This offseason introduced an uncommon improvement involving a potential teaching rent. Probably the most completed coach to ever land on a carousel exited this yr’s journey with no job. Bill Belichick‘s credentials are unmatched, however regular rumblings about what he would do upon taking a job look to have impacted his present free-agent standing.
A uncommon occasion of energy brokers interviewing a candidate and defending their very own job safety got here out as a cause Belichick just isn’t at the moment the Falcons’ head coach. This part might effectively have led different groups to avoid the six-time Tremendous Bowl-winning HC, who’s believed to have solely spoken with just one different staff – the Commanders – a couple of teaching emptiness this offseason. Whereas Belichick is believed to be planning to regroup with a watch on 2025, the Falcons now reside because the “what if?” staff concerning the NFL’s second-winningest coach.
Whereas calling Belichick’s interviews “wonderful,” Arthur Clean mentioned (via ESPN’s Michael Rothstein) Belichick didn’t ask the Falcons for full management of their soccer ops division throughout his interview course of. A report certainly suggested the 71-year-old coach was targeting such power, although Belichick and Clean weren’t believed to have mentioned this instantly.
Belichick met with Clean in a one-on-one setting earlier than the second summit included members of the Falcons’ brass. Going into the second assembly, Belichick was viewed as the favorite. Following the larger-scale powwow in Atlanta, the staff started moving in a different direction. It’s pure, then, to imagine the stories of Falcons brass steering Clean away from Belichick have some fact to them.
One of many stories within the wake of the Falcons’ Raheem Morris rent pegged Belichick and staff CEO Wealthy McKay as having a less-than-stellar relationship. Regardless of transferring out of the GM position in 2009, McKay has been a key Falcons decision-maker since. The staff made a degree of asserting the previous Tremendous Bowl-winning GM (with the Buccaneers) would step away from involvement in football ops transferring ahead. Friday, Clean mentioned the expertise Morris and GM Terry Fontenot possess helped lead him to slip McKay towards the enterprise facet.
Given McKay’s 30-plus years in entrance places of work and his 20-plus years with the Falcons, it’s tough to think about he is not going to retain a voice in soccer issues – to some extent, at the least. However Clean mentioned Friday each Morris and Fontenot will report on to possession. Pointing towards Morris’ expertise would seemingly characterize a dig at just lately fired HC Arthur Smith, however the former has been within the NFL for much longer. Morris’ NFL run features a three-year keep as Bucs HC and spending a lot of the 2020 season as Falcons interim HC.
If Belichick have been to e book extra HC interviews in 2025, groups will naturally wish to know the soccer lifer’s expectations concerning personnel management. He held twin HC/GM roles all through his Patriots keep. Even when Belichick makes a degree of indicating he’s positive being solely a head coach and never a de facto GM, having somebody along with his expertise within the constructing and that group giving another person remaining say could be fairly the attention-grabbing dynamic. After the Falcons handed, it will likely be a bit earlier than these eventualities resurface.