Bill Belichick has established himself as the best coach in the NFL, largely due to his 24 years in Foxboro. The villain of most NFL teams, Belichick created a dynasty by paying attention to details. A master of situational football. The owner of six Super Bowl titles and 17 AFC East titles, Belichick has a track record in the NFL that considers him the best to ever succeed. It was until 2025 North Carolina Tar Heels football season.
Belichick almost always pushed the needle of discussion when he was in the NFL, despite and sometimes because of his “Belichickian” approach. From deadpan one-line responses that didn’t answer the question to his cut-off hoodie and deadpan temper, Belichick almost always merited discussion. Particularly late in his NFL career, when most teams have adopted an operating formula in direct conflict with how Belichick wants to run his teams.
Most NFL players currently use a model in which the front office and coaching staff operate independently of each other. Belichick has always adopted Parcell’s way of thinking. “If they want you to cook dinner, they should at least let you do the shopping.” Belichick’s approach has almost always been: If he has to make the meal, no one else has a say in the groceries. An idea, it seems, that the NFL was no longer a fan of.
By the end of his time in Foxboro, it was believed that Belichick could almost write his own ticket to any number of struggling NFL franchises. Speculation ran rampant as to why no team seemed motivated to hire arguably the best coach of all time. Is it possible that the modern game has moved past it or that teams are no longer willing to give total control to one person? Even if that person was Belichick.
His approach, success and lack of prospects in the NFL have kept Belichick in the minds of NFL personnel. Belichick put the focus on the minds of people in the NFL to see if he could replicate his success in New England in college. This trend, according to ESPNcontinues during his disastrous debut in Chapel Hill.
“I don’t think there’s a conversation these days where what happens to Bill isn’t mentioned in the first five minutes,” said one NFC director of player personnel.
Immediate success was the wrong expectation to create
Belichick and Michael Lombardi made comments before this season that suggested they expected immediate success. Calling UNC the “33rd team in the NFL” is a notion that has aged like milk. Another curious idea was that Belichick would create a developmental pipeline to the NFL that the league would take full advantage of. Belichick rarely chose top talent and instead chose players who fit what he wanted to do. In a college game that emphasizes high-level recruiting, this method was no guarantee of success.
The biggest problem with expectations from Belichick as well as pundits and fans was the assumption that former NFL excellence translated directly to college football success. Belichick is not the first successful NFL head coach to try his hand at college football after his NFL career. In most of these cases, NFL coaches who moved on to college were generally unsuccessful. Conversely, coaches who made their names in college have struggled to excel at the NFL level. Even though both are football, they are not the same.
“It’s a learning curve,” Belichick admitted Monday. “We’re all in this together. But we’re making a lot of progress and the process will eventually produce the results we want, as they have everywhere else I’ve been.”
Belichick could stay on the minds of NFL personnel for a while. Despite much noise to the contrary, Belichick recently condemned reports that he was considering leaving the program. For the coach who focused on details, demanded disciplined players, and consistently won, Belichick runs a college program that is neither detail-oriented, nor focused, nor disciplined, nor winning many games. All of this should keep the North Carolina head coach at the forefront of NFL minds.
