Bill Belichick won’t be coaching in the NFL this year, but he could have had a job if he wanted one and that job would have been with one of the best teams in the league: The San Francisco 49ers.
During a recent interview on “The TK Show” podcast, 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan revealed that he called Belichick and offered him a job earlier this offseason.
During the podcast, Shanahan was asked point blank if he had talked to Belichick “about a role with the team.”
“I did, I threw it out to him. He loves football so much that you never know,” Shanahan said.
The 49ers coach was so excited about the thought of landing Belichick that he made an unusual offer to the former Patriots coach. Shanahan told Belichick that if he was willing to come to San Francsico that he could do “whatever he wanted to do” as his job.
“I know he just loves ball in its simplest form, so I threw it all out to him, whatever he wanted to do,” Shanahan said.
Shanahan was hoping that Belichick might be interested in the team’s defensive coordinator job, which came open after Steve Wilks was fired following the team’s Super Bowl loss to the Kansas City Chiefs.
Although Belichick tried to land the Falcons’ head coaching job this offseason — a position that eventually went to Raheem Morris — he ended up turning down Shanahan’s offer.
“I was like ‘Would you be interested?’ And he was very nice and appreciative, but he politely turned me down,” Shanahan said.
The 49ers coach considers himself a huge fan of Belichick’s and he was shocked that the 72-year-old was even available.
“I can’t believe that he’s not a head coach of a team right now,” Shanahan said. “I know what I would do if I was an owner, so that shocks me and the last thing you want to do is insult someone like Bill Belichick.”
Although Belichick won’t be coaching this year, he will be keeping busy. Belichick will be working in the media as an analyst on “Inside the NFL” and he’ll also be a weekly guest on ESPN’s Monday night “ManningCast.”
Besides working in the media, Shanahan also noted that Belichick seemed fine with taking a year away from coaching so that he could help out his son, Steve, who recently took a job as the defensive coordinator at the University of Washington.
Belichick might not be on an NFL sideline this year, but he is planning to make a return in 2025, according to a recent report. Shanahan won’t be surprised at all if the six-time Super Bowl winner is back in the coaching ranks next season.
“I’m sure he’s going to be back in the league next year and I could be going against him,” Shanahan said. “He could be in the NFC West. It would have sucked if he came here and then he was going against us, so that’s the stuff you have to be careful about, but he’s the best and I just like talking to him.”
The 2024 season marks the first time in 49 years that Belichick won’t be serving as a coach in some capacity. Belichick got his first coaching job in 1975 with the Baltimore Colts, and he’s been on an NFL sideline ever since.
