The genius of Bill Belichick has been under siege since the 2020s started, owing in part to our collective desire to root against gruff high achievers and in part to his own stumbles.
Sure, winning six Super Bowls as a head coach might seem to insulate someone from any legacy-related questions.
But then Tom Brady left for Tampa Bay and won another title without his coach, while Belichick was left to muddle through four more years and a 29-38 record in New England before being fired (yes, fired) from that job after the 2023 season.
Belichick sat out 2024, then made some surprising news both off the field and, more importantly, on the field when he took a college head coaching job at North Carolina.
With “amateur” players being paid now and the transfer portal essentially turning every athlete into free agent in a contract year — as Patrick Reusse and I talked about on Tuesday’s Daily Delivery podcast — college football does more closely resemble the NFL than it did in the past.
But it’s still a different game with a different set of fans, priorities, player ages and reasons to care. Belichick, 73, spent almost a half-century as an NFL assistant or head coach. Would this sudden move to UNC reaffirm his genius or further unmask a late career in steep decline?
That’s what everyone wanted to know. Snap judgments are not exactly fair, but there was no denying what we say Monday: 90% of the world (at least the social media world) reveling in the continued humbling of a legend.
Some of the ghastly numbers from Belichick’s North Carolina debut, a 48-14 home loss to TCU, will lead off today’s 10 things to know:
