The Let’s Go! podcast from SiriusXM continues this year, without Tom Brady’s weekly involvemen. Instead, his former coach in New England has become one of the regular fixtures of the program.
In the latest episode, Bill Belichick made an interesting suggestion during an interview with Charles Barkley.
“I try to teach our players that all the time, every chance I get, the history of the game, the history of your position, the history of the players that came before you and that paved the way,” Belichick said. “You know, the game just didn’t get great when you walked on the field, and sometimes they need to be reminded of that. When I brought Jim Brown back to Cleveland the first time in ‘92, well ‘91 then he came back in ‘92. And, honestly, the rookies that he talked to didn’t really know who Jim was. I never made that mistake again. I made sure that, before I introduced him, they got a good look at him on the field and off the field and the things that he did not only for the game. . . . So when I have an opportunity to talk to a team, people are gonna learn the history of the game whether they want to or not.”
Then came Belichick’s idea.
“I was having a conversation the other day talking about Jim Brown and I think it’d be a great move for the NFL to retire his number, like baseball did with Jackie [Robinson],” Belichick said.
Despite the fairly common nature of the number, only two teams other than the Browns have retired it: The Giants for Al Blozis and the Steelers for Franco Harris.
Former Brown teammate John Wooten suggested a league-wide remembrance of Brown earlier this year.
Brown died in May 2023. If the push to retire No. 32 in his honor is ever good to get off the ground, it needs influential figures like Belichick to make it happen.
