Stop Me If You've Heard This One.
It's about the coach who won't quit
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Bill Belichick never said he was finished coaching. A few folks certainly said it for him, perhaps guessing that a 72-year-old future Hall of Fame inductee with eight Super Bowl rings and one of the greatest runs with a single team in modern sports history might, you know, have a clean getaway on his mind.
Not your Bill. As the news surfaced Thursday that Belichick has been talking with the University of North Carolina about its newly vacant head coaching position, so did a gusher of previously unreported tidbits that, stitched together, make a fairly compelling case that Belichick will be back on a sideline soon.
Will that be in Chapel Hill? Don’t bet on it. It’s far more likely that the university’s top folks wanted to speak with Belichick about the job so that they could say they did, and it’s also more likely that Belichick used the opportunity to advertise his availability than it is he actually wants that particular gig.
He can and will do better. And no, to answer that question above — no, no, no, coaches like Belichick just do not make clean getaways. Because they don’t want to be gone.
Belichick isn’t a schemer so much as he is a guy who doesn’t like doing anything else half as much as he likes sitting in darkened offices breaking down game film. That’s who he is. Let’s not get it twisted.
He really is that simple. Plenty of folks have babbled themselves spent this year trying to describe what a dream life the coach was walking into after his departure from the Patriots: Dating a woman one-third his age; possessed of the means to travel anywhere and anytime he likes; able to say yes to whatever TV job pleases him; certain never to pay for a meal in the whole of New England for the remainder of eternity.
Sounds great! Belichick doesn’t want it. He spent his “down time” this past year immersing himself in the program at the University of Washington, where his son Steve is the defensive coordinator and the head coach, Jedd Fisch, is from the Belichick coaching tree, a former Pats assistant himself.
“He is fully invested in our program,” Fisch told The Athletic earlier this year. “When we were at Arizona (where Fisch used to coach), I would get emails or calls from Bill and he would give me things that he saw in our film. He watched our film every week. He would give me a whole rundown of certain things to look at and think about, which was just incredible.”
No. Not incredible. It’s Belichick doing the one thing that actually does please him, or at least provides him some comfort in this weary world. As a wise man once said, coaches coach.
While I believe the reports that Belichick is fascinated by the college game and thinks his stuff would work there, it still feels like a better bet that he winds up back in the NFL. As of today, The Hoodie stands just 14 wins shy of Don Shula’s all-time NFL record of 347 coaching victories. You think Bill isn’t aware?
There are possibilities, and there will be more. The Bears, Saints and Jets have all jettisoned their head coaches already, and we’re still weeks away from the end of the regular season and its usual bloodletting. Belichick did not immediately bounce to a new NFL job last winter, but from all indications he would have been happy to do so.
He’s still got the itch. He took North Carolina’s call because, even if he didn’t want the job, he wanted to talk about coaching football, so that pretty soon he can be doing it again. What can you say? Some people just know what they like.
You know what would be cool? Giving someone you like a subscription to The Dope. Go for it!
Let the football nerd cook!
This is a real head scratcher. I am wondering if he is intrigued by the thought of being surrounded by so many college co-eds.