Bill Belichick joining UNC wasn’t a surprising choice. It was his only choice.
“College kind of came to me. I didn’t necessarily seek it out.”Â
COMMENTARY
Bill Belichick said all the right things Thursday afternoon.
Such a statement sounds jarring, especially given his 24-year run of stone-faced press conferences and muted musings in Foxborough.
Granted, just about everything involving Thursday’s press conference was striking, as Bill Belichick — dressed in a baby-blue shirt and argyle tie — waxed poetic about the University of North Carolina Tar Heels.
After spending nearly half a century patrolling NFL sidelines, the 72-year-old Belichick is moving on from the league he once reigned over in search of an exciting new challenge.
At least, such was the sentiment he shared as he fielded questions at Chapel Hill.
“I always wanted to coach in college football,” Belichick told reporters. “It just never really worked out. I had some good years in the NFL, so that was OK. This is really kind of a dream come true.”
Gratitude and graciousness were the themes displayed by the eight-time Super Bowl champion in his UNC introduction.
He even played some of the hits.
Beyond the longtime coach mentioning the positive feedback he’s already received from “MyFace,” UNC athletic director Bubba Cunningham donned a suit jacket with its sleeves cut off — a tribute to Belichick’s usual on-field attire.
But amid the pomp and excitement emanating from a collegiate program now boasting the greatest football coach of all time, one prevailing question lingered.
It wasn’t “Why UNC?” — even if the Tar Heels haven’t exactly been a football powerhouse for decades (their last ACC title came in 1980).
Rather, “Why college football at all?”
“College kind of came to me,” Belichick said. “I didn’t necessarily seek it out.”
Of course, several reports point to the contrary.
Rather, the writing was on the wall that the NFL — the league where Belichick crafted the greatest dynasty in the game’s history — was ready to leave the legendary coach in the past.
It was a sentiment that first became evident last offseason, when the Atlanta Falcons were the lone team among seven NFL head-coaching vacancies to take serious interest in Belichick.
The Falcons ultimately hired Raheem Morris as their head coach, with Belichick spending the 2024 NFL season in coaching purgatory while inundating his schedule with countless media obligations.
The 2025 NFL coaching carousel should once again present several intriguing opportunities — especially if teams like the Giants, Cowboys, and Jaguars opt for staffing reshuffles.
But as appealing as it’d be to pair Belichick with a win-now squad like the Cowboys or a franchise with close ties in the Giants, it became increasingly clear that Belichick wasn’t exactly viewed as a hot commodity this winter.
“One NFL team with a coaching vacancy had already ruled out the idea of interviewing Belichick, according to a league source,” The Athletic’s Jeff Howe wrote Thursday. “Sources with a couple of other teams with potential head coach vacancies didn’t believe there’d be enough support within the building to hire Belichick.”
“Belichick, the most prepared figure in the NFL for so long, had to recognize a chilling reality: He’d once again be a long shot to get a job in the league’s upcoming hiring cycle,” Howe added, with an NFL team executive telling him: “If [Belichick] wanted to coach again, he almost had to take this job.”
Sitting just 15 wins away from the NFL’s all-time coaching wins record, immersing himself in an evolving collegiate environment with NIL and the transfer portal was probably far from the priority for Belichick entering 2025.
For a football mind fixated on the results, surpassing Don Shula’s 347 career victories stood as one of the few peaks that Belichick has yet to summit.
But with no NFL team opting to toss him a rope, Belichick relented — traversing the safer path at the collegiate level.
“When he agreed to terms with North Carolina, it was not only because of a new challenge after coaching only in the NFL since 1975, at a school where his father, Steve, had worked when Bill was a boy, and not only because his future in the pros was unclear,” ESPN’s Seth Wickersham wrote Thursday. “It was because, in the words of a confidant, Belichick is ‘disgusted’ in what he believes the NFL had become.”
“This is a big (expletive) you to the NFL,” one Belichick confidant told Wickersham.
Of course, some of Belichick’s current situation is a direct result of his own actions — and his stubbornness when it comes to ceding control of a football program.
Whereas he now wields significant power at Chapel Hill, Belichick’s inability to accept a future where his NFL career revolved just around Xs and Os and not football personnel limited his options.
The Falcons reportedly passed on Belichick last January because of concerns that the longtime Pats coach “would overhaul the leadership structure and the order of command.”
Those same fears clearly resonated with desperate NFL teams this year, even with the promise that Belichick offered as far as on-the-field returns.
Even with all that he accomplished across the course of his NFL coaching career, Belichick’s results in the post-Brady era in New England loomed large.
While Belichick’s preparation and coaching acumen — especially on the defensive side of the ball — remain unequaled, his personnel decisions in New England now have the Patriots mired near the bottom of the NFL standings.
Moving on from Tom Brady proved to be a disaster for New England.
Drake Maye finally stands as the sought-after source of salvation under center, albeit a miserable five seasons after Brady left town.
You can run through the list of other miscues that now have Patriots fans staring at highlights of Travis Hunter and Tetairoa McMillan instead of looking ahead to a playoff push in January.
- Missing on franchise-changing talent in the draft like A.J. Brown and Deebo Samuel while choosing deaft busts like N’Keal Harry and Tyquan Thornton.
- Installing Matt Patricia as a de-facto OC in 2022, setting Mac Jones on a path toward disaster after a promising rookie campaign.
- Choosing JuJu Smith-Schuster over Jakobi Meyers.
- Fumbling an offensive-line retooling that has led to porous results for years now.
We can keep going.
Ultimately, Belichick’s record is what it is.
For all of his efforts toward building a two-decade dynasty in New England, his fumbles amid the Patriots’ most daunting rebuild overshadowed the sheen of six Lombardi Trophies.
It’s a stance that holds some validity, especially given Belichick’s reported desire to augment rosters to his liking.
But it’s also one seeped in melancholy.
“When you love what you do — my dad told me this — it’s not work,” Belichick said. “I love what I do. I love coaching.”
It wouldn’t come as much of a surprise if a football maven like Belichick builds a machine at Chapel Hill.
It’s just a shame that we won’t witness a similar endeavor at the NFL level from Belichick — a football titan now cast aside as a relic within the league he once ran.
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