Former New England Patriots head coach and current UNC Tar Heels head coach Bill Belichick has made clear where he stands on the craziness that is the NFL coaching carousel—or at least this one piece of it.
As anyone who has been watching this current cycle knows, coaching interviews begin before the league's postseason ends, which means in-demand coordinators could be taking calls and fielding requests while simultaneously preparing for and playing in playoff games. Belichick, who spent 24 seasons as Patriots head coach and plenty of time in the league before that, does not love the timing of it all.
“I’ve never been a big fan of it,” Belichick said on the most recent episode of the Let's Go! podcast. “I think it’s really unfortunate when you have a team, including the coaches and the coordinators, work so hard all year to get to the playoffs, to have an opportunity to play in conference championships and Super Bowls, and then they’re totally distracted by another team, who was a bad team, who has a coaching change, infringing on that team that’s trying to get to a championship by hiring one of their top coaches. Nobody would be happy if that was a player. But for a coach, that’s also very disruptive, especially when you’re the play caller. I mean, it’s just human nature to be distracted by a potential job opening, staff, and change of lifestyle from a coordinator to a head coach when you’re trying to prepare and call plays in a critical game.
“When I took the head job at Cleveland, I didn’t interview for the head coaching position, at Cleveland or Tampa, until we finished playing, until the Super Bowl was over after we had beaten Buffalo [in Super Bowl XXV],” Belichick continued. “You’re gonna get started at the same time anyway as a coach. It’s not that, but the distraction that it leads into, I think I was very fortunate and glad that I didn’t have to deal with that. So I don’t like it, but it’s not my rule. It’s not my choice. So I think it’s unfair to the teams that have performed and worked so hard to get to that position to have another team that’s obviously not a good team, that has created their own negative situation by having to hire a new coach because of their performance generally, is able to disrupt the team that’s trying to win a championship.”
His take here is especially relevant now, and likely referring to the fact that the Detroit Lions, the No. 1 seed in the NFC, were knocked out of the playoffs by the Washington Commanders amid head coaching interviews for then-offensive coordinator Ben Johnson (now the head coach for the Chicago Bears) and defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn. Though Glenn's fate is still up in the air, Johnson was at Halas Hall and in Bears gear just days after the Lions' season ended.
Of course, it's not like Detroit lost expressly because of this, but as Belichick points out, it's natural to be distracted if you're interviewing for a job while simultaneously preparing for the biggest game of your season. But surely, the Tar Heels coach is speaking from experience — Belichick has no doubt seen plenty of other instances where a ride on the carousel caused undue, poorly-timed stress for a team's front office and locker room, which explains his POV.
So the TLDR? One of the greatest coaches of all time has a point here.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Bill Belichick Says He Was Never 'Big Fan' of This NFL Hiring Practice.