Jerry Jones' Cowboys dream is officially dead after stunning Bill Belichick news

Exciting news: new Bill Belichick reporting has emerged. And just in time to distract us from a week of conversations about the Carolina Panthers! (Unless you're ironically stoked for the worst football game you'll watch all year, which is a totally acceptable answer.)

RELATED: It sure sounds like Jerry Jones is ready to fire a respected Cowboys coach

After a long, weirdly-confident stretch of time where it felt like the Cowboys and Bill Belichick were headed on a collision course for one another this offseason, we've (probably) got our answer: it's not happening.

According to Inside Carolina – and a bunch of other plugged-in college football reporters – Belichick is headed to Chapel Hill to be the new football coach at the University of North Carolina. No, I'm not joking. It's real, it's happening, and it's just as weird to say out loud as we all thought it would be.

Bill Belichick is reportedly close to becoming the University of North Carolina's football coach

"In a stunning development that has progressed from implausible to an actuality, North Carolina is finalizing a contract to land Bill Belichick as its next football coach,Inside Carolina learned from multiple sources on Wednesday ... UNC's Board of Trustees is working on putting together an emergency meeting to approve Belichick's contract, according to sources."

So that's that. Here, on this very blog post, is where the Belichick-Cowboys rumors have officially been laid to rest.

The fit didn't really ever make that much sense – Belichick clearly values his autonomy, and I can't think of an NFL coach who has less of that than whoever's on Dallas' sidelines. His clashes with Jerry Jones were treated as inevitable, which is not exactly the vibe you're looking for before you even hire a coach. Frankly, the Cowboys weren't even the most obvious choice for Belichick in their own division.

Still: pour one out for all those photoshopped videos of Belichick in a Cowboys' hoodie. Think about all the pointless non-answers we're all missing out on. Who will spend 10 minutes breaking down Trent Sieg's longsnapping now?! I will, however, shed a few tears thinking about how we could have had the most incredibly awkward 1-2 combo of postgame interviews with Jones/Belichick, but after that we're moving on Kliff Kingsbury, Joe Brady, and Aaron Glenn.

If Carolina wants to deal with a grumpy senior citizen who's consistently critical of his team's efforts, I say Cowboys fans let them; Dallas doesn't need two of those.

More Cowboys news and analysis