Before Jason Garrett was named the New York Giants’ new offensive coordinator, he was the head coach of the Dallas Cowboys for a decade. He was well entrenched into he fraternity of NFL head coaches.
That brings the strangest of unities together sometimes. Recently, it’s been reported that Garrett, one of the league’s most frustrating and underachieving head coaches in recent years, has been hanging out with its most successful — New England’s Bill Belichick — in Nantucket this summer.
“Belichick’s affinity for Nantucket, Massachusetts, is well documented, and now that former Cowboys coach and current Giants offensive coordinator Jason Garrett spends time on the island, the two have once again broken bread with each other,” writes Patriots’ beat writer Mike Reiss. “That has continued this summer, which serves up a reminder of how football connects people in different ways. For those keeping track, it’s 76 seasons of professional football between them — Belichick enters his 46th year coaching in the NFL, while Garrett’s playing career spanned 1989-2004, and he has been coaching in the league since 2005.”
The two come from coaching families and have one key ally in common — Nick Saban, who once coached for Belichick in Cleveland and who Garrett worked for in Miami.
“The friendship is not as stunning as it might seem at first glance,” writes SI.com’s Mike Fisher. “Yes, Belichick is widely regarded as one of the best coaches in NFL history, while Garrett is considered an underachiever as a result of his 10-year reign with the Cowboys, which ended this offseason as he was replaced by Mike McCarthy… Garrett, as we’ve said in this space often, is respected inside the NFL coaching fraternity – and it is a small and tight fraternity. Additionally, Belichick and Garrett are both at heart teachers and students, of the game of football and of the game at life.”
Of course “summering” in Nantucket is not an option for the 90% of us plebeians. Both Garrett and Belichick are multi-millionaires who have the financial might to vacation wherever they want.
Garrett was paid $30 million by Jerry Jones over the last five seasons alone. Belichick’s contract details have never been officially disclosed, but he is believed to have a net worth of at least $35 million, but others speculate his salary is in the neighborhood of $12.5 million per year and has been for some time.
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