Could Bill Belichick be headed for trouble with the Tar Heels?
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Bill Belichick is not for everyone.
That’s a part of what made him a difficult match for any of the other 31 NFL teams after the New England Patriots fired him following the 2023 season. Remember that — after Belichick led the Patriots organization for two decades — the players, staffers, media and fan base in New England were accustomed to Belichick’s idiosyncrasies like no one else.
Belichick played nice at his introductory press conference with North Carolina last December, answering all the questions — even the difficult ones — with a smile. But at the end, they handed him a UNC hoodie. And it was like that snapped the spell. The real Belichick was back.
He has since operated like the guy who won six Super Bowls, without the humility of a guy the Patriots fired after a 4-13 season.
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In other words, Belichick is doing what he’s always done.
The coach deployed many mottos throughout his New England tenure: “Do your job” and “No days off.” He printed “Ignore the noise” onto the exit door for every player to see as he left the facility.
It’s Belichick who is now ignoring the noise.
What are the expectations for Bill Belichick in his first season at UNC?
He has been mostly radio silent with the local media, speaking to them only once at spring practices and declining media requests to speak with players and coaches. The NFL has more rules that require interaction between the team and the media. College doesn’t. And so Belichick and his GM, Matthew Lombardi, might say that UNC is the “33rd NFL team,” but they conduct business like a pro team only when it’s convenient.
Most importantly, the Tar Heels “Practice Like a Pro,” a motto that hung over the field as the team went to work at spring practices. While the NFL requires players to have numbers on their jerseys at training camp, Belichick would often send a message to his rookies by assigning them. Those rookies could pick their numbers only if they made the team. In the case of UNC, Belichick didn’t allow the players to have names or numbers on their jerseys. Presumably, it’s a similar message.
But that made the practices almost completely unwatchable for the media and fans, who had no idea which players were on the field at any given moment. WRAL’s Brian Murphy wrote that “the coach is substance over style.” These no-nonsense on-field sessions serve Belichick’s football-based purposes. But they failed to build any hype or momentum for the program, which is drawing good-but-not-great results on the scouting trail. Nick Saban, Belichick’s best friend, once leaned into the pageantry of the spring sessions, drawing crowds of 92,000 fans. Belichick had just 2,000 watching on April 12.
It looked a bit like a rookie mistake. Or, at least, a missed opportunity.
And for the record, we’ve seen offshoots of The Patriot Way fail in just about every stop. From Romeo Crennel to Josh McDaniels to Matt Patricia to Joe Judge, there’s a long list of Belichickian disciples who failed to successfully lead an NFL franchise. Charlie Weis’ stint with Notre Dame wasn’t exactly a roaring success either. And Belichick himself failed with the Cleveland Browns in his first coaching stint.
With the Patriots, Belichick focused on the process of winning games, which included shutting out the media as best he could. In college, you cannot simply ignore the noise. It’s dangerous to do that. It’s the way things work after NIL brought a plot twist to college football that put “Shutter Island” to shame.
Belichick can’t afford to be boring. The Tar Heels can’t afford to be boring. And they were at spring practice.
Can Bill Belichick do in two years what Deion Sanders has done in two years at Colorado?
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I think all of Belichick’s blandness led to his girlfriend, Jordon Hudson, becoming the most interesting person in Chapel Hill. Hudson, 24, has taken on a role as personal publicist and operations manager for Belichick. That has given her a weighty opinion on a number of UNC football projects. She has built a major presence adjacent to Belichick.
But some have taken offense to Belichick’s professional and personal relationship with Hudson.
As someone who covered Belichick for almost 10 years in New England, I’ll share some context on Belichick and Hudson’s professional relationship. She seems to have filled the shoes of Belichick’s former right-hand man, Berj Najarian, whose title was Director of Football/Head Coach Administration.
Najarian, now working for Bill O’Brien at Boston College, was a do-everything employee for the Patriots. He managed every request for an interview with Belichick. Najarian stood in the back of the room for every press conference. He also handled the seating on the team plane and corporate speaking requests for assistant coaches, per The Boston Globe. There was no job too big or too small for Najarian. And yet no one knew who he was or the full extent of what he did, because he never once gave quotes on the record. Najarian often wore a team-issued blue tracksuit. It might be an overstatement to say his presence was understated. He was almost invisible. By design.
Berj Najarian was by Belichick’s side for much of his tenure with the Patriots. (Photo by Barry Chin/The Boston Globe via Getty Images) –> <!–>
Working in a similar role for Belichick, Hudson showed up to a spring practice in a snakeskin trench coat. So when she mic’d up Belichick on the field for a social media project, many saw her and posted about her on social media.
Over the past few months, Hudson has grown more polarizing. She played an instrumental role in stopping production on “Hard Knocks” at UNC, per The Athletic. She managed an interview with CBS, shutting down questions about her and Belichick’s relationship. Belichick asked that UNC attach her on all his emails. All these duties sound quite similar to Najarian’s.
The differences are obvious. 1) Hudson is dating Belichick. 2) While Hudson has a role leading Belichick’s production company, she is not a UNC employee. (Najarian was a Patriots employee.)
While Belichick didn’t want to discuss his relationship with Hudson in the interview with CBS, they have made their relationship public on social media and with red carpet appearances. Her growing persona has led to growing curiosity, which is how we’ve learned that, since Hudson met Belichick, she has reportedly amassed millions in real estate assets. She and Belichick were also the butt of a joke on “Saturday Night Live.”
They are now a part of the celebrity conversation, in part because of their 49-year age gap.
This is the unintended consequence of ignoring the noise. Conversation about Hudson has filled the vacuum.
And so Belichick’s early days at UNC have gone awry. But he should be able to get things back under control. It would be extremely hasty to proclaim this the end of Belichick. He has weathered controversies much worse than this one, after all.
Remember when he benched Drew Bledsoe for Tom Brady?
Remember Aaron Hernandez’s arrest?
Remember Spygate and Deflategate?
Maybe Belichick has already learned that the noise is what college football is about, because he has reportedly explored hiring a PR specialist. A PR specialist could help lower Hudson’s profile by taking her out of a public-facing role — if that’s what Belichick and Hudson decide they want. A PR specialist could help in a number of ways. But we all know that Belichick isn’t looking to a PR specialist for the real answer to get his program back on track.
He knows that there’s really only one thing he can do: Win.
It’s about winning. It always has been for Belichick. And now for Chapel Bill to drown out the rest of the noise, the growing doubt about his leadership, he needs to win immediately.
Before joining FOX Sports as an NFL reporter and columnist, Henry McKenna spent seven years covering the Patriots for USA TODAY Sports Media Group and Boston Globe Media. Follow him on Twitter at @henrycmckenna.
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