structure and stability (in Belichick), but he’s 72 years old,” said another longtime executive at a team involved in last year’s NFL recruiting cycle. “I think a lot of teams want to build something long-term, and he obviously has a ceiling on his timeline.”
Belichick’s resume remains isolated. He is considered by his colleagues to be the greatest coach of his time, if not history. And even as the Patriots slumped to a 4-13 record last season, several personnel executives said they still saw revolutionary concepts in Belichick’s defense.
However, they were fair and objective in their criticism of the ending with the Patriots. The Patriots’ record has worsened each of the past two seasons, failing to make the playoffs in each of the last five years. Parting ways with quarterback Tom Brady was a head-scratcher, but things got exponentially worse when they couldn’t find a suitable replacement.
Belichick’s push for organizational control has also been a center of discussion among the team. One executive called the Patriots “unicorns” under Belichick. Belichick won three Super Bowls in his first five seasons, and after the departure of head coach Scott Pioli in 2009, he had much more control and was able to run the team as he saw fit. This is not a common structure for most of the league.
Moreover, the model deteriorated in Belichick’s later years with the Patriots. According to league officials, there was a push for further collaboration for the 2021 NFL Draft, but that collaboration broke down in 2022. Patriots scouts were often frustrated by their lack of involvement after the annual combine (almost two months before the draft) or their general presence in the building throughout the season.
A fourth executive said: “People will be concerned about the culture of the building.” “(Belichick’s) culture worked when they were winning, but he was fired because they weren’t winning.”
Of course, that culture extends to the locker room as well. Today’s players aren’t used to the same old-school coaching approaches as they were 10 or even 20 years ago. One of Belichick’s former players recently said, “It’s nice to go somewhere and not be told how bad you are every day.”
That player wasn’t the only one who felt that way. In addition, other teams’ coaches and executives were disgusted by Belichick’s public marginalization of former Patriots quarterback Mac Jones.
Belichick has enjoyed an unprecedented level of success throughout his career. No one in the league would deny that.
But while teams look to long-term solutions with their next head coach, much remains to be seen about how things broke down in New England and whether Belichick is the right fit for the organization. I have a fair question. And even if Belichick rebuilds an NFL team, his age limits his longevity.
Naturally, the same questions would exist at the University of North Carolina, but here’s the difference. UNC was offering jobs and there was no guarantee the NFL would do the same.
(Photo: Timothy T. Ludwig/Getty Images)
