NFL Open Thread: the MAGA style in American sports

There are many reasons why the Republican installation of Bill Belichick in Chapel Hill has been a disaster, all of which boil down to his having turned into an appropriately Trumpian self-parody. (If your argument is that Belichick was never a great coach, you’re a boob, unless you can explain how Tom Brady was responsible for the Patriots holding Sean McVay’s greatest offense to 3 points in the Super Bowl.) Both reflecting and constituting this decline is his total reliance on his least employable cronies and/or relatives to staff his teams. And at North Carolina, it starts with the always hilarious Mike Lombardi:

But while it’s been easy to poke fun at college football’s most famous couple or the pettiness of Belichick’s ongoing cold war with his former employer, a new villain within North Carolina’s punchline of a season has emerged. That would be Lombardi, the ex-NFL executive-turned media darling, who as recently as last year lambasted the New York Giants front office for their Hard Knocks appearance.

“To me, it was a little bit offensive,” the former Cleveland Browns general manager told The Pat McAfee Show of the Giants’ performance on the offseason docuseries.

If Lombardi was offended by the Giants’ poor showing on HBO, one can only imagine what he’d think about a first-time college football executive who proclaims his program to be the NFL’s 33rd team only to be sitting at 2-3 with the three defeats coming by a combined 87 points. North Carolina’s lackluster performance on the field, however, has only paled in comparison to the negative publicity it has generated off the field, not all of which has come from Bill Belichick and Jordon Hudson.

The latest black mark in Chapel Hill comes via a report from On3 UNC affiliate site Inside Carolina, which revealed that the program is scrapping its previously announced behind-the-scenes docuseries, which was supposed to be available on Hulu. Lombardi — who reportedly earns a $1.5 million salary — had previously touted the Tar Heels’ plans for the project while explaining the decision not to appear on Hard Knocks.

[…]

The cancellation of the Hulu series, however, helped overshadow an even less flattering UNC-centric story that had circulated in the aftermath of the Tar Heels’ 38-10 loss to Clemson over the weekend. On Monday night, Raleigh’s NBC affiliate, WRAL, published a detailed report on the current state of the North Carolina program, with one source referring to it as a “complete disaster.”

WRAL’s reporting points plenty of blame at Belichick, who clearly seems overmatched as a first-time college head coach. But it also doesn’t spare Lombardi, who sources described as “rude” and “nasty.”

“Nobody likes him,” a source told WRAL.

The report also details how Lombardi sent a letter to donors ahead of the Clemson game, positioning North Carolina as a rebuilding program, despite his previous public bravado. It also states that he attempted to rescind NIL money from former Purdue quarterback Ryan Browne after he transferred to the program, only to be asked to leave during spring practice, with the two sides eventually reaching a settlement.

On the one hand, Lombardi had no experience with the unique challenges of recruiting NCAA players, but on the other hand he had some NFL experience and it didn’t help him pick players there, so.

For further comedy, he was tasked with trying to shake some money out of the Bonesaw Boys:

Our old pal Mike Lombardi just can’t keep himself out of the news. Following two reports about how nobody in college football can stand working with him, he is now the subject of another flurry of reports about a preseason fundraising trip to Saudi Arabia.

The news of Lombardi’s trip, which took place two weeks before the start of the college football season, was first broken by Pablo Torre. A few hours later, The Athletic provided more details. According to statements provided by the University of North Carolina, Lombardi’s fundraising trip was “exploratory,” and did not involve meeting with any representatives of the country’s Public Investment Fund. Lombardi, according to the university, merely met with a “Saudi national who is a college football fan interested in supporting Coach Belichick.”

Although it would be nice to have more details about who exactly Lombardi met with, where they hung out, and what they talked about, the unknowns provide a great opportunity for longtime Lombardi observers to use their imaginations. I’ve watched and listened to enough of this guy’s humiliating television and podcast appearances to sketch a vivid rendering of this trip inside my own head.

You can be absolutely sure that Lombardi stepped off the plane in Riyadh wearing a rumpled suit and a Super Bowl ring he didn’t actually earn on his right hand. When he got in the car that would take him to the meeting place, he definitely got his phone out to text, “This is jst like when Tony went to Naples in Soprano,” to his son. When his meeting with the second cousin twice-removed of some Saudi prince finally began, you can bet he said a lot of things like, “In college football, there are rebuilding programs and win-now programs. At UNC, we’re creating a build-to-win program,” and, “In our building, NIL stands for ‘Nerves, Intensity, and Laser focus.'” At the conclusion of the meeting, I am almost certain he said something like, “The National Football League is what I call a Learn It League, because if you don’t learn from your mistakes, you’ll fail.”

They should hand the documentary footage that Hulu is no longer using to Armando Iannucci.