How would Carolina Panthers fans feel about Bill Belichick becoming the next head coach?

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Chumbacassino.com. Panthers are prowling for a big-name head coach. Watch out for Bill Belichick. I'm so glad I followed Ben Volan, senior NFL writer for the Boston Globe, on Twitter, at Ben Volan. I'm sorry, you owe me a white V-neck T-shirt, because I did spit when I saw that. Has it gone that poorly in New England?

We know it has this year. How does this scenario play out, where David Tepper convinces Bill Belichick to be his head coach? Sure. And apologies for the white T-shirt.

I'll fire one up for you on Amazon and get it out to you, Adam. This is all good. Yeah. I mean, look, up here in New England, it's becoming increasingly clear that Belichick's run with the Patriots. It's coming to an end after this season. It's fourth year after Tom Brady.

They've totally bottomed out, 2-9. Mac Jones is either A, totally not the answer, or B, has been completely ruined by Bill Belichick. You know, it's been 24 years.

It's okay to admit the party's over. It's done with Belichick. But he doesn't want to stop coaching. He wants to continue coaching. And that's why that report came out earlier this year of supposedly a long-term contract extension for Belichick. Like, both sides want it known that Belichick wants it known to Kraft that if you fire me, you owe me a lot of money. And Kraft wants it known to the rest of the league, hey, Belichick's available, but you guys are going to have to trade me for him. So, look, Belichick wants to coach. And even though he's going to be 72, even though it has not ended well here for him, I still think there's enough desperate owners out there.

He's going to be able to find a job. I truly do think that. And to me, the Panthers, you know, I laid it out in my column. I think it makes a lot of sense. First of all, I've been told that, you know, that Belichick is certainly, I think, could be a good fit there and is, you know, maybe keeping his eye on that situation.

And, you know, I think with Tepper, you saw it yesterday in that press conference. You know, he is so sensitive to the narrative that he's, you know, impatient and, you know, all this. So, that's why he's talking about, I want to coach for the next 30 years. He's just trying to counter that narrative. But what he really wants is to make a splash and to stop being a five-win team every year and to make the playoffs and to be, you know, a relevant team in the NFL.

No offense to the good people of Carolina, but that's not one of the bigger NFL markets or one that gets a lot of national attention. So, it did when they had Cam Newton. Yeah. Well, right.

Exactly. Since the Cam Newton days, you know, so I'd say for the last like five or six years, since he's owned the team, there's not been a whole lot of buzz around that team and that's not always the best reason to hire a coach. But it's definitely a reason for these owners and I, you know, there's no other coach. There's a lot of good candidates out there, but there's no other coach who is going to make the world stop. Like when you hire a Belichick, it's no other coach is going to get coverage on CNN and BBC International and all that stuff. And, you know, even though football-wise, it's not perfect, you know, it's a team that is bottoming out and who knows about Bryce Young if he's, you know, if Tepper is willing to give Belichick the control that he needs and to pick his staff and all that, that's going to be, you're not going to find much better jobs if you're Bill Belichick. So, I'm telling you, just based on what I've told and everything, just keep an eye on Belichick to Carolina.

There's a lot of things now I want to talk about. First of all, David Tepper is clearly impatient. He's also clearly out of touch. He's also clearly bad at giving press conferences. My joke is he was looking for someone worse at press conferences than he is. And Bill Belichick probably fits the mold, or at least at times fits the mold.

It is legendary at this point. But if he's looking for the 20 to 30-year coach to eulogize him at his funeral, Bill's probably not the guy. But beyond that, the one thing, and maybe I'm looking at this from the wrong angle. If you're looking for somebody, if Bill would come here assuming total control of the football operations, which means also the draft player procurement, hasn't that been really the big problem in New England over the last several years?

No question. Bill has had full responsibility for the roster, and they've kind of driven it into the ground. But you can always explain away everything.

Sure. To me, the excuse making here can lead to, well, the end of Brady was a little messier than anyone expected. We tried to plan for the succession with Jimmy Garoppolo, but Brady and Kraft messed that up for me. We're always drafting at the bottom of the first round, so of course our draft record isn't going to be... You can always kind of explain that stuff away, and you can always look at what you want to look at. The Patriots from 2010 to 2016 were on fire. They just hit on every draft pick. Guys like Rob Gronkowski and they developed Julian Edelman and Devin McCourty and quality players like Logan Ryan.

They had an excellent track record of drafting and developing and keeping a lot of their guys until it kind of went all haywire the last five years. There are certainly a lot of negative aspects to Belichick's job. Just look at the one loss record without Tom Brady.

It's nothing to write home about. No, and it's been really the skill position, guys. They haven't really had good receivers, good targets to throw to over the post-Tom Brady era. I would argue that the last year of Tom Brady, he didn't have what to deal with, what to throw to. The offensive line was good but not great, and that's how that whole thing came to an end. Belichick has always had a weak spot for wide receivers. He's always had trouble, first of all, drafting the right guys and developing them. He did develop Julian Edelman, who wasn't even a college wide receiver. You have to give him a lot of credit for that. Yeah, and Rob Gronkowski as well. Arguably the best tight end in NFL history. It's not like they're devoid of it, but in 2019, they picked Nikhil Harry over AJ Brown and Deebo Samuel and Terry McLaurin.

It's a really long list. And then they did it again a couple years ago. They took this kid, Tyquan Thornton, who's rail thin and can't get on the field. They took him over George Pickens and a few other guys as well.

So they have a weak spot for wide receivers, identifying them, developing them. Belichick, in his final years, he has gotten more impatient with younger players, just willing to get rid of guys more quickly and not really see through their development. So look, there have been issues and he is very much responsible for this team being 2-9 right now, but every situation is different. You can easily talk yourself into Belichick still has the energy, still sharp as ever at his age.

Who's seen more bullets than this guy? No question. 9 Super Bowls as a head coach, 6 titles. And yeah, you could say it's all Brady, but that's not fair.

No, I don't think it is. Belichick deserves a lot of credit for developing Brady and turning him into the champion that he was. Oh, I'm with you. I never thought it was all Brady. I thought it was funny and to me a little bit coincidental that Brady goes to Tampa and wins in year one. I would encourage people to go look at that roster. I'm not saying any quarterback would have won with that roster, but they were stacked. So it was an incredibly talented offense with a very good offensive mind as the head coach. So I'm not surprised and the roster at New England has not been good.

The quarterback play has also not been that good. So those two things work hand in hand. But yeah, Belichick and Brady to me have always made each other in terms of champions and I think Bill is a great coach. And I tell people who complained like, how can we go and get Belichick and I was like, he's the greatest coach ever. I would not allow him to have full reign over personnel, which might be a deal breaker. But if he has the right personnel guy with him, I think it would be it would be an automatic move. I would hate to give up assets to get him because the Panthers don't have enough assets now, but Belichick would be an enormous get.

I would think so. And at minimum you want him bringing in his own personnel guy, whether it's Mac Rowe who runs the front office now or reconnecting with like a Dave Ziegler who just got fired from the Raiders. You know, you want John Robinson from the Titans is someone I've heard that Belichick could be paired with, you know, at minimum Bill needs to be comfortable. You're not bringing in Belichick if you're not giving him kind of the setup that he wants and from Belgian perspective. I mean, Dave Tepper who can make things happen at the snap of a finger is better than him. He's the third richest owner in the NFL and you have to remember to Adam like there's a there are a lot of good coaching candidates out there. A lot of young offensive lines, especially I don't know how many of them are going to be into the Carolina job with your first time. If you're a first-time head coach, you're worried that Tepper steps on your toes and has fired the last two guys.

It keeps getting wrong and this place is a dead end. Like the one guy who can deal with all that is Belichick, you know, like he's not he's not worried about the owner and he's not worried about, you know, any whatever. I mean, so so, you know Belichick might make sense just because you know, if you're a Ben Johnson or even maybe Eric the enemy. I mean, I know there's only 32 of these jobs, but I just don't know if this is the one that you want to take your reputation to it all depends.

Yeah, why not? You know if the money is right, why not depends on the guaranteed money and Frank Reich's going to get paid for another three three years and however many games there are left. Matt rule is still going to get paid to from two entities to be the head coach at Nebraska.

So it's a great I mean, it's a great retirement plan. So I jump at it and if he fires me after six games because you know, it doesn't go well, I can always say really the problem isn't me. The problem is him because I think the narrative is already flipped there.

I think most people believe the problem is David Tepper. So maybe that there's there is some runway for a young up-and-comer to take a take a chance on this. But I agree with you that it will certainly not be somebody who has other options because it's got to be well down the list and and look all coaching contracts are guaranteed. So if you're Ben Johnson, you're going to get he's going to get head coaching offers or even like Eric the enemy. So, you know, yeah, if you get fired by the Panthers, yeah, you're collecting a nice fat check, but that's going to hurt your opportunity your chances of ever being the head guy again, and you don't want to be saddled with a foreign 13 record or anything like that. So it's not just the money the money is going to be there for these coaches.

No matter what you want the right opportunity, especially if it's your first time. So someone's going to take this job, but I think peppers and have a harder time getting a young up-and-coming coach as opposed to just throwing a boatload of money at Belichick and giving him whatever you want. It would be hysterical. How do we we've had coaches move before what did John Gruden fetch from the Raiders to Tampa?

I don't have it off the top of my head. It's usually a first-round pick. I mean, I know laughs and eliminate John Panthers. Well, well, you can always look there's there's the future too. But you know, so you could always say well, we'll give you a 2025 first-round pick, but I don't think for Belichick you have to give up that much, you know, Sean Payton was in demand.

Some it's right. Belichick might be somewhat in demand, but I feel like, you know, the Panthers might be able to get away with like a third-round pick or something like that. Maybe like Belichick is worth more but the Panthers draft capital is just so low Bill would look at this roster and go. I can't win with that. Even I can't win with that. I couldn't win with what I had in New England.

How am I going to win with that? It's to me. It's the worst offensive roster in the league and and and that's knowing that the Jets also play football professionally. But I mean up here.

It's not much better. I mean, it's it's pretty grim when you watch this offense up here. But yeah, I look at Belichick.

They're going to be questions about whether he's the guy to turn that offense around to turn that team around, you know, not having the first-round pick certainly hurts. But, you know, if you're Tapper and you're looking to bring some buzz to your team, some attention and you know, you want to, you know, ideally you have Belichick for the next three, four, five years. Like there aren't too many coaches. You could kind of pencil in for that kind of tenure. So I I just I think there's a lot of reasons for Carolina to be in on a coach like that. Oh, I agree. I there are a lot of reasons and if David Tepper can hire Bill Belichick, I think he is the best coach to elevate this team to a five win football team. I don't think anybody else could get this group to five wins, but Bill Belichick might be good enough to do that.

Ben Volan, senior NFL writer for the Boston Globe at Ben Volan on Twitter. I appreciate your time, man. It was very gracious of you to come on.

Hopefully we can do it again. Awesome. Thanks a lot, Adam. You got it. Ben Volan here on the Adam Gold Show. You're valid for a limited time. Ten dollar minimum per order. Additional terms apply.