I did something recently that I don't remember ever having done before. Oh sure, maybe I did it years ago when I was much younger, probably did as a matter of fact, but I've long since erased it from my mind. Let's leave it at this -- I did something that I'm certain I have never done before in this century.

It was a Saturday night in January, playoff time in the National Football League. It was the time of year when all the cards were on the table, when they separate the men from boys, when it's win or go home. Crunch time. It was halftime of the showdown rubber match between my favorite team, the New England Patriots, and their archrivals, the Buffalo Bills, when, I confess, I turned off the TV and went to bed.

The Pats were on the receiving end of a fearful shellacking at the hands of the Bills, who had scored touchdowns everytime they got their hands on the ball. The Pats were held to just a measly field goal made just before intermission. The 27 to 3 score didn't begin to tell how one-sided the game was. I wasn't just appalled; it was worse than that. I was bored. And I was tired.

When I got into bed, I didn't toss and turn at the thought of New England's long run of dominance being over. I got that out of my system two seasons ago when they let Tom Brady escape to Tampa Bay. No, I drifted off into the land of Nod almost immediately. I do admit to waking up briefly during the night and checking the final score on my iphone. 47-17, Bills -- no surprise. I put down the phone and fell back to sleep.

As I slept, the clock was ticking on Bill Belichick. On April 16, that's fewer than 60 days from now, he'll be 70 years old. He'll become only the fifth man in NFL history to coach beyond that age. The others were George Halas, Romeo Crennel, Marv Levy, and Pete Carroll. None of them did particularly well in his 70s. Carroll, 70, still active with the Seattle Seahawks, finished the 2021 season with a record of seven wins and 10 losses and out of the playoffs, well below what he's been used to. When Crennel was named interim head coach of the Houston Texans in October 2020, he became, at 73, the oldest coach in league history. He finished the season at four and eight before retiring. Halas quit in 1967 after 40 years of coaching the Chicago Bears. He was also the team's founder and owner, so he had job security. In his last season, he went 10 and six. Levy, who led Buffalo to four straight Super Bowls in the early 90s, but lost them all, went just three and 13 at age 71, his final season. Does Belichick have enough time left in his career to build another genuine Super Bowl contender? Will he have the energy to do it?

Perhaps just as important in his own mind is his quest to surpass Don Shula's record of 347 coaching victories in the NFL. Belichick's total now stands at 321, but what once looked like his inevitable succession to the title of winningest coach in NFL history seems to be in question. If he can average nine wins a year for the next three years, he'll have barely caught Shula, and the record will be his. There was a time not so long ago when nine wins a season would have been a snap for the mighty Patriots. Fifteen wins or more were the norm, but the Patriots are no longer mighty. For the last two years, they have not met the goal of averaging nine wins a season (seven in 2020, 10 in 2021). If they should continue at that pace, Belichick would not catch Shula after three seasons but would be forced into a fourth year when he would be in his mid-70s.

We should also bear in mind the enormous physical toll that coaching in the NFL takes on its practitioners. Between managing the players on the roster, game planning for next week's opponent, fulfilling their media responsibilities, and putting out fires, 14-hour workdays are the norm, seven days a week; that's just about 100 hours a week with no days off during the season. It takes tenacity and stamina, both of which begin to wane as one ages. Bill Belichick is a tough guy, really tough, but is he tough enough to last through all that?

Then there is the matter of his boss, Bob Kraft. He's 80 now and wants more than anything to be back on top, not in the middle of the pack. Kraft is enormously grateful for everything Belichick has done for the franchise, for all the championships he has brought to Foxborough. But he is also aware that Belechick is the guy who let Tom Brady, Kraft's surrogate son and the face of his team, get away to Tampa Bay; and that the Buccaneers have since become the new Patriots and the Patriots have become also-rans. How patient will Kraft be? Will he be willing to tolerate a half decade of mediocrity while his coach pursues a personal goal? Or will he pull the trigger?

On the other hand, will Bill Belichick do what he has done all his career? Will he prove all his critics wrong and return the Patriots to prominence? Will Mac Jones be the quarterback of the future as he appeared to be at times this year? Or will he turn out to be just another guy as he seemed at other times? Will Bill Belichick reach his goal of becoming the winningest coach in NFL history?

I wouldn't bet against him. But I'm not sure how much I'd be willing to risk.

- Dick Flavin is a New York Times bestselling author; the Boston Red Sox "Poet Laureate" and The Pilot's recently minted Sports' columnist.