Bears' next coach won't be Bill Belichick

The greatest living NFL coach won’t be the Bears’ next coach — or any other NFL team’s.

Six-time Super Bowl winner Bill Belichick agreed Wednesday to a five-year deal to become the coach at North Carolina. It’s his first foray into college football.

Belichick, who turns 73 in April, was available and the Bears had an opening after firing coach Matt Eberflus two weeks ago. It would have been difficult for the Bears to hire Belichick — or anyone — right away while still satisfying the Rooney Rule. Still, the Bears didn’t pounce.

Time will tell if they regret passing on Belichick the way they must rue not pursuing Jim Harbaugh in January or taking quarterback Mitch Trubisky instead of Patrick Mahomes in 2017.

Consider Wednesday the Reverse Harbaugh. Last year, the Bears didn’t have a coaching vacancy, and Harbaugh was still employed at the college level when general manager Ryan Poles was asked about him.

“I haven’t talked to Jim,” Poles said. “He’s the coach at Michigan.”

Within weeks, he was the coach of the Chargers, a team that’s 8-5 and fighting for a playoff berth in his first season.

Belichick needs just 15 more wins to pass former Dolphins coach Don Shula for the most in NFL history. Instead, he’s headed to a UNC job he was first linked to last week.

Name, image and likeness rules will give him the roster-building control that NFL teams have been loath to hand out. His son Steve, who spent last season as the University of Washington’s defensive coordinator, could be part of a succession plan at UNC, something that had to appeal to the coach.

Belichick was interviewed by just one NFL team last offseason after he and the Patriots parted ways — and the Falcons eventually decided to hire Raheem Morris, in part because they didn’t want Belichick exerting personnel control.

Belichick was the de facto general manager in New England. His picks struggled once star quarterback Tom Brady left. In Belichick’s final four seasons, the Patriots went 29-38. They finished 2023 with a 4-13 record, tied for the second-worst in the NFL.