Chris Simms is surprised that Bill Belichick accepted the head coaching job at North Carolina.

The NBC analyst and co-host of ProFootballTalk Live would be even more shocked if the 72-year-old Belichick doesn’t flame out quickly in Chapel Hill.

During his weekly appearance on Meadowlark Media’s God Bless Football with Stugotz and Billy Gil, the former NFL quarterback, who briefly served as a coaching assistant for Belichick with the New England Patriots in 2012, shared his skepticism about the legendary coach’s future in the college ranks.

“Do I believe he’s going to stay there long? Absolutely not,” said Simms. “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.

“So, yeah, am I shocked he’s going to college? Definitely. Did I think there’d be a team out there that would latch onto Belichick? I did think that. But I’m not shocked that the NFL rejected Belichick. His age, his control, his demeanor, everything that comes along with him; yeah, there’s going to be some srganizations 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 also suggested that Belichick’s history of alienating colleagues across the NFL could be a reason for the lack of interest.

“Belichick has treated most of the NFL like shit for the last 20 years,” said Simms. “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.”

When Simms was reminded that Michael Lombardi recently told God Bless Football that he wouldn’t have signed on as Belichick’s general manager at North Carolina if the coach wasn’t committed to staying for at least a few years, Simms didn’t dismiss the possibility outright.

“I’m friends with Mike, and Mike’s the man, in my opinion,” Simms said. “He’s somebody I talk about and talk football with a lot — and we see the game the same way. And when he does say stuff like that, I do [give some pause].”

That said, when it comes to business, Simms isn’t exactly trusting Belichick.

“We’ve seen he can dodge questions and lie and bullshit pretty good to the media,” Simms added. “And that’s what I kind of find funny about the whole thing. He doesn’t talk to the media for the last 15 years and now he’s a media darling, telling everybody about how every team should play and coach and do all this. And I think it’s very, very hypocritical, honestly.”

[God Bless Football]