Sports
Why has Bill Belichick’s hiring at UNC sparked skepticism? Let’s examine the reasons
Bill Belichick has amassed 333 total coaching victories in the NFL, second only to the late Don Shula. He coached the New England Patriots to six Super Bowl victories and served as defensive coordinator on two Super Bowl-winning editions of the New York Giants. He possesses a genius-level knowledge of the NFL, not just in terms of X’s and O’s but also the A-B-C’s of the game’s rich history. And yet his pivot to college football — he was introduced Thursday as the new head coach at the University of North Carolina — has been met with varying degrees of skepticism, raised eyebrows and even outright hilarity.
Why, one may ask, is a coach who has accomplished so much being treated in such a negative light? Part of the problem is Belichick’s spectacularly stiff and grumpy public persona, but it’s much deeper than that. Let’s examine some of the reasons, real and imagined, why the mere mention of Belichick’s name inspires so many different reactions from people.
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Feldman: No reason Belichick can’t have success at UNC. Just don’t expect him to last long
‘He never won anything without Tom Brady‘
It always begins here, does it not? Belichick is the greatest coach in football history if the accounting is limited to Super Bowl rings, but there’s always that nagging Tom Brady issue that raises two questions: 1) What has Belichick won without Brady, and 2) Has a Bradyless existence exposed Belichick’s inability to get the job done at this stage of his career?
Fact: Without getting too specific with the numbers, such as weaving in the games in which Jacoby Brissett and Jimmy Garoppolo were quarterbacking the Patriots in 2016 while Brady was sitting out his four-game “Deflategate” suspension, the big picture is that Belichick has won six Super Bowls with Brady as his quarterback and none without Brady as his quarterback.
Fact: Belichick didn’t win any Super Bowls during the five seasons he coached the original Cleveland Browns. He didn’t win one in his first year in New England when Brady was a rookie whose sole appearance was a Thanksgiving Day cameo against the Detroit Lions. He didn’t win one in the four post-Brady seasons in New England.
But at the risk of getting too lawyerly, what’s also true is that Belichick and Brady, as a coach-quarterback tandem, combined to win six Super Bowls. That’s an inconvenient truth to hardened Belichick bashers, but to remove it from the discussion is to assume Brady would have quarterbacked the Patriots to six Super Bowl victories regardless of the coach. Those types of alternate historical timelines are fun in the “Back to the Future” movies but don’t work here in the real world.
Cheating controversies
There’s really no getting around this one. In 2007, Belichick and the Patriots organization were disciplined by the NFL after it had been determined they videotaped signals by New York Jets defensive coaches during New England’s season-opening 38-14 victory at Giants Stadium.
The Patriots were fined $250,000 and lost their first-round pick in the 2008 draft. Belichick was fined $500,000. It was this “Spygate” scandal that resulted in Belichick being branded as “Beli-cheat,” a nickname his critics are happy to break out of mothballs whenever they’re in the mood.
Years later, the Patriots were embroiled in another cheating controversy when Brady was investigated for allegedly using underinflated footballs in New England’s 45-7 victory over the Indianapolis Colts in the 2014 AFC Championship Game. The NFL’s investigation, which dragged on in the courts for well over a year before Brady was finally suspended for the first four games of the 2016 season, was widely criticized as a colossal overreach by the NFL. And, anyway, Belichick was never implicated.
But Spygate often gets twinned up with Deflategate in any discussion of the Belichick era in New England, as is former San Diego Chargers running back LaDainian Tomlinson’s blistering 2007 observation that, “I think the Patriots actually live by the saying, ‘If you’re not cheatin’, you’re not trying.’ You keep hearing the different stories of people complaining about stuff that they do. So I’m not surprised.”
Spygate was a cheap stunt by Belichick that apparently didn’t yield much information. He deserves to wear this one. And not to pile on with Deflategate, but Belichick has long been cheered as the ultimate micromanager and a master of attending to every last teeny-weeny detail. If his supporters want to enter these talking points into the discussion, his critics should be granted license to say, “OK, then he should have known somebody was goofing with the footballs.”
The Kraftmatic Adjustable Storyline
Following the 2023 season, during which New England went 4-13, Belichick was fired by Patriots owner Robert Kraft, thus ending one of the greatest coaching runs in NFL history. Only it wasn’t portrayed as a “firing” by Kraft. Instead, it was presented as a “mutual parting of ways,” with the two men appearing together at a Gillette Stadium news conference and fumbling through one of the most awkward hugs in sports history.
“The man standing to my left brought the leadership and coaching skills that were needed to make the type of unprecedented success that we have had possible,” Kraft said that day. “Coach Belichick will forever be celebrated as a legendary sports icon here in New England and I believe go in as a Pro Football Hall of Famer on the first ballot. Why? Because he is the greatest coach of all time.”
Yet Kraft had less flattering things to say about his former coach in “The Dynasty,” the 10-part TV docuseries that aired in early 2024. Among them, Kraft used the occasion to dish that he called Belichick a “schmuck” in the aftermath of the Spygate scandal. The quote had been reported years earlier, but only by source; here now was Kraft speaking the word on camera and feeling quite comfortable doing so. It wasn’t like some off-camera interviewer lured Kraft into a trap.
Belichick didn’t come out of “The Dynasty” looking good. But it may have backfired on Kraft, who in 2024 was again denied his dream of being elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Meet the new coach, same as the very old coach
Belichick, who turns 73 on April 16, will be the oldest active coach in college football in 2025. But he was already being dismissed as too old and out of touch during his last few seasons in New England, at a time when the NFL was beginning to look to much younger coaches to run their teams. Sean McVay is a prime example: He was just 31 in his first season as head coach of the Los Angeles Rams in 2017, and 35 when he coached the ’21 Rams toward a 23-20 victory over the Cincinnati Bengals in Super Bowl LVI.
Mike Felger, the longtime afternoon drive host at Boston’s 98.5 The Sports Hub, often makes reference to “tight-pants coaches” — younger, well-built coaches who are steeped in analytics and are believed to have the sensibilities to relate with modern players. But to dismiss Belichick solely because of his age is to ignore a trend in the modern American workforce, says Debra Whitman, executive vice president and chief policy officer at AARP.
“The share of workers over age 75 is the only part of our (American) labor force that’s predicted to grow,” Whitman said. “People want to work, or they need to work — they either need the money or they love to work.” (In Belichick’s case, it’s the love of the work. He certainly doesn’t need the money.)
Whitman, author of “The Second Fifty: Answers to the 7 Big Questions of Midlife and Beyond,” believes there’s a “huge value to society in keeping people who have lots of experience and knowledge engaged.”
According to Whitman, research by the Organization of Economic Development and Cooperation has shown that a multi-generational workforce “actually makes a workplace more productive.”
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What do top prospects and high school coaches think about the Bill Belichick hire?
They may not talk about it on ‘Inside the NFL,’ but he’s not popular inside the NFL
As reported by The Athletic’s Jeff Howe, one of the reasons Belichick hasn’t been offered a head-coaching job in the NFL since leaving the Patriots is, in the words of a high-ranking team executive, “(Belichick) burned a lot of bridges over his career.”
If so, it’s not just Spygate that ruffled feathers in the NFL. Cheating scandals happen all the time in professional sports, whereupon fines and suspensions are levied, but there are usually avenues for redemption. Consider what happened in MLB after manager A.J. Hinch and bench coach Alex Cora were suspended for a year following a sign-stealing scandal involving the 2017 Houston Astros. Hinch was later hired as manager of the Detroit Tigers. Cora, who had moved on to Boston and managed the Red Sox to a World Series championship in 2018, was fired by the club after the 2019 season, sat out 2020 and was rehired for 2021.
Bill Belichick isn’t exactly Joe College
The lede to a column by The Athletic’s Stewart Mandel on Belichick landing the UNC job minces no words: “Congratulations, North Carolina. You managed to hire someone completely unqualified to be your next football coach. You did that thing so many schools do where they try to win the press conference instead of win football games. It rarely works.”
Belichick has never coached college football at any level, under any title. Yes, his father, the late Steve Belichick, had a long and storied career as an assistant college coach, mostly at the United States Naval Academy. Yes, Belichick’s son, also named Steve, is the defensive coordinator at the University of Washington. And, yes, Bill Belichick made some visits to Washington practices last spring.
None of that adds up to actual college coaching experience, even if Belichick went to extraordinary lengths at his introductory news conference to make it appear this is where he’s wanted to be all along.
“I always wanted to coach in college football,” Belichick said. “It just never really worked out. I had some good years in the NFL, so that was OK. This is really kind of a dream come true.”
That’s a hard one to get behind, but we’ll play along. Can it work? We posed the question to former Patriots running back Kevin Faulk, who played under Belichick for 13 seasons, including three Super Bowl championship teams.
“Bill will figure it out,” Faulk said. “When he’s dealing with football, he’s all in.”
And yet even Faulk felt the need to wave a warning flag.
“The kids are not what they used to be,” Faulk said. “I feel like there’s some real difficulty he’s going to have to go through.”
A new era for @UNCFootball.
Bill Belichick talks to @MartySmithESPN about his decision to come to North Carolina 🐏 pic.twitter.com/PKZ8Okadub
— ACC Network (@accnetwork) December 13, 2024
Belichick hates the media
Make no mistake: Belichick has never enjoyed his sessions with the media, and over the years he developed a talent for sidestepping even basic questions. “We did what was best for the team,” he’d often say.
But it was never Belichick’s style to be bombastic or confrontational. He’d sometimes roll out a childish staredown when confronted with an unwanted line of questioning, but these attempts came across as comical, not menacing. He could even be funny once every four or five years, such as when he dropped in a reference to the Mona Lisa Vito character from the film “My Cousin Vinny” during the Deflategate saga.
Based on a random tour of the coverage of Belichick this week, the harsh stuff is coming from outside New England. But while Belichick’s sullen news conference performances never did him any harm back in the day — such as when the Patriots were competing for Super Bowls every year — he’ll be wise to freshen up the act at Chapel Hill.
Nothing says “old man yelling at a cloud” like being sullen with the 19-year-old kid from the college paper.
(Photo of Bill Belichick and Robert Kraft: Maddie Meyer / Getty Images)
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With the largest World Cup field in the history of the tournament, 32 of the 48 teams will be fighting for a spot in the knockout stage.
66.6% of nations will advance out of the group stage this summer, which is a massive upgrade from 50% in past World Cups. Because of this, sportsbooks have adjusted with less favorable odds.
Prior to the start of the tournament, Spain, Argentina, Brazil, England, and Germany entered with the strongest odds to advance from the group stage, supported by recent major-tournament success and talent-rich rosters.
All five nations are heavily favored at -10000 to advance to the knockout round.
The Spaniards are the defending European Champions while the Argentinians are looking to win back-to-back titles. Germany has not made it out of the group stage in the last two World Cups, but has always been a perennial contender— having won four titles in its history. And then of course there’s Brazil, which has more titles than any country with five.
Now, after the conclusion of the first day of the World Cup, Mexico has joined the group at the top. El Tri has surged to -10000 to advance to the knockout stage after initially being just -1400. Mexico’s huge leap up the oddsboard is a direct result of its dominating 2-0 win over South Africa.
With that in mind, let’s dive into the odds for each team to advance to the knockout stage of the 2026 FIFA World Cup as of June 12.
This page may contain affiliate links to legal sports betting partners. If you sign up or place a wager, FOX Sports may be compensated. Read more about Sports Betting on FOX Sports.
Odds to Advance to Knockout Stage
Spain: -10000 (bet $10 to win $10.10 total)
Argentina: -10000 (bet $10 to win $10.10 total)
Brazil: -10000 (bet $10 to win $10.10 total)
England: -10000 (bet $10 to win $10.10 total)
Mexico: -10000 (bet $10 to win $10.10 total)
Germany: -10000 (bet $10 to win $10.10 total)
Portugal: -5000 (bet $10 to win $10.20 total)
France: -5000 (bet $10 to win $10.20 total)
Belgium:-3500 (bet $10 to win $10.29 total)
South Korea: -2500 (bet $10 to win $10.40 total)
Switzerland: -1800 (bet $10 to win $10.56 total)
Netherlands: -1400 (bet $10 to win $10.71 total)
Morocco: -1000 (bet $10 to win $11 total)
Colombia: -1000 (bet $10 to win $11 total)
Uruguay: -1000 (bet $10 to win $11 total)
Canada: -1000 (bet $10 to win $11 total)
Ecuador: -900 (bet $10 to win $11.11 total)
Norway: -900 (bet $10 to win $11.11 total)
United States: -750 (bet $10 to win $11.33 total)
The U.S. men’s national team is currently -750 to advance from Group D (Photo by Omar Vega/USSF/Getty Images).
Croatia: -500 (bet $10 to win $12 total)
Austria: -500 (bet $10 to win $12 total)
Türkiye: -500 (bet $10 to win $12 total)
Ivory Coast: -500 (bet $10 to win $12 total)
Japan: -500 (bet $10 to win $12 total)
Egypt: -340 (bet $10 to win $12.94 total)
Algeria: -310 (bet $10 to win $13.23 total)
Scotland: -310 (bet $10 to win $13.23 total)
Senegal: -230 (bet $10 to win $14.35 total)
Sweden: -230 (bet $10 to win $1435 total)
Bosnia and Herzegovina: -220 (bet $10 to win $14.55 total)
Paraguay: -205 (bet $10 to win $14.88 total)
Iran: -200 (bet $10 to win $15 total)
Czechia: -165 (bet $10 to win $16.06 total)
Ghana: -140 (bet $10 to win $17.14 total)
Australia: -110 (bet $10 to win $19.09 total)
DR Congo: +100 (bet $10 to win $20 total)
Raúl Jiménez helped propel Mexico to a 2-0 win over South Africa in the opening match of the 2026 FIFA World Cup (Photo by Yair Gonzalez/Jam Media/Getty Images).
Saudi Arabia: +105 (bet $10 to win $20.50 total)
Tunisia: +140 (bet $10 to win $24 total)
New Zealand: +150 (bet $10 to win $25 total)
Uzbekistan: +180 (bet $10 to win $28 total)
Cape Verde: +200 (bet $10 to win $30 total)
Panama: +200 (bet $10 to win $30 total)
Qatar: +275 (bet $10 to win $37.50 total)
South Africa: +320 (bet $10 to win $42 total)
Jordan +350 (bet $10 to win $45 total)
Iraq: +450 (bet $10 to win $55 total)
Haiti: +800 (bet $10 to win $90 total)
Curaçao: +1000 (bet $10 to win $110 total)
Cameron Brink said she’d appreciate some grace. She really would.
Sparks fans should give her some, because where else is she going to get it?
Certainly not from WNBA refs. Not from opponents with more to play for than ever. Certainly not from the game itself; basketball moves fast, and a bummer can become a bust in a blink.
But Brink, 24, is not on the brink of bust territory, no. Block that thought. Technically, it’s Year 3, but after a torn ACL derailed her as a rookie two summers ago, it’s practically like Year 2 for the former Stanford star. And by design, the WNBA is testing her confidence, her decision-making and her patience as she tries to reestablish herself as one of the WNBA’s best young players.
So, grace.
The recognizable 6-foot-4 forward — she’s the long-blond-haired hooper in the New Balance ads — was the No. 2 overall pick in 2024.
Now she’s her team’s No. 3 option in the post. She’s coming off the bench behind Nneka Ogwumike and Dearica Hamby for the Sparks, who are a modest 6-6 after wins this week over the expansion Portland Fire and the struggling Seattle Storm.
Against the Fire, Brink scored two points and picked up four fouls in nine minutes. Then she went to Seattle and had 15 points in 18 minutes but was pulled with more than five minutes left in the fourth quarter after getting her third, fourth and fifth fouls in 86 seconds. (WNBA players get six fouls before being disqualified.)
For the season, Brink has been called for 49 fouls in 208 minutes. A foul about every four minutes!
They’re silly fouls and they’re phantom calls. Egregious and ticky-tack. Costly and common. A real fouled-up buffet. She sets screens that get scrutinized as if by the most vigilant TSA agent. And sometimes, yes, she’s doing the accidental tripping. Other times, the officials are.
Her reputation precedes her, so everyone gets a superstar’s whistle when being defended by Brink. Opponents bake it into their game plans.
That can’t continue.
All that fouling is hindering Brink’s development because it’s robbing her of important in-game reps — which she needs, foremost, to figure out how to stop fouling.
Sparks forward Cameron Brink, left, blocks the shot of the Tempo’s Laura Juskaite during a game last month.
(Jeff Lewis / Associated Press)
“At the pro level,” said Tara VanDerveer, Brink’s coach at Stanford, “every young player always has a lot of work to do. And I saw her make a three. I see her block shots. She rebounds, she can handle the ball, she’s unselfish, she’s a terrific talent. But there’s always things players need to work on.”
We know what Brink’s thing is.
“She has to be disciplined,” VanDerveer said. “And if you want something so badly, if you want to be an All-Star someday or make the Olympic team, you’ve got to be dependable … and I think anyone can change, if it’s behavior they recognize is not in their best interests or not in their team’s best interests. It’s hard, but it’s something I think people can do.
“That’s what Cam is working on.”
And, VanDerveer added, “I’m really so excited that Nneka is there, because she will give her such great guidance and mentorship.”
And grace. Brink is getting that from Ogwumike — also a former Stanford star, the Sparks legend returned to L.A. this season after two seasons in Seattle — and her other teammates.
“I just do my best to lead by example,” Ogwumike, 35, said. “But then also let [Brink] know that she’s very capable, that she’s more than capable, which is exactly why she’s here with us and it’s exactly why we need her on this team.”
Sparks forward Cameron Brink, wearing a facemask, controls the ball while defended by Sun forward Raegan Beers.
(Joe Buglewicz / Getty Images)
But how long will Brink get grace from the Sparks in the what-have-you-done-for-me-lately business of basketball?
The foul trouble tells us why a win-now team wouldn’t trust her, why the Sparks would give meaningful minutes to two veteran post players ahead of her. Why they wouldn’t prioritize Brink’s development alongside winning as they strive to snap a previously unthinkable five-year playoff drought.
And what about fans? How patient will you all be with a player who was drafted immediately after Caitlin Clark and five spots in front of Angel Reese?
These days, that might depend on what the parlay calls for.
Or, preferably, whether you remember Brink’s first 15 WNBA games. All starts, all signs pointing to stardom. She showed up in 2024 throwing lavish block parties. Her 2.3 blocks per game were message-sending spikes, like what Lisa Leslie used to enthrall Sparks crowds with.
From the jump, she had guys coming to games at Crypto.com Arena wearing her No. 22 jersey and little girls arriving in groups with No. 22 painted on their cheeks and “I love Cam Brink” signs in hand.
And then the torn ACL cost her 25 games of her rookie season and another 25 last season, plus her spot on the United States’ Olympic 3×3 women’s basketball team in Paris in 2024.
She had to start over. Lost a lot of ground. But you see that masked woman stuck on the Sparks’ bench for all but 17 minutes per game?
You can’t miss her. She’s looking uncomfortable in protective facial gear that either hinders her breathing or her peripheral vision, her only options to protect the torn septum she suffered in a victory over the Las Vegas Aces last month.
She’s the one with the 6-8 wingspan who’s averaging 9.2 points, 4.3 rebounds and 1.5 blocks while shooting 52.1% from the field in her limited minutes.
She’s still Cameron Brink. Between fouls, she’s fluid and fast and covers more of the court than almost anyone in the WNBA, able to leap from defending guards to centers in a single bound.
“It’s just looking at every day as a new opportunity to learn and grow and not getting too bogged down when things don’t go exactly as you planned,” Brink told me. “Because more times than not, things are not going to go how you want them to. And that’s life. So I just want to be able to put my best effort out there every single night.
She knows what the Sparks need from her: “To perform, just come on the floor and compete.”
To prove she can stay on the floor to compete.
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When will Team USA lose in the 2026 FIFA World Cup? Or, will it not lose at all?
Let’s check out the odds for the Americans’ stage of elimination at FanDuel Sportsbook, as of June 11.
Team USA — Stage of elimination odds
Last 32: +170 (bet $10 to win $27 total)
Last 16: +220 (bet $10 to win $32 total)
Group stage: +500 (bet $10 to win $60 total)
Quarterfinals: +500 (bet $10 to win $60 total)
Semifinals: +1200 (bet $10 to win $130 total)
Runner-up: +2800 (bet $10 to win $290 total)
Outright winner: +6000 (bet $10 to win $610 total)
This page may contain affiliate links to legal sports betting partners. If you sign up or place a wager, FOX Sports may be compensated. Read more about Sports Betting on FOX Sports.
The outlook appears to be … ho-hum?
If the odds ring true, the Americans are expected to make it out of the group stage but fall in the first knockout stage game.
How would that result stack up against previous results? Well, at the 2022 World Cup, Team USA made it to the Round of 16, which was viewed as a stellar accomplishment.
The U.S. men’s national team currently has 60-1 odds to lift the 2026 FIFA World Cup trophy this summer (Photo by Omar Vega/USSF/Getty Images).
In 2018, the USA did not qualify for the World Cup, and in 2014 and 2010, the Americans also made it to the Round of 16. Their best result this century occurred in 2002, when the Americans made it all the way to the quarterfinals before being eliminated.
In 1998, Team USA lost in the group stage, in 1994, it fell in the Round of 16, and in 1990, it also fell in the group stage.
With the expanded World Cup format, 32 teams will advance to the knockout stage (out of 48), giving teams a much better chance of getting out of the group stage than in previous tournaments. In past years, only 50% of the field advanced to the knockout round, but now 66.6% of teams will move on.
With that being said, anything less than a knockout round appearance on home soil would be viewed as a major failure this summer for Team USA.
The second result on the oddsboard is the “Last 16,” meaning the USA would make it out of the group stage and win one knockout stage game, before falling in the second knockout stage game. The third result is that the Americans failed to make it out of the group stage, and the fourth is that they made it to the quarterfinals, meaning they won two knockout stage games.
Making the semis, losing in the championship game and winning the championship are the three results with the longest odds.
The U.S. begins its World Cup journey on Friday as the Stars and Stripes face Paraguay at Los Angeles Stadium. Getting off to a fast start in the group is crucial for the team’s World Cup dreams of making a deep run this summer.
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