Just last month, the idea of Bill Belichick not coaching the Patriots next season seemed far-fetched. While that’s still probably the case, there have been an increasing number of whispers in recent weeks about the legendary head coach possibly moving on.
The latest piece of speculation comes from ESPN NFL Insider Dan Graziano. He goes over possible coaching vacancies in his Week 16 preview column, beginning with the usual suspects: the Broncos, Cardinals and Texans. But then Graziano slips in an interesting line at the end.
“Anything other than that, I think at this point would qualify as a surprise, though I am wondering whether we could see some non-firing changes, such as Bill Belichick deciding to move into a different role with the Patriots or Sean McVay taking one of those TV offers he didn't take last year,” he writes.
It’s worth noting that Graziano frames the possibility of Belichick moving into a front office role as pure speculation. After all, Graziano says he’s just “wondering.”
But it would be uncharacteristic for an NFL reporter to put an idea of that magnitude — Belichick not coaching the Patriots this season — into a column without hearing it from anybody else.
Graziano’s thought about Belichick taking on a different role mirrors how ProFootballTalk’s Mike Florio said he thinks Belichick’s tenure with the Patriots might end.
Florio doesn’t believe Robert Kraft would fire Belichick. But the owner could nudge the legendary coach aside.
“I think the way it would happen is, Bill Belichick would begin to sense they don’t him there anymore, and he would start looking at other opportunities, and they would let him go,” Florio said earlier this month on Tom Curran’s “Patriots Talk” podcast.
With a 7-7 record, the Patriots are in danger of finishing under .500 for the second time in three years. It’s unlikely that Kraft, who bemoaned his team’s lack of recent playoff success prior to the season, would be pleased with that.
