All 49ers

Can the 49ers Get Bill Belichick to be Their Defensive Coordinator?

Theoretically, Belichick could do nothing for a year, or he could come to Santa Clara and coach the San Francisco 49ers defense.
Grant Cohn|
Can the 49ers Get Bill Belichick to be Their Defensive Coordinator?
Can the 49ers Get Bill Belichick to be Their Defensive Coordinator?

In this story:

San Francisco 49ers

It's worth a phone call.

Bill Belichick has nothing to do right now. The Patriots essentially fired him, and none of the teams with head-coach vacancies wanted him. So he's got the year off. And the 49ers need a defensive coordinator.

Theoretically, Belichick could do nothing for a year, or he could come to Santa Clara, coach the San Francisco 49ers defense, maybe win a Super Bowl and then reenter the head-coaching market next year with an even better resume.

That would be the 49ers' pitch: Wouldn't you rather coach a potential Super Bowl defense than sit at home and play with your dog? Name your price.

I'm guessing Belichick would want to be paid almost as much as Kyle Shanahan and would want complete control over the 49ers' defensive scheme plus input on defensive personnel. He would require almost as much power as Shanahan, because Belichick thinks he's the greatest coach of all time and will take a back seat to no one.

The 49ers were not willing to give Steve Wilks any input into their defensive scheme last season, and they fired him after just one year, so maybe the 49ers would be willing to let Belichick do whatever he wants.

Still, I can't see Belichick agreeing to be a coordinator for anyone or any reason. His ego simply won't allow him to not be a head coach anymore. I'm guessing he would rather sit at home and stare out the window than be the 49ers' defensive coordinator.

Let's see if I'm right.

Published
Grant Cohn
GRANT COHN

Grant Cohn has covered the San Francisco 49ers daily since 2011. He spent the first nine years of his career with the Santa Rosa Press Democrat where he wrote the Inside the 49ers blog and covered famous coaches and athletes such as Jim Harbaugh, Colin Kaepernick and Patrick Willis. In 2012, Inside the 49ers won Sports Blog of the Year from the Peninsula Press Club. In 2020, Cohn joined FanNation and began writing All49ers. In addition, he created a YouTube channel which has become the go-to place on YouTube to consume 49ers content. Cohn's channel typically generates roughly 3.5 million viewers per month, while the 49ers' official YouTube channel generates roughly 1.5 million viewers per month. Cohn live streams almost every day and posts videos hourly during the football season. Cohn is committed to asking the questions that 49ers fans want answered, and providing the most honest and interactive coverage in the country. His loyalty is to the reader and the viewer, not the team or any player or coach. Cohn is a new-age multimedia journalist with an old-school mentality, because his father is Lowell Cohn, the legendary sports columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle from 1979 to 1993. The two have a live podcast every Tuesday. Grant Cohn grew up in Oakland and studied English Literature at UCLA from 2006 to 2010. He currently lives in Oakland with his wife.

Share on XFollow grantcohn
Home/News