A poster on IC went through Belichick's contract and tried to find all the places that he could be fired "with cause". Most of it, in my opinion, was much ado about nothing, but I did find one contract stipulation interesting in this regard...
"Cultivate and maintain effective relations with students, faculty, staff, and friends of the University, promote academic integrity of the institution, and refrain from actions that bring material reputational harm or public ridicule upon the University or the Coach."
To me, the underlined could be in play here. Could Coach Belichick with his nepotism hires, his very public relationship with a woman 50 years his junior and the repeated "scandals" that have resulted, and the now leaking reports of dissension within the program have created a situation where he has brought "material reputational harm or public ridicule upon the University or the Coach"? I think we might be in range of it being a plausible claim.
And I'm not sure it would have to hold up in court if it could be used to get Belichick (and staff?) to take significant buyout reductions to agree to go away somewhat quietly. Given where we are now (and assuming things do not materially improve by the end of the season), would it be worth it to the University to pay $5-7m to get everyone on this staff to exit stage left and let us move on to a different hire?
I think it might be something worth exploring for the University.