Bill Belichick’s six Super Bowl wins and 31 playoff wins are both the most by a head coach in NFL history. 

However, none of the seven NFL teams besides the New England Patriots to have head-coaching vacancies this offseason — the Las Vegas Raiders, the Tennessee Titans, the Los Angeles Chargers, the Carolina Panthers, the Atlanta Falcons, the Seattle Seahawks and the Washington Commanders — was interested in hiring the 71-year-old Belichick. That means the 2024 season could be the first without Belichick on an NFL coaching staff since 1974.

The coach many consider to be the NFL’s greatest of all time laid out what he thought the issues were for him in this past NFL coaching cycle during a trip down to South Florida to visit with Hall of Fame coach Jimmy Johnson

“Bill and his girlfriend just left the house about four days ago, and he came down to spend a few days with me,” Johnson said to Joe Rose on WQAM 560 AM in Miami. “We talked about a bunch of stuff. He had been with [Bill] Parcells and [Nick] Saban a couple days earlier, and some of these [NFL] owners are a little bit afraid of him. The general mangers and the personnel people in the organizations are really afraid of him because they think if he comes in they are going to lose their jobs. A lot of people working against him as far as getting a job. I was shocked that he didn’t get some more opportunities. He’ll get opportunities next year.”

After decades of calling all the shots in New England, Johnson said Belichick made it clear he would be fine with just being the coach and not the general manager in his next coaching stop after 24 seasons with the Patriots from 2000 to 2023. 

“Bill is upfront about it,” Johnson said. “He said, ‘Hey, I don’t have to be in charge of everything.’ That’s what happened up in New England. He kind of fell into that deal, and it’s not necessarily that he pushed for it. That’s what happened because he was there for so long. He is more than willing to give up the decision-making to the general manager and the personnel people.”

Belichick is 27 regular-season wins shy of passing Hall of Fame coach Don Shula’s total of 328 for the most in NFL history, so in order to break that record, he needs to coach another two or three seasons at least. Maybe he gets his chance to begin that final climb to the top of the NFL’s coaching record books in 2025.