Steve Belichick reflects on leaving Pats, separating himself from Bill

After spending 12 seasons on the Patriots’ coaching staff under his father, former head coach Bill Belichick, Steve Belichick is making a name for himself out west.

The 37-year-old Belichick joined the University of Washington’s coaching staff as the Huskies’ defensive coordinator in Feb. Prior to accepting his new role, Belichick wore several different hats with New England dating back to his first season in 2012-13: Defensive assistant, safeties coach, defensive backs coach, and outside linebackers coach.

Belichick will coach under Huskies head coach Jedd Fisch, who’s also entering his first season there, this college football season. Fisch served as the Patriots’ quarterbacks coach during the 2020-21 season.

In an interview with The Athletic’s Jeff Howe, Belichick explained his decision to leave New England and take his position with Washington. He said that he wasn’t actively looking for a new job elsewhere this past winter.

“I wasn’t eager to leave (the Patriots) or anything like that,” Belichick said. “You just keep your options open. Stuff happens. We all have different reasons for (taking different jobs), but it just felt right.

“It kind of happened organically. It’s cool to be out here. It’s weird how it happened. Everything fell into place, and I’m pumped to be out here.”

New England’s first-year head coach Jerod Mayo, who Belichick coached as a defensive assistant from 2012-15, hired Drew Wilkins as the Patriots’ new outside linebackers coach to replace Belichick. Wilkins previously held the same role with the New York Giants.

As Belichick experiences his first coaching position without his father alongside him, he discussed how he’s never felt like he’s had to separate himself from Bill Belichick. He’s learned a lot from the elder Belichick, but he views himself as his own person.

“I’ve never looked at it like that, like I’m living under a shadow,” Belichick said. “I’m always going to be myself. He’s my dad. He plays an enormous role in my life — in my profession, in everything I do in life as a father, as a husband, all that stuff. I’ve never really seen it like that. I’m not like, ‘Oh, I don’t have to live in his shadow anymore.’ I’ve never thought of it like that, whether it was now or a year ago or five years ago.”

Bill Belichick is keeping busy despite not coaching in the NFL for the first time in nearly five decades. The elder Belichick recently announced that he’s joining Underdog Fantasy to host and co-produce a new football show titled “Coach, with Bill Belichick.” He is also slated to make appearances with “The Pat McAfee Show,” “Inside the NFL,” and ESPN’s “Manningcast” this NFL season.

Steve Belichick said, however, he and his father remain close and talk to each other a lot despite living about 3,000 miles apart. He added that they, plus Fisch, communicate with each other about football as Week 1 approaches.

“He’s got a little more time on his hands, so maybe it’s more or less (involvement),” Belichick said of keeping in touch with Bill Belichick on a football coaching basis. “I guess you can say he’s helping me less just because I’m not in the building every day and we’re across the country from each other, but I talk to him very frequently, just like I think I would if he wasn’t a football coach.”