AsylumGuido

I don't think any trade would be required. I have a feeling his days in New England are already over. I am now of the school that sees his success was tied completely to the presence of Tom Brady. His record without Brady is currently sitting at 68-90. He has only made the post-season twice sans Brady with a record of 1-2.

BakoSaint

That is a popular way of thinking but it ignores A LOT of data. The Patriots went 11-5 with Matt Cassell. The Browns had an 11-5 season with Belichick and won a playoff game. The 6 years the Patriots won the Super Bowl, their defense ranked top 10 in least points allowed every time, ranks #1 twice and #2 once. They also ranked top 10 in turnover ratio all 6 of those years, top 3 three of those years. Brady helped with the turnover ratio but there were lots of teams with star QBs, some of whom committed less turnovers than Brady, that did not rank so well. Belichick had the Patriots getting lots of turnovers on D and having great ball security on RB, WR, special teams, etc that is not Tom Brady. Belichick found and developed many unexpected stars like Welker, Edelman, Gronk, etc and kept the team contending consistently by knowing when to say when on big contracts and trading players when they still had value.

It is not completely fair to compare what Brady and Belichick accomplished together after their split. Brady left New England to join a team with another respected head coach and lots of cap space to immediately get the pieces he needed. If Belichick had left New England and took over a team with a proven QB and lots of cap space to build around him, coached 3 more years, and retired, its reasonable to think he could have won another ring and some division crowns and sailed off into the sunset. Instead he stayed on with New England which finally ran out of cap trying to get Brady a 7th ring and had no proven QB and lacked the cap room or draft assets to get a sure thing at QB. So Belichick had to gamble at QB picked the wrong rookies and vets. But lets say Belichick had gone to the Saints in 2020 with Payton electing to retire or move on to Dallas? Would it have been that shocking if a better playoff coach put us over the edge and we wont it all that year over Tampa who we beat twice in the regular season?

The argument that Belichick is nothing special as a coach is also ridiculous because it could be used with equal effect to say Michael Jordan was not a good basketball player. Before Phil Jackson arrived, Jordan could not consistently win and was not successful in the playoffs. Together they won 6 championships. After they split, Jordan accomplished nothing with the Wizards. In his next stop, Phil Jackson won a bunch of rings. Michael Jordan's record without Phil Jackson is poor. Phil Jackson's record without Michael Jordan is strong. But realistically, both were all time greats, and Phil Jackson just left for greener pastures and set himself up to win again while Michael Jordan tried to be a one man show and needed a supporting cast. Obviously if Jordan had come out of retirement to play with Shaq and Kobe and another decent respectable coach and Phil Jackson had tried to coach Kwame Brown to a ring, the circumstances would have been reversed.

So, I don't believe in the revisionist theory that Belichick was a hack. He did too much that other coaches with franchise QBs did not. His defenses were a big part of it. His rosters were a big part of it.

But, Belichick is old. Aging effects coaches too. They can get less sharp with age. They can become less able to adapt to changing styles of play. Belichick was never great at identifying traditional #1 receivers or RB's and made up for it by finding the best slot receivers and TEs, but now the rest of the league has caught up and he can't get amazing slot receivers cheap anymore, so his offenses struggle. He had a lot of good assistant coaches and always found new ones, but now he got so comfortable that he just recycles the old ones and lacks new ideas. So I think Belichick is great, but may be washed. Still, he is better than Dennis Allen who never went 11-5 with anyone, much less with Matt Cassell.

I think it may be time for Belichick to transition to a GM role. I would take him as GM over Loomis even if I am not sure it would work. Paired with Ireland they might be able to relive the Patriots success while also having some idea what a good head coach looks like. But I don't think Belichick is the best head coach at this point, unless perhaps he goes to a ready-made playoff team that just needs to be able to compete in the big games, and then maybe he is worth a try. I don't fault him for being unable to win with washed Newton and with Jones. Brady was not so great once his star Bucs coach retired and he got the backup. I don't think Brady could have won with a Nathaniel Hackett or Dennis Allen. Brady basically just played a cheat code Belichick didn't have.