Heel Tough Blog: Belichick “Getting Ready for Wake Forest”

Inside Carolina

Bill Belichick isn’t a name that you expect to hear come up in many coaching searches around the NFL, but there is one job in particular that has just come open that has led to speculation about the possibility of him leaving.

After a 2-8 start to their season, the New York Giants made the decision to fire head coach Brian Daboll on Monday, meaning they will be searching for a head coach for the fifth time in the last ten years. The ownership group is hungry to win after more than a decade of being relatively uncompetitive and some believe that the team could, for that reason, go in the direction of hiring an accomplished coach.

One of the first names that comes up is Belichick’s because of his ties to the organization and the admiration that he has expressed in the past. Belichick spent more than a decade with the team early in his career, beginning his tenure as a defensive and special teams assistant in 1979. He would spend 1980-84 as the team’s special teams and linebackers coach before being elevated to the defensive coordinator spot in 1985 by head coach Bill Parcells. He would spend the next five years in that role before taking the head coaching job with the Cleveland Browns in 1991, helping engineer some of the best defenses in the league on the way to his first two Super Bowl rings.

Because of that, there has been some buzz around his name for the job and Belichick addressed that on Tuesday during his meeting with the media. “Getting ready for Wake Forest, that’s all I got this week,” he said. “I’ve been asked about it from time to time. Look, I’ve been down this road before. I’m focused on Wake Forest, that’s it. That’s my commitment to this team. Next week it’ll be our next opponent and so forth. I’m here to do the best I can for this team.”

Some fans are concerned that this wasn’t a strong enough response, but there isn’t really any reason for Belichick to respond strongly to anything at this point. From everything that I have heard from people that cover the team in New York, it seems highly unlikely at this point that the team will pursue Belichick for the job because of everything that surrounds the head coach and his age. It doesn’t mean that you can take it completely off the table because of Belichick’s affinity for the organization, but at this point, I wouldn’t say it should be a concern for the Tar Heels.