Bill Belichick confidant speaks out on NFL coaching rumors after Raiders buzz
Bill Belichick is onto Chapel Hill and UNC is where he intends to stay.That’s according to Michael Lombardi, the newly minted general manager of Belichick’s Tar Heels football program, who told Pat McAfee on Thursday the chatter swirling around a potential NFL U-turn for the legendary coach is not true.“Bill Belichick committed North Carolina.He committed it to me, he committed it to the university, there’s been no conversation about anything, and we drive, from this office here, as this football field behind me, to where we’re staying.
We commute each day together and we both talk about how messed up the NFL is and how thankful we’re in college football,” Lombardi said on “The Pat McAfee Show.”Belichick, who leaped to the college ranks in December after nearly five decades in the league, has been at the center of NFL coaching buzz following the conclusion of the regular season Sunday.On Wednesday, one day after the Raiders parted ways with Antonio Pierce following his first full season as the team’s head coach, NFL.com reported Tom Brady — now a minority owner of the Las Vegas franchise — had spoken “recently” with Belichick “about what it would take to make a reunion happen.”Belichick, 72, and Brady, 47, won six Super Bowls across 20 seasons in New England.The future Hall of Fame quarterback left the franchise after the 2019 season and won one more Super Bowl in 2021 with Tampa Bay, where he concluded his career in early 2023.A year later in 2024, Belichick parted ways with the Patriots following 24 seasons as head coach.Lombardi, who told McAfee Thursday that he and Belichick are “completely committed” to North Carolina, dubbed the Raiders report a “complete falsehood.”“Coach Belichick, when that story came out, was recruiting in South Jersey.
Today he was at Bergen Catholic, one of the teams we watched play at Ocean City.He’s gone to The Hun School to recruit kids in Princeton,” Lombardi said.
“I mean that story...