Something seemed a little off about Bill Belichick’s recent appearance on The Pivot Podcast. Or, more accurately, something seemed a little on.
The episode began with Belichick and former Inside The NFL colleague Ryan Clark in a one-on-one interview. It felt scripted, specifically when Belichick explained why he mentioned his 24-year-old girlfriend/handler/publicist/idea mill/creative muse in the “acknowledgements” section of his book.
Like Vincent LaGuardia Gambini working his way through the list of questions to be posed to a star witness on direct examination, Clark followed Belichick’s explanation that she had made specific suggestions that improved the book with this: “The first thing you did was the CBS interview. That question wasn’t asked about Jordon in that interview?”
Said the witness: “It was asked. No, it was asked. They asked about her — the same, similar question that you asked about her acknowledgement in the book. And I explained that in the tribute pages that she did, but that wasn’t shown.”
The exchange bolstered Belichick’s claim that the CBS interview was edited to present a “false narrative,” and it dared CBS to release the full interview. (Please, CBS, release the full interview.)
Co-host Channing Crowder, who along was Fred Taylor was left out of the opening exchange, later spilled the beans on his WQAM radio show.
Via Ben Axelrod of AwfulAnnouncing.com, Crowder said Jordon Hudson “choreographed the open” to the interview.
“She kind of coordinates and brand manages,” Crowder said. “She has her paws on the situation. It’s different . . . It was weird to be around Belichick and Jordon. . . . I don’t see Belichick in that light. But he just smiles and nods.”
Added Crowder: “His old lady is different. . . . She lurks. It’s weird to know him as Coach Belichick running the entire organization as G.M., head coach, talent coordinator, all that stuff, and then to see this tiny, little 95-pound girl kind of — pretty much telling him what to do.”
Crowder’s disclosure contradicts the impression Belichick has been trying to create since Hudson interrupted his CBS interview and instructed him not to answer the very simple question of how they met. Belichick insisted that CBS edited his interview to lead the viewer to believe “Jordon was attempting to control the conversation.”
Meanwhile, she didn’t just attempt to control the conversation on The Pivot Podcast. As Crowder tells it, she succeeded.