THE TRANSATLANTIC MAGAZINE
THE TRANSATLANTIC MAGAZINE
Green leaves of summer turn red in the fall
To brown and to yellow they fade
And then they have to die
Trapped within the circle time parade
Of changes
- Phil Ochs, "Changes" (1964)
Two days after Black Monday, where the obvious coaching heads rolled, Pete Carroll – aged 72, and winner of both a Super Bowl and an NCAA championship (or two) – was eased out of his Seahawks job and kicked upstairs into an "advisor role", a sort of Vice-President: Stuff.
The next morning Nick Saban – aged 72 and having lost the national championship to Michigan – announced his retirement as coach of the University of Alabama, where he had won six of his seven national championships.
Then came the big explosion, Bill Belichick – aged only 71 – left the New England Patriots "by mutual agreement" after 24 seasons as their head coach, which included 17 division titles, nine conference championships and a record six Super Bowl wins. Counting the playoffs, Belichick has won 333 games, only 14 games short of Don Shula's all-time record of 347.
[As if 72 is old! For the record, Iron Mike is six months older than Carroll, seven months older than Saban and 13 months older than Belichick. But looks younger than any of them! - ed]
It was less than two decades ago that Peter King, then of Sports Illustrated, wrote a piece suggesting what he called the Speed Limit rule: no coaches over 55 could succeed in the modern NFL. That year's Super Bowl matched up 55 year old Bill Belichick against 61 year old Tom Coughlin. Coughlin won that game; and another four seasons later, again against Belichick. Bill won four more Super Bowls, one against Carroll, who'd won his first the previous season, aged 61. Go figure. And call rewrite, Pete.
Neither of the NFL coaches departed willingly. Although Carroll went along with the idea this was a mutual decision, at the team's press conference he couldn't stop being honest about wanting to continue coaching: "I'm frickin' jacked," he said.
The Patriots had no press conference; Belichick and owner Robert Kraft each read a politely gracious statement. It felt like one of those events where everybody wants to leave but they all have to go through the motions, like the funeral of a criminal relative. There were two interesting things about the reading of Kraft's and Belichick's statements. First, Bill referred to Kraft as "Robert" or "Bob", not "Mr. Kraft", violating the established NFL protocol whereby coaches refer to owners as Mister, if not tip their cloth cap. Secondly, Kraft referred to the Pats' "ten Super Bowl appearances" under Bill – of course it's only nine. But Tom Brady has ten, counting his win with Tampa Bay. Was Bob indulging in wishful thinking?
Belichick was under contract for one more season, but I have no doubt the Krafts wanted him gone now. Linebackers coach Jerod Mayo was a hot prospect for head coaching job last year, and they gave him a guarantee of promotion for 2025, which meant they could hire him now and not have to interview any other candidates, as prescribed by the Rooney Rule which the NFL requires teams to follow with actual vacancies. (Mayo, by the way, is black.)
I am sure that the Patriots released Belichick from his contract, meaning any other team could sign him to a new deal without paying compensation. When Bill famously changed his mind a day after agreeing to coach the New York Jets (where Bill Parcells would again be his boss) and then wrote his new speech for the signing press conference - "I resign as HC of the NYJ" - on a napkin, it cost the Pats a first round draft pick, which the Jets turned into Curtis Martin.
Mayo might not have decided to wait an extra year; now he jumped right into the job the next day, before Bill's office was even cleared.
Saban's retirement took everyone by surprise; speculation arose that he would be happy to move into the college football commentary booth, but the feeling seemed to be that he may have grown tired with the whole nature of the college game, as Name, Image and Likeness payments have turned it unashamedly professional and quick exits to the NFL have become almost like one-and-done basketball players.
NFL coaching resembles a medieval guild; the owners are the lords, and admission to the guild is hereditary, jobs within the guild often go to friends and close colleagues. College football, the world's most profitable development league, is similar, though instead of owners you have college presidents and athletic directors, and of course the NCAA is a more corporate authoritarian version of the NFL commissioner's office. But you can see the many circles radiating out from any pebble pitched into the Belichick/Carroll/Saban pond.
It really is a circle time parade.
Saban replaced Carroll as the secondary coach at The Ohio State University in 1980 when Carroll left to become defensive coordinator at NC State, where the new head coach was Monte Kiffen, with whom Carroll had coached at Arkansas. When Saban was fired in a head coaching change at Ohio State, he spent a year at Navy, where Belichick's father Steve was a scout/coach. Bill grew up in Annapolis, and was breaking down game film with his dad when he was eight. He met Saban at his parents' house. They kept in touch, while Saban became defensive coordinator at Michigan State, spent two years in the NFL as the Oilers' secondary coach, and then a year as head coach of Toledo (9-2, co-champs of the MAC). But he left Toledo after that year to join Belichick, just hired as head coach of the Cleveland Browns, as his defensive coordinator from 1991-94. Then he returned to Michigan State as head coach, ('95-'99).
Carroll, meanwhile became defensive coordinator for the New York Jest under Bruce Coslet; Kiffen was his linebackers coach for a year (replaced by John Madden's favorite, Foge Fazio). He became head coach of the Jest in 1994, after Coslet was fired, but he too got the sack after one 6-10 season, the year Dan Marino used the fake spike to beat them. After two years as defensive coordinator with the 49ers, Carroll was hired by Kraft as head coach of the Patriots; he went 10-6, 9-7, 8-8 in his three years, and lost in the first round of the playoffs in the first two, but was fired after the 1999 season and replaced by… Bill Belichick. In 2000 Saban jumped from Michigan State to LSU, while Carroll was hired by USC.
Three years later, Saban won his first national championship, partly at the expense of Carroll, who had joined USC after the Pats sacked him. In the 2003 season, USC was ranked first in the AP poll at season's end, but the new-fangled FCS national championship formula chose AP's no 2 and no 3 teams LSU and Oklahoma for their title game (all three teams were undefeated), which Saban's LSU won. USC still claimed a national title, after they beat AP's number 4 ranked Michigan in the Rose Bowl. The next season, five major college teams finished undefeated, but again USC was ranked no 1. This time they got the nod against Oklahoma, and won the national championship game. But they would be stripped of that title for recruiting violations, mainly around star runner Reggie Bush, who was being paid illegally, allegedly by an agent. When deeper sanctions were applied six years later, in 2010, Carroll chose to leave for the NFL and the Seattle job, saying neither he, nor his recruiting coordinator (who happened to be his son Brennan) had any knowledge of Bush's lifestyle. Though Belichick is tagged as a cheater in some circles, Carroll's reputation, reinforced by his positive style which contrasts with Bill's dour persona, remains unsullied.
Saban left LSU in 2005 to coach the Miami Dolphins, Belichick's AFC East rivals. His time there was hampered most by his decision in 2006 to choose to sign Daunte Culpepper as a free agent QB rather than Drew Brees. He later blamed the team's medical reports, but more likely he preferred Culpepper's big arm. He finished 9-7 his first year with QBs Gus Frerotte, Cleo Lemon and Sage Rosenfels, but he went 6-10 the next year after Daunte's knee proved more vulnerable than Brees' shoulder, and left Miami to take the Alabama job in Tuscaloosa. His six titles in 17 seasons is very much like Belichick's consistent domination with the Pats; during his time he hired two offensive coordinators from Carroll's USC staff, one was Lane Kiffen, son of Carroll's old partner Monte.
Bill was a freshman at Wesleyan when I was a senior; though he is only a year younger than I am. He didn't play football his freshman year, you can look at the 1971 team photo if you doubt me. We did play lacrosse together in the spring of 1972. He was a defenseman, a better player than athlete—good with his stickwork and smarts. When he left Wesleyan with a degree in economics, he knew he wanted to coach and he took a series of low-paid jobs to prove himself, helped somewhat by his father's contacts around the league. One crucial one came with Denver, under head coach Red Miller and defensive coordinator Joe Collier, where some of the defensive concepts he would use were developed. He joined the Giants under Ray Perkins coaching special teams and linebackers, then became defensive coordinator, a position he retained under Bill Parcells; his game plan for the Super Bowl win over Buffalo is in the Hall of Fame. When Parcells left the Giants for the Patriots, Belichick went with him, then Parcells jumped to the Jets, where Belichick went with him and later was head coach for a day.
I believe there is nothing to match this record of dominance in the NFL. It is a combination of success at a high level (before the post-Brady decline, he'd been to nine championships in 20 seasons) with perennial contention. The Cleveland Browns went to ten championship games in ten years, when Otto Graham was Paul Brown's QB: four of those were in the AAFC (they won all four), the other six in the NFL (they won three of six). Lombardi's nine seasons at Green Bay produced six conference championship games and five championships (including the first two Super Bowls); his loss to the Eagles in the 1960 NFL championship was his only post-season loss. You can point to other teams with shorter periods of top success (the early 90s Cowboys or 70s Steelers, for example) or to teams with a longer run but fewer titles (the Walsh/Siefert Montana/Young Niners).
Bill was always planning for the long term future, and he probably misjudged Tom Brady's longevity, supposedly feuding with the Krafts over whether or not to let Jimmy Garoppolo succeed Brady. Over the years, people point to the lack of success (at the NFL level) of coaches and executives from his "tree" (college, with Saban, Kirk Ferentz and Pat Hill is a different story) but they overlook that the reason for their relative lack of success is that those people have no Belichick overseeing them, cannot build a Belichick-style structure, and cannot try to act like Bill in establishing a culture, because nothing establishes culture like winning. Sure Bill wanted to do things his way, not that he was resistant to change, but with the churn of talented assistants in the front office and on the coaching staff, he missed key input.
Did he fail because he lost Tom Brady? Did Brady make Belichick? Or vice versa? In our world of internet ALL CAPS screaming and reality TV hosts offering gossip column stuff, his is the most obvious question (although I am surprised none of sports sites have suggested Bill has been exceptionally grumpy since his relationship with Linda Holliday ended). After all TOM WON A SUPER BOWL without Belichick, and Bill couldn't do the same. The truth is more nuanced, of course, and it was a both ways deal. Their early winners were based on great defenses, while Brady was a kind of system QB, who could execute any game plan and had a super resiliency and will to win. Remember, in 2006 when Brady was hurt minutes into the opening game of the season, the Pats went 11-5 with Matt Cassel, who hadn't even started in college at USC under, yes, Pete Carroll, playing quarterback. Then Brady became a key QB in a variety of top passing offenses. Remember, their last Super Bowl win together was a 13-3 hobbling of Sean McVay's "unstoppable" Rams' offense. Bill then tried to let Brady carry the team without a top set of receivers; when Brady went to Tampa he joined a team stocked with talent, and took them to a Super Bowl win, while Bill was caught without a Plan B beyond Cam Newton. Then he had one good year with Nick Saban-recommended Mac Jones.
With the departures of Belichick and Carroll the senior coach remaining is Kansas City's Andy Reid, who is 65. There are a lot of similarities between Reid and Belichick: Andy started as head coach of the Eagles in 1999, and built a consistently successful team that never got over the final hurdle, very good at forward planning to maintain quality in the salary cap era. He was fired by Philly after the 2012 season, joined Kansas City in 2013, and again built a winning team, finally clearing that final hurdle when he got Patrick Mahomes to play QB. No one asks whether Mahomes made Reid, no one asks about Reid's rather bare coaching tree (the most successful is probably Sean McDermott). He's benefited from two superior defensive coordinators, Jimmy Johnson in Philly and Steve Spagnuolo in KC. Like Belichick, he brought his sons into coaching with him, though he's been unluckier with them, sadly. For all his jolly Santa image, Reid can be very sharp in the right (or wrong) situations.
The coach with the longest tenure in the NFL is Pittsburgh's Mike Tomlin, who's had 17 seasons, but is only 51. After Reid, the only coaches 60 or over are John Harbaugh (61), Todd Bowles (60) and Mike McCarthy, who's also 60 but I suspect is unlikely to still be the coach in Dallas by the time you read this.
There are a few former head coaches who might be recycled: certainly ex-Belichick player Mike Vrabel, and current coordinators like ex-Pats' assistant Brian Flores (Vikings), Raheem Morris (Rams) or Steve Wilks (49ers). The young hot coordinators include Ben Johnson of the Lions, who turned down head jobs last year, and Houston's Bobby Slowik, a rookie offensive coordinator in Houston, who came from San Francisco, whose assistant GM Brad Peters has just been hired as GM in Washington. Defensive coordinators Aaron Glenn (Lions) and Mike McDonald (Ravens) could get a look. And John Harbaugh's brother Jim, who just won an NCAA title with Michigan, beating Saban's Alabama, might want to return to the NFL, like Carroll, ahead of potential NCAA sanctions against his program.
But the head coaching job is not a coordinator's job: a head may well want to coordinate one side of the ball or the other, but his bigger responsibility is to run the team, to determine its attitude, its culture, its strategy. The coords are the guys who come up with the tactics to make that strategy work, and how to use the people whose attitudes work within that team culture.
Of course circles, like an ouroborus or a moebius strip, don't really end, they turn back on themselves, and life, including coaching life, wants to go in a straight line forever. Marv Levy said that when he retired, at 71, owner Ralph Wilson didn't want him to go. Two years later, Levy wanted to return to coaching, but he would have been 74 by the time the next season started, and he knew he was unlikely to be hired.
I can see Carroll returning to coach, maybe even before next season begins; he's a more attractive prospect than fired coaches like Ron Rivera or Arthur Smith. I'm not alone in believing Bill wants to break Shula's record, something he could likely do with a decent team in two 17 game seasons. He can still coach, and with his drive he is likely to be able to do just that. He runs the risk of playing out his string, like almost all coaches do: eventually it becomes harder to adjust from a winning formula, and in the modern game it's harder to get the players to buy into it. And if he needs a QB, I'll bet Jimmy G might be available for a reunion.
I think there is a lot for Bill and his agent to work out—the amount of control, the staff, and the ability to turn a roster around quickly, which really he hasn't had to do, or at least realised he needed to do, in 25 years. At 71, still a lot to play for. That's been what Bill Belichick did better than anyone for 20 of the past 24 years.
