Tom Brady reacted to his former head coach, Bill Belichick, being snubbed from the Hall of Fame.

On January 27, it was announced that Belichick didn’t receive the 40 votes required to be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. The football world was shocked, including Brady.

“I don’t understand it.” Brady simply said on a radio show. 

Belichick started his coaching career in 1975 as a special assistant for the Baltimore Colts. In 1985, he finally landed a major role as the New York Giants’ defensive coordinator. He won two Super Bowls with the team.

In 1991, Belichick got his first chance to be a head coach for the Cleveland Browns. In 1994, he led the Browns to the playoffs. They defeated the New England Patriots in the wild-card round before losing to the Pittsburgh Steelers in the divisional round. 

In 1997, he joined Bill Parcells on the New York Jets as the defensive coordinator. Parcells and Belichick worked together with the Giants. The Jets had a top-10 defense in each of Belichick’s three seasons as defensive coordinator. They made the playoffs in 1998 but lost to the Denver Broncos in the conference championship. 

The Patriots hired him in 2000, and the rest was history. Belichick won six Super Bowls and three Coach of the Year awards in New England. In 2023, the two mutually agreed to part ways after a legendary run.

If you just look at his resume, Belichick’s exclusion from the Hall of Fame is simply insane. Pro Football Hall of Fame ballots are not required to be publicly released. The few voters who have publicly admitted to not voting for Belichick have cited his cheating scandals (Spygate and Deflategate) as reasons. Coaches remain on the Hall of Fame ballot indefinitely.

The University of North Carolina Tar Heels Football won their first game in the Atlantic Coast Conference against Syracuse Orange, 27-10, on October 31. Belichick has been off to a rough start in his new gig, so fans of the program were relieved to see the coach finally notching some wins.

So far, the Tar Heels are 3-5, and in the ACC, they are 1-3.

This win means a lot to the Tar Heels and keeps their hopes of winning alive.

During the press conference, head coach Bill Belichick said he felt great after the win.

“Feels good. Feels great,” Belichick said. “It was good to get this one. So we look forward to all the rest of the games in the ACC.”

The Tar Heels had a combined amount of 209 rushing yards and 216 passing yards, combining for a total of 425 yards. The Tar Heels also had 62 total plays while Syracuse had 50 total plays.

“Things didn’t go great at the beginning of the game, but then they [Syracuse] just kept on battling and we had a really good second half defensively,” Belichick said.

In the first quarter, Syracuse was winning 7-3, then in the second quarter, Syracuse was still winning 6-10.

It wasn’t until the third quarter that the Tar Heels scored 14 points to give them the lead.

By the fourth quarter, the Tar Heels scored seven more points, securing a 27-10 win.

The Tar Heels’ next game is scheduled for November 8 against the Stanford Cardinals.

Bill Belichick’s move from the NFL to college football has not been what he or North Carolina had anticipated. Since his start in September, it has been a disaster. Expectations were sky-high that the eight-time Super Bowl winner was going to reshape the program. But only five games into the 2025 season, the Tar Heels are 2-3 and have suffered multiple blowout losses. The excitement of his arrival, along with his high-profile staff, has quickly faded.

While Belichick struggled to compete in his new position. His old world in the NFL has flourished. His old team, the New England Patriots, is 3-2 under Mike Vrabel. This put them in 2nd, challenging the Buffalo Bills for the AFC East. Alongside the Patriots, ex-players like Mac Jones and Tyquan Thornton are thriving with other teams. This, along with Belichick’s season at UNC, makes him consider what the future of his career will look like.

The success of Vrabel at the Patriots has sparked comparisons to Belichick’s era. Both took different approaches to New England’s playing style. Vrabel’s team may not have the same star power as Belichick’s dynasty team had, but they had embraced a grittier, more balanced identity. Vrabel is known for having a dynamic, charismatic personality, unlike Belichick. Vrabel’s tactics seem to have a strong emphasis on offense, while Belichick emphasized defense.

Belichick’s struggle at North Carolina also raises questions about whether his coaching style can still compete in today’s game. The 73-year-old coaches an old-school approach, which used to rein in domination in the NFL, seemed out of place for the Tar Heels. For a coach who once seemed untouchable, this season has served as a humbling reminder that even legends must evolve.

Former New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick seemed to have taken another shot at team owner Robert Kraft and his brother.

In a recent interview with Ben Volin of The Boston Globe, Belichick described differences between coaching at the professional and collegiate levels. The former Patriots boss has just begun his first season with the University of North Carolina, where he was named head coach of the Tar Heels in December 2024.

But during the interview, Belichick appeared to have a jab at Robert and Jonathan Kraft, both of whom were and still are part of the Patriots hierarchy.

“It’s a much more cohesive, and I’d say unified, view of what we’re trying to do and how we’re trying to do it,” Belichick said. “It’s a lot of football, and there’s not much in your way.”

“There’s no owner, there’s no owner’s son.”

Since Belichick departed the Patriots after a 24-year stint, the two have exchanged hits with each other. In July, Kraft featured on the Dudes on Dudes podcast with Belichick’s former players Rob Gronkowski and Julian Edelman, and explained how he took a “big risk” by hiring Belichick in 2000.

However, Belichick quickly responded and claimed it was actually the other way around.

“As I told Robert multiple times through the years, I took a big risk by taking the New England Patriots head coaching job,” he said to ESPN’s Don Van Natta Jr. “I already had an opportunity to be the head coach of the New York Jets, but the ownership situation was unstable.”

“I had been warned by multiple previous Patriots’ coaches, as well as other members of other NFL organizations and the media, that the New England job was going to come with many internal obstacles,” he said. “I made it clear that we would have to change the way the team was managed to regain the previously attained success.”

Belichick led the Patriots to six Super Bowl championships during his tenure in Foxborough. He officially left New England in 2024. He would become head coach of the North Carolina Tar Heels less than a year later.

Bill Belichick‘s highly anticipated coaching debut with UNC became a rout as TCU landed a 48-14 victory. Despite the Tar Heels scoring on the opening drive, the Horned Frogs responded with 41 unanswered points and seized the game.

The results marked the worst opening game loss for UNC in decades. The loss was the most allowed by a Belichick-coached team in his 511-game career as an NFL head coach.

Belichick has attracted more attention due to his young girlfriend, Jordon Hudson, than his coaching in his new job.

UNC’s early momentum was cut short. Quarterback Gio Lopez struggled to complete four passes and threw an interception before exiting the game with a back injury. Backup Max Johnson replaced Lopez with less than seven minutes left in the third quarter.

Johnson’s return after a season-ending leg injury from last year’s opener provided one of the few highlights for UNC. Connecting with his brother, tight end Jake Johnson, Johnson secured a 2-yard touchdown later in the third quarter.

The TCU offense consistently broke through the Tar Heels’ weak defense. TCU running back Kevorian Barnes slashed through Belichick’s defense for a 75-yard touchdown, putting the game out of UNC’s reach.

Belichick signed on in early January after 24 seasons and six Super Bowl titles with the New England Patriots. His arrival marked a 70-player roster change at Chapel Hill.

The coaching debut brought national press attention and celebrity presence, including UNC alumni Michael Jordan and former UNC linebacker Lawrence Taylor. The spectacle built high expectations for Belichick’s first college game.

Instead, the game highlighted significant gaps in the team’s execution and discipline. In a postgame press conference, Belichick told reporters that TCU outplayed and outcoached his squad.

“We played competitively, but then couldn’t sustain it,” Belichick said. “Obviously, we have a lot of work to do. We need to do a better job all the way around – coaching, playing, all three phases of the game.”

He provided few details outside of emphasizing the need for corrections, mirroring the atmosphere of his long NFL tenure. The game’s results sparked debate across social media and news outlets.

Despite the loss, Johnson’s return after a near career-ending injury should be noted. For Belichick, the game marked a problematic start to the new chapter in his coaching career.

The Tar Heels have less than a week to address any issues before visiting the Charlotte 49ers on Saturday.

All Rob Gronkowski could do in a sit-down with Caleb Pressley on Sundae Conversation was laugh as Pressley trolls Gronkowski about his former coach Bill Belichick’s relationship with 24-year-old Jordan Hudson.

The former Barstool Sports personality had delivered a couple of jokes about the future Hall of Famer’s coach while pretending to talk about the NFL’s schedule release, and it took Gronkowski a little bit of time to understand the joke.

“The matchups this year are incredible, and there is a lot of really exciting teams,” Pressley said. “Bills picked up a 24-year-old.”

Pressley had to mention Bill’s girlfriend for Gronkowski to get the joke and all he could do was laugh as Pressley continued to give another cheeky joke.

“The crayon you wrote your book with — did you take that out of her backpack?” Pressley said.

Gronkowski gave credit to Pressley on the clever delivery and could only say that “he got me.”

Last week, Gronkowski implied that Hudson has been a distraction for the eight-time Super Bowl champion.

Belichick has faced many questions about his relationship with Hudson for the last couple of months. In the middle of his CBS Sunday Morning interview, Hudson repeatedly jumped in to cut off the interview and say that “we’re not talking about this.”

In an interview with 98.5 The Sports Hub, Gronkowski mentioned that Belichick’s whole goal was to “eliminate the distractions” that can happen while on the team.

“We’re just looking down at the program in North Carolina, and it feels like there are just distractions 24/7 down there,” Gronkowski said on 98.5 The Sports Hub. “There’s no football talk as well.”

The rest of the Sundae Conversation involved jokes about Gronkowski’s intelligence and a few jokes about former New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez. During the sit-down, Gronkowski wondered if this was a real show.

Legendary head coach Bill Belichick officially headed back to school in December. It’s going, uh, alright?

Belichick won six Super Bowls with the New England Patriots before parting ways with the team in 2023. He was shopping around for a head coaching position since, and finally took a job at the University of North Carolina, with the guarantee that his son, Stephen Belichick, would get the coaching job when he retired.

The promise of the “Bill Belichick experience” is the promise of being run like an NFL franchise.  “Everything we do here is predicated on building a pro team,” said general manager Mike Lombardi following the hiring. “We consider ourselves the 33rd [NFL] team.”

That’s a bold statement to make about a team that finished 13th in the ACC last season, with an overall record of 6-6, but it’s one that Belichick has adhered to. The team receives “Pro Performance Nutrition” and visits from former Patriots, and Belichick has had the numbers on the practice jerseys removed – a nod to the idea that “the name on the front matters more than the name on the back.”

Part of Belichick’s appeal, to begin with, was the impact his reputation would have on recruiting. UNC’s recruiting class, though, has jumped just one spot in nationwide rankings, from 32 to 31. Its composite rank has also dropped dramatically, from spot 26 to 41. All to say: the name-brand strategy has been perhaps less successful than it was touted to be.

These few months wouldn’t be a success by the PR metric, either.

Belichick didn’t seem particularly inclined to engage with the fans during the program’s “Practice Like A Pro” experience, which about 2,000 fans attended. Fans didn’t know which player was which, since they didn’t have numbers. And Belichick didn’t so much as acknowledge the crowd, let alone sign a few autographs.

And then there’s the girlfriend. Jordon Hudson, 24, is reportedly “intimately” involved with UNC operations, particularly public relations. Belichick has requested that she be copied on many of his staff emails. (Belichick recently turned 73, in case you have lost track.) The Hudson story has grown larger than any other narrative around the Belichick coaching campaign, which may influence the ‘NFL team’ appearance Belichick is looking for.

Hudson was in the news again this week for frequently interrupting Belichick’s interview with a CBS reporter.

It certainly hasn’t looked ideal for Belichick in the first part of his stint with the Tar Heels. For a coaching staff being paid $20 million, the only way to fix that is by winning. Luckily for Belichick, he has practice.

Bill Belichick no longer has the record for the most championships for a head coach with six wins. The record now belongs to Paul Brown who won seven as head coach of the Cleveland Browns.

On Tuesday, the NFL announced at the league meeting that statistics from the All-America Football Conference will be incorporated into the NFL record books.

When the NFL took the AAFC teams that didn’t disband in 1949, the league ignored the statistics from the AAFC. Now that those records are officially recognized, Brown now has seven championships under his belt, not just three.

However, Belichick is not the only person to be affected by this change.

Tom Brady held the title of the quarterback with the most championships of any quarterback in history. With this change to the record books, he is now tied with Cleveland Browns quarterback Otto Graham, who won his championships with Brown as his coach.

Brady still holds the record for Super Bowls played in and won, but he is now tied with Graham for championships. The same goes for Belichick and his Super Bowls.

There’s another twist to the record books with this change. The Miami Dolphins’ 1972 season is no longer the only undefeated season in the record books.

The 1948 Browns went 14-0-0 as a member of the AAFC. The Browns and the Dolphins are the only two teams to finish with an undefeated season.

There has been no shortage of thinkpieces regarding future Hall of Fame quarterback Tom Brady‘s departure from the New England Patriots, where he spent his first 20 seasons in the NFL. Now, just over six years on, the man himself briefly discussed his experience in a newsletter about free agency – and opened up about the role legendary head coach Bill Belichick played.

Brady dubbed the exit a “creeping decision that lived passively in the back of mind for 2-3 years,” but which eventually came to fruition in 2020.

“The reality was,” Brady wrote, “after 20 years together, a natural tension had developed between where Coach Belichick and I were headed in our careers, and where the Patriots were moving as a franchise. It was the kind of tension that could only be resolved by some kind of split or one of us reassessing our priorities.”

Brady’s story supplements Patriots owner Robert Kraft‘s version of events – during the Apple TV documentary, Dynasty, he described a tension between Brady and Belichick that eventually got so thick the men barely spoke to each other for a season.

With six years and another Super Bowl (this time with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers) gone by, though, that tension seems to have mellowed. Brady invited Belichick to his “roast” in May 2024, and reportedly reached out to him about the Las Vegas Raiders coaching job before Belichick chose the University of North Carolina.

Tension or not, what Brady and Belichick did together in New England was nothing short of monumental (not that anyone’s challenging that) – and it leaves a legacy that sees them intertwined in football memory forever.

The Super Bowl trophy is named in honor of Vince Lombardi, the Hall of Fame coach who led the Packers to back-to-back wins in the first two Super Bowls.

Bill Belichick, who coached Tom Brady to six of his seven Super Bowl wins, argued that coaches alone don’t win games and proposed renaming the Lombardi trophy after the legendary quarterback.

Now coaching at the University of North Carolina after his decorated tenure with the Patriots, Belichick shared his thoughts on the Let’s Go! podcast this week while speaking with co-host Jim Gray.

He pointed out that players, not coaches, determine success, insisting that it’s impossible to succeed without talent on the field.

“Players win games. You can’t win games without good players. I don’t care who the coach is, it’s impossible. You can’t win without good players. You know, I found that out when I had [Lawrence] Taylor and [Carl] Banks and Harry Carson, Pepper Johnson, Jim Burt, Everson Walls, all those guys at the Giants. And same thing when we got good at Cleveland and then at New England. I mean, it’s [Tom] Brady, it’s [Willie] McGinest, it’s [Mike] Vrabel, it’s [Tedy] Bruschi, it’s Corey Dillon, it’s Randy Moss, Troy Brown, Lawyer Milloy, Ty Law, Rodney Harrison. Those are guys that won the games, man. I didn’t make any tackles. I didn’t make any kicks. That was [Adam] Vinatieri that made that kick in four inches of snow.

“You got to have good players and as a coach, you want to give your players a chance to win,” Belichick added. “You want to put them in a position where if they go out there and play well, they’ll have a chance to win. That’s what Coach [Bill] Parcells taught me, is there’s always a way to win. You just got to figure out what it is, and you have to give the players a chance.”

Gray was quick to note, “They don’t name it the Starr Trophy,”  referencing to Bart Starr, who quarterbacked the Packers to wins in the first two Super Bowls. “It’s named the Lombardi Trophy.”

Belichick countered, “Maybe they should name it the Brady Trophy. He won seven of them.”

Brady led the Patriots to six Super Bowl wins and one more with the Buccaneers. His five Super Bowl MVP awards stand as the most ever by a player.

No amount of legal gray area will make a difference in the eyes of the public. If Bill Belichick decides to leave UNC for the NFL before beginning his first season as the Tar Heels’ head coach, it would constitute one of the greatest betrayals in the history of football.

Speculation surrounding Belichick’s future at UNC kicked up almost immediately after he accepted the jobs. Several head coaching positions in the NFL have opened up since then, fueling the fires further. Because Belichick has only signed a term proposal, a non-binding agreement in anticipation of an official contract, some have already begun to discuss whether his buyout can be enforced. 

Assuming contractual arrangements take effect, it would cost Belichick or his next employer $10 million to get out of his UNC deal. After June 1, that number drops to $1 million. The debate over whether this can be enforced without an official contract is of no interest to UNC general manager Michael Lombardi.

“Bill Belichick committed to North Carolina. He committed it to me, he committed it to the university,” Lombardi told Pat McAfee earlier this month. “There’s been no conversation about anything. This is the best job we could have at the time of our lives, and we’re going to really embrace it and work hard to make North Carolina proud.”

The question of whether Belichick can legally make a clean exit in the eyes of the law is largely irrelevant. The fact of the matter is that he has already done enough work as the Tar Heels’ coach to impact the lives of hundreds of people. 

Belichick has already recruited dozens of players, either by recruiting them through the portal or coaxing current Tar Heels out of it. He has just begun talking with high school players and has made left several strong impressions. He has already begun building a coaching staff, hiring former NFL head coach Freddie Kitchens as tight ends coach and longtime Patriots strength and conditioning coach Moses Cabrera in the same role. His son, Steve Belichick, is leaving Washington to become UNC’s defensive coordinator, taking an assistant with him. 

As the NFL return hype has escalated, Belichick has done nothing publicly to suggest he is leaving UNC. He has commented on the matter once, stating at his introductory press conference that he didn’t take the UNC job to leave. 

The fickle nature of football’s coaching landscape makes such statements difficult to accept, but Belichick’s actions since signing his term proposal have given every indication that he is trying to build something in Chapel Hill. The damage of an exit now would be exponentially more far-reaching than it would have been a month ago. It will only get worse as he continues on in the role.

Belichick, 72, has been the news lately for his relationship with his 24-year-old girlfriend, Jordon Hudson.

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New UNC football head coach Bill Belichick has reportedly declined several opportunities to return to the NFL next season, including a position with the Las Vegas Raiders. Minority owner Tom Brady is said to have personally delivered a pitch to Belichick, but the 72-year-old coach is standing by the Tar Heels.

At Belichick’s introductory press conference last month, he told reporters that he didn’t “come here to leave,” expressing a deep interest in coaching at the collegiate level.

Bell Belichick News

“I always wanted to coach in college football but it never really worked out,” Belichick said. “I did some good years in the NFL, and that went OK, but this is really kind of a dream come true.” 

With the game of coaching musical chairs starting up at the end of the NFL’s regular season, it’s natural that Belichick would be one of many coaches to receive calls from rebuilding teams. He has not been afraid to quickly jump ship in the past; his decision to leave the Jets in 2000 without ever having coached a game for the team led directly to his dynastic years in New England. 

Within two days of the 2024 season ending, the Jaguars, Patriots and Raiders all parted ways with their head coaches. The Jets, Bears and Saints did so earlier in the season and are looking for ways forward as well. All six teams are at some stage of a rebuild, as opposed to the relatively clean slate Belichick is receiving at UNC.

Some speculated that Belichick, the oldest coach in college football when he steps on the sidelines next fall, would struggle to adjust to the rapidly shifting NIL landscape. But the eight-time Super Bowl winner has hit the ground running, stepping directly on the recruiting trail in an effort to build a new core in Chapel Hill.  

After a moderately successful foray into the transfer portal, through which Belichick has already gained at least 13 players, he began recruiting high school prospects earlier this week. In his first stop Monday, he met with edge rusher Zavion Griffin-Haynes, a four-star recruit who decommitted from UNC when the program parted ways with head coach Mack Brown. Griffin-Haynes was reportedly impressed by his conversation with Belichick, however, and could rejoin the Tar Heels’ incoming class.

“He was telling me stuff coaches never told me,” Griffin-Haynes told Rivals. “Showing me stuff about my game, and just telling me stuff about the NFL and the program’s come up.”

Brady and others may make a few more calls to get Belichick back in the big leagues, but within a month, the future Hall-of-Famer has jumped into his new position feet-first. New talent is pouring into Chapel Hill already, and the off-season is far from over.

Following his 24-year tenure with the New England Patriots, nobody would have predicted Bill Belichick to have trouble finding a job.

Belichick, 72, holds the record for the most Super Bowls as a head coach (six), and led the Patriots to a 266-121 regular season record in his time there, including 19 consecutive winning seasons. He received NFL Coach of the Year honors three times in that span and held down the largest coaching contract in sports at $25 million a year.

After Tom Brady‘s departure and retirement in 2020, though, the Patriots fell into decline. Belichick was finally fired after a 4-13 season in 2023, and Jerod Mayo assumed the head coaching position in 2024.

Belichick was considered one of the top available coaches for ailing franchises such as the Atlanta Falcons, Carolina Panthers and Tennessee Titans, all of which were looking for coaches following the 2023 season. Belichick interviewed with the Falcons – twice – but the team ultimately elected to hire Raheem Morris from the Rams.

“People need to adapt, and if they don’t… things can change,” said Patriots owner Robert Kraft, discussing the choice to fire Belichick, later adding, “I had given him so much power. He had full control over everything. And shame on me, I should’ve had some checks and balances better.”

Belichick is reportedly “very surprised” he hasn’t heard from NFL teams about coaching in 2025, despite three teams – the Jets, Saints and Bears – having vacancies, according to NBC Sports. One team that has reached out, though, is the University of North Carolina, which has been looking to hire since firing Mack Brown at the end of their season.

The Tar Heels finished 13th in the ACC this season, totaling a 6-6 record and a 3-5 conference record. A Belichick hiring would open the door to other former NFL hires, including potentially Matt Patricia and Ben McDaniels, in addition to capitalizing off his expertise and experience.

One factor for Belichick’s openness to college sports is likely a plan of succession. His son, Steve Belichick, currently serves as defensive coordinator for the University of Washington. Per Ollie Connolly of The Guardian, the elder Belichick is seeking “a guarantee that Stephen Belichick will be named the school’s coach in waiting,” which would be much easier to obtain than in the NFL.

Beyond that, a collegiate head coach generally has much more autonomy than one in the NFL, controlling a number of the responsibilities of an NFL general manager. That system would arguably be more familiar to Belichick than a traditional NFL system, given the amount of power he had in New England.

With this news, former Patriots Brady, Rob Gronkowski and Julian Edelman were asked on Fox NFL Kickoff whether they could imagine Belichick in a college program. All three issued emphatic no’s.

“I think there’s a lot of things he could do,” Brady said. “And obviously he’s tremendous—even showing his personality. But getting out there on the recruiting trail and dealing with all these college kids? That would be frightening.”

“Any time as a coach you join with an organization, whatever level it’s at, you just want a shared vision with that person,” said Belichick on The Pat McAfee Show, noting, “I don’t think it really matters where the program is.”

Belichick is expected to accept a UNC offer if one is extended.

2023 can be defined as a “stinker” for the New England Patriots, who finished last in the AFC East with a 4-13 record. This marked the first time since 2000 that the Patriots finished last in the division, and it was also their worst season under coach Bill Belichick. Belichick and the Patriots agreed to part ways following the end of the season. Linebackers coach Jerod Mayo was promoted to fill the vacant head coaching spot.

The Pats retained players from last season, such as Kyle Dugger, Hunter Henry and Kendrick Bourne. Losses came as Trent Brown and Mike Gesicki signed with the Cincinnati Bengals while Ezekiel Elliot re-joined the Dallas Cowboys. Notable signings include Antonio Gibson, Austin Hooper and Sione Takitaki. Mac Jones was traded to the Jacksonville Jaguars on March 14 in exchange for a sixth-round pick.

UNC quarterback Drake Maye was picked third overall as the Pats were eyeing a QB after Jones struggled last season, getting benched in favor of Bailey Zappe. Maye’s selection was a home run as he provides excellent passing abilities and playmaking – he was compared to Justin Herbert and Josh Allen due to his playmaking. Early in the second round, Washington Husky Ja’Lynn Polk was selected in hopes of being a solid second receiver alongside Bourne.

Coming into 2024, the Pats aren’t expected to compete, as they’re still in the middle of a rebuild. Notable matchups include a trip to Wembley to play the Jags in Week Seven and a meeting between Caleb Williams‘s Chicago Bears at Soldier Field.

Though expectations are low, the Patriots could play spoiler on their division rivals as they would hate to be a bottom feeder – a 6-11 record seems fitting.

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While Bill Belichick looks content with his career in NFL media, he could not help himself from disparaging a team that sent him packing during the off-season.

The Atlanta Falcons set up multiple meetings with Belichick to become their next head coach after firing Arthur Smith. However, they spurned the six-time Super Bowl champion in favor of Raheem Morris, who spent the last few seasons as the Los Angeles Rams’ defensive coordinator. So, on his weekly Monday night appearance on ESPN’s Manningcast, he could not stop himself from taking a shot at the franchise that the New England Patriots beat in Super Bowl 51.

“I also remember [Falcons owner Arthur] Blank down on the sideline in the fourth quarter celebrating when they were ahead. He’s a pretty good dresser now. Arthur’s always looked sharp, but you know he was down there on the sideline and, you know, we were getting beat, and I’m like ‘Jesus,’ but anyway…”

Of course, Belichick made Blank look foolish as he spent the entire fourth quarter on the sideline watching the first championship in franchise history slip away as the Patriots stole the game in overtime. However, Belichick did not stop there and commented on the tampering violations the NFL found the Falcons guilty of during the off-season.

“[Mooney was] one of those three free agents they signed illegally—Mooney, Woerner, and of course Cousins—that they contacted early, got fined for it, lost a draft choice and all that,” he said.

Reporters around the NFL believe that Belichick wants to coach in the NFL again to break Don Schula’s all-time win record and that 2024 will just be a hiatus for him.

Meanwhile, the Falcons recorded their first win of the season with a last-second, 22-21 victory over the Philadelphia Eagles for their first victory of the campaign.

Former New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick has turned down an opportunity to join the San Francisco 49ers coaching staff this season, 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan revealed on The TK Show podcast.

Shanahan shared that he extended an offer to Belichick, including the role of defensive coordinator, which was filled by Nick Sorensen.

“I did, I threw it out to him,” Shanahan said.

Belichick, who led the Patriots to six Super Bowl titles during his 24-year tenure, parted ways with the franchise after the 2023 season. With 296 wins with the Patriots, he stands second in NFL history for wins with one franchise, behind George Halas’ 324 with the Chicago Bears. His overall coaching wins, totaling 333, are second only to Don Shula‘s 347.

Shanahan, who faced Belichick in Super Bowl LI while serving as the Atlanta Falcons’ offensive coordinator, expressed his belief that Belichick would return to the NFL coaching ranks soon.

“He loves football so much that you never know what he … I can’t believe that he’s not a head coach of a team right now. I know what I would do if I was an owner so that shocks me, and the last thing you want to do is insult someone like Bill Belichick,” Shanahan said.

Belichick is transitioning to a media role, joining the CW’s Inside the NFL, collaborating with the Manning brothers for ESPN’s ManningCast during Monday Night Football, and making weekly appearances on The Pat McAfee Show.

“I’m sure he’s going to be back in the league next year, and I could be going against him,” Shanahan said.

Belichick interviewed with the Atlanta Falcons for their head coaching vacancy, but Raheem Morris was ultimately chosen for the position. Despite his transition to media, Shanahan and many in the NFL community anticipate Belichick’s return to coaching as early as 2025.

Belichick, 72, has been in the news lately for dating a 23-year-old woman he met on a plane.

Tom Brady was inducted into the Patriots Hall of Fame Wednesday, donning the red jacket in a ceremony that included owner Robert Kraft and former head coach Bill Belichick.

Brady became the 35th member of the team’s Hall of Fame, though it likely didn’t require much deliberation to induct the seven-time Super Bowl winner. Committees in Canton should have a similarly easy time in a few years. In his address, Kraft offered kind words to Brady and said that he wanted to hold a special ceremony for a “one-in-a-kind player.”

While the owner shared a meaningful moment with Brady during the ceremony, an exchange between the quarterback and Belichick more effectively recalled memories of the team’s dynastic run.

“Thank you for all that you’ve done for us,” Belichick said to Brady in his speech. “Thank you for all you’ve done for me. And thank you for the example and model that you’ve been for all of us, on a daily basis, for 20 years. You’re unbelievable.”

In his induction speech several minutes later, Brady returned the favor.

“Thank you for your tireless commitment to develop and push me to be my very best,” Brady said to Belichick. “It wasn’t me, it wasn’t you, it was us. Let me make this crystal clear — there is no coach in the world I would rather play for than Bill Belichick.”

Since Brady’s run in New England came to an end in 2019, public relationships between the team’s former titans have seemingly eroded. Kraft and Belichick have been at odds for years now, with Kraft reportedly going so far as to advise the Atlanta Falcons to avoid the head coach. Belichick did not have a job in the NFL in 2023. Brady’s relationship with the two figures also reportedly grew contentious and ultimately led him to finish his career with the Buccaneers.

In recent months, however, it seems that the key contributors to the Patriots dynasty have gone to great lengths to pull back the curtain and dispel rumors of hard feelings. Countless Patriots legends were in attendance for Brady’s roast last month, and this ceremony was a similarly united outing.

New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft has expressed his disappointment with the documentary called The Dynasty highlighting the Tom Brady and Bill Belichick-led teams. Kraft said that the documentary focused on the various controversies and negative side of the Patriots rather than their accomplishments.

“I wish they had focused more on our Super Bowl wins, our 21-game win streak. I felt bad there were players who gave hours and hours of interviews and they felt only the negativity,” Kraft said. “So a little disappointed that there wasn’t more of a real positive approach – especially for Patriot fans who have lived the experience with us.”

The Dynasty is a 10-part documentary on AppleTV+ that highlights the New England franchise from the time when Brady took over for quarterback Drew Bledsoe in 2001, all the way to Brady and Belichick’s break-up in 2020. Instead of focusing mostly on the winning steak and Super Bowls as Kraft wanted, the documentary also highlights the team’s scandals, including SpyGate, DeflateGate and the Aaron Hernandez murder trial.

Former players Devin McCourtney and Rodney Harrison were interviewed for the documentary series, but were critics of the final product, believing that they “got duped.” McCourtney also noted that the documentary painted Belichick in an unfair light, comments which Kraft responded to.

“Look, I’ll state this clearly: I feel so privileged that we had Bill here. We hope when he’s finished [coaching], that we’re going to have a chance to honor him the way we will do with Tom Brady this year. … I look forward to the privilege of putting Bill into the Patriots Hall of Fame one day in the future,” he said.

Following the documentary which showed the New England Patriots in a way that many fans have never seen before, criticisms of the team are now more outward than ever. In the most recent NFL Players Association survey, the team ranked 29th of 32 teams in the league. Their weight room was ranked last, and New England is one of only seven teams that does not provide game-day childcare support for players.

“I must tell you, I was unaware of how bad that was,” Kraft said in response. “We’ve had a plan, and we put in place, where we’re committing a whole new facility adjacent to ours that has been discussed with the young leadership team – a building that will be in excess of $50 million that will have the most [modern] facilities.”

Without Brady or Belichick for the first time this century, Kraft and the Patriots are now in unfamiliar territory going into the 2024 NFL season. With new head coach Jerod Mayo, Kraft and the organization are looking to make the necessary changes to return to their Super Bowl-winning form, but it will take time. Most important for the team is a quarterback, and with the third overall pick in the upcoming draft, the Patriots could find their new long-term starter. If not, the team still has Jacoby Brissett, Bailey Zappe and Nathan Rourke in their quarterback room.

It will no doubt be the start of a new era for Kraft and the Patriots, and with the documentary and player survey, they aren’t off to the best start.

New England Patriots outside linebacker Matthew Judon said that the team is adjusting well to new head coach Jerod Mayo this off-season. Judon suggested that the team is benefitting from new leadership after the team parted ways with longtime coach Bill Belichick.

“I think with [Belichick] leaving, it’s just new energy and new life in the building,” Judon told Boston.com. “Sometimes it’s just time and I think it was just one of those times … I think with the hire of Mayo, bringing in somebody that was actually there for those years, understands player perspective and coaching and also how coach Belichick actually ran the system. I think bringing in somebody like that, instead of somebody that’s outside and didn’t know at all kind of helped us.”

Judon is familiar with Mayo, the Patriots’ former inside linebackers coach, explaining his early support for the team’s inside hire. Despite his beat efforts, Mayo will nevertheless spend his early days as Patriots coach enduring comparisons to Belichick from all circles. In his introductory press conference, he said he’s more interested in creating his own system.

“For me, I’m not trying to be Bill, I’m not trying to be Bill,” Mayo said at his introductory press conference. “I think that Bill is his own man, if you can’t tell by now I’m even a little bit different up here. But what I will say is, the more I think about the lessons that I’ve taken from Bill, hard work works, right? Hard work works. And that’s what we’re all about.”

For many, the Patriots are still inextricably tied to the dynasty formed by Belichick and quarterback Tom Brady, but the team has not reached those heights in years. In fact, the team currently figures as the worst in the AFC East, behind the Bills and Dolphins, both playoff teams last year, and a Jets team regaining Aaron Rodgers in 2024.

Mayo may be replacing Belichick, but he is not trying to keep a dynasty afloat. New England does not have a reliable quarterback and must decide whether or not to move on from Mac Jones. Several key players have to recover from injuries that significantly impacted the team’s 2023 performance. The NFL Draft is approaching fast, providing an opportunity for the team to continue building a young core.

Judon believes that Mayo’s energy is best suited to a team looking to carry on Belichick’s culture in a new generation. Now, the new head coach has to prove he can build something all his own.

Tom Brady said on his Let’s Go podcast that he’s surprised that Bill Belichick has not received a new head coaching position in the NFL. Belichick won six Super Bowls with Brady, but the head coach struggled in the years following his star quarterback’s departure.

“I don’t know the criteria for hiring coaches. I’ve never been a part of it,” Brady said. “I mean, I’m surprised that the greatest coach ever doesn’t have a job, absolutely. But I’m surprised [by] a lot of things in the NFL.”

At certain points in a busy free agency period, Belichick appeared to be heading to several teams after he and New England parted ways, the team’s dignified way of moving on from the longtime coach and general manager. He most publicly interviewed twice with the Atlanta Falcons, but over time, all eight vacant positions were filled, leaving him without a job in the NFL for the first time since 1975.

Unless Belichick accepts an assistant position, an option that seems unfathomable to both Belichick and prospective teams in equal measure, he will be out of a position in 2024. Brady related Belichick’s experience to his own, claiming that he was turned down by several teams after leaving New England. He went on to join the Buccaneers and won his seventh Super Bowl in 2021.

Reactions to Belichick’s off-season snub have been mixed, with some claiming that it taints his legacy and others condemning teams for overlooking him.

Former Patriots players, like Julian Edelman and Rob Gronkowski, have been very vocal defenders, claiming that teams did not want to concede too much power to Belichick and were making a mistake as a result.

Others, like Baltimore Ravens cornerback Marlon Humphrey, have criticized Belichick, claiming that his hiring failure negates claims that he is the greatest coach in NFL history. This comment drew the ire of many fans and insiders, with Deion Sanders commenting that Humphrey was being disrespectful.

While people come to terms with an upcoming NFL season without Belichick, it remains unclear what the longtime Patriots coach intends to do going forward. There will always be off-season vacancies, but at 71, retirement will become more and more possible, even for a figure so singularly focused on the sport for decades.