Bill Belichick on the New York Giants head coach opening: “Getting ready for Wake Forest. That’s all I’ve got this week.” Bob Donnan / Imagn Images
North Carolina coach Bill Belichick says he’s not giving much thought to the latest NFL opening.
“Getting ready for Wake Forest. That’s all I’ve got this week,” Belichick said in response to a question about his name coming up for the New York Giants’ vacant head coaching job.
The Giants fired Brian Daboll midway through his fourth season with the team on Monday after he’d gone 20-40 as a head coach. In his first year, he’d led the team to the playoffs and won a wild-card game, but was 11-33 since.
Belichick’s Tar Heels have beaten two consecutive ACC opponents — Syracuse and Stanford — after a 2-5 start that included no wins over Power 4 opponents. Belichick said he’d been asked about a possible return to the NFL “from time to time” in the past.
“Look, I’ve been down this road before. I’m focused on Wake Forest. That’s it. That’s my commitment to this team,” he said. “Next week it’s that opponent and so forth. I’m here to do the best I can for this team.”
Belichick won six Super Bowls as New England Patriots head coach from 2000-23. Before that, he spent time as defensive coordinator for the Giants, helping Bill Parcells’ squad win the Super Bowl in the 1986 and 1990 seasons.
After being fired by the Patriots, Belichick spent the 2024 season out of football. He’d interviewed with multiple teams since his split with New England but elected to take a job in college with North Carolina after the 2024 season.
The first three years of Belichick’s five-year, $50 million contract are fully guaranteed, but the price for Belichick to leave North Carolina for an NFL job dropped to just $1 million on June 1.
Nov 12, 2025
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