I don't know about you, but I have never paid any attention to NFL preseason games -- at least, not until this year. During the two decades of Tom Brady's reign as quarterback in Foxborough, I knew that no matter how the exhibition season went, once the regular season began, the Patriots would be ready to go. After all, I reasoned, preseason games were just glorified practice sessions and didn't count in the final standings.

But this year things are different. This preseason, they have gone through almost all of training camp without naming an offensive coordinator. That's like getting ready to open a show on Broadway without knowing who the director will be. The cast and the leading man (Mac Jones) are in place, but there is no one yet named to tell them what to do. It seems to be a toss up between Matt Patricia, the senior advisor and offensive line coach, and Joe Judge, offensive assistant and quarterback's coach. So far, the early favorite seems to be Patricia because he has been handling Jones's snaps and has the fancier job title. Also, Patricia handled all of the play-calling in the second preseason game against the Carolina Panthers. However, the head coach said his "process" is still on-going, and not to jump to conclusions.

Both candidates have recently come off of unhappy head coach experiences, Patricia with the Detroit Lions from 2018 to 2020 (13-29-1) and Judge with the New York Giants from 2020 to 2021 (10-23), but both were long-time assistants to Bill Belichick before then and they know how the game is played in Foxborough. Rule Number One is that Belichick makes the rules. Patricia and Judge have been deferential to one another and have been especially careful about not criticizing the head coach's "process" in making his decision. Is Belichick genuinely conflicted about who his final choice will be? Is he just playing mind-games with the media (something he's been known to do in the past)? Or is he disguising his real motive, which could be to make himself offensive coordinator and just use one of the others as a front man? Or could it be that he has another plan in mind? He might be conducting auditions prior to making a selection as the next head coach of the New England Patriots. He's not getting any younger, you know.

When the season opens in September, he will be just the fifth coach in league history to still be coaching after reaching the age of 70 (his birthday was April 16). The oldest was Romeo Crennel, a career assistant coach, including at New England under Belichick. When the Houston Texans fired Bill O'Brien after week four of the 2020 season and named Crennel the interim head coach, he became the oldest coach in history at 73 years and 112 days of age. He broke the 53-year record set by George Halas, who was the owner and coach of the Chicago Bears for five decades. Halas was 72 years and 318 days old when he coached his last game in 1967. Then, there is Marv Levy, who coached the Buffalo Bills to four consecutive AFC championships in the 1980s, but never did manage to win a Super Bowl. He was 72 years and four months old when he retired. The fourth member of the over-71-club is Pete Carroll, who turns 71 on Sept. 15. Carroll is, of course, still active, but his Seattle Seahawks had an off-year last season (7-10) and lost quarterback Russell Wilson to the Denver Broncos during the off-season. Not much is expected from them this year and the curtain probably will be coming down on Carroll's career.

That leaves Belichick.

Being a head coach in the National Football League is not an old man's game. It is physically, mentally, and emotionally draining. The head coach must not only watch over his own team, but he must also study video tapes of upcoming opponents, then draw up game plans for facing them, then fulfill his media responsibilities, in which his every word will be carefully examined. That's in addition to putting out any fires that might occur along the way. It all adds up to more than a 100 hours a week every week during the season. It is a small wonder that no one has ever made it very far into his 70s. In some ways, it's less taxing being president of the United States than coaching in the NFL.

The real elephant in the room is that it is not Crennel, Halas, Levy, or even Carroll. They are not who Bill Belichick is chasing. What he's after is the ghost of Don Shula. Shula is the winningest coach in NFL history with 347 of them between the regular season and playoff games. That's the record Belichick wants. It's going to be close. Right now, he stands at 321, but time is running short. Belichick was 39 when he first took over as coach of the Cleveland Browns and suffered four out of five losing seasons there. Shula was only 33 when he became head man with the Baltimore Colts. He was a success from the beginning. He moved on to the Miami Dolphins in 1970, where he stayed for 26 years before retiring in 1995, having broken George Halas's all-time record of 324 wins.

One of the reasons I have been watching preseason games this year is that I am desperately looking for clues as to whether or not Coach Bill will be able to reach his goal of surpassing Shula. After giving the matter serious consideration, I can honestly say that I haven't the foggiest idea. If these were the good old days of the Brady regime in Foxborough, he could have gotten the job done in just two seasons, but the good old days are in the rear view mirror and fading fast. Whichever way it turns out, it's going to be a photo finish.



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