BELICHICK WILL HAVE MORE WORK — ATLANTA, MAYBE? — AND HE CAN’T STOP
The DNA barcode says he must keep coaching, even if his final years bombed out in New England, and the Falcons owner has a team that might let him break Don Shula’s record and make the playoffs
When the grump has won his six Super Bowls, though he could re-run Spygate and Deflategate and none of it would matter, examine him this way: He won’t be unemployed for too long. The best cannot stop coaching when the best insists on continuing, even when he hasn’t been “the best” or close by in five years. Someone will find an NFL rebound for Bill Belichick, who will “move on” after his firing from the New England Patriots.
He would be better off in the TV booth — as I’ve said before, with Fox, where someone with a dry wit should understand the coolness of Belichick debating a game with Tom Brady — and could make up to $20 million a year away from the mania. But anyone with access to his DNA knows it’s overloaded with “football intellect,” as Bob Kraft said Thursday, when he unloaded a dynasty’s creator. He does not chit-chat in a broadcast appearance at a given time every weekend.
The man must coach. In his father’s Croatian ancestry, Bill is a common name for “sideline hoodie.” So what will happen in the coming days when the 81-year-old owner of the Atlanta Falcons, Arthur Blank, wants Belichick to come South and help his team overcome the 28-3 lead it blew to the Patriots in Super Bowl LI? For Blank, that game is a LIE, and it won’t matter how many commercials he keeps running for his home improvement retailer, The Home Depot. If nothing else, after dismissing Arthur Smith as head coach, it makes sense to ask Belichick to visit Flowery Branch — maybe a tougher name would help — and see if he’d like to win 15 more games and pass Don Shula’s all-time victories record of 347.
What else would Blank do with a team that never has won the big game? And what else would Kraft do but gape as a fallen coach tries to save face elsewhere? His relationship with Belichick faded once Brady left the Patriots, exhausted by the coach’s obedience, and the situation only submerged as the team crashed into the league’s dregs. The owner wanted Brady and Belichick to remain forever, but the quarterback needed fresh life, finding another Super Bowl triumph in Tampa Bay while his tormentor crumbled and lost one playoff blowout since 2020. “Our relationship went to a new place,” Kraft said. “This is very hard. It’s like a marriage. Things don’t always go great. It’s really hard in this business to create that.” When Kraft cut a long-term alliance last offseason with assistant coach Jerod Mayo, he seemed to have Belichick’s heir apparent in house.
He knew what they had achieved for 20 years. “What Bill accomplished, in my opinion, will never be duplicated,” Kraft said. But he no longer had it, leaving the owner to blurt, “Something wasn’t quite right from where it was.” Brady wasn’t there. Belichick needed him to win titles, and without him, he was in last place.
And off they went, with handshakes via good spirits, in a “mutually agreed” parting that, of course, was all about Kraft dumping him. Belichick said he’d “always be a Patriot” and left Kraft in charge of his operation for the first time since 2000, which must feel doleful but uplifting. He didn’t think it was fair to demand compensation in a trade with another franchise, preferring Belichick proceed in attempted cheer after a week of gulping his failure. “It'll be difficult to see him in a cutoff hoodie on the sideline, but I will always wish him continued success, except when it's against the beloved Patriots,” Kraft said.
If Belichick carries on next season at 72, the Falcons give him a fair opportunity to reach an immediate postseason in the winnable NFC South. They have robust offensive weapons — Bijan Robinson, Drake London and Kyle Pitts — and he can help a solid defense make more strides. What they need is … a quarterback. The end of the Patriots happened when Brady left and Belichick flopped with his draft pick, Mac Jones. Is he beyond help in the QB checkpoint? I might suggest a man who won a half-dozen titles with Brady hasn’t completely forgotten those dealings, and when talk has the Falcons trading up with the bogus Chicago Bears for the No. 1 overall pick in the draft, Caleb Williams or Drake Maye could be next. Knowing Belichick, he’s not into Williams crying to his mother in the stands and might like Maye. Point being, he can find a real quarterback in Atlanta. And if it works?
He’d beat Shula. He’ll host playoff games in that weak division, as Tampa Bay is doing this weekend. Brady has won the debate long ago, with his seven rings to Belichick’s six, but Kraft tried to lasso those opinions. “It’s a great lesson in life. I don’t think any other sport or experience is team-based and collectively based as football,” he said. “I don’t think either of those two could have accomplished what they did if they weren’t together. They’re the best at their professions. We were lucky to have them for two decades.”
Another team that might call is the Washington Commanders, with new owner Josh Harris aware of Belichick’s governmental grounding as a native of Annapolis, Md. That franchise could use some cultured championship dignity. But despite $80 million in cap space and already having the No. 2 draft pick — Williams or Maye, for certain — the Commanders’ search is being run by the NBA gunner, Bob Myers, who won’t be seeking someone so, well, old.
As for Kraft, he has to determine whether Mayo is the successor or Mike Vrabel is a better idea to “get us back to the playoffs and win.” Mayo would be a rookie, while Vrabel has had playoff success in Tennessee, which fired him in part because of a scene with Kraft. In October, the Patriots honored Vrabel with a berth in their Hall of Fame. The former linebacker said at halftime, “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.”
The owner of the Titans, Amy Adams Strunk, was jolted by his speech. Did Vrabel not want to be in Nashville? She used it to fire him this week, and suddenly, Kraft has a grand chance to stick by the Patriot Way with someone who won three championships in Foxborough. He’d be wise to hire Vrabel but might go with Mayo. Meanwhile, Blank will be checking on Belichick, mixing 152 years of wisdom. I’d chill out, like Nick Saban, and hook up again with Brady at Fox. No chance on that.
“I’m incredibly grateful to have played for the best coach in the history of the NFL,” Brady wrote after the firing. “He was a great leader for the organization, and for all of the players who played for him. We accomplished some amazing things over a long period of time, many of which will be hard to replicate. He worked every day to help us achieve the ultimate goal, in the ultimate team sport. And, although we were successful, some of the greatest lessons I learned were in the moments where we faced the most challenging adversities.
“He set the tone for the organization to never falter in the face of adversity, and to do what we could do, and what was in our control, which was to go out and DO OUR JOB. I could never have been the player I was without you Coach Belichick. I am forever grateful. And I wish you the best of luck in whatever you choose next.”
If he’s coaching the Falcons, Brady should volunteer for the first one-on-one interview. Ask why he’s relentless when someone else retired at 45. We remember the championships, the hoodies, the scandals, the growl face. Now, Bill Belichick will give us more to ponder.
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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.