Copyright MassLive
In an alternate reality, Foxborough would have been the center of the football universe this week. The Patriots and Falcons would have been a national TV game, probably on Sunday night. The national NFL media would have all descended on New England for the circus. ESPN would have had daily SportsCenter segments as well as huge chunks of First Take devoted to the game. Ticket prices would have skyrocketed. If only the Falcons had hired Bill Belichick. Sports fans are either being spared or denied the circus this week because the Falcons chose to go another way. Atlanta remains the only NFL team to interview the former Patriots head coach since he was fired after the 2023 season. For a while, it looked like Belichick might actually lead the Falcons, after beating them in the Super Bowl seven years before. But whether it was Belichick’s need for control, his age, recent struggles, a disuading call from Robert Kraft, or some other reason, Arthur Blank chose not to get into the Bill Belichick business and hired Raheem Morris to mixed results so far. Instead, Belichick spent last year doing media and this year getting a comeuppance in college football. His failures at UNC don’t mean things would have gone badly in Atlanta or with another NFL job. It’s the same sport, but a different game. He might have fared better in the NFL, especially if he had someone competent handling the personnel. Belichick can still game-plan as well as anyone. But Belichick’s lack of success on the field (2-5) and his steady stream of distractions off it have to make the Falcons and any other NFL team that even considered hiring him feel like they’d dodged a flying pie. Especially this week. The chaos created by Belichick’s return to Gillette Stadium would have been off the charts. As big as Tom Brady’s return, but with a darker edge. When Brady came back with the Buccaneers in 2021, he was set on keeping the whole thing peaceful and positive and for the most part he pulled it off. Brady and Kraft maintained a warm relationship even after the QB left, which diffused much of the potential controversy. Belichick deserves credit here, too. His own effusive praise of Brady helped make that night feel like a reunion, not a grudge match. Belichick has no such warmth now. This would not have been a repeat of Brad Marchand’s tear-filled nostalgic return. Former players, especially those in the media, would have been pressured to choose sides. The Brady vs. Belichick debate would have been re-ignited with new vigor. After the initial “let’s pretend the breakup was mutual” period ended and Kraft admitted it was a firing, Belichick began lobbing stink bombs at his old bosses and the Patriots at every opportunity. Those opportunities would have been abundant this week. Would Kraft have taken the high road or would he have fought back? He could have done a high-profile one-on-one with ESPN or somebody? Would the Patriots have publicly welcomed Belichick during introductions before the game, even if he’d been taking petty potshots all week? All of this would have been happening as Belichick was still inching closer to Don Shula’s victory record. Instead, the national TV audience gets Pittsburgh and Indianapolis, while the Patriots and Falcons will play in a much dimmer spotlight. And Belichick is on to Stanford.
