Bill Belichick’s North Carolina consigliere has kept a very low profile in the weeks since a disastrous CBS book-tour interview made Jordon Hudson and Belichick one of the biggest stories in sports.
On Saturday morning, UNC G.M. Michael Lombardi appeared on ESPN Radio’s Marty & McGee. And Lombardi was asked about the slew of reports regarding Belichick and Hudson.
“I mean, a lot of it is just noise,” Lombardi said. “And for us to be distracted by something that has no bearing, that has no relevance whatsoever, that is a complete falsehood, in terms of what people are saying or what they’re writing. It’s comical. And for me, to really even attack anybody who’s saying it, gives them credibility. Which I don’t, because it’s a completely false narrative.”
It sounds as if new North Carolina P.R. expert Brandon Faber has been working with Lombardi, because Lombardi is otherwise wired to attack, attack, and attack some more. The new strategy is to ignore the noise so as not to legitimize it.
That still didn’t stop Lombardi from selectively attacking certain reports.
“I mean, look, let’s face it,” he said. “One report had [Belichick] wasn’t supposed to be here [at] the beginning of June. And the next report came out that he was gonna go back to the NFL. I mean, it’s all just a bunch of stuff being thrown up against the wall. My job is to focus on North Carolina football, and Bill’s job is to focus on North Carolina football, and that’s what he has done, and that’s what I’ve done. And we’re gonna continue to do that. And the noise out there comes from a direction of people trying to be disruptive within our program. We’re not going to allow it. We’re not going to acknowledge it. We’re gonna move on. And look, let’s face it, the proof’s in the pudding. We’re having a tremendous recruiting class. We had a tremendous portal, and we’re going to continue to get better every day.”
The reporting has been so much more extensive than the potential implications of the dramatic reduction in Belichick’s buyout from, as of June 1, $10 million to $1 million. And no one has reported he’s going to go back to the NFL, because he’s been shut out from two complete hiring cycles. (If the Bucs or maybe even the Dolphins come calling after the 2025 season, no amount of tar on the heels would keep Belichick in Chapel Hill.)
Lombardi was also asked about the internal reaction to the CBS interview, which sparked a firestorm via Hudson’s instruction that Belichick not answer the hard-hitting question of how they met. Did they circle the wagons?
“We had no reason to circle wagons,” Lombardi said. “Everybody looked at each other and was like in complete amazement. I mean, so, we didn’t have any reason to circle the wagons. The reason we had was to focus on what we’re going to do, as Bill said in a lot of the interviews — and I don’t want to speak for Coach Belichick — but he said, ‘Look, Jordon does stuff in his business outside of North Carolina football, not here.’ I mean, it’s just completely a story that was generated from — basically, made up. I mean, it’s a tremendous, you know, you could be a great novelist, some of the people that report this stuff. So we had no, there’s no reason to circle any wagons. Look, when we play Clemson, we’re gonna have to circle the wagons. But we play TCU on the opening game, we’re going to have to circle the wagons. Those are competition. This is just noise.”
His “this is just noise” talking point is factually incorrect. The publicly-disclosed emails show that she was involved in North Carolina football. Credible reporting explained that she derailed a Hard Knocks infomercial that would have been very valuable to the program.
But this is the new playbook, for anyone who doesn’t like anything the media reports about them. Attack the messenger. Deny the merits. Never admit. Never surrender.
Deny, deny, deny. Attack, attack, attack. Facts are irrelevant. Truth is irrelevant. It’s all about image and spin and whatever BS can be spewed with a straight face.
Lombardi was back to spewing some of it on Saturday. We’ll see if it was an isolated appearance, or whether he’s getting ready to resume his regular smartest-guy-in-football media appearances, where he can repeatedly drop the names of legendary football figures who personally despised him.