Belichick's self imposed retirement date

Phil Plantier

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I was about to post this in the JG thread, but it's probably worth its own, regarding BB and his (paraphrased) quote about not coaching as long as Marv Levy. Northeastern PJ posted about why he/she thought we are putting a lot of stock in an old quote that might not still be relevant.

Why wouldn't it still be relevant?... I think now more than ever, they exit stage left together.
I agree with Northeastern PJ. It wouldn't be relevant because it was 8 years ago. If he has changed his mind since then, we wouldn't know, we just have his one quote on camera (taped at 5am, iirc). People's desires change over time. I don't know about 70, but I know that 50, and what I'd be doing at 50, looks a lot different now than it did eight years ago.

Heck, he's gotten divorced since that quote. I can't imagine holding a friend to the life choices they predicted pre divorce. Edit: I thought 2006 was <8 years ago. Jesus.

I don't know anything about Belichick, but I think Bill Snyder might be a good comparison. Joe Posnanski wrote an insightful piece about Snyder, a coach who made a retirement decision and then came back: http://joeposnanski.com/snyder/ To post the relevant quote would be to spoil some great writing, but I wouldn't be surprised if what Belichick gets from coaching is similar.
 
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staz

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I think he's figured out the league. And is having a blast proving that he's figured out the league. With health, I wouldn't worry too much about that quote.
 

joe dokes

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I think he's figured out the league. And is having a blast proving that he's figured out the league. With health, I wouldn't worry too much about that quote.
Funny that you used the "figured out" term. That's exactly what Brady said to King after the SB.
 

Red Averages

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He seems to be having a lot of fun lately as well, just given some of the little things that have popped up at the Combine with Willie McG, stopping by the ESPN booth after the SB, the late night interviews, Celtics games etc. Plus he's coaching along with his kids and (likely) getting to spend more time with them than ever before with a girlfriend that seems very supportive of his life. It's tough to see something on the personal side leading to a retirement and his passion for the game clearly hasn't diminished nor have his skills or the support staff he surrounds himself with.
 

Salva135

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That whole year was pretty tough for Belichick, trying to rebuild his defense, dealing with Adalius Thomas and perceived locker room issues, Brady trying to regain his form... I wouldn't blame him for musing a bit about how much longer he wanted to keep doing this. Belichick knew his team wasn't very good and basically said it during the Saints game. The whole staff looked a bit depressed. It's a shame they chose 2009 for that documentary, that was one of the worst years for NFL films to do it.

The fact that he goes to the owners' meetings personally proposing rule changes and does some of the cameos mentioned above tells me he's felt a bit rejuvenated, and the family/girlfriend support certainly helps.
 

BigJimEd

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Mike Freeman article from Feb 22nd.

Every indication I hear from inside the Patriots is that Belichick plans to stay on as coach of the team for at least five more years.

These people also say Belichick wants to coach after Brady retires.
 

Archer1979

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I think he's figured out the league. And is having a blast proving that he's figured out the league. With health, I wouldn't worry too much about that quote.
Exactly. It's like he's discovered the game cheats to Madden '17. Why would he stop? Every new rule is a challenge for him to exploit. Every new player a toy to master.
 

KenTremendous

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Belichick is 89 wins behind Shula for most all-time. It seems like a lot, but really, at the rate he wins, it's seven more years. With his love of, and respect for, football history, there's no way he isn't both (a) aware of this, and (b) contemplating making a run at the record.
 

Eddie Jurak

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Belichick is 89 wins behind Shula for most all-time. It seems like a lot, but really, at the rate he wins, it's seven more years. With his love of, and respect for, football history, there's no way he isn't both (a) aware of this, and (b) contemplating making a run at the record.
Does this count playoff wins? BB has never won more than 87 regular season games in any 7 year stretch. So he'd have to coach for 8 years averaging over 11 wins/yr, much of it without Brady and in his late 60s, early 70s. I don't see it happening.

Edit: Oops. 2010-2016.
 
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kazuneko

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Oddly, Belichick is 89 wins behind either way--both he and Shula have 36 career playoff wins.
Not sure where you are getting this, but per Pro Football Reference Belichick already has the record for most playoff victories at 26. Shula only has 19 playoff wins (Landry is actually second at 20). If you are looking at combined regular season/playoff victories, Belichick is at 263 and Shula is at 347, a difference of 84. If BB continues to win at the rate he has won in the last six seasons (85 combined playoff/regular season wins) it will take him exactly that long to pass Shula.
Although expecting the same success rates in the next 6 years that he has had in the last 6 years is obviously a bit unrealistic ( this is a historic stretch), if BB could actually pull that off he would also end up with 37 career playoff victories - nearly double the coach in the number 2 position all time.
 
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j-man

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i see 10 more years at least he might as well go for 2030 or 2029

i think he badly wants 1 S B win without brady

will the end be Landery/shula or noll

i think it will be noll

and if so i wouild ex 10-12 more years and 2 or 3 more SB rings 2 without tom
 

wiffleballhero

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Ah, hell. This is impossible to guess at. Really, anything from a heart attack to a run of shitty wild card games could drive him to want out. At the same time, there are crazier ideas than imagining Patricia and McDaniels getting paid handsomely by Jonathan Kraft to run zombie-Belichick teams to Super Bowl victories in 2030-32.
 

loshjott

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I didn't realize Shula also has a slightly higher win % than BB, .677 to .673. Of course Belichick's Patriots-only win % is a ridiculous .739 and another 2-3 yrs at that rate would lift him above Shula's % and Landry's win total (he's 13 behind).
 

joe dokes

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I didn't realize Shula also has a slightly higher win % than BB, .677 to .673. Of course Belichick's Patriots-only win % is a ridiculous .739 and another 2-3 yrs at that rate would lift him above Shula's % and Landry's win total (he's 13 behind).

Shula is pretty damn old (87), so its unlikely that BB will catch his win total while Shula is still alive. But it would be nice if Shula could be alive to mumble some insulting back-handed compliments as BB passes his winning %%%%. (no one is catching Madden or Lombardi among the 100 win (or so) coaches. And probably not George Allen).
 

InstaFace

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On this subject, from the CNBC interview clip posted earlier today:

Suzy Welch: "Do you foresee yourself coaching for the indefinite future? Retirement does not beckon, apparently?
Belichick: "Yeah, again, I’m kinda short-sighted here, so… I’m good, you know, certainly good here for this year, good for a while. I like what I’m doing, I enjoy all parts of the game, the team building, training camp, game days, the excitement of Sunday.”
Welch: “It’s still fun?”
Belichick: “Yeah, it really is. You know, it beats working.”

That brought a hell of a grin to my face.
 

InstaFace

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Yeah. Plus, he certainly didn't have to say he was "good for a while". That is in the bottom 10% of "most evasive non-answers given by BB to a member of the press". It's not quite a 1000-word treatise on Mark Bavaro, but I think he clearly gave the most genuine answer he could come up with.
 

Ralphwiggum

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If tomorrow I stumble upon a bottle that contains a genie in it, I think my three wishes might be world peace, one night with Scarlett Johansson and that Bill Belichick was turning 45 instead of 65. Really wish I could watch him coach this football team for another 10-20 years.
 

Hoodie Sleeves

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Yeah. Plus, he certainly didn't have to say he was "good for a while". That is in the bottom 10% of "most evasive non-answers given by BB to a member of the press". It's not quite a 1000-word treatise on Mark Bavaro, but I think he clearly gave the most genuine answer he could come up with.
Agree - we could have gotten "I'm not here to talk about that" or "I'm really not thinking about that right now" or "I'm thinking about this year right now" or any other actual non-answer.
 

dcmissle

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He turns 65 tomorrow. Somebody in one of these threads (it may have been here) recently said something along these lines: BB finally has this wired, to the extent it can be; he sees everything, clearly. That may be right; he may be right now at the height of his powers.

This is not that unusual, even in exhausting, time draining professions. If you are healthy and vital at 65, and blessed with great support, you can be as good as you ever were and the best you'll ever be.

He seems to enjoying it tremendously. He obviously loved the 2016 team.
 

Ed Hillel

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On this subject, from the CNBC interview clip posted earlier today:

Suzy Welch: "Do you foresee yourself coaching for the indefinite future? Retirement does not beckon, apparently?
Belichick: "Yeah, again, I’m kinda short-sighted here, so… I’m good, you know, certainly good here for this year, good for a while. I like what I’m doing, I enjoy all parts of the game, the team building, training camp, game days, the excitement of Sunday.”
Welch: “It’s still fun?”
Belichick: “Yeah, it really is. You know, it beats working.”

That brought a hell of a grin to my face.
Here's the interview. It's amazing, best I've ever seen him give. I enjoy the openly shitting on Deflategate, which shows how relaxed he really was.
 

djbayko

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Here's the interview. It's amazing, best I've ever seen him give. I enjoy the openly shitting on Deflategate, which shows how relaxed he really was.
Random (hyperbolic) thoughts:
  • It sounds silly to say, but watching this video brings me so much joy and makes me realize that I have unconditional love for this man.
  • Unquestionably a great leader. I think what I loved most was when he talked about how he's always reviewing his past mistakes and working to correct them, and he so easily rattled off his biggest faults. Of course, this is what great leaders do.
  • I feel like, when the time comes, we need to preserve and study his brain...like we did with Einstein's.
 

JimBoSox9

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He absolutely owes the world at least a non-football-focused book on management techniques, because I'd tap him as a division SVP regardless of field over 90% of the jabronis on the market.
 

InstaFace

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I doubt he's going to put in 18-hour days for anything that isn't football, though. I'm sure that's why a lot of HOF coaches retire - it's not that their wits or their passion for the game are waning, it's that their bodies can't take the absurd grind anymore.
 

Saints Rest

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I seem to recall a quote from Parcells talking about how the process is likely a lot easier for BB when it comes to acquiring new players, be that FA, trades, or the draft because BB by now has such a HUGE mental rolodex from his past experience that he can look at Potential New Patriot and compare him to all those whom BB has coached before.

Here's the article.

Here's the money quote:
“As time goes on, I think, it’s actually not harder [to compete],” Parcells explained. “It’s easier, because his experience is so much greater and he’s been through two or three cycles of players, so he can reference back to the kinds of players that have been successful for him before and try to integrate similar ones into the system for the future. That’s what all of us basically try to do. If a player doesn’t remind you of some other player that you had some success with, then there’s probably a good chance that that player isn’t going to be successful.”
 

dcmissle

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This, I think, is the key -- from the CNBC interview in the "Celebrating What Is" thread:

I like what I am doing. I enjoy all parts of the game -- the team building, training camp, game days, the excitement of Sunday … it beats working.”
(emphasis added). There are people like this in every line of work, but precious few of them. And if you are not one of them and come up against one of them, more often than not you're fucked. It's an unfair competition.

The 18-hour grind is not work for these blessed few. It's what they do for fun. It's what they would do for free if they were financially set.

Everything else being relatively equal -- experience, intelligence, resources -- you're going to lose to them in the vast majority of cases if you're not one of them. Worse yet, they attract people more like them than not to support them. You know you're in for a grind -- but how can you complain when the boss works just as hard as you do, if not harder?

Again, these guys are so rare. Vermeil was not among them -- the Eagles job broke him mentally and emotionally. Gibbs was not among them -- the Redskins job broke him physically the first time around. Fanatics like Jimmy Johnson and Bill Cowher got out and stayed out. Ditto Parcells.

Who would you put in the category? Marv Levy is a good candidate for obvious reasons. Tom Landry and Don Shula, maybe, till the game passed them by. Lombardi until cancer got him. There are just not that many.

If and when it ceases to "beat[] working", BB will be gone the very next day. These guys can only do the job one way. So it will not surprise me if BB's departure seems sudden and comes to us right out of left field.
 

nattysez

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I've now seen multiple reporters mention this today, so I figured I'd share:

With a two-year extension, the (just-turned) 31-year-old wideout is now signed through 2019 as are Tom Brady and Rob Gronkowski. Convenient. Even more convenient: the 2019 season will represent Bill Belichick’s 20th year as head coach of the Patriots and Brady’s 20th year in New England. As I’ve mentioned a few times in the past, Belichick likes round numbers and what it would mean to coach 20 seasons from a historical perspective. If he gets to 20 consecutive with the Patriots, he’d join Tom Landry (29), Curly Lambeau (29), Don Shula (26) and Chuck Noll (23) as men who coached a team for a generation. And nobody’s matching that this century.
http://www.csnne.com/new-england-patriots/tom-curran-five-takeaways-julian-edelmans-extension-new-england-patriots
 

Kenny F'ing Powers

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Meh. Tomlin is heading into his 11th year, is only 45 and given the history of the franchise I'd lay money he will be a 20+ as well.
If we'd be here in 9 years, I'd take that bet. It's starting to get surprisingly hot for him over there, especially considering how Pitt treats coaches. Their D doesn't seem to be getting better and Rapethlisburger is on his way out. A shit D and no QB sounds like a death knell for any coach.
 

djbayko

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What would be even more convenient is if they all retired having won at least 2 more Super Bowls. Would that be greedy?
I have it on good authority that BB prefers prime numbers over round numbers, so 23 seasons and 7 Super Bowls. I should write a stupid article about it.
 

kenneycb

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"And nobody's matching that this century"

What a dumb statement.

"In the next 83 years, nobody else will coach an NFL team for 20 consecutive years. But come 2101, all bets are off."
Something tells me he didn't mean that in the literal sense.