Don’t count former NFL QB and current NBC analyst Chris Simms among those surprised to see Bill Belichick pivot to the collegiate coaching ranks. 

Belichick’s decision to sign on as head coach at the University of North Carolina instead of joining in on the upcoming NFL coaching carousel was a curious choice — given the expected crop of desperate teams set to hold searches for new leaders on the sidelines.

But Simms believes that Belichick’s icy relationship with other NFL teams and decision-makers during his 24-year run with the Patriots might have severely limited his options. 

“Belichick has treated most of the NFL like [expletive] for the last 20 years,” Simms said during an appearance on Meadowlark Media’s “God Bless Football”. “And I don’t mean it [as] disrespectful, it’s just that the Patriots are so uptight, quiet-lipped. They don’t talk to anybody. He doesn’t let coaches talk to other coaches on the field pregame. Certainly, a lot of coaches think there’s a lot of arrogance that came out of New England over the last 20 years.

“I’ve said this on TV. Over the last 20 years, if you gave me a dollar for every coach, I talked to that, ‘Ugh, New England. I forgot they invented football. Oh yeah, New England thinks they know everything. Oh, yeah, Belichick’s got all the answers — all that.’ They burned bridges there. So, there’s a lot of people in football that just wouldn’t want to deal with Belichick, in general.”

Simms’ musings fall in line with several reports about Belichick’s limited appeal to other NFL teams, even with his lofty coaching resume. 

“One NFL team with a coaching vacancy had already ruled out the idea of interviewing Belichick, according to a league source,” The Athletic’s Jeff Howe wrote earlier this month after Belichick joined the Tar Heels. “Sources with a couple of other teams with potential head coach vacancies didn’t believe there’d be enough support within the building to hire Belichick.”

“Belichick, the most prepared figure in the NFL for so long, had to recognize a chilling reality: He’d once again be a long shot to get a job in the league’s upcoming hiring cycle,” Howe added, with an NFL team executive telling him: “If [Belichick] wanted to coach again, he almost had to take this job.”

But even if Simms believes that coaching at Chapel Hill was Belichick’s lone option ahead of the 2025 season, he also doesn’t believe that the ex-Patriots coach will remain in North Carolina for long. 

“Do I believe he’s going to stay there long? Absolutely not,” Simms said. “I mean, the buyout tells you everything. Starting this June, he can be bought out for couch cushion change for NFL owners. I mean, come on, a million dollars? Belichick has got a million dollars in cash he can put in his pocket and pay that off. 

“That’s nothing; he’s worth hundreds of millions. That’s nothing. That alone tells me he doesn’t want to stay there long-term. He was shocked — I know — and so were people around him that there wasn’t more of a calling for him to be the head coach.” 

For Simms, Belichick’s inability to relinquish control at the NFL level — something that will not be an issue at UNC — and his gruff demeanor made him someone that teams at football’s highest level were not going to take a risk on, especially with Belichick’s latest coaching stop potentially only being a short-term undertaking. 

“His age, his control, his demeanor, everything that comes along with him; yeah, there’s going to be some organizations that are going to be like, ‘We don’t want to deal with that. We don’t know how much longer he’s going to coach. And we’re not just going to give him free rein to take over everything if he’s only going to be here for 2 or 3 years,’” Simms explained.

 

Conor Ryan is a staff writer covering the Bruins, Celtics, Patriots, and Red Sox for Boston.com, a role he has held since 2023.