Bill Belichick began the year on the market, a free agent for the first time since the Clinton presidency. After parting ways with the New England Patriots in January, he was eager to continue coaching, which seemed reason enough to expect to see him pacing an NFL sideline by autumn. Belichick, after all, is the owner of eight Super Bowl rings––two that he won as a wunderkind defensive coordinator for the New York Giants, six during his storied 24-year run as head coach of the Patriots. His 333 career wins are second all-time, his fabled game plans second to nobody. A guy with a résumé like that doesn’t have to compete for jobs; he inspires bidding wars.

Or at least he would have 10 years ago. Maybe even five years ago. But in 2024, a very much ready-to-work Belichick attracted scant interest across the NFL. He interviewed with just one team, the Atlanta Falcons, which ultimately hired Los Angeles Rams defensive coordinator Raheem Morris instead. By February, every head coaching vacancy across the NFL had been filled, while the greatest coach ever remained unemployed.

But Belichick, who reportedly faced skepticism from the Falcons front office, found a more fruitful job market when he shifted his focus from the sideline to the television studio. And as a new season kicks off Thursday night, the NFL’s most decorated coach has emerged as its most omnipresent media personality.

Jamie Horowitz, who cofounded Omaha Productions with Hall of Fame quarterback Peyton Manning, made it a mission to bring Belichick to the company, which produces a variety of programming for ESPN and other networks. “Every offseason, the teams at ESPN and Omaha come together to talk about ways we can get better,” Horowitz said. “Our number one focus this offseason was trying to convince Coach Belichick to join the show.”

Horowitz and Manning treated Belichick, who turned 72 in April, like a blue chip prospect, embarking on a months-long recruitment. Belichick listened to Horowitz’s pitch on a Zoom call in February, before meeting with Manning in New York the next month. In May, Horowitz and Belichick had a tentative agreement in place following a meeting at the Hotel Bel-Air in Los Angeles. The deal was finalized in June, when Belichick made an appearance at the Manning Passing Academy, an annual high school football camp in Thibodaux, Louisiana. 

Under the agreement, Belichick will appear on two Omaha-produced programs: The ManningCast, the alternate Monday Night Football broadcast hosted by Peyton Manning and his brother, former New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning; and The Breakdown, a weekly show hosted by Peyton and Belichick that will stream on ESPN+. In addition to his duties for Omaha, Belichick will host and coproduce a weekly show on YouTube for Underdog Fantasy. He is also joining two existing programs: Let’s Go!, a talk show on SiriusXM, and Inside the NFL, a long-running series that now airs on the CW.

On Mondays, ESPN will effectively transform into Belichick TV. He will make his weekly appearance on The Pat McAfee Show that day, having struck a separate agreement with the program earlier this year. Throughout the day, ESPN is expected to air clips from The Breakdown, which will feature Belichick and Manning’s analysis of that week’s edition of Monday Night Football. On The ManningCast, Belichick will join the eponymous hosts for the first half of the game, beginning with the week one matchup between the New York Jets and San Francisco 49ers.

ESPN is keen to showcase what its president of content, Burke Magnus, described last week as Belichick’s “PhD level” knowledge of football. It is also showing off one of the year’s most highly sought sports-media personalities.

Tim Livingston, the VP of content at Underdog Fantasy, said he was ready “to move heaven and earth” when he caught wind that Belichick was interested in doing a show. “I’ve heard that a lot of other people were pursuing this,” Livingston said. “I think he really vibed with our vision.”

I’m told that Belichick and his representatives had talks with CBS, NBC, Fox, and Amazon––all of which, like ESPN, have broadcasting and streaming deals with the NFL––about having him join their coverage for the upcoming season. Belichick also had discussions with Spotify about hosting a podcast on the platform, although the company says those conversations were “casual” and they never extended a formal offer. He added one more media gig earlier this week, reportedly signing on with football site the 33rd Team as a strategic adviser, and on Wednesday, joined Instagram.

Belichick was apparently not interested in pursuing a conventional studio analyst role. On “Coach,” the web program he is hosting for Underdog Fantasy, Belichick will be able to wade deep into the weeds––with no topic too arcane. “If he wants to talk an hour about the evolution of the long snapper,” Livingston said, “we’re all for that.”

Mike Tirico was one of the first to observe Belichick’s media chops.

In 2006, Belichick joined Tirico for ABC’s pregame coverage of Super Bowl XL between the Seattle Seahawks and Pittsburgh Steelers. The Patriots had been knocked out in the divisional round of the postseason that year, freeing him up to serve as a guest analyst. Belichick had the credentials for the role, though perhaps not the charisma. By then, Belichick already had a well-earned reputation as a brusque figure, prone to giving reporters answers as dull as they were terse. Mark Leibovich once wrote that Belichick treated “public-relations duties as something akin to lice removal.” (Belichick, through his representative Neil Cornrich, declined my request for an interview.)

But during his stint on ABC’s Super Bowl pregame show, Belichick proved that he could shed the caginess and summon something at least resembling charm.

“I’m sure people were skeptical because of Bill’s way with the media,” said Tirico, now the play-by-play analyst on NBC’s Sunday Night Football. “But he wasn’t protecting any palace secrets. He was working for us that week, and he was tremendous in terms of explaining what those two teams were going to do.”

Tirico was blown away by Belichick’s prescience. Ahead of kickoff, Belichick explained on-air that the Steelers liked to run gadget plays at midfield, particularly just after their quarterback, Ben Roethlisberger, had scrambled for a first down. In the fourth quarter, with the Steelers nursing a 14-10 lead, Belichick’s vision came to fruition. Roethlisberger ran up the middle for a first down then, on the next play, the Steelers handed the ball off on a reverse to wide receiver Antwaan Randle El, who then tossed a 43-yard bomb to Hines Ward for a touchdown.

Tirico and his producer, Mark Loomis, watched the sequence unfold in disbelief. “We just looked at each other with this look of, I can’t believe it,” Tirico recalled. “He called it. He nailed it. And that was the defining moment of that Super Bowl.”

Belichick won plaudits for his role on the pregame show, as critics praised him for his astute breakdowns of the Seahawks and Steelers. “The star of the pregame show proved to be a surprise,” wrote the Chicago Tribune’s Ed Sherman. “Normally reticent New England coach Bill Belichick delivered some interesting analysis on several fronts.” Belichick garnered even more acclaim almost 14 years later when he was a host on NFL Network’s presentation of the league’s 100th anniversary team. The forum allowed him—a true NFL lifer whose coaching career began nearly a half-century ago with the Baltimore Colts—to show off his deep knowledge of the league’s history.

So far, Belichick’s current media gigs have shown some initial promise. He served up a satisfying dose of nostalgia with a breakdown of grainy Walter Payton game-tape in his debut on Inside the NFL. On The Pat McAfee Show last week, Belichick displayed solid chemistry with the host and offered thoughtful insight on various NFL storylines, including the new kickoff rules that the league is instituting this season. He also managed to kick up a mini-controversy when he joked that the Patriots faced a disadvantage in contract negotiations with players as a result of playing in “Taxachussetts.”

Tirico is bullish on Belichick’s next act, calling him “one of the greatest conversationalists about football that you could ever find.”

“He’s going to be on TV more than we are this year. It’s crazy how much he’s going to be on. He’s going to be great,” Tirico said, adding that the audience will get to “hear and see his knowledge of the league and the game and all the things that are going on.”

Belichick will probably stick to football for the most part in his new endeavors, although all bets are off on McAfee’s show. Tirico, for one, is relieved that Belichick won’t be confined to the more annoying trappings of sports commentary. “I’m glad that he’s not doing the traditional ‘sit at the desk and analyze what happened’ [job],” Tirico said. “Because oftentimes you start talking about bigger picture topics and stupid conversations like ‘Who’s the MVP at week seven?’ Who cares?”

Whatever the topic at hand, Belichick’s words will be monitored carefully throughout the next season, perhaps offering clues on his plans for the next. Notably, none of the deals that Belichick struck are believed to be for an extended period, prompting speculation that he may not be in the media game for long.

Belichick currently sits 14 wins behind the late Don Shula for the all-time record, which he could conceivably break in two seasons. In April, ESPN reported that Belichick would be interested in joining the New York Giants, Philadelphia Eagles, and Dallas Cowboys, three franchises that could very well be in the market for a new coach come January.

For now, he is a member of the commentariat. Fittingly, Belichick’s pivot to media comes at the same time that his costar of the Patriots dynasty, Tom Brady, is set to make a highly anticipated debut as Fox’s lead-game analyst.

“I think it’ll be interesting to see how much of Bill rubs off on Tom,” said Tom Curran of NBC Sports Boston. “I don’t think Tom’s going to rub off on Bill as much, but you can already hear Bill in some of Tom’s analysis.”

Curran, a Patriots beat reporter since 1997, might be one of the few who expects Belichick to remain in the cozy confines of media. Curran has some credibility here, and not just because he’s interviewed Belichick hundreds of times. Last year, before the split with the Patriots was official, Curran suggested that Belichick could take a year off from coaching to work in media.

Now, Curran believes Belichick just might make it a permanent retirement from coaching.

“I’m in the vast minority, but I believe that that’s possible,” Curran said. “I think what ends up happening is Bill is pragmatic enough to look at the landscape and say, OK, everyone thinks I’m the greatest coach of all time already. Nobody’s won more Super Bowls. Nobody has built the legacy and the aura around himself that I have. Don Shula might have more wins than I do, but no one says he’s the greatest coach of all time. It’s me.”