It’s done, the deal is sealed. No more Bill Belichick to Cowboys or Jaguars rumors. The 6x Super Bowl-winning head coach was toying with the idea of getting back to coaching, but never in a million years did people think that he’d take up a college coaching job. Tom Brady, Julian Edelman, and Rob Gronkowski didn’t see it coming for sure. But here we are.

Belichick is now finalizing the deal with UNC to be their head coach. This has caused a massive upsurge in the football world, rightfully so. But even after years of departure, Tom Brady was among the first ones to let his head coach know that he still admires him to this day.

Brady reposted UNC Chapel Hill’s post about hiring the multi-championship-winning coach and decided to give his old coach a shoutout. “Congrats Coach,” Brady captioned the repost on his IG Story. But it looks like this UNC gig is more than a job to Bill Belichick. His father was the assistant coach for UNC in the 1950s, so there are some sentiments involved for sure. Talk about keeping the family business alive.

Anyway, Brady was convinced that “The Tar Heel way is about to become a thing.” Whether “Tar Heel way” becomes a thing or not, Belichick’s commanding presence is sure to get the attention of the locker room. Per The Athletic, UNC is paying the former New England Patriots coach $30 million for 3 years. Belichick has what he wanted all along. How?

Turns out UNC has bumped up their NIL pool from $4 million to $20 million, which essentially means that Belichick will have more flexibility when recruiting new players. The Tar Heels suffered this season and finished it on a 6-6 note. They’ll be up against UConn at the Wasabi Fenway Bowl. However, Belichick doesn’t begin coaching the Tar Heels till next year, so he has plenty of time to get in the right head space.

“I grew up around college football with my dad and treasured those times,” Belichick said as part of a release announcing the move. “I have always wanted to coach in college and now I look forward to building the football program in Chapel Hill.” UNC hasn’t won an ACC Championship since 1980 and in hiring Belichick, maybe they can change that.

Here we are, talking about the 6x Super Bowl-winning coach building a college roster and winning championships. But the idea of him being a college coach sounded funny to Tom Brady and the rest of his former Patriots squad. Oh, how the tables have turned.

Tom Brady had the FOX panel in stitches

Brady, Gronk, and Edelman were hosting Fox’s pre-game coverage over the weekend and the conversation shifted to Bill Belichick reviving his career. Tom Brady started on a lighter note, praising Belichick, and then segued to saying that his former coach will have a hard time dealing with recruiting college athletes. This conversation was too hard for Edelman and Gronk to resist.

“Can you imagine NIL, and all that nonsense?” Gronkowski chimed in before Edelman added: “Can you imagine Bill on a couch recruiting an 18-year-old?” Something flipped in Brady, and he decided that it was the best time to showcase his acting skills on live TV. He did the next best thing he could do on live TV: Impersonate his ex-head coach.

“Listen, do you really want to come here? I mean we don’t really want you anyway, but I guess you could come. We’ll figure out if you play,” Brady quipped and had the whole room of FOX panelists cracking up. Well, it doesn’t seem as funny now because, by next year, Belichick could be using the same verbiage to hire young talent at UNC (just kidding).

Belichick’s girlfriend, Jordon Isabella Hudson, also congratulated the UNC head coach. “We are onto Chapel Hill,” Hudson wrote in her IG Story. The third-winningest coach in the history of the NFL has the support of everyone around him. There might be a period of adjustment between him and UNC, but this new beginning might be the next best thing: both for Chapel Hill and for Belichick.