In a stunning development, legendary NFL head coach Bill Belichick went unhired in this year’s NFL coach hiring cycle.
Perhaps equally surprising? The fact that only the Atlanta Falcons interviewed the six-time Super Bowl-winning head coach. And just when they seemed poised to hire Belichick for the HC vacancy, the Falcons instead went with Los Angeles Rams defensive coordinator Raheem Morris.
Speaking on the “Felger & Mazz” program on The Sports Hub on 98.5 FM (h/t Matt Ehalt of the New York Post), former Falcons general manager Thomas Dimitroff gave an in-depth explanation as to why he thinks the team passed on Belichick.
Dimitroff believes that the Falcons weren’t keen on the idea of needing to stomach a giant overhaul within the organization to bring Belichick aboard.
“But in the end, there was an inner group in there, right? Look, anytime Bill goes into an organization, you would assume whatever your thoughts are about him, he deserves the right to run it, meaning if there is a GM in there, Terry Fontenot — Terry was going to stay, but he was going to work with him, but maybe there was a group inside the building who kept pushing back to Arthur — Let’s call it the way it is. Any organization wants to keep their world, right? Presidents want to keep their world.
You saw the discussion about Rich McKay, right? Rich is very talented. He knows a lot. The fact that he and Bill would have to work together — or not work together — wasn’t something that probably was going to happen. And Arthur had made a bold statement saying, ‘That was not an issue.’
“Bill had said he was going to work ostensibly with Terry Fontenot, so that wasn’t going to be an issue. But I think everyone looks at it like, ‘Yeah, but when you get someone like this in there, it’s going to be overhauled…I think, in the end, (Blank) has to make a choice, and he has to make a choice about what he’s looking for in the approach to culture. I think they felt like that was the group to do it.”
Morris was a Falcons assistant under head coach Dan Quinn from 2015 to 2020, working on both sides of the ball. He finished 2020 as the Falcons’ head coach following the firing of Quinn and went 4-7 at the helm after the team started out 0-5.
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The 47-year-old Morris won a Super Bowl ring as the Rams’ defensive coordinator in the 2021 season, his first year with the organization.
