It’s time for the New England Patriots‘ 71-year-old coach, Bill Belichick, to retire. This isn’t an indictment of the enigmatic, hoodie-clad coach’s illustrious career, which resulted in six Super Bowl titles. Instead, it’s a call for closing the door on a now-bygone era in the NFL. This period wasn’t merely the epoch of Belichick; it was the Belichick-Tom Brady era — a two-decade-long dynasty that increasingly seems to be more attributable to Brady’s football acumen than Belichick’s alleged coaching wizardry.
Bill Belichick has his motivations for staying in the game. Like Tom Brady, who added a seventh Super Bowl title to his name with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Belichick aims to prove he still possesses the Midas touch. He wants to surpass longtime Miami Dolphins coach Don Shula’s regular-season and all-time win records (328 regular-season wins, 347 counting the playoffs). Yet, when one examines their records closely, Belichick might never be able to conclusively prove he was a better coach than Shula. Shula guided two different teams to the Super Bowl and even successfully concluded an undefeated season with a Super Bowl triumph, something that narrowly eluded Belichick’s best team in 2007.
