Could there soon be a cocktail napkin with the following message scrawled on it: “I resign as HC of the UNC”?
The Raiders and others are reportedly interested in the North Carolina coach. His buyout is $10 million until June 1, 2025, at which point it drops to $1 million. That wasn’t randomly generated; the clause is there for a reason.
And Belichick is in Chapel Hill for a reason. We’ve believed from the moment he took the job, and based on conversations since then we believe even more strongly, that Belichick had hoped for a wink-nod commitment from an NFL team that he’d be the next head coach, after the 2024 season.
As one team executive remarked at the time Belichick jumped to the Tar Heels, Belichick essentially wanted a team to violate the spirit of the Rooney Rule by unofficially promising him a job without doing a proper search.
He didn’t get what he wanted. So he took the bird in the hand. While he did indeed talk to the Jets, it wasn’t the commitment he needed to justify passing on a coaching job at the college level.
Now, with six jobs open (scratch the Pats and Jets off the list, as it relates to Belichick), he’s possibly in play.
The Raiders make the most sense. He reveres Al Davis, the late father of current team owner Mark Davis. And Tom Brady, the quarterback with whom Belichick won six Super Bowls, could be working on Belichick to join forces on the team that Pats took down 23 years ago in the notorious Tuck Rule game.
Belichick has said nothing in the aftermath of the report that multiple teams want to talk to him. TheAthletic.com has reported, citing an unnamed source close to Belichick (i.e., we suspect, Belichick consigliere Mike Lombardi), that Belichick has “no plans to leave North Carolina.”
That’s an interesting hedge. “No plans” is a far cry from “no way.” Plans can, and do, change.
So what could change Belichick’s plans? Would an offer to coach the Raiders with the money and power he wants do it?
He’d take a P.R. hit if he ends up backtracking. He wouldn’t be the first, including himself when he resigned as coach of the Jets. (Also, it was Belichick BFF Nick Saban who once told the world, “I’m not going to be the Alabama coach.”)
It’s not an impossible sell. Belichick could simply say this: “I coached in the NFL for 50 years. My heart is with the NFL. I didn’t realize it until I took a coaching job not in the NFL.”
The buyout is a non-issue. What’s $10 million to an NFL owner? Also, given that the buyout plummets to $1 million on June 1, Belichick could try to negotiate a lower number, given that he could (in theory) stay for less than five more months, let his staff in Las Vegas handle the offseason, and then leave for Las Vegas on June 2.
The Lombardi angle could be an issue. Al Davis had little regard for Lombardi. Mark Davis might refuse to hire him, especially if it means firing G.M. Tom Telesco. Still, if Mark Davis wants Belichick, maybe Davis will give Belichick whatever he wants.
Then there’s the Brady angle. At a time when he refuses to give up his job as a broadcaster so that he can devote more time to his gig as a Raiders owner (and to sidestep the obvious conflicts of interest), Brady might pick a lane if Belichick tells him to do it.
Again, it’s simple. Belichick says something like this to Brady: “If I’m gonna do this, I need your help. I need you to be fully involved. You’ll need to quit doing that TV shit.”
Is a Belichick departure from UNC to a return to the NFL likely? No. Is it possible, yes.
The key piece of proof is the buyout. There wouldn’t be one at all if he wasn’t thinking he might be interested in leaving. At a minimum, there would be no buyout during his first year on the job.
The fact that it’s in there means he was thinking of the possibility of leaving when he signed the deal. And that was before teams were willing to make him an unofficial offer. Now that one or more teams want to talk to him, why wouldn’t he at least listen?