The Raiders are back on the hunt for a head coach and according to NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero, one of the coaches they have reached out to is Bill Belichick.
Belichick accepted the head coaching position at the University of North Carolina on December 11, but there have been rumors that he would like to coach again in the NFL.
Pelissero said Tom Brady has reached out to Belichick about the Raiders job, but didn’t offer an exact timeline to when that conversation happened.
“Multiple NFL teams have inquired about whether legendary coach Bill Belichick would reconsider his move to college football — including the Las Vegas Raiders, whose new minority owner Tom Brady spoke recently with his old coach about what it would take to make a reunion happen in Las Vegas, per sources,” Pelissero reported on Wednesday.
“Brady has been in touch with Belichick recently as the Raiders weighed the future of head coach Antonio Pierce, who was fired on Tuesday after going 4-13 in his lone season as the full-time head coach,” Pelissero continued. “Brady and Belichick won six Super Bowls together with the Patriots, and sources say Brady believes the situation in Las Vegas requires a coach of Belichick’s expertise and stature to establish a sustainable winning program.”
Maybe the most interesting detail in Pelissero’s report isn’t the idea that Brady reached out to his former coach, but the matter of the Raiders needing a coach with real expertise.
There has been a lot of talk about the culture change that Pierce brought to the Raiders, but it’s clearly the opinion of Brady that there is still a lot to be done.
Everyone knows the Raiders need a franchise quarterback, but there is a popular belief that Brady intends to overhaul the organization far beyond the players on the field. Pelissero’s report definitely substantiates those suspicions.
And just for entertainment purposes, it seems like a good time to revisit a couple of comments in October by podcast host Kirk Minihane that were mostly blown over at the time. He said that Belichick was one of the first people that Brady was going to call after buying into the Raiders.
“I won’t get specific, but people have told me that Brady’s first move is going to [be] to ask Bill Belichick if he’s interested in being coach of the Las Vegas Raiders,” Minihane said on the Kirk Minihane Show.
“Two sources have told me that. Two high up sources in the Patriots organization have told me that.”
As it turns out, maybe that story wasn’t so far-fetched after all.
x: @raidersbeat
Coaching candidates: Lane Kiffin, John Rauch, and Eddie Erdelatz.
Raiders about to make ANOTHER HC hiring mistake. This guy is out-dated. The Raiders didn’t learn ANYTHING from the Gruden re-hire. The game changes with time, we need a young cutting edge coach. No more outdated retreads. I guess Brady isn’t the team builder we hoped for?!
OMG. Don’t.
Why? Would he accept not having control over personnel and the draft, because his last Patriots drafts were awful. His last few years as a coach weren’t any better. Bringing in Joe Judge and Matt Patricia as offensive coordinators (to install a wide zone scheme, no less!) Please just let the man spend the next 3 years going 7-5 at UNC or whatever.
This has traditionally been one of the major pratfalls of legendary former players who run teams. They default to who and what they know from their playing days instead of what is current or future trending. If Brady wanted to bring Belichick in as a consultant or something, that would be one thing. But not as Head Coach.