Earlier this year, North Carolina G.M./Bill Belichick consigliere Michael Lombardi was saying plenty. In the past four weeks, Lombardi been quieter than Marcel Marceau with laryngitis. (Google it, kids.)
Well, Lombardi hasn’t gone totally silent, after making repeated appearances with Pat McAfee and elsewhere in the early months of the Belichick regime in Chapel Hill. As a reader pointed out on Monday, Kirk Minihane of Barstool Sports called Lombardi during the taping of a show in the immediate aftermath of the disastrous CBS book-tour interview that Jordon Hudson reportedly commandeered.
“Can you explain to us what this woman’s role is with UNC?” Minihane said to Lombardi.
After letting out a laugh that reasonable minds could describe as extremely nervous, Lombardi said this: “Actually, I’m in a meeting right now, going over recruiting. So that’s kind of what my focus is right now.”
(Well, Mike, you answered your phone. So you weren’t all that focused on the meeting.)
Said Minihane in response: “How significant of a role does she have with the recruiting at this point? Is she the lead recruiter or no?”
More very nervous laughter. “I’m in recruiting, and I’m working on that,” Lombardi said. “So that’s about it, Kirk. Thanks.”
Lombardi has otherwise been silent. No McAfee appearances in the past four weeks, that we could find. No other interviews. No tweets attacking Pablo Torre or anyone else who has been reporting on the Belichick-Hudson situation.
It’s a break for Lombardi. He previously had no qualms when it came to pushing back against reports he didn’t like. For example, when PFT reported that folks at UNC were nervous about Belichick possibly leaving, given the slow hiring of staff members, Lombardi fired back.
“We are not slow, just being diligent, hired three people on Sunday, not [sic] one is nervous other than this erronous [sic] report,” Lombardi tweeted. A completly [sic] fabracated [sic] story. thank you.”
Meanwhile, emails released by North Carolina under the state’s public-records laws showed that the school was “closely monitoring” any news suggesting that Belichick might make a quick exit.
The point is this. Lombardi previously was an active participant in the public defense of Belichick, and in generally spreading the Tar Heel gospel. Ever since Belichick mumbled his way through a CBS interview while wearing a shirt with two neck holes and Hudson said in response to the hard-hitting question of how they met, “We’re not talking about that,” Lombardi hasn’t been talking very much at all.
We’ll leave it for others to figure out why Lombardi, who has never seemed bashful, is suddenly being so quiet. And it’ll be interesting to see whether he’s asked about the Belichick-Hudson situation the next time Lombardi appears on a radio show, a TV show, and/or a podcast. (If there even is a next time.)
It’ll also be important to listen for whether his laughter in response to the first question will suggest to reasonable minds something other than, “Oh shit, please don’t ask me about her.”
