Belichick ending badly is history repeating
Bill Belichick has 333 NFL head coaching victories, No. 2 on the alltime list, and six Super Bowl wins — the most ever.
Nobody wants him.
By most measures and reckoning he is the undisputed G.O.A.T., and he is an available free agent looking for a job.
Nobody wants him.
The NFL is winding down an especially active cycle of coaching turnover. A quarter of the teams, eight, will have made new hires.
And nobody wanted Bill Belichick. As King Sport prepares for its season crescendo with a Chiefs-49ers Super Bowl on Feb. 11 in Las Vegas, the NFL quietly is moving on from its greatest coach, now all but certain to enter the 2024 season without him. It would be his first season not in the league in 50 years, since his first job as an assistant with the Baltimore Colts in 1974.
The once-unfathomable, sudden jettisoning of Belichick to past-tense is a stunning turn of events with historic ramifications.
Because it is now reasonable for the first time to wonder and ask: What if this is it? That he never coaches again? What if the one-year hiatus turns into what is tantamount to a forced retirement?
These are fair questions because the once-unthinkable is now close enough to see:
Belichick may never get the chance to surpass Don Shula’s career record for all-time wins — a mountaintop he once seemed certain to scale, an honor his to own.
Shula, the Miami Dolphins legend who passed away at age 90 in 2020, had 347 victories. Belichick is 15 wins from beating that. Realistically he would need two more seasons, three tops. That was once a given. It is far from that now.
Shula could never have imagined it ending like this for his longtime coaching rival.
Tom Brady left New England to sign with Tampa Bay just weeks before Shula passed away. But who could foresee that Belichick would fizzle post-Brady, going 29-39 with no playoff wins in the four seasons since? Or that Pats owner Robert Kraft would move on from Belichick last month in a “parting of ways” carefully crafted as amicable even as it was clear to all that Kraft wanted the change — that Belichick was being nudged out the door with a velvet glove.
Actually, maybe Shula could have imagined that. Because he lived it. It is how his own coaching career ended. Same with Tom Landry before him. And George Halas before that. It doesn’t always end well, even for top-tier coaches. Now we see history perhaps repeating itself.
The exception is one win from his third Super Bowl ring.
Andy Reid of the Chiefs, who will be 66 next month, is at 283 wins, fourth all-time and now 64 wins from topping Shula for No. 1. Unlike the others, Reid seems near his career apex, and has a superstar quarterback in his prime in 28-year-old Patrick Mahomes. For Reid, the most wins ever might be five or six seasons away should he choose to stave off retirement.
If Belichick does have a lane back into the NFL, it could be Kansas City if Reid elects to retire after the Super Bowl, which ESPN’s Adam Schefter and others have speculated could happen.
Dallas might also be a landing spot in 2025 if Jones elects to move on from Mike McCarthy.
But Reid not continuing on with the best QB in football in his prime seems a long shot. As does McCarthy having a fireable season next year with a roster that just won the NFC East at 12-5 (albeit with a quick playoff exit). Or with the control-freak Jones giving Belichick the power he would demand.
And would any other team want Belichick when eight just said nothanks?
Only Atlanta had apparent interest. Gave him two interviews, the first on owner Arthur Blank’s yacht off the Virgin Islands. But the Falcons hired Raheem Morris instead — a rebuff that reportedly embarrassed, angered and hurt Belichick.
Six other teams made hires without ever contacting Belichick. The Washington Commanders have the last opening but have shown zero interest in the six-time Super Bowl winner.
Now it looks as if Belichick might be the one done, the timetable not his, the end portending hurt.
Because the greatest coach ever is available.
And nobody wants him.