Bill Belichick and the New England Patriots were the team in the NFL during the veteran coach’s 24-year reign over the team. But as revered as he was in the league, he was notoriously tight-lipped. He was infamous for giving as little as possible to the media, and because of his control over the team’s workings, not much came out of there either. For those in the media, getting the Patriots beat might make their career, or turn them away from the team completely.

“Covering [Bill] Belichick f-cking sucks,” former Patriots and now Saints insider, Nick Underhill, said on the In The Bayou podcast. “You’re in that locker room, and it’s just like no one’s saying s–t. It’s f-g hard, man. It was miserable.”

Underhill joined The Athletic in March 2019 and was assigned to cover the New England Patriots. But getting news out of the franchise is a true test for those working in this beat. The late Bruce Allen, who used to cover the Patriots, wrote in 2005 that in Belichick’s early years with the team, he “insisted” on being the “voice of the team.” Access to coaches and players was reduced. Even team owner Bob Kraft, who used to appear frequently for the media at that time, dialed down his presence. Boston Globe’s Chris Gasper said that Belichick ultimately “wanted to control the narrative.”

Over time, only New England reporters who had braved being iced out by Belichick have been able to survive. And, one had to be judicious when it came to covering the coach in particular. Boston Globe’s Joe Sullivan also said that Belichick wasn’t exactly “forthcoming.”

“I don’t even know if we should use a lot of Belichick quotes because they’re not genuine,” he told WBUR in 2017. “They are misleading… ‘It is what it is’ should not be used in the Globe because it means nothing.”

Fans would know how frequently they could expect the legendary coach to utter that phrase when he was speaking to the media. Another such phrase was ‘On to Cincinnati,’ which went viral in 2015 after the Patriots suffered a humiliating 14-41 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs. He uttered those words five times in the press conference that followed. Belichick later responded that he would have done so “103 times” if reporters kept pressing him about the game, because New England had “turn the page.” The Patriots did not win the Super Bowl that year.

Even though Bill Belichick struggled in his final years at New England, his hold on the team remained tight. But at the University of North Carolina, where he is now the head football coach, the media were having a field day almost every other day.

Bill Belichick’s hot-and-cold showing in the media as North Carolina’s HC was worth noting

Underhill might not have gotten much out of New England. But had he been assigned to cover the North Carolina Tar Heels, things might have been different. Here, Belichick doesn’t get to wield as much power because this is a public university. And, he’d also ramped up his presence in the media, because college football was a whole new avenue for him.

ESPN’s Tim Keown wrote last year that it caught him off guard when Belichick offered to answer a few more questions at a post-game conference, after the press liaison had signaled the end. Reporters had been getting the Patriots treatment here as well in the past, because Belichick used to be “intentionally vague when he’s not being intentionally obvious.” But coming after his second straight conference win after that game, the press caught Belichick in a good mood.

Earlier, North Carolina football was set to be featured on a docuseries on Hulu. The head coach himself was making appearances on networks to promote a new book he’d written. 2025 was a crucial year for him, especially because of the way he had been snubbed by other NFL teams after he had split from the Patriots. He’d had a lot to prove. However, this shift was short-lived.

Reporters were busy covering how North Carolina collapsed under Belichick’s first year. But as those losses grew, Belichick was back to giving them very little in press conferences. The Hulu series was axed, and the book promotion turned into a PR crisis after his partner, Jordon Hudson, became the root of a controversy at an interview with CBS Sports. Still, the media here has it much easier than the press in Boston, because stories come out of the football program far more frequently than the Patriots.