December 11, 2024
Bill Belichick with a headset
Dec 29, 2019; Foxborough, Massachusetts, USA; New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick on the sidelines during the second half of their loss to the Miami Dolphins at Gillette Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Winslow Townson-USA TODAY Sports
Bill Belichick has officially taken the job at North Carolina and will be the next head football coach of the Tar Heels, succeeding Mack Brown. At 72, this will likely be Belichick’s last head coach job, and it likely means that Don Shula’s all-time NFL wins record will be safe.
Belichick has not coached in college before, and he had every reason to want to beat Shula’s record. So why is he going to college? Maybe because he had no other choice if he wanted to be a head coach.
Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio previously reported that Belichick has not heard from NFL teams that have current vacancies at head coach and is “very surprised” about it. The Chicago Bears, New Orleans Saints and New York Jets have all fired their head coaches and are using interim ones for now. None of those three teams reached out to Belichick.
Perhaps the lack of contact from teams with vacancies pushed Belichick to seize the opportunity as soon as he had some interest.
There has also been some speculation that Belichick wants to set up his son Steve with a future head coach job and that this might be a package deal. Belichick is also getting good money to be UNC’s coach.
In the end, it could simply just be that Belichick read the room and realized he had no other options.