Former NFL head coach Bill Belichick, now removed from the professional sidelines, has made his opinions clear on a longstanding controversy in the league: the timing of coaching interviews during the postseason.
On the latest episode of the Let’s Go! podcast, Belichick spoke candidly about the challenges faced by assistant coaches on playoff-bound teams, who must juggle critical postseason preparations with interviews for open head coaching positions.
Despite the NFL’s efforts to tweak its hiring process over the years, Belichick remains staunchly opposed to the current system.
“I’ve never been a big fan of it,” Belichick said. “I think it’s really unfortunate when you have a team, including the coaches and the coordinators, worked so hard all year to get to the playoffs, to have an opportunity to play in conference championships and Super Bowls, and then they’re totally distracted by another team, who was a bad team, who has a coaching change, infringing on that team that’s trying to get to a championship by hiring one of their top coaches.”
Belichick didn’t hold back, emphasizing the impact such distractions can have on both the team and the individual coaches involved.
“Nobody would be happy if that was a player. But for a coach, that’s also very disruptive, especially when you’re the play caller,” Belichick continued. I mean, it’s just human nature to be distracted by a potential job opening, staff and change of lifestyle from a coordinator to a head coach when you’re trying to prepare and call plays in a critical game.”
The discussion gained renewed relevance after last weekend’s monstrous playoff upset.
The top-seeded Detroit Lions were eliminated by the Washington Commanders, with speculation swirling around whether the Lions’ coordinators, Ben Johnson and Aaron Glenn, were affected by their interviews for head coaching positions during the team’s bye week.
As we know, Johnson has since been hired by the Chicago Bears and Glenn is off to the New York Jets.
While it’s unclear whether the outside distractions contributed to the Lions’ loss, they sure as hell didn’t help.
To head coach Dan Campbell’s credit, he didn’t make any excuses. In fact, he’s been the biggest cheerleader for both Johnson and Glenn.
Having said that, you wonder if Detroit’s performance against Washington would have been different if Johnson and Glenn didn’t have to commit so much time to extensive outside interviews.
Reflecting on his own experience, Belichick recalled a much different approach when he became head coach of the Cleveland Browns in 1991.
“When I took the head job at Cleveland [in 1991], I didn’t interview for the head coaching position, at Cleveland or Tampa, until we finished playing, until the Super Bowl was over after we had beaten Buffalo [in Super Bowl XXV],” Belichick said.
“You’re gonna get started at the same time anyway as a coach. It’s not that, but the distraction that it leads into, I think I was very fortunate and glad that I didn’t have to deal with that. So I don’t like it, but it’s not my rule. It’s not my choice.”
As Belichick said, the timing of the whole process is unfortunate and you certainly can’t blame Johnson or Glenn for handling things the way they did. It’s not their faults.
Having said all of that, do you think the Lions would be preparing to host the NFC Championship Game had Johnson and Glenn been able to use that extra time to focus on defeating Washington???
