It’s amazing how, over the span of just a few days, it looked like Carolina was seriously going to get rid of Bill Belichick before he coached another game. Between the reveal of the reported ban of anything
positive being tweeted about the New England Patriots and then the multiple stories discussing the dysfunction around the Kenan Football Center, up to and including tweets by Ollie Connolly, it really looked like the administration of UNC was laying out the case in real time to admit that all of this was a massive mistake, and that even Bill Belichick had agreed with them.
However, in the intervening days, it has become clear that Belichick is not going to be leaving of his own good will, and at the very least nothing is going to happen until the end of the season. While Carolina didn’t exactly do a great job of tamping everything down with this post—
—the post did mark the start of a stretch where those in control tried to walk back the idea that Carolina was going ahead and firing their $30 million coach. Specifically, Belichick’s pals over at College Gameday spent a few minutes this past Saturday discussing his future in Chapel Hill and every one of them—a majority of whom happen to be friends with the coach—defended the poor start and pleaded for patience. They likely aren’t doing that unless they’ve heard that Belichick is staying.
Furthermore, Dianna Russini released word the same day indicating that—from her contacts—both Belichick and Michael Lombardi were planning to stay in Chapel Hill.
So why the about face? There are several reasons why a lot of the gripes would come out first. The Belichick regime upset a lot of people when they came in, making a lot of mistakes, and let’s not forget that the actual way they were hired upset several people because a couple of unserious Board of Trustee members undercut the Athletic Director. When your decision blows up in your face instead of admitting you were wrong, money and power tends to make you stubborn and stick with the decision. In essence, if you’re wrong you’re never going to want to be seen as more wrong, so you might as well stick with it.
The other reality is, of course, money. Several outlets reported the true cost of what it would be to just outright fire everyone associated with Belichick—and if you want to try to do it with cause, the process takes time. Even if you do something with cause it’s likely the people let go are going to sue to get their money anyway, so you have to make sure the case is as airtight as possible. That’s not going to happen in a week.
David Hale goes into a lot of the other reasons in this post:
Sure enough, on Monday Belichick was out in front of the media saying it was “categorically false” that he discussed his buyout with others, and he was sounding every bit like a coach who was planning to finish out the season. Sara Holland from WNCN noted that both Bubba Cunningham and Lee Roberts were at this news conference, presumably to stand up for Belichick and show their support.
So, it appears the circus will pack up its tents and head on out to Berkley this weekend before coming back to Chapel Hill to continue the season. The reality is that if the leadership at Carolina has no desire to risk surrendering the money they committed to Belichick by firing him, then fans need to get comfortable with the fact that they already have a man walking the Green Mile but that he’ll be doing it for a year and a half at least. Maybe they’ll shuffle the deck chairs on the Titanic, but there are some very familiar “end of the Fedora/Bunting tenure” vibes going on here.
Carolina was already risking being a laughingstock with this move—and who can forget John Preyer taking his victory lap before the embarrassment against TCU—and now they are set to be stuck in football purgatory. Carolina likely won’t do what Penn State did this weekend, and realize it’s best to go ahead and get out of a bad situation. One thing is for sure, though; the stands in Kenan Stadium for those last three games are going to look pitiful.
