Report: Commanders considered Bill Belichick, despite the denials

We initially caught wind during the 2023 season of rumors linking then-Patriots coach Bill Belichick to the Commanders. The Commanders mobilized to shout down such talk.

Then, as the regular season was coming to a conclusion, we said that new owner Josh Harris is "enamored" with the idea of Belichick being the coach, but only the coach — not someone fully in charge of the team. Again, the Commanders put the denial cycle in overdrive.

Now, on the day the Commanders hired Dan Quinn to coach the team, Dianna Russini of TheAthletic.com posted this on X: "During the hiring process in Washington, Bill Belichick was considered for the job, per sources. The Commanders spoke with him and he had support from some decision makers."

If they haven't already scrambled the unnamed-sources jets to shoot down such talk, they surely will. But the talk was there. The interest quite possibly was there, too.

But, again, it would be awkward to have Belichick coaching the team and not running it. In D.C., he would have been working for new G.M. Adam Peters, who was a low-level grunt for six years in New England, when Belichick ruled the roost. How could Peters properly supervise someone with Belichick's cachet, reputation, and demeanor?

The Commanders were committed to a strong-G.M. model. Hiring Belichick to coach the team and to work for the G.M. would have been delicate at best, dysfunctional at worst.

So, if the latest report is accurate, they considered pursuing him before deciding not to do so. Instead, they apparently pursued Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson, but they were unable to close the deal. At that point, they pivoted to former Falcons coach and Cowboys defensive coordinator Dan Quinn.

The Commanders will surely claim that Quinn was the first choice all along. Even if that's true, Washington didn't spend nearly as much time pushing back on the widespread belief that Johnson was the choice as it did aggressively disputing any and all potential connections to Belichick.

They still might see him, in time. By next year, the Commanders could end up facing Belichick twice per year, especially with each of the other three NFC East franchises plausibly linked to him for 2025.