Bill Belichick's decision to take the head coaching gig for the North Carolina Tar Heels was somewhat surprising, given he had spent his entire coaching career in the NFL.

But as ESPN's Adam Schefter reported during Sunday's SportsCenter, Belichick took the certainty of a job he was offered over the unknown of the NFL coaching market:

"Ultimately in the end, he took the bird in hand. He didn't trust the NFL—that bypassed him last year in favor of some of the coaches hired—to do the right thing and hire him this year. And again, we talked about this other day. You talk about some of these franchises not being well-run, incompetent, relevant, whatever you want to call them. Look what Belichick did for North Carolina. North Carolina Football got more attention this past week than it did in the last 30 years combined because of Belichick. So, if there's an NFL team, any NFL team, that hires Belichick, not only do you get the credibility, but you get the relevancy and everything that comes along with hiring a guy like Belichick."

One of the other surprising factors for Belichick's jump to the college game was that he's just 15 wins away from surpassing Don Shula's record of 347 NFL wins. That would have been quite the achievement to add to his six Super Bowl titles as a head coach.

Not that an eventual return to the NFL would be a surprise, especially given that his contract buyout becomes just $1 million on June 1 (until then, it stands at $10 million). If Belichick doesn't enjoy his first season in Chapel Hill, it won't be hard for him to move on.

Granted, the NFL didn't exactly roll out the red carpet for him in last year's coaching market after he parted ways with the New England Patriots. The only team who formally interviewed him was the Atlanta Falcons, twice, with Schefter noting that "Atlanta bypassed him when there were people around the league who thought that that deal was getting done, and it was tracking to get done until it didn't. And then Washington did have some contact, but was so far down the road with Dan Quinn that it wasn't gonna waver from its stance."

And Belichick also noted in his introductory press conference with North Carolina that he "didn't come here to leave. I feel like doing this a long time. I'm good to go."

"I always wanted to coach in college football, it just never really worked out. I had some good years in the NFL, so that was OK," he added. "But this is really a dream come true. I grew up in college football with my dad and as a kid all I knew was college football. It's great to come back home to Carolina and back into an environment I grew up in."

Time will tell if the North Carolina job sticks. If the NFL comes inquiring in the future, however, it's hard to see Belichick ignoring those overtures completely.