Tom E. Curran and Phil Perry explain why they believe Bill Belichick still has a few more years of coaching left in him
William Stephen Belichick began working in the NFL as a staff assistant with the Baltimore Colts in 1975, following his football playing career at Wesleyan University as a center and tight end. He also played lacrosse and squash at Wesleyan in Middletown, Connecticut. He served as captain of the lacrosse team during his senior year.
Belichick has gone on to become one of the greatest coaches in NFL history, winning six Super Bowls and holding several other coaching records.
New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft hired Belichick as head coach in 2000. Belichick quickly took over as the de facto general manager and has been in both roles for more than two decades.
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Get to know more about Belichick, the coach with the most wins in Patriots history and the only head coach in NFL history to win at least 14 regular-season games in five separate seasons.
Bill Belichick's bio
- Birthdate: April 16, 1952
- Birthplace: Nashville, Tennessee
- College: Wesleyan University
- NFL Experience: 48 years
Bill Belichick's career NFL coaching stats
Here are some of Bill Belichick's notable career achievements and statistics:
- Six-time Super Bowl champion as head coach (2001, 2003, 2004, 2014, 2016, 2018)
- Two-time Super Bowl champion as defensive coordinator (with New York Giants in 1986, 1990)
- Three-time Super Bowl runner-up as head coach (2007, 2011, 2017)
- One-time Super Bowl runner-up as assistant head coach (with Patriots in 1996)
- Three-time AP NFL Coach of the Year (2003, 2007, 2010)
- Four-time SI.com NFL Coach of the Year (2003, 2004, 2007, 2010)
- ESPY for Best Coach/Manager (2004)
- NFL 2000s All-Decade Team
- NFL 2010s All-Decade Team
- NFL 100th Anniversary All-Time Team
- PFWA Executive of the Year (2021)
- Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People in the World (2003)
- Sports Emmy Winner (2021)
- Career totals (through 2021 season):
- 321-156 (.673) overall record -- One of three head coaches in NFL history to win at least 300 games
- 290-143 (.670) regular season record
- 31-13 (.705) postseason record -- most playoff wins as NFL head coach
- 284-111 (.719) record with the Patriots
- Nine Super Bowl appearances as NFL head coach (most of any NFL head coach)
- Six Super Bowl wins as NFL head coach (most of any NFL head coach)
Here is Bill Belichick's salary
New England Patriots
Bill Belichick has an average annual salary of $18 million, according to Sportico.com. The 2022 season will be Belichick's 23rd season as head coach of the Patriots. The terms and length of his contract with the Patriots remains unclear.
Bill Belichick's early coaching career
Bill Belichick worked under six different head coaches. His first job in the NFL was as a special assistant to Baltimore Colts head coach Ted Marchibroda. A year later, in 1976, Belichick served as an assistant special teams coach on Rick Forzano's staff with the Detroit Lions. Forzano gave Belichick his first positional coaching assignment the next year as the Lions tight ends and wide receivers coach.
Belichick left the Lions and joined the Denver Broncos coaching staff under head coach Red Miller as the assistant special teams coach and assistant to defensive coordinator Joe Collier in 1978. Belichick only spent one season with the Broncos.
The New York Giants hired Belichick in 1979 to serve as a defensive assistant and special teams coach under Ray Perkins. Belichick worked for the Giants for 12 years. In 1980, his coaching duties expanded to also include linebackers.
In 1983, Belichick started to coordinate the defense under head coach Bill Parcells while continuing to coach the linebackers. Two years later, Belichick was officially named defensive coordinator. He served in this position for six seasons, where he gained national recognition for his coaching.
The Giants won Super Bowl XXI and Super Bowl XXV with Belichick as defensive coordinator. His defensive plan for Super Bowl XXV, where the Giants beat the Bills 20-19, is now in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Belichick's first head coaching position was with the Cleveland Browns for five seasons (1991-95). At 38 years old, Belichick became the NFL's youngest head coach. Belichick worked to rebuild the Browns after the worst season record (3-13) in Browns franchise history. By 1994, the Browns held the second-best record in the AFC.
Belichick was fired from the Browns in 1996 when Art Modell's team moved to Baltimore, becoming the Baltimore Ravens. He was later hired by the Patriots as assistant head coach and defensive backs coach under Parcells for the 1996 season. During the 1996 season, the Patriots won their first division title in ten years with an 11-5 record. The team lost to the Green Bay Packers in Super Bowl XXXI, after the defense had allowed only nine points combined in the two previous playoff games.
From 1997 to 1999, Belichick worked for Parcells on the New York Jets as an assistant head coach and defensive coordinator. After Parcells retired as Jets head coach after the 1999 season, Belichick succeeded him as head coach. Belichick shockingly resigned a day after he was officially hired.
Belichick was hired as Patriots head coach just 23 days later on January 27, 2000. The rest is history.
Meet Bill Belichick's family
Bill Belichick is the only child of Jeannette (Munn) and Steve Belichick. Steve Belichick played for the Detroit Lions in 1941 before serving in World War II. One of Bill Belichick's most influential football mentors, Steve Belichick was an assistant football coach at the United States Naval Academy for 34 years.
Belichick married his high school sweetheart Debby Clarke in 1977. The two have three children: Amanda, Stephen and Brian. The couple divorced in 2006.
Amanda graduated from her father's alma mater, Wesleyan University, in 2007. She played lacrosse in college and has been the head coach of women's lacrosse at the College of the Holy Cross in Massachusetts since 2015.
Stephen attended Rutgers University where he played lacrosse from 2008 to 2011. He also played football for Rutgers as a long snapper. Stephen served as a defensive assistant for the New England Patriots from 2012 to 2015. He later became the safeties coach (2016-2019) and has been the team's outside linebackers coach since 2020.
Brian played lacrosse at Trinity College. Brian also works for the Patriots, starting as a scouting assistant upon graduating college in 2016. Prior to becoming the safeties coach for the Pats beginning in 2020, Brian was a coaching assistant from 2017 to 2019.
