Life comes at you fast.
In 2009, at the spry age of 57, Bill Belichick said the following: “I won’t be like Marv Levy and coaching in my 70s. You don’t have to worry about that.”
Fast forward over a decade, and not only did Belichick coach the New England Patriots into his 70s, but he is now coaching the North Carolina Tar Heels at the age of 74.
It’s difficult to remember a bigger fall from grace in sports, outside of individuals who committed actual crimes, than what is going on right now with Belichick.
At the start of this decade, he was regarded by most of the population as the greatest NFL head coach of all-time, and possibly the greatest head coach in the history of American sport.
Today, he is a national punch line.
He is widely regarded as a washed football coach. He is widely regarded as a simp for his 25-year-old girlfriend, Jordon Hudson, who seemingly calls all the shots in his life. He is projected by some to be fired by North Carolina midway through his second season.
“I’m not pulling for Bill Belichick,” said college football analyst Paul Finebaum on ESPN’s First Take this week. “He’s a grouch. He’s a bully, and his career in college is about to go down in flames … it is mass chaos in Chapel Hill.
“I don’t think Bill Belichick is going to survive the end of the season.”
UNC went 4-8 in its first season under Belichick. It was the Tar Heels’ worst record since 2018 when they went 2-9 under Larry Fedora.
The 2026 season is the definition of a make-or-break year for Belichick and North Carolina.
Will this be the coaching end of the man who has eight Super Bowl rings (six with the Patriots and two as an assistant with Giants), or is this just the beginning of Belichick’s final act?
The good money is on this being the end … but then again - Belichick has pulled off plenty of miracles in his illustrious career.
Why this is the end of the line for Bill Belichick
One of Belichick’s claims to fame as an NFL coach was his uncanny ability to make chicken salad out of chicken poop.
During the height of his powers with the Patriots, Belichick routinely took teams with “average” talent deep into the NFL playoffs - and often-times won the whole damn thing.
Consider that Belichick’s Patriots were in the title mix almost every season from 2001 to 2019. From that era, the only Patriots mainstays that are currently in the Pro Football Hall of Fame are Ty Law, Richard Seymour, Randy Moss, and Adam Vinatieri.
Moss would have made the Hall of Fame even if he had never played a snap for the Patriots.
Vinatieri, as great as he was, is a kicker.
So, how did New England sustain all that success for nearly two decades?
Even the most ardent Belichick haters have to give “The Hoodie” some credit for his work during the 2000s and 2010s.
Earlier this year, ESPN’s Aaron Schatz ranked every Super Bowl-winning team from 1-60.
The 2001 Patriots, the team that kick-started the New England dynasty, ranked 58th.
That team’s starting running back was Antowain Smith. Their top two receivers were Troy Brown and David Patten. Their tight ends were Rod Rutledge and Jermaine Wiggins. And their quarterback was a 6th round pick named Tom Brady.
No doubt, elite coaching was the driving force in getting that team to the mountaintop. In those early years, Brady was nothing more than a game-manager. Belichick pulled out close-game after close-game with his defense leading the way.
In later years, that flipped. The New England offense, led by Brady, was leading the charge.
Brady-backers in the great Brady vs. Belichick debate can make the case that Belichick lost his coaching fastball sometime around 2009. That for the latter part of the Pats’ dynasty, it was all Brady.
When Brady left the Patriots in 2020, it was a slow but steady pro football burnout for Belichick.
After going 12-4 in the final season with Brady under center, the Pats - with Cam Newton as quarterback - went 7-9 in 2020.
The next season they rebounded a bit with rookie Mac Jones at quarterback as they went 10-7 and made the playoffs, but they were blasted in the Wild Card round by the Bills, 47-17.
In 2022, Belichick went 8-9 with the Pats.
In 2023, it was 4-13.
In 2024? Same deal. 4-13, and New England owner Robert Kraft showed Belichick the door.
Now with UNC, it’s looking like Belichick can no longer take subpar talent to the promised land. Even if he were handed an elite roster at his advanced football age, most people would wager on him failing.
When Belichick took the North Carolina job, the new Chapel Hill football admin promised that it would become “the NFL’s 33rd team.”
It promised to be the main pipeline for NFL-ready talent to enter the NFL.
“Play in Chapel Hill for a couple of years and then enter the Draft.”
That was the ideology.
So far it has not worked out that way.
Far from it.
A grand total of zero UNC players were selected in the 2026 NFL Draft.
The starting quarterback for UNC’s Week 0 game against TCU this Saturday will be transfer Billy Edwards Jr., who has had mixed results in his collegiate career at Maryland and Wisconsin.
Belichick revamped the UNC program this off-season by bringing in a boatload of new players. But the roster still does not exactly “pop” as a true contender.
“I don’t think I’m confident in that roster,” ACC analyst Eric Mac Lain told On3. “I don’t know if I’m confident with that. They have retooled and rebuilt. I think they’re still yearning for that … I think that roster is still a ways away.”
Fanatics Sportsbook has set North Carolina’s win total for 2026 at just 4.5 victories.
Why this is NOT the end of the line for Bill Belichick
Belichick has never been a quick-fix kind of guy.
In his first season with the Browns in 1991, Cleveland went 6-10. They went 7-9 the next year, and then 7-9 again the following year. In 1994, his Browns jumped to 11-5 and won a playoff game - as Belichick bested his mentor Bill Parcells in a win over the Patriots.
It’s mostly forgotten in history now, but Belichick’s first year as head coach of the Pats was not great either. With Drew Bledsoe as the starter, and a rookie Brady riding the bench, the Patriots went 5-11 in 2000.
Year 2 with the Pats? Super Bowl champs.
Even dating back to his time as an assistant with the Giants, it took a while for Belichick-coached teams to find their footing.
Belichick joined the Giants in 1979 and sub-.500 seasons were the norm in the Meadowlands up until the middle part of the 1980s. Belichick was named Parcells’ defensive coordinator in 1985 and the team went 10-6. In Year 2 with Belichick as the main defensive caller, the Giants went 14-2 and won the Super Bowl.
Year 2 under Belichick regimes typically go quite well. He treats Year 1 as a season in which to lay a foundation. A year in which to rid programs of bad apples. A year in which to establish a culture.
In Year 2, and subsequent seasons - Belichick allows the players he trusts to thrive - and it’s off to the races.
This season’s UNC team should be a much more disciplined squad than we saw last year. It should take on more of Belichick’s no-nonsense, mistake-free identity. He now has more “Belichick guys” on the roster.
UNC brought in 61 total players in the offseason and 247 Sports ranked the Tar Heels No. 22 in recruiting for 2026.
Belichick also brought in a new offensive coordinator in Bobby Petrino, who has been regarded as one of the top offensive minds in the game for years. Petrino returned to Arkansas for the 2024 season, this time as an OC under Sam Pittman, and improved the Razorbacks from 107th to 10th nationally in yards per game (326.5 to 459.5).
There is also a lot less drama surrounding the program than there was a year ago.
Perhaps Belichick is just now finding his footing with the Tar Heels.
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