No one knows how much money Patriots coach Bill Belichick makes, for various reasons. First, the Patriots don’t want everyone to know the extent to which they’re blowing up the curve with Belichick’s salary package. Second, Belichick doesn’t want anyone to know his business, ever. Third, Belichick’s agent is surely under strict orders not to run his mouth about Belichick’s pay, even if it could help the agent attract other clients.
Against a reality of super-secrecy, the belief as of a year or two ago was that Belichick is making roughly $12.5 million per year. If that’s what he’s getting, he’s underpaid, by at least 50 percent.
Raiders quarterback Derek Carr currently makes $25 million per year. If a franchise had to choose between Carr or Belichick at $25 million, it’s a no-brainer. Belichick, especially at this stage of his career, has proven that he knows how to master the delicate balance of coaching (in all contexts) and personnel management and all of the other things that an effective NFL franchise must do in order to compete, year in and year out.
Yes, it helps to have Tom Brady. But if Belichick didn’t have Tom Brady, he’d find another guy who would play nearly as well as Tom Brady. And Belichick would find a way to make up for any dip in quarterback play through whatever adjustments he’d need to make.
Belichick will definitely be earning whatever money he makes in 2018, when he replaces both coordinators and, possibly (but not likely), quarterback Tom Brady, whose wife could say after six Super Bowl wins and the concussions she publicly fretted about in May, “Enough.”
Still, great NFL coaches definitely don’t get paid what they are worth in relation to the salary cap and player compensation, and unless Belichick already is making $25 million per year (he’s surely not), he’s grossly underpaid.
That theory may not get a chance to be proven (or disproven) until Brady finally retires. Still, if Belichick sticks around into his 80s (which owner Bob Kraft said 10 months he’d like to see), the Patriots likely will continue to contend far more frequently than they don’t.
