Longtime Bill Belichick Assistant Ernie Adams to Return to Coaching in 2026

The 72-year-old will be Phillips Academy–Andover’s interim head coach this season.

Ernie Adams is reportedly set to return to coaching. | Winslow Townson-Imagn Images

One of Bill Belichick’s longtime right hand men is reportedly returning to the gridiron.

According to Recruiting Board’s Alex Agrella, Ernie Adams has been named the interim head coach at Phillips Academy–Andover, a preparatory school in Massachusetts. The school has since posted the news on its website.

NEPSAC SHAKE UP!

Sources confirm Phillips Andover has named Ernie Adams their interim Head Coach.

Adams is best known for his time with the @Patriots as their Research Director.

Andover will open their search after the 26 season.

VERY interesting addition to the NEPSAC. pic.twitter.com/ItC5IRpBPN

— Alex Agrella (@AlexAgrellaRB) February 17, 2026

Adams, 72, spent 22 seasons alongside Belichick in New England from 2000 to '21 as the Patriots' football research director. A Massachusetts native, Adams attended Phillips Academy after high school, where he met Belichick and began a lifelong personal—and eventually professional—relationship with the future head coach.

Throughout his career, Adams was known to keep a low profile, and was once described by The Boston Globe's Bob Hohler as “[one of] the most influential and unrecognizable difference-makers in New England sports ... yet is all but unknown beyond Gillette Stadium.” On game days, he assisted Belichick from the coaches’ box with in-game strategy and situational decisions—while in the spring, he worked closely with the scouting department to evaluate prospects ahead of the NFL draft.

“Ernie’s career, and especially in the draft room, is legendary...” Belichick once said of Adams. “Ernie literally wrote the book on scouting. The grading scale, the lettering, the numbering, the different classification of players, the report writing, critical factors, he has been a part of all that, really, for four decades.”

Adams retired from professional football in 2021, but is now set to return to his alma mater five years later. We’ll see if he can have the same impact on the Big Blue as he did on the red, white, and blue.

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