Bill Belichick has interviewed now twice for the Atlanta Falcons’ job, but that’s the only team out of the seven non-Patriots franchises that had a job opning that bothered to bring in Belichick – and some people want to know why?
Two of those are Grant & Danny and a third is Yahoo! Sports’ Dan Wetzel, who wrote a column about it Wednesday – and together, they all wonder what gives?
“I don’t know. I’m not saying you gotta hire him – maybe he's too old, or his team won four games last year, or this isn't the direction you wanna go in whatever – but seven jobs opened and only on contacted him,” Wetzel said. “Even if you were gonna bring him in just to talk football for a day and hear his ideas, you think you would earn the right and respect, right? Even if you just listen so that you could hear stuff that you might wanna apply without hiring him, I mean, what would you pay for a consultant of Bill Belichick's quality to come into an organization and lay out a plan on how to do things? I just don't understand it, the idea that you would not even waste a chance to talk football with Bill Belichick.”
Danny’s theory is that if Belichick interviews for a job and doesn’t gt it, things will be weird, but doesn’t that happen every year in lesser regard?
“I guess, but you still could’ve,” Wetzel said. “I get your point; there are probably GMs and team presidents who think if they bring this guy in, they might get bounced, or won’t bring in a guy they can't control, they’d rather have a young coordinator that's gonna keep them around – but what I love is that the Falcons, who he beat after coming back from 28-3 down in a Super Bowl, thy were like, ‘we’ll talk to you.’ I just don't know how the heck you don't talk to him. Everybody in the NFL should be dying to get to spend an afternoon to talk strategic team building football, everything you possibly can, with Bill Belichick, whether you wanna hire him or not. It’s a weird, weird situation, and I don't know if it's just general inability of NFL front offices and owners to get out of their own way or see the value in this, but from the outside, it doesn't make any sense to me.”
Grant’s take is that someone should hire him, just not the Commanders – he wants a young, offensive play-caller to marry with a QB taken at No. 2 – and Bill isn’t great with picking personnel, something we just saw here in DC with Ron Rivera.
Is wanting Bill to coach but not be a de facto GM the issue, then?
“Bill Belichick the general manager is not good, but I still think Bill Belichick the coach is,” Wetzel said. “I don't think he's like a sure fire ‘you must hire this guy’ type – but even just to bring him in to discuss things, there’s a bevy or information and perspective I would at least wanna hear. The man has won six Super Bowls, and the guy he beat in that comeback, Dan Quinn, has already interviewed twice and has more teams interested in him! He beat that guy when he had a 28-3 lead and you don’t even wanna talk to him? I'm stunned at it. I don't know whether you ever hire him, but I cannot imagine anyone in football not benefiting from having Bill Belichick come in and spend a day talking about your team.”