On Friday, Ryan Glasspiegel of Front Office Sports posted on X.com that former Patriots head coach Bill Belichick and his North Carolina football program will be featured on this year’s “Hard Knocks: Offseason.”
Glasspiegel added that NFL Films was not able to find an NFL team interested in participating in 2025 after the “Joe Schoen debacle last year,” referencing the Giants general manager being documented on last season’s “Offseason” passing on re-signing running back Saquon Barkley, despite being urged by ownership to keep him from signing with a rival franchise.
Barkley, of course, signed with the Eagles, and the rest is history.
While that season was airing, it felt like some of the most intimate access HBO had gotten in years from an NFL franchise. For the first time since the early seasons of “Hard Knocks,” it felt like authentic, behind-the-scenes-moments were being captured. As a football fan, it was truly a delight to watch.
But with the Giants’ saga with Barkley being documented every step of the way leading into a disastrous 3-14 season for the team, it makes sense why the rest of the league would want to avoid similar embarrassment moving forward.
So while a shift in format from pro to college isn’t a massive surprise, the subject of who HBO will be documenting is.
…or is it?
Since Belichick and the Patriots “mutually agreed” to part ways in January of 2024, seemingly every move the man has made has been a part of an image rehabilitation tour, trying to show a softer side of the greatest coach of the modern era while also highlighting the fact that he still has his fastball.
This past football season, by my count, this is what his sports media resume looked like:
- A weekly hit with “The Pat McAfee Show” on ESPN
- Regular hits with Monday Night Football’s “ManningCast” with Peyton and Eli Manning
- Weekly panelist on the iconic “Inside the NFL,” where he was joined by Ryan Clark, Chris Long and Chad Johnson
- Co-host of the “Let’s Go!” podcast with Jim Gray (and sometimes Tom Brady)
- Host of “COACH” with Matt Patricia and Mike Lombardi - a “football analysis show” from Underdog Fantasy
In all of these formats, Belichick was able to show off his incredible football acumen, while also working with personalities with gigantic approval ratings across the board (minus Patricia and Lombardi, but you get the point). Reportedly, the thought from Belichick’s camp was that working in these types of roles with these types of people would show him in a more attractive light as he attempts to get back in the coaching ranks at the NFL level.
In addition to his media jobs, he joined the world of social media by creating accounts on Instagram and X, where the 72-year-old can be seen re-posting and re-sharing tagged content on a regular basis. For a man who as recently as December was still making the same old “SnapFace” joke from the 2010s during his introductory press conference at UNC, this was an enormous change for the quintessential curmudgeon of the NFL.
To top it all off, Belichick has been more visible than ever outside of traditional football coverage, appearing in a Super Bowl ad with Ben and Casey Affleck, participating in Netflix's roast of Tom Brady, and appearing at the NFL Honors show during Super Bowl week wearing his eight Super Bowl rings, his maroon NFL 100th Anniversary Team jacket, and his scantily clad 23-year-old girlfriend Jordon Hudson around his arm. Add in countless cameos on Hudson’s social media activity, and it’s as if Belichick has become a full-on socialite.
All of this feels calculated, and the news of HBO being granted behind-the-scenes-access to the most guarded coach in NFL history’s first offseason as a coach at the collegiate level is just the latest example of Belichick working towards getting back to the pros.
Outside of Belichick allowing NFL Films to document the entire 2009 regular season for a two-part edition of “A Football Life,” he has never granted access like this before to anyone in the media world. And even with that outlier from 2009, those episodes didn’t even air until a full two years after they were shot.
In the “Hard Knocks: Offseason” format, the turnaround time for episodes will be weeks/months, not years. And while it remains to be seen how much Belichick is truly willing to peel back the curtain, the fact that this is even a conversation for the living legend is truly unprecedented.
I know I’ll be watching every single second of this series, but I’ll be bummed out the whole time knowing that this man is truly selling his soul in an attempt to get back to the NFL - and for what?
A wins record that will almost certainly be broken by Andy Reid shortly after it’s achieved?
A shot at winning one more ring with a different franchise, equaling what Brady was able to do in his post-New England playing career?
None of that should matter.
If Belichick never coaches a single solitary second of NFL football again, he is inarguably the greatest coach of the modern era. Period.
He will walk into Canton, OH on his first ballot, and his patented scowl will be engraved on a bronze bust that will live on forever.
But until then, we’ll continue to get to know this new fella that goes by the name of “Chapel Bill.”