Why Bill Belichick gave up hope of an NFL job and chased a record

Bill Belichick’s foray into college football caused a lot of bickering across the industry, but the logic behind his decision was perhaps as simple as it was surprising.

“He coaches football,” said a source close to Belichick. “He’s going to coach somewhere.”

After 49 seasons in the NFL, Belichick made a major career change Wednesday when he accepted the head coaching job at the University of North Carolina.

Welcome to Chapel Hill, Bill Belichick!

The eight-time Super Bowl champion has officially been named our next @UNCVootball Head Coach. #GoHeels X #ChapelBill pic.twitter.com/cnngQI7gnC

— UNC Tar Heels (@GoHeels) December 12, 2024

The 72-year-old’s pursuit of Don Shula’s winning record has been put on hold, perhaps permanently. Belichick needed 15 wins to surpass the NFL’s all-time record of 347.

The record meant a lot to Belichick, especially in recent years when it seemed more attainable. Why did he stop the chase?

It may be more important to assess the situation from the opposite point of view.

One NFL team with a coaching vacancy had already ruled out the idea of ​​interviewing Belichick, a league source said. Sources from a few other teams with potential head coaching vacancies did not believe there would be enough support within the building to hire Belichick. The New York Jets hiring a coach and general manager was never considered a possibility due to their long-standing shared animosity toward each other.

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And of the seven coaching vacancies last year — not including the New England Patriots, who fired Belichick — the architect of the greatest dynasty in league history only drew serious interest from the Atlanta Falcons. Several of those teams quickly rejected the idea of ​​interviewing Belichick, league sources said. Some even expressed relief that Belichick would not disrupt the organization’s power structure.

Belichick, the most prepared figure in the NFL for so long, had to face a chilling reality: It would be another long shot to get a job in the league’s upcoming hiring cycle. It is common for coaches to put out feelers to gauge their attractiveness to organizations.

“(Belichick) has burned a lot of bridges during his career,” said a senior team executive.

However, Belichick still wanted to coach, so it was important that he took action. North Carolina, where his father served in the 1950s, was the most high-profile program with an opening. Belichick turns 73 in April and couldn’t risk being left out of another hiring cycle.

“If he wanted to coach again, he almost had to take this job,” said another team manager.

Another longtime Belichick employee also thought the move to UNC made sense for other reasons. Belichick will essentially have unilateral control of the program, which wouldn’t necessarily be the case if he had been given another NFL opportunity. And a handful of Belichick’s closest friends — Nick Saban, Greg Schiano, Chip Kelly, Kirk Ferentz and Jedd Fisch — have had success at the college level. He can use them as an aid in getting used to a different football world.

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Also consider that Belichick could have waited to see if there would be openings with the likes of the Dallas Cowboys, New York Giants or Jacksonville Jaguars, but that might not have been a good fit in the end. Cowboys owner and general manager Jerry Jones isn’t relinquishing control of his front office, and it’s too early to know what the coming power structure will look like within the Giants and Jaguars if more drastic changes are on the way.

“There may be some owners who want (Belichick’s) structure and stability, but he’s 72,” said another longtime executive from a team involved in the NFL’s hiring cycle last year. “I think a lot of teams want to build something for the long term, and he obviously has a limited timeline.”

Belichick’s resume still stands alone. He is regarded by his peers as the greatest coach of his time, if not in history. And last season, even as the Patriots rolled to a 4-13 record, a few personnel executives said Belichick’s defense still showed some revolutionary concepts.

But they had fair and objective criticism of the way things ended for the Patriots, with their performances deteriorating in each of his last two seasons and failing to win a playoff game in the last five years. Quarterback Tom Brady’s retirement was a headache, but the inability to find a suitable successor made matters exponentially worse.

Belichick’s drive for organizational control has also been at the center of team discussions. One executive called the Patriots a “unicorn” during the Belichick era, as he won three Super Bowls in his first five seasons, gained significantly more control after Scott Pioli’s departure in 2009 and was able to run the team as he saw fit. That’s not a common structure in much of the league.

Moreover, the model had deteriorated in Belichick’s later years with the Patriots. There was a push for more cooperation with the 2021 NFL Draft, but that partnership fell apart in 2022, according to league sources. Patriots scouts were often frustrated by their lack of involvement after the annual combine – nearly two months before the draft – or their general inclusion in the building throughout the season.

“I think people would be concerned about the culture in the building,” said a fourth director. “(Belichick’s) culture worked when they won, but he got fired because they didn’t win.”

Of course, the culture also extends to the locker room. Modern players no longer have the same way of coaching as they did 10 or even 20 years ago. As a former Belichick player recently said, “It’s nice to go somewhere and not be told how much you suck every day.”

That player wasn’t the only one with that sentiment. And on top of that, coaches and executives from other teams were turned off by Belichick’s public estrangement from former Patriots quarterback Mac Jones.

Belichick has achieved unprecedented success throughout his career. No one in the league would ever deny that.

But as teams look for a long-term solution with their next head coach, they have a lot of legitimate questions about how things fell apart in New England and whether Belichick would be the right fit within their organization. And even if Belichick were to change an NFL team, his age limits his longevity.

Of course, the same questions will exist in North Carolina, but here’s the difference: UNC offered a job, and it was all but guaranteed that the NFL would do the same.

(Photo: Timothy T Ludwig/Getty Images)