It is an early Thursday morning and Michael Lombardi is concentrated on breaking down tight finish tape. 

He is aware of what his boss, Invoice Belichick, needs on the place however it’s nonetheless an arduous problem. The previous NFL normal supervisor has been breaking down tape for greater than 40 years however there are significantly extra prospects to judge at the highschool stage than what NFL personnel people like Lombardi handled for NFL Draft preparation. That is a blessing and a curse. 

Later that day, he’ll seem on the favored Pat McAfee Present on ESPN. Lombardi is billed as a “Progrum Paisan” on McAfee’s eponymous present and it has been a profitable partnership for either side. Lombardi has used McAfee’s giant pulpit to dispute false reviews about Belichick, speak about their efforts to construct UNC soccer and faucet into his NFL experience to debate scorching button league-wide subjects. 

Publicly, Lombardi has lengthy been Belichick’s largest defender, utilizing his expertise working with the eight-time Tremendous Bowl winner at a number of spots to present a peek behind the scenes on the success and motivations behind the NFL’s biggest coach. After final working within the NFL with Belichick and the New England Patriots in 2016, Lombardi leaned into constructing a media profession, writing books, working with VSiN and The Ringer and regularly showing on Ringer founder Invoice Simmons’ podcast. 

Lombardi hadn’t labored in school soccer in 40 years when Belichick made him his first rent in December after surprising the soccer world and turning into the College of North Carolina head soccer coach. His official title is normal supervisor, a becoming one given his NFL expertise, however he wears various hats as a Belichick-run UNC program will get up and operating within the face of business skepticism that it’ll succeed.

“I’ve such nice respect for the way in which he works and his imaginative and prescient, and I am aligned with it so it is easy to work inside the framework,” Lombardi informed CBS Sports activities. “I’ve stated this many occasions…I am not a very good personnel man for a coach I do not imagine in philosophically. However after I do with Coach Belichick, I really feel like I generally is a good productive personnel man.”

“The key to any profitable group is the power to anticipate issues, not react” — Al Davis

In school soccer’s most attention-grabbing story in 2025, Lombardi is the consigliere to its most attention-grabbing coach. The New Jersey native is thought for quoting “The Sopranos”, and because you’re absolutely questioning, he is a fan of Silvio Dante over “The Godfather’s” Tom Hagen for the form of adviser he tries to be to the hoodie Don. 

“I believe Sil was proper — he needed to remain within the highlight, I believe he loved it,” Lombardi defined. “I believe he was prepared to inform Tony what he wanted to listen to. May very well be demanding if he needed to be, however nonetheless was a pragmatist. It’s a must to take a look at this case, work out an answer. I believe that is what Sil did.”

And that is who Lombardi is in some ways, in line with pal and former boss Brian Musburger, who referred to as him the “final soccer consigliere.” 

“I do suppose he is a war-time consigliere and somebody you’d like to have with you in a foxhole,” Musburger stated. “Underneath stress, he is measured and able to assessing the massive image in a call.” 

The Sopranos, although, is simply the tip of the iceberg of his cultural and literary references he relates again to soccer. Nearly each state of affairs or query reminds him of a well-known quote or a motto he is used to information his strategy. In a single dialog with a reporter, he pinballs from quoting Cuban poet Jose Marti to former Raiders proprietor Al Davis to legendary playwright Neil Simon. He is as geared up to debate the brilliance of Belichick’s roster development as he’s Billy Bob Thornton’s performing on “Landman.” 

Musburger, the co-founder and present president of VSiN, remembers consuming pizza with Lombardi one night time at Pizzeria Bianco, a Phoenix-based restaurant picked by Eater and USA In the present day as one of the best pizza in America and featured on Netflix’s “Chef’s Desk.” Lombardi was fascinated with how a pizzeria in Arizona might presumably have one of the best pizza and needed to expertise it and break it down like solely he can. As a part of a dialogue round meals, Lombardi began extolling the values of an EVO hibachi grill he had at his home. 

“We spent the entire time speaking grilling methods,” the VSiN co-founder stated. “He impressed me to revamp my yard and set up it.” 

It is experiences like that that join Lombardi with a legendary basketball coach in Musburger’s thoughts. Earlier than VSiN, Musburger and his father, Todd, lengthy represented Phil Jackson, the architect of two of the NBA’s biggest trendy dynasties. Having spent appreciable time round each, in skilled and private settings, Brian sees actual similarities between the 2. 

“On this planet of sports activities a whole lot of these guys may be one-dimensional and solely able to speaking about X’s and O’s of their respective sports activities however Phil and Michael are usually not,” Musburger stated. “They’re renaissance males, they’ve an mental curiosity that makes them nice leaders and nice strategists and thinkers.” 

“Youth just isn’t a time of life; it’s a mind-set; . . . a vigor of the feelings; it’s the freshness of the deep springs of life.” – Samuel Ullman

Corridor of Fame NFL coach Invoice Parcells gave Lombardi that poem from the Birmingham, Alabama native who labored as a pharmacist. The poem “Youth,” a favourite of former American normal Douglas MacArthur, is how the 65-year-old Lombardi tries to reside his life. 

It is a useful mantra understanding what he simply signed up for. As distinguished school soccer and school basketball coaches like Nick Saban, Jay Wright and Tony Bennett head for the exits, Belichick and Lombardi have executed the alternative. With little school expertise for both — Lombardi final labored in school at UNLV in 1984; Belichick by no means has although his father, Steve, was a school soccer lifer — they noticed the sport evolve sufficient to imagine their ability units had been properly suited on a college campus. As school coaches regularly bemoan what the sport has grow to be, from the impression of Identify, Picture and Likeness to the switch portal creating free company, the North Carolina mind belief noticed alternative. 

“We have lived this life,” Lombardi stated. “In equity for these different coaches, they by no means actually have. We have lived this life the place the locker room is a enterprise workplace, not a locker room. To not say it offers us a bonus nevertheless it offers us a information of what is the terrain. 

“We used to say this on the Raiders on a regular basis, ‘The jungle is rarely harmful if you realize the paths.’ We all know these trails.”

Rick Venturi was with Lombardi and Belichick once they actually discovered these trails. The 12 months was 1994 and Belichick was in his first stint as an NFL head coach, with the Cleveland Browns. He had missed the NFL playoffs his first three years, establishing a important fourth 12 months to interrupt by means of and make the playoffs. Belichick assembled a training workers that included future school head coaches Nick Saban, Kirk Ferentz and Pat Hill. Lombardi had moved right into a distinguished director of participant personnel position, working his means up the group after beginning as a scout in 1987. 

Venturi, the Browns’ defensive backs coach that 12 months, noticed the bond develop between Belichick and Lombardi. There wasn’t a single a-ha second in a season that resulted in Belichick’s first playoff look as a head coach, however over time Venturi seen how a lot the relentless head coach believed in Lombardi’s skills. For the notoriously curmudgeonly Belichick, that perception is earned, not given. 

“I believe there’s a real respect and that is not simple with Invoice,” Venturi stated. “It’s a must to be fairly particular for him to present you that form of belief and respect that he has for Mike.”

Venturi says that respect comes from Belichick believing Lombardi is aware of what he is speaking about. Whereas the common fan would possibly finest know Lombardi for dropping a very good, exhausting tackle VSiN or McAfee reveals, Venturi continues to be blown away by the UNC normal supervisor’s soccer information. Lombardi will at all times be most related to Belichick however he labored for six totally different NFL franchises, together with beginning his profession as a scout for the San Francisco 49ers underneath legendary coach Invoice Walsh. His longest stint wherever was truly working for Al Davis in Oakland as a senior personnel government from 1998-2006, serving to lead the Raiders to the Tremendous Bowl in 2003. 

Venturi spent a lifetime in soccer, working as a defensive coordinator with the Browns, Indianapolis Colts and New Orleans Saints, amongst different stops, and may inform when a man is for actual or not. Similar with Belichick. 

And Lombardi, he says, may be very a lot for actual. 

“I at all times say there’s snorkelers and deep sea divers and a whole lot of guys in that GM place can discuss somewhat little bit of soccer nevertheless it’s actually a floor information, it is a snorkel information,” he stated. “Mike is an in-depth soccer man so there would not need to be any translation. He is aware of precisely what Invoice wants, he is aware of precisely what Invoice needs in gamers. He is aware of what it takes, each athletically and mentally, to play in a Belichick system.” 

Says Lombardi of why he and Belichick work so properly collectively, “Each our personalities are related in that we imagine that there isn’t any shortcut. Each need to win and do not care who will get the credit score.”

“To enhance is to vary, to be excellent is to vary usually” – Winston Churchill 

The NFL generally is a brutal enterprise. In simply this 12 months alone, two NFL head coaches had been fired after solely a single 12 months together with Jerod Mayo, Belichick’s substitute guiding the New England Patriots. Getting fired is essentially a matter of when, not if, even for future Corridor of Fame coaches like Belichick and Pete Carroll. 

Lombardi has lived it. He received his large shot to be an NFL normal supervisor in 2013 with the Cleveland Browns in a construction that included Joe Banner in a CEO position. However Browns proprietor Jimmy Haslam dumped Lombardi and Banner after solely 13 months of them working collectively. Lombardi resurfaced the following 12 months working with Belichick as a particular assistant to the pinnacle coach for 2 seasons and that was it. 

He had to determine what the following stage of his life would seem like. After a lifetime of soccer, he felt he had one thing vital sufficient to say to jot down a ebook. The outcome was “Gridiron Genius: A Masterclass in Constructing Groups and Successful on the Highest Stage,” detailing Lombardi’s expertise with mentors Belichick and Invoice Walsh and his soccer philosophies. It detailed guys that pressured him to vary his thoughts about them (Malcolm Butler, Doug Pederson), provided takeaways that appear prone to be utilized at UNC (“System over stars” and “You are by no means executed getting higher”) and labored in references to motion pictures like “The Common Suspects” to clarify Belichick’s 3-4 Cowl 2 protection. 

Seven years after its publication, you possibly can nonetheless hear the pleasure in Lombardi’s voice speaking concerning the ebook, in some ways the crown jewel of his soccer accomplishments that embody three Tremendous Bowl rings. 

“I believe whenever you’ve been within the NFL so long as I’ve, and you’ve got had your ups and downs, you find yourself turning into considerably of a bitter individual, or, jaded, if you’ll,” Lombardi stated. “Writing ‘Gridiron Genius’ allowed me, to cite the good Don Henley, ‘to permit the forgiveness of myself, to discover into one other world.’ I believe that eliminated any of the doubt that I had. From a life standpoint, one of the vital rewarding occasions of my life. It was form of like going to remedy with out going to remedy.” 

“Get your data from wanting, not speaking” – Pink Auerbach

When UNC employed Belichick on Dec. 11, the early signing interval and winter switch portal window had been already in swing. As Belichick labored to construct out his teaching workers and Lombardi the personnel workers, they raced in opposition to the clock so as to add gamers to the 2025 roster. 

There have been some early challenges, particularly how a lot preexisting relationships they did not have mattered in portal recruiting. They pulled out some large relationships sometimes, similar to having former Patriots Tom Brady and Rob Gronkowski attain out to portal quarterback goal John Mateer, however they largely opted to construct out a roster within the “Patriot Mantra.” 

Within the switch portal, North Carolina centered on gamers they knew (4 gamers from Washington the place defensive coordinator Steve Belichick spent final season) and low-rated smaller college gamers from locations like Prairie View A&M and Holy Cross. There wasn’t a giant splashy portal addition however with restricted workers and no time to attend, the Tar Heels nonetheless signed 247Sports’ No. 14 ranked switch portal class, led by Washington cornerback Thaddeus Dixon, UConn defensive lineman Pryce Yates and Troy offensive deal with Daniel King. 

“We did not have a construct up interval to form of research and put together for the check,” Lombardi stated. “We’re taking the check right here proper in the midst of it.”

Invoice Belichick offers North Carolina previous school strive: Inside Tremendous Bowl-winning coach’s surprising profession change

Jonathan Jones

In highschool recruiting, they flipped recruits from East Carolina, Navy and Temple down the stretch. They bought their NFL expertise — one recruit informed 247Sports the workers had swayed him on UNC being just like the thirty third NFL crew — and talent to develop gamers for the following stage. They relied on their many years of scouting expertise and information of what is labored up to now with what they need to accomplish.

“Mike is aware of that if he likes a participant that they need to recruit and the child might have a deficiency in a single space or one other, he is aware of Invoice can shut that hole,” stated Venturi who skilled it firsthand with the duo in Cleveland. 

The job is simply starting for Lombardi and the remainder of the UNC teaching workers. The craziest interval has ended however spring follow can be right here quickly and whereas it’s sometimes lighter on accessible impression gamers, it offers UNC one other alternative to improve the roster within the spring switch portal window. From there comes the self-evaluation on whether or not the roster Belichick and Lombardi put collectively on the fly fared in addition to anticipated in what ought to be probably the most fascinating program to comply with within the 2025 season.

Close to the top of a latest name with a reporter, Lombardi was requested whether or not there was a ebook or film he would use to information him in his first season again in school soccer in 40 years. The creator of two books pauses for couple seconds after which comes up with the unofficial sherpas to this 12 months: Jim Collins’ “Good to Nice” and Owen Eastwood’s “Belonging.”

“That is finally what we’re making an attempt to do,” he says. “We’re making an attempt to create a brand new household right here at Carolina, create a way of belonging with all people. And we’re making an attempt to go from good to nice.” 

MORE: Meet North Carolina’s spring signees as North Carolina finalizes 2025 soccer roster