North Carolina coach and likely first-ballot Pro Football Hall of Famer Bill Belichick recently fired offensive coordinator Freddie Kitchens, a former NFL head coach. Belichick reportedly is focusing on two other former NFL head coaches to replace Kitchens.
Via Pete Nakos of On3.com, the search is focusing on Chip Kelly and Bobby Petrino.
Kelly, who was fired last month as offensive coordinator of the Raiders, previously coached the Eagles and 49ers. Petrino coached the Falcons in 2007, abruptly leaving during his first season to become the head coach at Arkansas.
There’s still a question swirling as to whether Belichick will abruptly leave Chapel Hill to coach in the NFL. With a buyout of only $1 million, it would be easy for him to exit. The harder part will be finding an NFL owner who would hire him.
While there’s a deeper dive to be done at the proper time (and there’s one team, I believe, that possibly would consider him if its head-coaching position becomes open), remember this: Belichick got only one interview after he was fired by the Patriots, and he took the North Carolina job in December 2024 after it became clear that no team with a current or expected vacancy would give him a wink-nod assurance that he’d get the job.
And that was a year ago. Things have changed since then, in a variety of ways. To put it as mildly as possible, few if any of those changes make him more attractive than he was in the 2024 and 2025 NFL hiring cycle.
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