Sep 17, 2023; Foxborough, Massachusetts, USA; New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick watches from the sideline as they take on the Miami Dolphins at Gillette Stadium. Mandatory Credit: David Butler II-USA TODAY Sports
NFL: Miami Dolphins at New England Patriots
NEW YORK — It turns out the greatest coach in NFL history had a job offer. He just turned it down.
Radio host and former NFL quarterback Boomer Esiason claims that Bill Belichick was not interested in the Atlanta Falcons head coach vacancy.
“I was told yesterday, and I do believe it from the source that I got it from, that supposedly Arthur Blank was bought in to Bill Belichick and could have offered him the job,” Esiason said on his “Bommer and Gio” show on Monday.
“I don’t know why guys say no, but legitimately an NFL executive basically told me that they believe that Arthur Blank offered Bill the job. Now there may have been some caveats to that offer, you never know, it’s never ‘OK Bill, I want you, here’s a five-year contract, you do whatever you want.’ I don’t think it was one of those. The way it was made and sounded to me was like ‘OK, I understand your concerns, but you’re gonna have to deal with some of this and we want you to come in, we want you to be the coach,’ and then maybe he just thought better of it,” Esiason said.
The ex-Patriots coach reportedly interviewed with the Falcons twice but obviously was not hired, and did not land with any of the other teams with vacancies. Instead, the Falcons hired Raheem Morris who was previously serving as the Rams’ defensive coordinator, as their new head coach.
“And just maybe he said ‘You know what? I don’t want to go right back in. I want a year away. I want to see what happens,’ because as we know there will be about five or six job openings next year, and there may be a better situation where an owner says ‘you know what? I wanna go down this path with you and I want you to take my building over and I want you to run it the way that you ran it with the New England Patriots,’” Esiason added.
Belichick, 71, is still currently a free agent and with no current opening, it appears the greatest leader in NFL history will be coaching from his couch this season.
