Bronco Bill? Apparently, this was almost a thing.
As the story now goes, following Bill Belichick’s divorce from the Patriots after their tumultuous 4-13 season in 2023, the then-71-year-old saw little traction on the NFL head coaching market. Despite interviewing with the Falcons twice—including once on owner Arthur Blank’s superyacht—the six-time Super Bowl winner was passed over by the rest of the league heading into 2024. Rather than returning to the professional ranks in a lesser role, Belichick instead decided to take a year off before resurfacing at the college level, taking over as head coach of North Carolina in late 2025.
Prior to his sabbatical, media venture and infamous book tour, however, Belichick seemed to be closer to an NFL return than anybody realized.
According to Seth Wickersham in a recent ESPN story profiling Sean Payton and the Broncos’ 2025 playoff run, the Denver head coach considered temporarily stepping aside in 2024 to allow Belichick to capture the NFL’s all-time wins record.
”When Belichick and the Patriots divorced in 2024, Payton considered presenting Broncos owner Greg Penner a proposal for the ages: Hire Belichick as head coach until he reached 15 wins, enough to break Don Shula's career record of 347,” writes Wickersham, who notes that the two share a friendship built on mutual respect—and mutual trauma—from their days coaching under Bill Parcells.
In January, I spent the playoffs embedded with Sean Payton and the Broncos. Sixteen-hour days, capturing every meeting, decision, and the raw and unfiltered creativity, energy, desperation, rage, joy, and loneliness of trying to win in The Second Season.https://t.co/GveoCgXb7P pic.twitter.com/S8OPYXYhuN
— Seth Wickersham (@SethWickersham) July 7, 2026
”Payton would temporarily step down to assistant head coach and run the offense,” he continues. ”Then move back after Belichick became the all-time leader. In the end, it was too complicated—and maybe too fanciful.”
This would have been quite the favor from Payton, who has amassed a 32-19 regular-season record over his three seasons with the Broncos—a tenure that includes a 14-3 2025 campaign that saw Denver earn the No. 1 seed in the AFC playoffs before being eliminated by the Patriots in the conference title game.
Imagine that? A Broncos team that was a craw in Belichick’s side for over two decades—as evidenced by his mere 11–10 all-time record against them, which includes a 1–3 mark in the playoffs—could have been his next employer.
I guess anything was possible at the time, especially after he reportedly reached out to his ex, the Jets, about their head coaching vacancy.
