Bill Belichick’s disastrous results and poor choices speak for themselves

At the NFL’s annual Hall of Fame ceremony in Canton, Ohio the other week, the greats of the game gathered to honour the incoming class of 2026. Among those being awarded the gold blazer signifying true elite status in the annals of the sport was Adam Vinatieri. Just the third kicker to be inducted, he was recognised for clutch kicking and last second heroics on the way to winning four Super Bowl rings, the first three of which were achieved with Bill Belichick and the New England Patriots.“Unfortunately, Bill couldn’t make it here today,” said Vinatieri in his acceptance speech. “There’s a lot going on at UNC (University of North Carolina) right now. He may be on a recruiting trip looking for the next Lawrence Taylor. I thought it was because training camp already started. But in truth, it’s because he’s judging his girlfriend’s cheerleading competition.”Vinatieri also complimented his old coach but the clip of him mocking 74-year-old Belichick’s May to December romance with Jordon Hudson was the one that went viral. As he knew it would. Although over-saturated, the market remains robust for jokes about the dourest, most successful coach in NFL history dating a cheerleader almost half a century his junior. It’s not all mockery and lampooning either. As the legendarily taciturn Patriot prepared to bring his UNC gridiron team to meet Texas Christian University at the Aviva Stadium this Saturday, the coverage of him has been somewhere between caustic and pitying.READ MORE“Not a whole lot of us are really just shining a light on this thing,” said Brandon Walker, college football pundit. “We’re not scared of him, but we’re almost like bemused, like you’re walking by an animal at the zoo, and you know this animal has seen better days and you’re like, ‘Let’s just come on kids, let’s just go over here’… He is a neutered version of himself.”Head coach Bill Belichick of the North Carolina Tar Heels and Jordon Hudson look on prior to the game against the Richmond Spiders on September 13th, 2025, in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Photograph: Lance King/Getty Images It is a measure of how precipitously Belichick’s star has fallen that his second pre-season in Chapel Hill has featured regular articles speculating about who will replace him. Never mind that he has a five-year contract worth $50m, his regime has been so chaotic and dysfunctional on and off the field that it’s assumed to be a matter of when, not if, he gets fired. Local television in Carolina, ordinarily a feelgood journalistic outlet for the university, recently ran a package interviewing disillusioned fans, headlined, “Belichick buzz is feeling more like a hangover”.From the moment he took over in December 2024, the enterprise appeared wrong-headed. One of his first moves was to hire close friend Mike Lombardi as general manager, the pair’s professional relationship dating back to the Cleveland Browns in the mid-1990s. But Lombardi arrived at UNC with a waning reputation in the NFL and zero experience of the modern college football landscape. Worse, he then boldly declared they were going to build Carolina into the NFL’s 33rd team. A ludicrous boast, especially considering the duo knew nothing about working the new NIL (Name, Image and Likeness) system in which colleges must pay top dollar to recruit the finest high school talent. Their ignorance in that regard was borne out by the team subsequently losing eight of the first 12 games. Lombardi didn’t make it to Ireland this week because last month he was placed on paid administrative leave following a complaint to HR by a former staff member at UNC. No further details have emerged about the nature of that accusation. Head coach Bill Belichick of the North Carolina Tar Heels speaks with an official during the game against the NC State Wolfpack at Carter-Finley Stadium on November 29th, 2025, in Raleigh, North Carolina. Photograph: Lance King/Getty Images His continued absence, pending an ongoing investigation, is compounded by Belichick being deprived of the services of another trusted lieutenant. His son Steve, another hire with very little college experience, has had to take unspecified medical leave from his job as defensive coordinator.“Belichick invites chaos around him, insulates himself from it by acting as if he’s this great gift to coaching, lets others try to speak for him, and then when it goes wrong gets behind the wheel and drives the bus he just threw people under,” wrote Al Hood on Yahoo Sports. “There was a sinking feeling among a lot of us in the fan base when this hire happened as to the path we were opening up for ourselves. The more you knew about Belichick and watched his tenure in New England, the more afraid you were of just how it was going to go for Carolina.”Belichick of the North Carolina Tar Heels reacts during the first half of the game against TCU Horned Frogs last September. Photograph: Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images Despite revelations about players fighting in the locker-room and allegations of a toxic culture pockmarking Belichick’s first campaign, the squad that arrived in Dublin this week is reckoned to be stronger and better equipped than last year’s model. He’s brought in 60 new players for this season, including veteran quarterback Billy Edwards Jr. Those are supposed to be an upgrade on the 70 plus footballers brought in 12 months ago, the massive turnover indicating a regime still struggling to figure out just how you persuade the best college footballers to declare for you.Perhaps the only real positive in recent months is that Belichick’s romantic antics with Hudson, frolicking on beaches in mermaid poses and other Instagrammable tomfoolery, have quietened down. Of late, she’s kept busy threatening to sue journalists and sending repeated freedom of information requests to UNC, apparently trying to identify who is leaking negative stories about her septuagenarian boyfriend. Most would argue nobody needs to brief against this unfortunately Learesque character. His disastrous results and underwhelming coaching speak for themselves.