BELICHICK MIGHT FAIL AT NORTH CAROLINA, SO WHAT ABOUT VRABEL — IN CHICAGO?
Stunned as we are to see him as a Tar Heel — he’ll say, “We’re on to Wake Forest” — the greatest of NFL coaches must embrace NIL and transfer portals as his former player blows up Halas Hall culture
What is a Tar Heel? Does Bill Belichick even know? The term has something to do with hotter weather and globs of turpentine sticking to bare feet. It’s a declaration of pride in North Carolina, where he has become the 72-year-old football coach at a university when Mike Krzyzewski has a side office 11.1 miles away at Duke. One legend knew when to get away and retire.
The other has returned, obsessed and maybe blind to 2025 life. They are the best at what they’ve done in two sports. Only Belichick, with six NFL championships as a head coach and two as a coordinator, will carry on in Chapel Hill as Chapel Bill. He’ll treat the transfer portal like a county sheriff. He’ll shake down UNC donors with Spygate espionage. And he is certain to bring back an arrogant air when he speaks to the media about Atlantic Coast Conference competition.
“We’re on to Wake Forest,” he’ll say.
“I want to get my press conference aura back,” he told Pat McAfee.
Will he recruit players suitably with boosters and collectives? Will he fail, as someone who never has coached on the college level? At North Carolina, they’ve cared more about basketball — a call to Michael Jordan would help — and the 11 NCAA titles of the women’s field hockey program. In Belichick’s mind, he sees an opportunity to help kids find a way into the NFL. Compensation will help via names, images and likenesses. Transfers will turn him into a trickster of sorts. In the end, he still must win to fulfill his ideal in life, which he failed to do in his final New England seasons.
And can he win with kids who aren’t used to a disciplinarian who is headstrong and fairly vulgar? The Patriots quit on him before he was fired. Will North Carolina players produce or surrender? If he flops twice, the ultimate winner becomes a ruminant animal. Belichick could have continued as a new media hit, but our business is beneath him. He wants to coach, even if coaching is finished with him.
“The college program would be a pipeline to the NFL for the players that had the ability to play in the NFL,” Belichick said. “It would be a professional program, training, nutrition, scheme, coaching, techniques that would transfer to the NFL. It would be an NFL program at a college level and an education that would get the players ready for their career after football, whether that was the end of their college career or at the end of their pro career.
“But it would be geared toward developing the player, time management, discipline, structure and all that, that would be life skills, regardless of whether they’re in the NFL or somewhere in the business. I feel very confident that I have the contacts in the National Football League to pave the way for those players that would have the ability to have the opportunity to compete in the National Football League.”
He becomes the biggest story after the postseason. Is winning impossible? SMU was a gutter program stuck with the NCAA’s death penalty and was invited — in its first ACC season — to the inaugural College Football Playoff. Clemson stumbled in as well, even as Alabama beat No. 2 Georgia and still couldn’t qualify. He’ll deal with Miami, Georgia Tech, Louisville, Syracuse, Pittsburgh and wonder how Stanford and California entered the league when they are pressed against the Pacific Ocean, not the Atlantic. This year, as Mack Brown was run out in a squabble between university leaders and the trustees, Belichick won approval from board chair John P. Preyer.
He’ll be in Carolina Blue, not power blue, for perhaps five years. He’ll make $10 million a year, far less than what Jim Harbaugh makes in Los Angeles or Sean Payton in Denver. He’ll try to sell a five-star quarterback and employ Tom Brady references while, sure enough, a North Carolina kid named Drake Maye is succeeding Brady with the Patriots. Not since 1980 has the program won a conference title. How many 10-victory seasons? Just one since 1997. Lawrence Taylor, created by Belichick as an all-time defensive player in New York, went to North Carolina.
If he wins and tell us all about the Tar Heel? Somehow, as son Steve likely takes over the program, Belichick might want another shot at the NFL, where he remains 14 victories shy of Don Shula’s career for coaches. What if he had waited a few weeks? Dallas might have fired Mike McCarthy and called Belichick, who is friendly with owner Jerry Jones and wouldn’t suffer the barbs of Bob Kraft. “I have to go,” said the owner of the Patriots, “to be with the biggest f—ing a—hole in my life — my head coach.” Some franchises, such as one in Chicago chaired by George McCaskey and shoehorned by Kevin Warren, think he’s too angry to warrant organizational control.
But NFL teams seeking an enlightening uplift don’t necessarily need Belichick, or the best of him. What about Mike Vrabel, who played for Belichick and wants to resume his head coaching career? A culture shock is more important to the Bears than an offensive playcaller. There are aisles at a shoplifted Walgreens that function more efficiently than Halas Hall. Our original thought was Ben Johnson, offensive guru of the Detroit Lions, who would inspire Caleb Williams to higher levels. But can he boost the Bears from their post-Super Bowl daze, which is approaching 40 years?
Beyond abandoning Lake Forest and setting up elsewhere, McCaskey and Warren need a strong presence. A badass, really. In the mishmash that brought Matt Eberflus, Matt Nagy, John Fox, Marc Trestman, Lovie Smith, Dick Jauron and Dave Wannstedt — seven names in 31 years, five in the last dozen years, not counting interim Thomas Brown — don’t we look at Vrabel and see … sort of, kind of, maybe, possibly, Mike Ditka?
He left the Tennessee Titans, where he was went 54-45 in six seasons and made one trip to the AFC championship game, because he didn’t get along with owner Amy Adams Strunk. Vrabel didn’t believe the new general manager, Ran Carthon, was right for the job and preferred Ryan Cowden, who was fired. Strunk hired Brian Callahan, who is 3-10 and had no quarterback. Vrabel has spent the year as an assistant with the Cleveland Browns, his team as a kid in Akron. With Brady running the football show, Vrabel becomes a key candidate in Las Vegas if Antonio Pierce is dismissed. The Cowboys, the Jets, the Saints — he’ll receive a top gig again.
Would McCaskey outbid other teams with a rare show of finances? He must, whether he’s seeking Vrabel or Johnson. Maybe he wouldn’t like the McCaskeys or Warren — who does? He upset Strunk during his final season when he visited New England during a bye week and was inducted into the Patriots Hall of Fame. He told the crowd: “I don’t want you to take this organization for granted. I’ve been a lot of places, this is a special place with great leadership, great fans, great direction, and great coaching. Enjoy it. It’s not like this everywhere.” Was it a shot at the Titans? Strunk took it that way.
He has kept his sense of professionalism. “Vrabes is involved in a lot of what we do,” Browns coach Kevin Stefanski said. “He’s out there on home games, he was able to come to this one. He’s listening in on the conversations with us. He’s a great resource for me game day, Monday through Friday, so he will continue to do that.”
He also has kept his sense of humor. Appearing on the ManningCast recently, he told a story about Urban Meyer when he coached the Jacksonville Jaguars. Vrabel approached him before a game. Meyer didn’t recognize him.
“Yeah, I'm the head coach of the Titans, and I worked for you for two years," Vrabel said he told him.
Mike Vrabel is 49, the right leader for the wrong organization. He knows how to deal with problematic bosses. He can direct a team to a championship game. He kicks tail. He grew up 93 miles from Ditka, a native of Aliquippa, Pa. He is available.
Now.
As Belichick begins to learn, “I’m a Tar Heel born, I'm a Tar Heel bred. And when I die, I'm a Tar Heel dead. So it's rah-rah, Car'lina-'lina! Rah-rah, Car'lina-'lina!”
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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.