When Josh McDaniels left Foxboro for the Denver Broncos in 2009, one of the coaches who picked up the slack on the offensive end for the New England Patriots was Bill O'Brien.
Now that McDaniels has made his long-anticipated return to the head coaching ranks with the Las Vegas Raiders, could O'Brien be in line to step in for him again?
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Not so fast, according to University of Alabama head coach Nick Saban, another Belichick disciple who currently employs O'Brien as his offensive coordinator.
"We have no indication of that, other than what y'all put on the Internet right now, which is a lot of maybes," Saban said of rumors linking O'Brien to the NFL. "We’re not trying to address anything that might happen."
The 52-year-old O'Brien, a Dorchester native, spent five seasons coaching under Belichick from 2007-11. He was an offensive assistant his first season, wide receivers coach his second and quarterbacks coach for two years before being named offensive coordinator in 2011.
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O'Brien replaced Joe Paterno for two seasons at Penn State until returning to the NFL as head coach of the Houston Texans, where he went 52-48 before being fired after four games in 2020. Currently, he's the only former Belichick assistant to post a winning record as a head coach in the NFL.
O'Brien resurfaced in college at Alabama in 2021, missing out on coaching Mac Jones; however, the two worked together prior to the NFL draft.
Out of any candidate mentioned as a potential replacement for McDaniels, O'Brien checks seemingly every box. But at least for now, a reunion doesn't seem to be in the cards.