Age is just a number.
But for Patriots head coach Bill Belichick, that number has grown to the point in recent years that people can’t seem to stop thinking, talking and writing about the possible end of the line for the future Hall of Fame coach.
While this week’s retirement (assuming it is actually a retirement as it was sold to the Green Team world) by Celtics basketball boss Danny Ainge at the age of 62 – with Brad Stevens curiously getting promoted from the Boston bench to the front office – snuck up on seemingly everyone, Belichick’s future has been a point of speculation for years.
On some level there is certainly some legitimacy to the speculation. Belichick is indeed now 69 years old. He’s the second-oldest coach in the NFL. He and Pete Carrol are approaching their seventh decade on the planet, a time when few men have walked the NFL sidelines and fewer have done it with any longevity or success.
Heck, Belichick himself once upon a time declared that he wouldn’t be coaching into his 70s like former Bills boss Marv Levy. Of course he then backtracked from that declaration two years ago in an interview on WEEI, as time and proximity to that age altered his youthful perspective.
Over the years, the speculation hasn’t only revolved around when Belichick might hang up his hoodie, but also who the heir to the Patriots coaching throne might be.
Way back when, ESPN speculated that Belichick hoped for a “truly dynastic succession,” seemingly alluding to the possibility that one of his sons, current Patriots defensive assistants Steve and Brian Belichick, might be next in the coaching line in Foxborough.
When Josh McDaniels turned his back on the Colts and returned to New England after last-minute meetings with Belichick and Patriots owner Robert Kraft, many read the tea leaves to believe the offensive coordinator might have been promised the “coach-in-waiting” title that was all the rage in college football a few years back as legends like Florida State’s Bobby Bowden closed out their careers.
Just this past week, Peter King’s “Football Morning in America” had an entire portion of the column dedicated to Belichick’s future. King wrote that 2021 “probably” isn’t Belichick’s final season.
There are no guarantees in life, certainly not in professional sports.
There are also two problems with all this Belichick retirement talk and speculation on who he might be setting up or grooming to be his replacement.
First, other than the number that is his age of 69, there are no signs that Belichick is slowing down or considering walking away at this point.
In fact, there is reason to believe that he’s been reinvigorated to some extent in life after Tom Brady, life with first-round quarterback Mac Jones and a hopefulness based on a rebuilt roster following one of the most “uncharacteristically aggressive” offseason in his NFL career. Belichick appears driven to succeed and driven to lead.
According to Brian Belichick, his boss and dad doesn’t seem any different than he ever has.
“Certainly not,” the younger Belichick declared this week in a rare Zoom with reporters. “He’s all over it. I definitely haven’t seen any let-up. He’s as committed to this team as anyone in the organization and that’s why he’s such a great leader to follow at the head of it. Because we all know he sets the standard that we all try to live up to. And he has a high standard for himself and for everyone on the team, players and coaches. But the standard he has for himself is what sets everyone else to try to follow it. It’s been the same ever since I’ve known him. It’s the same this year.”
The second problem with all this Belichick retirement talk and projections is the idea that he is the one who’ll decide who replaces him, who follows in his unfillable shoes.
Sorry, but that’s not a Belichick decision. That’s a Kraft decision.
Only Robert and Jonathan Kraft can and will decide the future of their team.
Will Belichick have a say? Will his opinions on the matter carry the weight of a man who the Krafts have trusted with every major football decision for the last two-plus decades? Maybe. Oh heck, probably.
Right now, though, it doesn’t matter. Right now, the Patriots are a retooled roster with the hopeful hype that comes with such changes in the months of June, July and August in the NFL.
New England is a team led by Belichick for the here and now and, really, for the foreseeable future.
Is Belichick, as the ageless wonder Brady likes to put it, closer to the end of his career than he is to the beginning? Certainly.
Based on comparisons to past NFL coaches, to Social Security charts or, if we’re being ominously blunt even life expectancies, Belichick is old.
But age is just a number these days. Brady has proven that. Belichick is doing the same in his own way.
And the GOAT coach shows no signs of walking away from the task at hand anytime soon, already enthusiastically entrenched in OTAs as the train chugs along toward what everyone in Patriot Nation hopes will be a bounce back season.
So let’s leave all the speculation about Belichick’s retirement for the future, at least after the 2021 season.
More importantly, if and when Belichick makes the decision to walk away in the next few years sometime – a decision that only he can make – let’s remember that the choice of his replacement will rest solely with the Kraft family.
Because when the time actually comes, despite all Belichick’s many great accomplishments, that’s a decision only they can and will make.
For now, though, as Belichick would say, they’re all on to 2021!
