Bill O’Brien explains why he turned down a more lucrative offer for his first NFL job under Bill Belichick

"I was the idiot that took the job for $55,000."

Before he became head coach of the Boston College football program, Bill O’Brien spent more than a decade coaching as an assistant at various colleges including Brown, Georgia Tech, and Duke.

The Dorchester native’s first NFL job came in 2007 on Bill Belichick’s Patriots staff as an offensive assistant. He was hired as an offensive assistant after turning down a more lucrative offer from the Saints.

“This won’t surprise you at all,” O’Brien told Julian Edelman during a recent episode of Games With Names. “The Saints were going to pay me like $120,000, the Texans about $120,000 and Bill was like ‘I can pay you 55.’ I was like ‘I’ll take that job.'”

“I was the idiot that took the job for like $55,000,” O’Brien added. “My wife looked at me like ‘what?’ and I said, ‘this is a great opportunity, we’ve got to do this Colleen.'”

The move paid off. O’Brien stayed with the Patriots for four seasons during his first stint with the team, eventually rising to offensive coordinator before landing his first college head coaching job at Penn State.

He had a lengthy stint as head coach of the Texans before returning to the Patriots as offensive coordinator under Belichick last season and ultimately landing at Boston College.

Needless to say, he’s making a lot more than $55,000 these days.

O’Brien interviewed with the Patriots years before he took his first job with the team. He recalled his first job interview with Belichick, which came shortly after the Patriots won their first Super Bowl.

“That was a very interesting interview,” O’Brien said. “I’ll never forget it. The very first question he asked me, he said ‘teach me the quarterback-center exchange.’ Right off the bat, I had to get up and teach. I was like ‘OK’ and then it was like ‘OK, empty’, tell me about your empty protection and then it was ‘hey, here’s this situation with a player, how would you deal with it?’ A lot of different areas of football.”

O’Brien didn’t take that particular job, but he made his way back to New England a couple of times. He’s off to a good start in his new gig at BC, leading the Eagles to a 3-1 record including 2-0 in the ACC.