North Carolina Tar Heels general manager of football Michael Lombardi has doubled down on his stance that Bill Belichick has no plans to leave the program for the NFL.
Belichick was rumored to be interested in a few NFL jobs that opened up a few weeks after he decided to join the collegiate ranks for the first time in his career. Belichick replaced Mack Brown as North Carolina’s head coach after decades with the New England Patriots.
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Bill Belichick, the new head coach of the North Carolina Tar Heels, speaks to the media at the Loudermilk Center for Excellence. (Jim Dedmon-Imagn Images)
Lombardi, who joined Belichick on the program, had expressed multiple times that Belichick would not leave the Tar Heels. He made that proclamation again in an interview Monday on OutKick’s “The Ricky Cobb Show.”
“I think there’s one thing everyone can agree on, whether you’re a fan of what Bill did in New England or you’re a hater because he beat you in New England, the one thing we can all agree on is that Bill is really smart.” he said. “Bill knows the NFL landscape better than most fans. And if Bill thought there was a job he was interested in, he wouldn’t have moved to North Carolina.
“He wasn’t looking for a job. He wasn’t collecting unemployment. He wasn’t hoping anyone would hire him. He knew there were great opportunities if he wanted to get into the NFL. What we also knew, it was the NFL. It’s a slippery slope in the sense that there’s a lot of politics involved. You answer to a lot of different people, there’s an agenda within the buildings.
Lombardi used a phrase from one of the greatest NFL head coaches of all time to describe why Belichick would not return to the NFL.
Head coach Bill Belichick of the New England Patriots speaks to the media during a press conference at Gillette Stadium on January 11, 2024, in Foxborough, Massachusetts. (Maddie Meyer/Getty Images)
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“Bill Walsh told me in 1984, when there were 28 teams in the National Football League, ‘You know, we only play eight teams here, kid.’ He was right then and he was right today,” he said. “And I think that phrase sums up why Bill is at North Carolina. Not every team is built to win.
“Not every team chases the Super Bowl. Not every team wants to. They want to win their way, not the right way. I think that’s why North Carolina has become so attractive to him, because we can build a program here the right way.”
Belichick’s girlfriend, Jordon Hudson, also maintained that the 72-year-old head coach would remain in Carolina blue.
“Pictured: two people openly committed to @uncfootball,” she captioned an Instagram photo.
New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick before a game against the Atlanta Falcons at NRG Stadium. (Simon Bruty/Sports Illustrated via Getty Images)
Belichick has been on the recruiting trail in recent weeks and landed a high-profile defensive transfer earlier this month.
