Was Jordon Hudson giving boyfriend Bill Belichick a pep talk on the North Carolina sideline before Saturday’s loss to Central Florida? Should she have even been on the field at Orlando’s FBC Mortgage Stadium in the first place? Is the 24-year-old becoming a distraction for the Tar Heels football team and their 73-year-old coach?
These were the kinds of questions Super Bowl winner Jon Gruden was tasked with addressing on a recent Barstool Sports segment with website founder Dave Portnoy and Fox Sports’ Greg Olsen.
Instead, the 62-year-old former Raiders and Buccaneers coach took aim at Belichick’s right-hand man, UNC football general manager, Mike Lombardi.
Asked about Hudson’s face-to-face message to Belichick, Gruden said he’d ‘never seen anything like that’ before launching into an attack on Lombardi.
‘Mike Lombardi works for North Carolina,’ Gruden said on Wakeup Barstool. ‘I’ve heard him criticize me several times. I’m sure he’ll produce a TikTok today explaining exactly what was going on.’
Lombardi (no relation to Vince) was a long-time NFL scout and personnel director who first worked with Belichick in Cleveland before reuniting with him in New England and Chapel Hill.
Gruden is not a fan of Lombardi, which should be obvious to just about everyone by now
Jordon Hudson is seen given Belichick a talk before Saturday’s loss to UCF
Interestingly, Lombardi also worked with then-Eagles offensive coordinator Gruden in Philadelphia before the two reunited in Oakland.
Of course, that was during Gruden’s first tenure coaching the Raiders. His second stretch with the team ended in Las Vegas in 2021, when the Washington Post published racist and homophobic emails Gruden sent to one team executive.
Since then, Lombardi has criticized Gruden on several occasions, including a 2021 appearance on Pat McAfee’s YouTube show when he said he’d rather have ’20 hours of root canals’ than work together again.
‘He’s impossible to deal with!’ Lombardi told the laughing McAfee.
Lombardi has also become more visible on social media, which appears to be the backstory behind Gruden’s ‘TikTok’ jab.
General manager Michael Lombardi talks with head coach Bill Belichick before a recent game
As for things in Chapel Hill, the Tar Heels are now just 2-2 with wins over mid-major opponents like Charlotte and Richmond and losses to bonafide programs like TCU and UCF.
Naturally, Hudson’s presence on the team will be seen through the prism of wins and losses, as Olsen pointed out.
‘I think there is all sorts of stuff that a lot of us are not used to seeing in [today’s college world] — who’s on the sidelines, who runs programs, who has say into programs, the influencer,’ Olsen said. ‘Listen I don’t think Belichick necessarily cares what anyone think
‘He obviously values her opinion in a lot of factors. Do I care if a coach’s wife, girlfriend, kids are on the sidelines? … I don’t necessarily care, but I guess to each their own. At the end of the day, if you win… she can wear a headset if they’re winning.’
