Bill Belichick has been warned he is 'at the end of the road' when it comes to getting another head coach role in the NFL.
The 71-year-old left the New England Patriots after 24 seasons in January and NFL analyst Marc Ross doubts he will get another job.
Belichick is set for his first season not on the coaching team of an NFL side in decades after his exit from the Patriots.
He was linked with an immediate return to the sport, reportedly having multiple interviews with the Atlanta Falcons.
Bill Belichick has been warned he won't get another head coach job in the NFL
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But an agreement seemingly could not be reached, while all other head coach vacancies have now been filled ahead of the 2024 season.
Belichick does harbour hopes of being a head coach again while conceding that he will likely have to wait until 2025 for that opportunity.
However, Ross has his doubts as to whether that chance will come again for the six-time Super Bowl winner.
Ross instead reckons Belichick could be offered the chance to be a defensive coordinator, a position he last held at the New York Jets between 1997 and 1999.
He told TMZ: "As far as a head coach, yeah, I think this might be the end of the road for him.
"If he wants to take a step back and be a coordinator, that might be something down the line.
"We’ve seen great head coaches go be coordinators at other places, but will he want to do that? That’s the situation for him.
"What really happened was it was Bill Belichick the name and rings and you can’t dismiss what he’s done in the league.
"But when you’re a team and looking at all the different factors about bringing him in there, that throws a lot of things out of whack for you and you're saying 'Do we really want to take this on? We're going in a different direction'.
"And the way he goes about running an organisation, is that the way we want to do it?
"So unfortunately the head coaching career could be over for Belichick but there may be something on the cards for him if he wants to do that."
Belichick's son Stephen said last month that his father was enjoying his time away from the NFL.
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Bill Belichick was head coach for the New England Patriots for 24 seasons
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He suggested that Belichick could be set for a role as a TV analyst for the new season.
Stephen told the Green Light podcast: "I think he’s good. Let the stuff roll off your back and move forward.
"He doesn’t dwell, unless we lost a game and he needs to get on some guys. Eventually, you need to turn the page.
"Honestly I wasn’t too involved in any of that stuff, he did his thing, I did my thing and that was kind of that.
Bill Belichick left the New England Patriots in January
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"He’s definitely pursuing some other stuff, whether it’s TV or hopefully a regular on the Green Light or whatever it may be.
"His hobbies would still be to, let’s say, critique football. The guy just loves football, so there’s definitely that element.
"He does, obviously in Nantucket, whether it's swimming, paddleboarding, biking, all that type of stuff on the island, he does that stuff. Maybe have a couple of cocktails, I don't know."