Bill Belichick likely won’t receive a head-coaching opportunity for 2024 after the Falcons hired Raheem Morris, and to ESPN NFL analyst Marcus Spears, it’s similar to someone coming to terms with “when it’s time to stop going to the club.”
“We love going out, right? It was just beautiful,” Spears, a former defensive end, said Friday during the “NFL Live” show on ESPN. “We would go in there, buy a table, and have the drinks come with the sparkly things coming out of it. Everybody would be looking over like who is that over at the party there spending all that money. And everybody wanted to be part of your VIP section. And then you get old.
“You walk in the club when you are 40 and you are looking around and are like what the hell are these young kids doing? I can’t believe I acted like that one day. That’s what it is. I thought Bill Belichick was going to be interviewing these teams, but I was absolutely wrong when it came to that.”
The Falcons were the only team to interview the former Patriots head coach, though when Atlanta brought him back a second time — and when owner Arthur Blank “desperately” wanted Belichick as his Arthur Smith replacement, according to a report — it seemed like Belichick had emerged as a favorite.
But the Falcons interviewed 15 candidates for their vacancy, from people with experience as a head coach such as Mike Vrabel and Jim Harbaugh to up-and-coming coordinators such as Brian Johnson and Ben Johnson.
The outlier on that list, though, was Belichick, at 71 years old with six Super Bowls from overseeing the Patriots’ dynasty across 24 seasons.
After Tom Brady left for the Buccaneers, the Patriots went 22-29, including a dismal 4-13 campaign in 2023 with Mac Jones and Bailey Zappe at quarterback.
They finished the regular season tied with the Panthers for averaging the fewest points per game (13.9), down significantly from the 21.4 that they averaged in 2022.
Belichick and owner Robert Kraft agreed to mutually part ways following the season, and the Patriots promoted linebackers coach Jerod Mayo as Belichick’s replacement.
At first, with his resume, Belichick’s name surfaced in Cowboys rumors before Jerry Jones decided to keep Mike McCarthy.
He then materialized, more concretely, as an option for the Falcons, a franchise that struggled under Smith but has the No. 8 overall pick and could select a quarterback to pair with running back Bijan Robinson and tight end Kyle Pitts.
But when Atlanta opted for Morris, the Rams’ defensive coordinator who’d previously been the Buccaneers’ head coach and the Falcons’ interim coach, the outlook for Belichick changed — and perhaps his new reality, based on his final years with the Patriots, started to settle into place.
“It is the fact that he hasn’t come to focus with an offense,” Spears said during the “NFL Live” segment, “and if you look over the past years, it’s been bad, y’all. It’s been bad hires. It’s been bad draft picks. And they haven’t had success on the offensive side of the football in a league where at times you gotta score 30 or 40 points to win games now.”