Some Tar Heels also have bunny ears.
North Carolina general manager Mike Lombardi has once again called a report regarding UNC head coach Bill Belichick’s potential future in the NFL as false.
Last week, after NFL Network reported that several teams had reached out to see if Belichick would be interested in leaving Chapel Hill for professional football, Lombardi took it as a “complete lie” This week, after PFT reported that Belichick’s slowly forming coaching staff had made people from the university all the way to the ACC commissioner. nervous about Belichick’s plansLombardi echoed again, with a tweet.
“We are not slow, we are just diligent, hired three people on Sunday, none (sic) are nervous except this erroneous report (sic)“, Lombardi said. “A completely (sic) fabricated (sic) story. THANKS.”
You are welcome?
I won’t try to interpret the tweet literally. Mainly because I’m not sure how the so-called “erroneous” report could arouse anxiety or any other human emotion. Most importantly, it’s strange that Lombardi has become Belichick’s sole spokesperson on these issues in recent days.
As former Patriots defensive back Devin McCourty said Tuesday Live PFTBelichick stressed to his players the importance of always speaking for themselves and never letting anyone else speak for them. Why would Belichick deviate from this approach now, if it was “completely fabricated” that his lingering interest in returning to the NFL before his $10 million buyout fell to $1 million, coupled with his delay in the full and complete hiring of his coaching staff, would others be nervous about his plans?
Until Belichick renews his deal to eliminate the buyout or increase it to around $100 million, nothing else Belichick says matters. As long as the buyout clause remains in effect, nothing he says matters — even though he hasn’t said anything since the NFL’s in-house media conglomerate reported that several teams were interested to him.
Some in league circles wonder whether Belichick himself arranged for the NFL Network report to be released, part of a Hail Mary effort to try to return to the only level of football where he has ever coached in a career that spanned half a century.
As for the idea that they are “diligent” and not “slow” in hiring a coaching staff, it’s been over a month. Belichick had to be “diligent throughout the football season to recruit coaches to join him. They certainly don’t accept applications or organize job fairs. This is how it works in football now. You hire people you know or people other members of your staff know. And while he waits to hire people currently tied to NFL franchises, 75 percent of the league’s teams have finished the year.
It’s Lombardi’s prerogative to respond to information he doesn’t like. His answers assume he really knows what Belichick thinks. And there’s a chance, we suppose, that Lombardi pushes back due to the simple fact that, if Belichick lands with an NFL team, there may not be a matching job for Lombardi.
When news emerged that Belichick was considering North Carolina, at least one report indicated he hoped to create a succession plan that would give the job to his son, Steve, after Bill leaves. The contract published by the school does not contain such a clause. But if Bill leaves before coaching a single spring practice, maybe North Carolina would settle for $10 million in cash plus Steve as head coach.
Regardless, and there is no point in remaining, we maintain our report. There’s more smoke than people think regarding the current state of the program and regarding Belichick’s current state of mind regarding whether he wants to return to the NFL.
If he wants to end the story and reassure everyone, he can tear up his buyout clause. Until he does – and until every vacancy is filled by someone other than him – people will look at him and wonder if he’ll grab a cocktail napkin and scribble on it this sentence: “I resign from my position as HC of the UNC”.
