this story rings a bell?
The film shows an Associated Press story from 1984 that said Belichick had accepted the job as Minnesota’s defensive backfield coach and then “changed his mind” and turned down the position. Steckel said Belichick had been offered the job as defensive coordinator and also would work with the defensive backs.
“I knew Bill was an extremely bright guy,” said Steckel, who first met Belichick when Steckel was on Navy’s coaching staff in 1977 along with Belichick’s father, Steve. “So I told him I wanted to hire him as the defensive coordinator.”
“He said he wanted to meet with several more people in the organization, and here’s the punch line that no one knows about. He went back to his hotel room that night and he said he just wanted to mull things over. The plan was we were going to meet with Bill at 8 a.m. the next day and talk about salary and those things. I thought it was a done deal.“
“Then at 6 o’clock the next morning, I was up and ready to go to the office and Bill calls me. He says, ‘Les, I need to tell you something. I’m at the airport and I’m going home ’ I say, ‘But Bill, we haven’t even had a chance to sit down and talk yet.’ He said, ‘Les, I’ve talked to several people in the building and I would just like to say to you that you had better be alert, you had better be aware. I just don’t have a good feeling, Les.’ ”
Steckel tried to get Belichick to say who he had spoken with and why he had an uneasy feeling.
“He just said, ‘Hopefully, you’ll see,’ ” Steckel sad. “He said, ‘I don’t want to go any further, and I have to go catch this flight.’ And that was it.”
To this day, Steckel isn’t sure why Belichick turned down the job and who he spoke with at Winter Park. He does know he talked with then-general manger Mike Lynn, who would fire Steckel a year later.
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On the ESPN film, Belichick said he considered taking a job as a Minnesota assistant because there was uncertainty surrounding the future of Parcells, who was 3-12-1 in his first season coaching the Giants.
“(The Vikings) called me and they said, ‘Would you be interested in coming up here and working for the Vikings?’ ” Belichick said. “And so I talked to Bill, and Bill said, ‘You know what, we’re on shaky ground here. If you want to go, go ahead; do what you want to do.’ ”
Belichick told ESPN the interview “was good” in Minnesota but that his loyalty to Parcells is why he decided to remain with the Giants.
“That probably is what made me want to stay more than anything,” Belichick told ESPN. “And so I came back and said Bill, ‘I’m not going to Minnesota and I want to be here and I want to do everything I can to make this work.’ ”
Belichick became the Giants’ defensive coordinator in 1985 and helped them win Super Bowls with Parcells following the 1986 and 1990 seasons.
