Hard times have beleaguered the New England Patriots. After 22 years of dominance over the NFL, with six Super Bowl championships and a stranglehold on the AFC, the team looks positively dreadful. The offense has been meager at best, and the defense hasn’t helped matters too much. Injuries have also created a difficult situation in Foxborough. Bill Belichick has come under scrutiny, and the eye-popping idea that owner Robert Kraft could let him go has even been perpetuated.
How we got there that quickly is worth asking. Let’s play hypothetical, though: What if the Patriots do the seemingly unthinkable and send Belichick out of New England? What would Bill do? Would he go coach again? Or is a broadcasting job awaiting him like so many others before him?
The Athletic’s Richard Deitsch proposed this thought in an article published on Friday. Deitsch talked to Fox’s Greg Olsen, who chimed in saying he believed the six-time Super Bowl champion head coach would be “very fascinating” as a game analyst. Deitsch also wrote that he believes “Every network” that has NFL broadcasting rights would have an interest in the coach. Three agents suggested offers ranging from $8-10 million to a whopping $18-20 million.
Whether he makes the jump and what that might look like are still to be determined, of course. Would he be in the studio? There are plenty of possibilities there. Any of the networks would gain something with Belichick’s acumen and presence. It feels like there would be no shortage of suitors for him for a studio role, given what he could provide outside of the fast-paced action of a game.
Or would he call games? Olsen, Tony Romo, Cris Collinsworth, Troy Aikman, and Kirk Herbstreit all own the lead color commentary voices in the NFL this season. None of them are probably moving off their spots, but a three-man booth is far from rare in the NFL.
Aikman, Collinsworth, and Joe Buck were labeled as Fox’s ‘A-Team’ in the mid-2000s. ABC and ESPN’s productions of ‘Monday Night Football’ routinely had three-man booths as well.
You also wonder if Bill would go right into broadcast or if he’d continue coaching. When Peter King earlier this week suggested the Pats might let him go, he said he believed that Belichick would continue coaching. He’s held the job with the Patriots since the year 2000, when he famously spurned the rival New York Jets. Nothing lasts forever, so while it’s unclear if he’ll make the move yet, all eyes may still be on Belichick while the Patriots go through it this season.
About Chris Novak
Chris Novak has been talking and writing about sports ever since he can remember. Previously, Novak wrote for and managed sites in the SB Nation network for nearly a decade from 2013-2022