Weekend Reflections: Good thing Falcons passed on Bill Belichick

The Falcons interviewed Bill Belichick last year before they hired Raheem Morris as coach. Team owner Arthur Blank said he never offered Belichick the job. Good thing, because if Belichick had accepted, then Blank would be stuck with a washed-up legend like North Carolina is now.

Belichick already had shown signs of losing it before he left the Patriots. Now there is no doubt that he just doesn’t have it anymore. The Tar Heels were embarrassed by Dabo Swinney’s worst Clemson team Saturday. That was a week after they were embarrassed by Central Florida and a month after they were embarrassed by TCU.

See the pattern? Breaking it would seem to require major changes to Belichick’s approach, he told reporters that’s not the case.

“The main thing we need to do is to keep doing what we’re doing but do them better,” Belichick said.

A senseless answer like that didn’t matter when Belichick was winning Super Bowls with the Patriots. It hits differently now that he’s a losing coach for the Tar Heels. It wasn’t even the most myopic statement to come out of Belichick’s program in the last week.

Did Belichick and Lombardi miss the past decade of college football? It’s wild that they are complaining about money and the transactional nature of recruiting. That should give the NFL lifers an edge. And when did recruits ever care about colors and shoes when picking a place to play football?

You could say that all this means Belichick just isn’t cut out for college, and that he might be doing fine in the NFL. But he was 29-38 from 2020 to 2023 with the Patriots and 0-1 in the playoffs. The coaching part also isn’t going so great for Belichick and his UNC staff (the group includes two Belichicks and a Lombardi because he brought nepotism with him from the NFL).

Belichick once was revered for his ability to plug new players into his system every year and keep on winning. Now he’s saying he needs four-year players to do it. Belichick’s Patriots had great teams with relatively ordinary players around Tom Brady. Now his Tar Heels are losing games to unranked teams by margins that can’t be explained by the player-talent disparity.

Georgia Tech emerges as top threat to Miami in ACC

Virginia won at Louisville on Saturday, but the Cavaliers needed two defensive touchdowns and a botched field-goal attempt to make it to overtime. Florida State got handled by Miami (pay no attention to the 28-22 final score). That leaves Georgia Tech as the top threat to the Hurricanes in the ACC.

The Yellow Jackets (5-0, 2-0 ACC) were idle over the weekend, but moved up four spots to No. 13 in the AP poll. Miami (5-0, 1-0) is No. 2, and Virginia (5-1, 3-0) is No. 19. The Hurricanes are so good they might avoid their usual stumble, but Virginia’s good luck will run out at some point.

The Jackets won’t face Miami or Virginia during the regular season. They might see one of them in the ACC championship game if they handle their business.

The toughest ACC games left for Tech appear to be road contests against Duke (4-2, 3-0) and North Carolina State (4-2, 1-2). I don’t see North Carolina State keeping up with the Jackets or Duke stopping them if Tech plays to its potential. That’s no sure thing, as we saw in Wake Forest.

But Tech quarterback Haynes King knows how to win ugly, and the defense is better than it’s been in a long while. I’m thinking Tech’s first-half performance at Wake Forest was a one-off. The Jackets played poorly and escaped town with a lucky win. Now, they have a clear path to the conference title game.

Raiders mismanage Brock Bowers

Lots of great NFL prospects don’t pan out because they get drafted by the wrong team. It seemed ex-Georgia star Brock Bowers might overcome the lousy luck of going to one of the league’s most dysfunctional organizations. Alas, Bowers may not be able to avoid falling victim to the Raiders’ uncanny ability to mismanage everything.

Bowers missed a game for the first time as a professional Sunday. The Raiders kept running Bowers out there after he suffered a knee injury in Week 1 even though he obviously wasn’t right.

ESPN reported that Bowers has been playing with a damaged PCL and bone bruise in his left knee: “Doctors have said the only way for Bowers to recover from the knee injuries is to rest, which he has been unwilling to do, the sources said.”

If coach Pete Carroll decides that Bowers shouldn’t play, then he wouldn’t. At least that’s how it goes in sound organizations. The possibility that Bowers is calling the shots on whether he plays with an injury is classic Raiders.

If the Raiders had put Bowers on injured reserve after Week 1, then he could be getting ready to come back healthy this week or later. Instead, the Raiders got three lackluster games from a hobbled Bowers and now he may have to miss more time. The Raiders continue to make a mockery out of their “commitment to excellence” motto.

The Raiders got it right by drafting Bowers with the No. 13 overall pick in 2024. He set rookie records for receptions by any player and for receiving yards by a tight end. In true Raiders fashion, they are doing their best to mess up one of the few good things they have going.

WNBA’s commissioner is flailing

I wonder if WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert wishes she still were relatively anonymous. More people know who she is now, and their impression can’t be good after so many of the league’s prominent players have ripped her. I don’t even recall MLB players going this hard after Bud Selig.

Lynx superstar Napheesa Collier said last week that the WNBA has “the worst leadership in the world.” Collier blasted the league’s poor officiating. She alleged that Engelbert told her that Indiana All-Star Caitlin Clark “should be grateful” for whatever salary she gets because of the platform the WNBA provides for off-court deals.

“If the players in the ‘W’ don’t feel appreciated and valued by the league, then we have to do better, and I have to do better,” Engelbert said.