The North Carolina Tar Heels made the most surprising move in American sports this year, hiring future Hall of Fame coach Bill Belichick to lead their football program. While some are still wondering if Belichick could jump ship for an NFL head-coaching gig within the next 18 months, he might never get that chance.
Belichick, who turns 73 years old in April, wanted to return to the NFL sideline in 2025 after spending a year away from the game. He’s currently just 27 wins shy of breaking Don Shula’s record (328) for the most wins by a head coach in NFL history.
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- Bill Belichick coaching record: 302-165 overall record in the NFL
Already holding NFL records for most Super Bowl wins (eight), Super Bowl appearances (12) and playoff wins as a head coach (31), the all-time wins record seemed to matter to Belichick. However, he agreed to replace Mack Brown as the new Tar Heels football coach in 2025.
While that seemingly took him off the NFL’s radar in 2025, many still wondered if he would leave North Carolina when his contract details come out. Belichick’s buyout in his five-year deal is currently $10 million, but it drops to $1 million on June 1, 2025. However, even if he could get out of his contract for free, it still appears NFL teams wouldn’t want him.
Senior NFL reporter Charles Robinson of Yahoo Sports said on the Inside Coverage that he currently believes there’s a 0 percent chance Belichick ever become an NFL coach again. Part of the reason stems from conversations from around the league in the days and weeks leading up to North Carolina hiring Belichick.
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“I don’t have any indication it’s not at 0 (percent chance) right now. When all of this happened, you reach out to agents who manage not just head coaches, but they manage personnel people, they manage assistant coaches who would be on Bill’s list. That’s the one thing. If you want to know the level of interest in a candidate and you can’t get it from the candidate themselves…What you can do, is you can go to coaches you know are on his short list because when he goes somewhere he has to build a staff. You don’t wait to start putting those people on alert until the last possible minute, you give them a hint. Typically, the agents of those coaches know, “Hey, Bill said be ready’…So far, I have not heard a peep from anybody representing a number of assistant coaches, some people in personnel.
Yahoo Sports’ senior NFL reporter Charles Robinson on Bill Belichick returning to the NFL in the future
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All of this comes amid reporting from Jeff Howe of The Athletic that Belichick “burned a lot of bridges” around the NFL and multiple teams with current head-coaching vacancies or who were considering a change had already ruled out Belichick as a potential option in their coaching search.
The sentiment around the league regarding Belichick reflects what happened last year. While he interviewed for the Atlanta Falcons’ coaching vacancy, he lost out on the job to Raheem Morris and no other team expressed interest in hiring Belichick.
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Now after spending the 2024 NFL season as a public face in media to try and improve his reputation and to showcase more of his personality, NFL teams seemingly indicated to Belichick that he wasn’t wanted this time around. So, with no other alternatives and a desire to coach, he’ll make his college football coaching debut in 2025. Even with the unique buyout structure of his contract, it appears as of now that it won’t matter.