Bill Belichick’s foray into college football sparked a lot of double reading throughout the industry, but the logic behind his decision may have been as simple as it was surprising.

“He’s a football coach,” a source close to Belichick said. “He’ll be training somewhere.”

After 49 seasons in the NFL, Belichick made a radical career change on Wednesday when he accepted the head coaching job at the University of North Carolina.

Welcome to Chapel Hill, Bill Belichick!

The eight-time Super Bowl champion has officially been named our next @UNCFootball Head coach. #GoHeels X #ChapelBill pic.twitter.com/cnngQI7gnC

– UNC Tar Heels (@GoHeels) December 12, 2024

The 72-year-old’s pursuit of Don Shula’s winning record has been put on hold, possibly forever. Belichick needed 15 wins to surpass the NFL all-time mark of 347.

The record meant a lot to Belichick, especially in recent years when it seemed more attainable. Why did he stop the pursuit?

Perhaps it is more important to assess the situation from the opposite perspective.

According to a league source, an NFL team with a coaching vacancy had already ruled out the idea of ​​interviewing Belichick. Sources at some other teams with potential head coaching vacancies didn’t believe there would be enough support in the building to hire Belichick. The New York Jets, who are set to hire a coach and general manager, were never considered as an option due to their long-standing shared animosity between each other.

And among the seven coaching vacancies last year — excluding the New England Patriots, who fired Belichick — the architect of the greatest dynasty in league history received serious interest only from the Atlanta Falcons. According to league sources, several of those teams quickly dismissed the idea of ​​interviewing Belichick. Some even expressed relief that Belichick would not disrupt the organization’s power structure.

Belichick, long the most prepared figure in the NFL, faced a frightening reality: He would once again have no chance of getting a job in the league’s upcoming hiring cycle. It’s common for coaches to put out feelers to gauge their attractiveness to organizations.

“(Belichick) has burned a lot of bridges throughout his career,” a senior team executive said.

However, Belichick still wanted to practice, so it was important for him to act. North Carolina, which employed his father in the 1950s, was the best-known program with an opening. Belichick turns 73 in April and couldn’t risk being left out of another recruiting cycle.

“If he wanted to coach again, he almost had to take that job,” another team manager said.

Another longtime Belichick employee thought the move to UNC made sense for other reasons, too. Belichick will essentially have unilateral control of the program, which wouldn’t necessarily be the case had he been given another NFL opportunity. And a handful of Belichick’s closest friends — Nick Saban, Greg Schiano, Chip Kelly, Kirk Ferentz and Jedd Fisch — found success at the college level. He can use them as resources to get used to a different football world.

Also keep in mind that Belichick could have waited to see if there were open spots with the Dallas Cowboys, New York Giants or Jacksonville Jaguars, among others, but ultimately they might not have been such a good fit. Cowboys owner and general manager Jerry Jones isn’t relinquishing control of his front office, and it’s too early to tell what the coming power structure will look like within the Giants and Jaguars as more drastic changes come.

“There may be some owners who want (Belichick’s) structure and stability, but he’s 72,” said another longtime executive of a team that was involved in last year’s NFL hiring cycle. “I think a lot of teams want to build something long-term and he clearly has a limited timetable.”

Belichick’s resume still stands alone. He is considered by his peers to be the greatest coach of his time, if not history. And last season, when the Patriots posted a 4-13 record, some personnel managers said Belichick’s defense still showcased some game-changing concepts.

But they had fair and objective criticism of how things turned out with the Patriots, as their record deteriorated in each of his last two seasons and they failed to win a playoff game in the last four years. The departure of quarterback Tom Brady was a mystery, but the failure to find a suitable successor made matters worse.

Belichick’s push for organizational control was also at the center of discussions with teams. One executive called the Patriots a “unicorn” during the Belichick era because he won three Super Bowls in his first five seasons, gained significantly more control after the departure of Scott Pioli in 2009, and was able to lead the team the way he did considered correct. This is not a common structure for much of the league.

Additionally, the model had deteriorated in Belichick’s later years with the Patriots. There was a push for greater collaboration in the 2021 NFL Draft, but that collaboration fell through in 2022, according to league sources. Patriots scouts were often frustrated by their lack of involvement after the annual combine — nearly two months before the draft — or beyond their general inclusion in the building throughout the season.

“I think people would be concerned about the culture in the building,” a fourth manager said. “(Belichick’s) culture worked when they won, but he got fired because they didn’t win.”

Of course, the culture extends to the locker room. Today’s players don’t have as much exposure to the old-school approach to coaching as they did 10 or even 20 years ago. As one of Belichick’s former players recently said, “It’s nice to go somewhere and not be told how much you suck every day.”

This player wasn’t the only one with this opinion. What’s more, coaches and executives from other teams were turned off by Belichick’s public alienation of former Patriots quarterback Mac Jones.

Belichick has achieved unprecedented success throughout his career. No one in the league would ever deny that.

But as teams seek a long-term solution with their next head coach, they have many legitimate questions about how the situation fell apart in New England and whether Belichick would fit in their organization. And even if Belichick were to transform an NFL team, his age limits his longevity.

Of course, the same questions arise in North Carolina, but here’s the difference: UNC offered a job and it was far from guaranteed that the NFL would do the same.

(Photo: Timothy T Ludwig / Getty Images)