https://sports.yahoo.com/mike-lombardi-bill-belichick-isnt-043325653.html
Some Tar Heels also have rabbit ears.
North Carolina G.M. Mike Lombardi has once again called a report regarding the potential NFL future of UNC head coach Bill Belichick a fake.
Last week, after NFL Network reported that multiple teams reached out to inquire as to whether Belichick would be interested in leaving Chapel Hill for pro football, Lombardi brushed it off as a “complete falsehood.” This week, after PFT reported that Belichick’s slowly-forming coaching staff has made folks from the university all the way up to the Commissioner of the ACC nervous about Belichick’s plans, Lombardi sounded off again, with a tweet.
“We are not slow, just being diligent, hired three people on Sunday, not [sic] one is nervous other than this erronous [sic] report,” Lombardi said. “A completly [sic] fabracated [sic] story. thank you.”
You’re welcome?
I won’t try to interpret the tweet literally. Mainly because I’m not sure how the supposedly “errnous” report would be capable of anxiety, or any other human emotion. The bigger point is that it’s odd Lombardi has become Belichick’s sole mouthpiece on these matters in recent days.
As former Patriots defensive back Devin McCourty said on Tuesday’s PFT Live, Belichick harped to his players about the importance of always speaking for themselves, and of never letting anyone else speak for them. Why would Belichick deviate from that approach now, if it was “completly fabracated” that his lingering interest in returning to the NFL before his $10 million buyout drops to $1 million, coupled with his delay in fully and completely hiring his coaching staff, would make others skittish about his plans?
Until Belichick redoes his deal to remove the buyout or to increase it to something like $100 million, nothing anyone other than Belichick says matters. As long as the buyout clause remains in place, nothing he says matters — even if he hasn’t said anything since the NFL’s in-house media conglomerate reported that multiple teams are interested in him.
Some in league circles wonder whether Belichick himself arranged for the NFL Network report to emerge, as a Hail Mary effort to try to get back to the only level of football where he’s ever coached in a career that spans half of a century.
As to the notion that they’re being “diligent” and not “slow” to hire a coaching staff, it’s been more than a month. Belichick had the entire football season to be “diligent about lining up coaches to join him. He surely isn’t taking applications or having a job fair. That’s now how it works in football. You hire people you know, or people that other members of your staff know. And if he’s waiting to hire folks currently tied to NFL franchises, 75 percent of the league’s teams are done for the year.
It’s Lombardi’s prerogative to respond to reports he doesn’t like. His responses presume he truly knows what Belichick is thinking. And there’s a chance, we suppose, that Lombardi is pushing back due to the simple fact that, if Belichick lands with an NFL team, there might not be a corresponding job for Lombardi there.
When news first emerged that Belichick was considering North Carolina, at least one report indicated he hoped to create a succession plan that would give his son, Steve, the job after Bill leaves. The contract published by the school contains no such term. But if Bill leaves before coaching a single spring practice, maybe North Carolina would settle for $10 million in cash plus Steve as the head coach.
Regardless, and needless to stay, we stand by our report. There’s more smoke than people realize regarding the current state of the program, and regarding Belichick’s current state of mind regarding the question of whether he wants to go back to the NFL.
If he wants to end the story and put everyone’s mind at ease, he can rip up his buyout clause. Until he does — and until every vacant job is filled with someone other than him — folks will be watching and wondering if he’ll grab a cocktail napkin and scribble on it this sentence: “I resign as HC of the UNC.”
https://sports.yahoo.com/mike-lombardi-bill-belichick-isnt-043325653.html
