Exclusive: Bill Belichick, Jordon Hudson and the Carolina Blue Box of Palace Intrigue

UNC football has devolved into the biggest hot mess in college sports. Can we interest you in a hot mic? Because in order to understand the GOAT coach's inner circle in Chapel Hill, you really need to open the gift we've brought for Katie Nolan and Michael Cruz Kayne. • Previously on PTFO: The Jordon Rules https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=As5P5TA-ERk, The Belichick Ring Mystery, Solved https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v%3DNw_JcErBj0w&sa=D&source=docs&ust=1760661492867837&usg=AOvVaw182MtzRs4NTG4c9fIZHBJ5 • Subscribe to "Casuals with Katie Nolan" https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.youtube.com/katienolan&sa=D&source=docs&ust=1760661492868163&usg=AOvVaw0ZITJpw6E0jY5DPWZo59sC • Listen to "Sorry for Your Loss" by Michael Cruz Kayne https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.audible.com/pd/Sorry-for-Your-Loss-Audiobook/B0CGJSXSPF&sa=D&source=docs&ust=1760661492868681&usg=AOvVaw0Z9LBrR7f3you2S7NE6hVH Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out. I am Pablo Torre and today we're going to find out what this sound is.

• 0:06Pablo Torre?

  He told you so.

• 0:09Speaker 00

  Right after this ad.

• 1:07Speaker 00

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• 1:52Speaker 00

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• 2:15Speaker 02

  Are you morphing into Mr. Beast? Where you just take unwitting people into a room and you make something bad happen to them?

• 2:23Pablo Torre?

  In a week of insult that I personally have suffered. That is... that's the worst.

• 2:29Speaker 02

  And then someone locks a door, right? And then they show us a man eating [BLEEP] out of a tub. Tell me that's not torture.

• 2:36Speaker 03

  And the room's filling with water.

• 2:38Pablo Torre?

  Hello, by the way.

• 2:39Speaker 02

  Hi, is there chocolate all over my face?

• 2:41Pablo Torre?

  Yeah, big ol' chocolate face. Did you also have a protein bar of some kind?

• 2:45Speaker 02

  No, just a Snickers. I called this a protein bar. I said, "This is a granola bar."

• 2:51Pablo Torre?

  I had an espresso and a protein bar within five minutes of each other. And I'm a little woozy. This is a matter of just like what's going on up here.

• 3:01Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 3:01Speaker 02

  What's happening and why is it sitting like that? Also, you know what I don't like about this?

• 3:06Pablo Torre?

  Yeah.

• 3:06Speaker 02

  Is now we don't get any off-camera stuff we can't say on camera time.

• 3:10Pablo Torre?

  I know.

• 3:11Speaker 02

  Which, there's so much stuff we can't say off-camera, on-camera.

• 3:14Pablo Torre?

  There's a lot of... I...

• 3:16Speaker 02

  To talk about.

• 3:17Pablo Torre?

  I know and respect that you both are a bit frazzled.

• 3:21Speaker 03

  Not me.

• 3:24Speaker 03

  Not me.

• 3:25Pablo Torre?

  Michael has his hands on the table like he's taking a lie detector test. And Katie is...

• 3:29Speaker 03

  I'm gonna absorb the negative energy of the room.

• 3:31Speaker 02

  I'm getting set. I'm doing my own hair and makeup.

• 3:33Pablo Torre?

  Digesting a Snickers bar.

• 3:34Speaker 02

  She can do it all.

• 3:36Speaker 03

  She's a 90s woman and she can do it all.

• 3:39Speaker 02

  I was just gonna say I'm sucking the nuts out of my teeth. Can you imagine if I had said that?

• 3:43Pablo Torre?

  I'm so glad you didn't say that.

• 3:45Speaker 02

  Me too.

• 3:45Speaker 03

  Can you even imagine?

• 3:47Speaker 02

  I couldn't even imagine.

• 3:48Pablo Torre?

  There is a bit of an escape room vibe today.

• 3:51Speaker 03

  I love an escape room.

• 3:52Speaker 02

  When I can see the puzzles.

• 3:54Speaker 03

  Yeah, if I could see the puzzles.

• 3:55Speaker 02

  What if they're all puzzles I don't know how to solve?

• 3:57Speaker 03

  Show me the puzz.

• 3:58Speaker 02

  You gonna chew gum the whole time or just for the beginning here?

• 4:02Speaker 03

  Just pack it away.

• 4:04Pablo Torre?

  Good to have you both back here.

• 4:06Speaker 02

  I don't know yet. I reserve my right to say how I feel about being here.

• 4:09Pablo Torre?

  I'm excited. I know that it's going to be fun and good. It's been a while since I've done this to you guys. You know, the whole thing of like, there's something on the table and immediately Katie's pointing at it.

• 4:22Speaker 02

  Is it moving? Why is it up on, see how it's up on the sides?

• 4:25Pablo Torre?

  It is up on the side.

• 4:26Speaker 02

  What's that about?

• 4:27Pablo Torre?

  It's just a wonderfully wrapped package. It's a little, it's a little askance.

• 4:30Speaker 02

  Like, it looks like if you pull it and it's attached, it's gonna be attached to like a...

• 4:34Pablo Torre?

  Yeah. What color? There's a human hand in there?

• 4:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:37Pablo Torre?

  For those who are not watching on YouTube...

• 4:38Speaker 02

  It's Tiffany blue. You know what it is. But the ribbon isn't from Tiffany's because it's a different blue.

• 4:44Pablo Torre?

  It's got dots. What kind of blue would you say it is? Well, I'm colorblind, so I'm not really the guy for this.

• 4:48Speaker 02

  I literally just said it was Tiffany blue. It's teal.

• 4:50Pablo Torre?

  I personally would say it's perhaps a little Carolina blue.

• 4:55Speaker 02

  Oh, [bleep] Christ. What's happening?

• 5:00Pablo Torre?

  The ribbon is a special color for a special occasion. We're doing it again, guys! Oh my god, oh my god.

• 5:08Speaker 02

  No, Papa, I've had a lot going on this week, okay?

• 5:13Pablo Torre?

  I just think it's been too long since we did an old-fashioned Bill Belichick, Jordon Hudson, and now North Carolina football episode.

• 5:22Speaker 02

  Oh, [bleep] hell.

• 5:24Pablo Torre?

  Have you guys been paying attention to what's been happening at the University of North Carolina? I know they're not doing good.

• 5:29Speaker 02

  But like, they're not a foot, they've never been a football school. What did people think? That he was gonna turn it all around in a year with Mike Lombardi's help? The guy uses a typewriter!

• 5:43Pablo Torre?

  Okay, hold on, hold on, hold on. We're talking about, for those not familiar, one of the crown jewels of the American public education system, University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. And it has been about five or six months since we did a version of this.

• 5:58Speaker 02

  I thought we were done.

• 5:59Pablo Torre?

  Every five or six months.

• 6:00Speaker 02

  I was done.

• 6:02Pablo Torre?

  If you learn anything from this show, we are never done. And that's great. It's never over. Carolina, to Katie's point, I mean, just doing the math on this, they made, according to The Athletic, what amounts to a $59.3 million bet on Bill Belichick. Okay. The team has been, in fact, so terrible that on Monday... The highest paid public employee in the state of North Carolina, Bill Balachek, making $10 million a year on a guaranteed three-year contract, had to go and stand behind the podium to reiterate that in fact, he is not seeking a buyout on his contract five games in.

• 6:37Speaker 04

  Last game was 28 to 3 after the first quarter. People clearing out after halftime. Statistically, UNC has gone from a perennial bowl contender to statistically one of the worst teams in college football right now. And people in this building are upset. Fans are upset. The people that brought you here stuck their necks out to bring you here. I mean, can you acknowledge? You're telling me that you believe this process is working?

• 7:04Speaker 05

  A hundred percent. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it's a learning curve. We're all in it together, but we're making a lot of progress. And, you know, the process will eventually produce the results that we want to produce, like they have everywhere else I've been. So I'm very confident in that. Players are working hard. They're getting better and we're going to continue to do that and improve.

• 7:24Speaker 03

  It's like one of those learning curves where the arrow just goes straight down.

• 7:27Speaker 02

  But it curves a little.

• 7:28Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 7:30Speaker 02

  It's a little bit.

• 7:30Speaker 03

  Some of it's, yeah, curves itself a little more, a little more down.

• 7:33Pablo Torre?

  The Great Depression of learning curves.

• 7:35Speaker 03

  It's never good when the question you're being asked is like 40 straight minutes of all the horrible things that are happening.

• 7:40Pablo Torre?

  Shout out, by the way, to that reporter from WRAL, who was essentially doing what I wanted to do here, which was point out that UNC has been outscored 120 to 33. In their three losses to power four teams.

• 7:54Speaker 02

  Wow, that's a lot.

• 7:56Pablo Torre?

  One prominent UNC booster told me that this collapse, this curve, represents, quote, "the desecration of their university." Alumni and boosters are, quote, "sick about this." And to speed run through it, this is the fallout from the rebranding of a guy who was, once upon a time, Katie, considered the greatest football coach of all time. You remember those days. This was a rebranding that was orchestrated. I would dare say with an iron fist held, of course, by our old pal. A 24-year-old named Jordon Hudson, who had little to no branding experience beyond competing in beauty pageants, but I digress. There have been so many embarrassing leaks that it would in fact make for an excellent docu-series about this program.

• 8:41Pablo Torre?

  Unfortunately, the all-access docu-series that Bill Belichick and Jordon Hudson had announced was coming to Hulu.

• 8:46Speaker 02

  Done.

• 8:47Pablo Torre?

  Yeah.

• 8:47Speaker 02

  No mas.

• 8:48Pablo Torre?

  Was supposed to replace the Hard Knocks series that Jordon Hudson, in request for general control, had derailed, as previously discussed on this show. That Hulu thing is not gonna come out.

• 8:57Speaker 02

  So much for the documentary of it all. The point is to document what's happening. You're not supposed to cancel it when it's not a good, when it doesn't make you look good. You're documenting.

• 9:07Pablo Torre?

  When it gets so bad that it's now unbelievably compelling.

• 9:10Speaker 02

  We would all watch it.

• 9:11Pablo Torre?

  Yes, extremely watchable.

• 9:13Speaker 02

  If that was the point, we would all watch it.

• 9:14Pablo Torre?

  I would click on it so fast.

• 9:15Speaker 02

  I would absolutely watch it.

• 9:17Pablo Torre?

  I am concerned that we would have been in it, and now we may never see that, actually. Carolina, apparently, yeah, look, the program didn't want to do, I am told, episodic, you know, docu-series approach. So Hulu pulled out of it. Ever Wonder, which is the big production company that has been making it, is still shooting it, I am told. They're just pivoting to being a film to come out after this season, supposedly. So there's just that looming in all of it. And this whole question of why is all of this [BLEEP] happening like this? Why is it so messy? Why is it, in fact, the biggest mess in college sports? It has led me to reinvestigate the inner circle that I first started studying about six months ago.

• 10:02Speaker 02

  Oh, no.

• 10:03Pablo Torre?

  With you guys.

• 10:03Speaker 02

  Oh, no.

• 10:04Pablo Torre?

  What?

• 10:05Speaker 02

  Oh, no, I don't like this. My tummy hurts.

• 10:07Pablo Torre?

  You don't want to hear about my now 12 sources? Yes, give me 12 sources.

• 10:11Speaker 02

  Oh, God, I'm gonna be sick.

• 10:13Pablo Torre?

  What those 12 sources tell me is that Bill Belichick, the greatest football coach of all time at age 73, he now listens to two people. Okay, two is more than before?

• 10:24Speaker 02

  Uh-uh.

• 10:24Pablo Torre?

  Two people above all else. Sitting on one of Bill Belichick's shoulders is the man who manages the business of football at North Carolina. Mike Lombardi.

• 10:33Speaker 02

  Oh my god. Oh my god, it's worse than we thought.

• 10:37Pablo Torre?

  Mike Lombardi is the highest-paid general manager in the entire sport. He makes $1.5 million a year. He worked with Belichick at the Cleveland Browns, at the Patriots. Katie, you have a physical reaction as a diehard Patriots fan and also perhaps a person who works in sports media. Do you know Mike Lombardi?

• 10:54Speaker 02

  Uh, I know of him, obviously. I know him vaguely. We, I think, worked maybe at Fox Sports together.

• 11:00Pablo Torre?

  Sure.

• 11:00Speaker 02

  Uh, for a time.

• 11:02Pablo Torre?

  Yeah.

• 11:04Speaker 02

  That's all I'll say on that.

• 11:05Pablo Torre?

  Yep, very good. We're gonna put a pin in the... Yeah. ...of pregnant pause.

• 11:10Speaker 03

  I'm feeling a strong negative reaction, but I'm not, I'm not familiar with the oeuvre of Mike Lombardi myself.

• 11:16Pablo Torre?

  Well, what you should know is that Mike Lombardi believes he specializes in part in branding. And Mike Lombardi developed Carolina football's new identity, which is...

• 11:25Speaker 03

  Oh god.

• 11:26Pablo Torre?

  The 33rd NFL team.

• 11:29Speaker 06

  Everything we do here is predicated on building a pro team. We are, we consider ourselves the 3013, because everybody's involved with our program has had some form of aspect in pro football, and Moses...

• 11:40Pablo Torre?

  The brief scouting report here. Longtime sports media guy, Mike Lombardi is, who knows a lot of the same people that I do, that Katie Nolan does, because he has been a host at various stops in sports media of being like a legitimately really good storyteller, but also this, I would say, serial exaggerator, whose relationship with Bill Belichick is also the biggest reason for his sustained credibility and employment despite those backstage things, which again, we will return to. In fact, as one NFL source told me about Lombardi, quote, "He's in the top five all time of despised people in the NFL." End quote. And to just give you a sense of what Carolina's general manager has been quietly up to,

• 12:23Pablo Torre?

  this was, I'm told, two weeks before the season opener against TCU. What multiple sources tell me is that Mike Lombardi, with his assistant general manager, Lance Thompson, was in Saudi Arabia.

• 12:36Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 12:37Pablo Torre?

  To try and fundraise over there.

• 12:39Speaker 02

  Come on, this story was made in a lab to piss me off.

• 12:43Pablo Torre?

  You didn't hear about the Riyadh College Football Festival?

• 12:46Speaker 02

  Oh my god.

• 12:47Pablo Torre?

  Bill Belichick's other shoulder, of course.

• 12:51Pablo Torre?

  Is Jordon Hudson. The parallel here, Jordan's relationship with Bill Belichick is also the biggest reason for her sustained credibility unemployment. She continues to manage her boyfriend's personal branding, his personal life, his personal vendettas, while also doing this sort of Taylor Swift cosplay thing where she keeps dropping a series of breadcrumbs for, I guess.

• 13:13Speaker 02

  You.

• 13:14Pablo Torre?

  Yeah, me.

• 13:14Speaker 03

  For us.

• 13:15Pablo Torre?

  Us.

• 13:16Speaker 02

  Hansel and Gretel.

• 13:18Pablo Torre?

  For us to notice. And one example of this is that Jordan showed up to the first game of the season, that 48-14 blowout loss to TCU, wearing something that I'm not sure a lot of other people noticed.

• 13:30Speaker 02

  Her cheer ring?

• 13:32Pablo Torre?

  No.

• 13:32Speaker 03

  The necklace.

• 13:33Pablo Torre?

  It was the necklace. What are we looking at? What are we looking at here? Can you just describe what we're seeing?

• 13:40Speaker 02

  A photo of Jordan.

• 13:41Pablo Torre?

  Yeah.

• 13:41Speaker 02

  Walking. She's got a blue tank and blue jeans that have some sort of, maybe that snake skin.

• 13:47Speaker 03

  I think it's like a kind of pants that where the, like, the snake skin appears, starting at the legs.

• 13:53Pablo Torre?

  Like an anamorphs kind of pattern.

• 13:55Speaker 03

  Yes, exactly. Like, she is morphing.

• 13:57Pablo Torre?

  Yes. Let's zoom in on the neck, though. The word in this slide deck that I hope you can make out is what?

• 14:06Speaker 03

  Banned.

• 14:08Pablo Torre?

  That's right.

• 14:09Speaker 02

  Like, B-A-N-N-E-D, not B-A-N-D.

• 14:12Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 14:13Speaker 02

  There's many homophones.

• 14:14Speaker 03

  Yes, that's true.

• 14:15Pablo Torre?

  This is a necklace with the word banned that Jordon Hudson is wearing to the first game of the season. Notably, this is not a reference to the fact that this football administration has banned New England Patriots scouts from attending and scouting Carolina football games this season, which is a thing.

• 14:33Speaker 03

  She's reclaiming it.

• 14:34Pablo Torre?

  Well.

• 14:35Speaker 03

  You called me banned. Well, I am banned. I am banned. How about that?

• 14:39Pablo Torre?

  It is, to Michael's point, a reference to something that happened at this desk back in May of 2025.

• 14:46Speaker 07

  Another twist in the back-and-forth media saga. Sports journalist Pablo Torre reporting that Hudson is being blacklisted by the university's football program. Was Bill Belichick's 24-year-old girlfriend just banned from University of North Carolina's football facilities?

• 15:01Pablo Torre?

  Bill Belichick's family. Uh-oh. Is extraordinarily concerned. There is deep worry for how detrimental Jordan can be for not just North Carolina, but Bill's legacy, reputation.

• 15:13Speaker 07

  The Carolina Athletics Department tells ET Jordon Hudson is welcome and quote, "will continue to manage all activities related to Coach Belichick's personal brand."

• 15:22Pablo Torre?

  The ban, of course, was, as they mentioned in those various news clips. It was disputed by Carolina. The school clarified that she's going to continue to manage Belichick's personal life. She's not involved at all on the football side, is not an employee of the university in any way, but is very much welcome in the building. But one thing that I do want to report publicly now, which I've been waiting to report.

• 15:44Speaker 02

  Here we go.

• 15:44Speaker 03

  Can't wait.

• 15:45Speaker 02

  Should we hold hands?

• 15:46Pablo Torre?

  Because there was this disputed whole like thing that I was blamed for. The person who had told multiple people around the program that Jordan was no longer involved with the football program and was no longer allowed in the building was, you guessed it, North Carolina general manager, Mike Lombardi.

• 16:03Speaker 03

  Mike Lombardi, whoa. It's like Game of Thrones up in there.

• 16:08Pablo Torre?

  The other advisor on Bill Belichick's shoulders.

• 16:10Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 16:11Pablo Torre?

  I don't know if Jordan knows that. She might.

• 16:14Speaker 03

  You think we're breaking news to her right now?

• 16:16Pablo Torre?

  So that's the start of the episode we're in four.

• 16:19Speaker 02

  Oh my god, I can't believe this.

• 16:23Pablo Torre?

  It's an episode about tension and territorialism between the allegedly separate football life of Bill Belichick and his personal life.

• 16:30Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 16:31Pablo Torre?

  Mike Lombardi and Jordan Hudson allegedly respectively. I just consider this a bit of the decoder ring that explains what the [bleep] is happening at Carolina right now.

• 16:40Speaker 02

  Shout out decoder ring.

• 16:42Speaker 03

  Shout out decoder ring.

• 16:43Pablo Torre?

  Do kids decode things with rings anymore?

• 16:45Speaker 03

  Absolutely, a million percent not.

• 16:49Pablo Torre?

  The other thing I want to decode here, though, is that, you know, the Hulu docu-series, which has been reported, yes, that is dead. But it's also not the only North Carolina football show that Bill Belichick was supposed to star in, which also has not seen the light of day. There was another show, this second show idea, that was to be hosted by Bill Belichick. And that story, the story of that show, is going to bring us right back to this package at the center of the table.

• 17:23Pablo Torre?

  After the break.

• 17:41Pablo Torre?

  So are you guys actually familiar with escape rooms? Of course.

• 17:44Speaker 02

  Wait, what? Yes.

• 17:46Pablo Torre?

  I can't tell if Katie is the greatest or worst escape room teammate.

• 17:51Speaker 02

  I love doing them. I hate having to work as a team.

• 17:55Pablo Torre?

  That is why my scouting report is as such. Okay, great. This story starts inside what was once actually an escape room on Franklin Street. This is the main drag in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Over this past summer, the escape room got turned into a studio. A studio that is totally unlike the one we're sitting in right now, I dare say. The space is operated.

• 18:18Speaker 02

  The walls fall down where they are.

• 18:21Pablo Torre?

  It was operated, this whole thing, by an influencer management agency that works with UNC on its name, image, likeness stuff called Article 41. And I should say that the founder of Article 41, a guy named Ben Gildan, declined comment to PTFO for this episode.

• 18:36Speaker 02

  Ooh, that's you.

• 18:37Pablo Torre?

  But what I can tell you, as me, according to multiple other sources, is that before Week 1 of the college football season, Bill Balachek and Jordon Hudson wanted to create a media property that would preempt what they felt was one of the great injustices from Bill's time in New England. Katie, are you familiar with the part of Bill's beef with your team that I'm about to mention here?

• 18:57Speaker 02

  I... I don't think so.

• 19:02Pablo Torre?

  Did you watch Dynasty?

• 19:04Speaker 02

  No, I didn't.

• 19:06Pablo Torre?

  So Dynasty...

• 19:07Speaker 02

  I hate this.

• 19:08Pablo Torre?

  Dynasty, which is the 10-part, Apple TV docu-series.

• 19:12Speaker 02

  It just felt too many parts for me. I didn't want to know. I enjoyed the experience. I didn't need to know more, I felt.

• 19:18Pablo Torre?

  So the reason Balachek has this current distaste, for the Patriots at least, one big reason, also the reason, it seems, that he banned those Patriots scouts from North Carolina, and also, I should say, the reason why Jordan's most recent tweet as of this recording is this. It's a screenshot.

• 19:37Speaker 03

  Copyright Kraft Dynasty LLC 2024, all rights reserved. The copyright holder is the author of the cinematographic or audiovisual work for the purposes of Article 15 (2) of the Bern Convention, and all national laws giving effect thereto.

• 19:53Speaker 02

  What are we talking about here?

• 19:54Speaker 03

  What is this?

• 19:55Pablo Torre?

  What we're talking about.

• 19:56Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 19:57Pablo Torre?

  The Bern Convention, obviously. It's the fact that Jordon Hudson's last retweet on September 6, 2025, is a screenshot of what you see at the end of an episode of Dynasty, the Apple TV series aforementioned. Kraft Massage Coordinator, which is the username, which I do not cosign for legal reasons, that person screenshotted this. And the implication here, the actual story here, is that Robert Kraft, the owner of the Patriots, owned the rights to the book that the Dynasty docu-series was based on. This is something ESPN had actually previously reported, but to spell it out, according to my sources, Bill Belichick sat for this far too long in Katie Nolan's book, docu-series, and he didn't know that Bob Kraft controlled

• 20:42Pablo Torre?

  the intellectual property at the root of the project. And according to my sources, Bill Belichick felt tricked and betrayed, which I kind of understand, because in that docu-series, what you see is that Belichick's kind of the villain of it, relative to Kraft at least. And so what Bill Belichick and Jordon Hudson wanted to do was make a Carolina football-centric show that Belichick's company, with Jordon Hudson running it, obviously, would own, they wanted to own this new Carolina media project themselves. Is this all making sense so far?

• 21:17Speaker 03

  I dig that. Yeah, sure.

• 21:18Pablo Torre?

  Okay.

• 21:18Speaker 03

  Take control of the narrative.

• 21:20Pablo Torre?

  They're content creators. They want to own the IP.

• 21:22Speaker 02

  Parenthesis, Bill's version.

• 21:23Pablo Torre?

  Bill's version.

• 21:24Speaker 03

  Nice.

• 21:25Pablo Torre?

  And part of this plan to make Bill's version, which came together this summer, was to have Carolina GM Mike Lombardi do media again. He was gonna co-host a weekly video show with Bill Belichick, which the two of them would break down handpicked plays from that week's Carolina football game, as well as some other NFL footage, some film they selected from those games. And so, in order to turn this escape room that I want you to envision into a studio, thousands upon thousands of dollars were spent on monitors and switchers and cameras and a graphics package and telestration technology. And if the premise for this Belichick-co-hosted show seems at all familiar...

• 22:05Pablo Torre?

  It is because a version of that same show had already existed. In fact, it is online and that show is incredibly important for us to understand.

• 22:18Speaker 06

  Hello, I'm Michael Lombardi and this is Coach Bill Belichick. And this is the series called Coach, where you and I get to do something special. We get to recreate our meetings after the game, where you and I would sit in my office or I'd sit in your office and we would discuss what happened in the game from a general manager's standpoint, from a head coach's standpoint, compare our notes and move forward. And Coach, I'm really looking forward to being able to recreate those memories. Hopefully you have a better team than we did your first year in Cleveland, but I'm looking forward to it nonetheless.

• 22:49Speaker 05

  Yeah, so am I, Mike. I love those meetings that we had so many times and, you know, to come into your office and talk about personnel, talk about, you know, changes, adjustments you need to make, trades, things like that.

• 23:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, I was getting bored too. Thanks.

• 23:03Pablo Torre?

  So that show was named Coach. It was produced by the sports gaming company Underdog.

• 23:10Pablo Torre?

  It's this show. What do you mean? Oh, you mean the...

• 23:12Speaker 02

  Sorry, the scripted show. Sorry, I was being silly. Go back to it. Start again. Sorry, sorry.

• 23:16Pablo Torre?

  Are you trying to put Craig T. Nelson in this episode?

• 23:19Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 23:20Pablo Torre?

  You're unilaterally Craig T. Nelsoning.

• 23:23Speaker 02

  I'm so sorry. I got bored. Go back to it.

• 23:25Pablo Torre?

  Coach was the big podcast project that Bill Belichick started during the 2024 football season. This was the months before he got hired by Carolina in December 2024. And so the picture here for me to paint for you as Katie is cradling her guts because...

• 23:40Speaker 02

  I'm just girding my loins.

• 23:43Pablo Torre?

  We're in Mount Laurel, New Jersey.

• 23:44Speaker 05

  Ooh.

• 23:46Pablo Torre?

  That's right.

• 23:46Speaker 05

  I don't know.

• 23:47Pablo Torre?

  It's the home of NFL Films.

• 23:48Speaker 02

  I bet they appreciate that.

• 23:49Pablo Torre?

  It's the home of NFL Films and its studio.

• 23:51Speaker 02

  It's actually a nice office.

• 23:52Pablo Torre?

  And flanking Bill Belichick, who is the host of this show on set pretty much all the time, according to my sources, were Mike Lombardi, who was instrumental in this show's conception as well, Jordon Hudson, who very quickly became the self-appointed boss of this whole enterprise. And there was also a third person in the inner circle at this point in the timeline. It was actually the primary co-host of the show, ahead even of Mike Lombardi, on the depth chart, and Katie might recall this person as well from her Patriots fandom.

• 24:23Speaker 08

  Welcome to Coach. I'm Matt Patricia and this is Coach Bill Belichick. We're gonna step behind the scenes into the coach's office and Coach, we're gonna talk every week. Game plan must, Tuesday players, situational analysis, and a special segment called the library. Coach, I'm excited to be here.

• 24:38Pablo Torre?

  Katie, do you want to explain who Matt Patricia is to people?

• 24:40Speaker 02

  Matt Patricia was the longtime defensive coordinator of the Patriots. And then he was the head coach.

• 24:47Speaker 03

  Why are you whispering?

• 24:48Speaker 02

  Because I don't want to do any of this anymore. This is like, yeah, I remember these people. They're pretty closely associated, some of my favorite sports memories. Let's go ahead and drag them out here and show Katie their buttholes. Like, I hate this. This is making me feel ill, Pablo. I feel ill.

• 25:05Speaker 03

  Wait, Matt Patricia was also the head coach of the...

• 25:08Pablo Torre?

  Detroit Lions.

• 25:08Speaker 03

  Lions, right?

• 25:09Pablo Torre?

  Yes. Matt Patricia, in fairness to Matt Patricia, was the only rocket scientist coaching in the NFL.

• 25:16Speaker 03

  He was actually a rocket scientist?

• 25:18Pablo Torre?

  He went to RPI.

• 25:19Speaker 03

  Oh, Rensselaer.

• 25:21Pablo Torre?

  Polytechnic Institute.

• 25:23Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 25:23Pablo Torre?

  He graduated from the School of Engineering's Mechanical, Aerospace, and Nuclear Engineering Department. Also an undersized defensive lineman for the football team. He's the guy with the pencil behind his ear. That was part of his thing. And in this coaching tree of Bill Belichick is a bit of the teacher's pet, just to give you a sense of what we're about to get into here. But the defining feature of this dynamic, right, which is palpable on this set of NFL Films at this time, was that Lombardi, Jordan, and Patricia all disliked each other. And they all were kissing Bill Belichick's ass.

• 25:59Speaker 02

  This is so... such a pathetic visual.

• 26:02Speaker 03

  It's kind of like a King Lear situation with you got your Regan and your Goneril and the third one. Aren't there three of them?

• 26:09Pablo Torre?

  Steve.

• 26:09Speaker 03

  Steve, I believe. Lear's three daughters.

• 26:12Pablo Torre?

  So, on this set, Mike Lombardi, visualize it, he's rolling his eyes at Jordan. Lombardi, privately, is meanwhile telling multiple sources who spoke to me that Matt Patricia was the least respected of all of the branches of Belichick's coaching tree.

• 26:26Speaker 03

  Eee.

• 26:27Pablo Torre?

  And if you do not believe that private scouting report... This is Mike Lombardi describing Matt Patricia in 2020, years before they started working together on this coach show, right after Patricia was fired as the head coach of the Detroit Lions.

• 26:40Speaker 06

  I mean, Matt went in there, and I've said it on this program many times. I've said it on GM Shuffle many times. He went in there with the wrong, wrong way of handling it. You can't not be, no one can be Bill Belichick, no one. And when you wear a pencil behind your ear and you're looking at a laminated sheet, you're not selling yourself as an authentic leader. And I believe that's truly been the case. And I think that was the case when he went there. And defensively, which is supposed to be the strength of his acumen in terms of coaching, never proved to be correct in Detroit, so.

• 27:11Speaker 02

  When you use a laminated sheet and keep a pencil behind your ear.

• 27:14Pablo Torre?

  That's a pretty good, that's a pretty good take.

• 27:15Speaker 02

  I was gonna say, what is this, the Bern Convention?

• 27:18Pablo Torre?

  Nice. Holy screenshot that. Guys, Katie has arrived.

• 27:24Speaker 03

  I got your dynasty right here.

• 27:25Pablo Torre?

  She's back.

• 27:26Speaker 02

  Oh, alright.

• 27:28Pablo Torre?

  So Matt Patricia, perhaps unsurprisingly, would in turn privately insult Michael Lombardi's intelligence as the rocket scientist or just a guy. He also, Patricia did, complained to multiple sources that Jordon Hudson was a big reason why Bill Belichick was less obsessed with football over his last two years running the Patriots.

• 27:48Speaker 02

  Oh, yuck. Oh, yucky.

• 27:51Pablo Torre?

  Well, you remember what we found out in the thing six months ago? That Jordan was in Belichick's seats at Gillette Stadium in the 2021 NFL season?

• 28:00Speaker 02

  And do we know how old she was? Did we remember, or is that still the part we're nailing down?

• 28:05Pablo Torre?

  24 in 2025. So doing some math, that was four years ago.

• 28:12Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 28:13Pablo Torre?

  20.

• 28:14Speaker 02

  Getting close, but not there, right?

• 28:19Pablo Torre?

  All I'm here to report is that the last two seasons that Bill Belichick had in New England were 2022 and 2023. She shows up in the fan cam footage in 2021, meaning that Jordon Hudson, over the prior three years to this assemblage of talent at NFL Films in Mount Laurel, New Jersey, she had leapfrogged both Mike Lombardi and Matt Patricia and cultivated the most direct line, of course, to Bill.

• 28:46Speaker 03

  And there's a little like triangle of, triangle of distaste going around among the three of them, just underneath, underneath Bill.

• 28:52Pablo Torre?

  And this is when I want to direct you, Michael.

• 28:55Speaker 03

  Oh, wonderful.

• 28:56Pablo Torre?

  To the package at the center of the desk.

• 28:58Speaker 03

  Okay, we'll agree that it's the center for now.

• 29:00Pablo Torre?

  Can you describe what you're reaching for an opening?

• 29:06Speaker 03

  Okay, blue paper, you know the paper, you know the paper that's inside the things?

• 29:09Pablo Torre?

  Yeah.

• 29:10Speaker 02

  That's what's in there. It's tissue paper.

• 29:11Speaker 03

  Yep. Okay, another one. Now this one looks like there's another package inside here.

• 29:16Pablo Torre?

  I would like, I would like Katie to open this box.

• 29:18Speaker 02

  Oh my god, this is the stupidest, I never, I refuse.

• 29:22Pablo Torre?

  This is for you. Instead of a band necklace, Katie Nolan, like the one that Jordan was wearing on the field of Carolina, based on our reporting here. What do we have inside of that box?

• 29:35Speaker 02

  I'll tell ya.

• 29:36Speaker 03

  That was easy to untie, by the way.

• 29:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, it certainly was.

• 29:39Pablo Torre?

  Delicate.

• 29:40Speaker 02

  Thanks, boys.

• 29:41Pablo Torre?

  Classy.

• 29:43Speaker 02

  More tissue paper. Okay, this is, I mean, this is filthy Tiffany box. I don't understand what's happening here.

• 29:52Speaker 02

  Oh my god, what is, what is this?

• 29:55Speaker 03

  It's like a thumb drive? What is that?

• 29:56Speaker 02

  Should I be wearing gloves? What is this?

• 29:59Pablo Torre?

  That is a thumb drive.

• 30:01Speaker 02

  It sure is. It's a thumb drive on a ribbon.

• 30:05Pablo Torre?

  For all of the episodes, and conversations, and posts, and magazine covers about Jordon Hudson, it is worth pointing out that we've never actually really heard a lot of her talking.

• 30:17Speaker 02

  Oh, boy.

• 30:18Pablo Torre?

  CBS News, you may recall, decided to show just a snippet of that behind the scenes footage of Jordon Hudson interrupting Belichick's interview.

• 30:25Speaker 02

  Oh, boy.

• 30:26Pablo Torre?

  He's promoting his book on CBS Sunday Morning. It's even though, by the way, multiple sources at CBS have told me that there is roughly a half hour more of such footage of Jordon Hudson that they could have leaked. The only thing we heard in response to a question for Bill, though, of how'd you guys meet, was simply Jordan's command of...

• 30:41Speaker 09

  Not talking about this.

• 30:43Pablo Torre?

  No. And then, we heard from her briefly at the Miss Maine Pageant, where she finished second runner-up this year. But what Pablo Torre finds out has exclusively obtained for the first time, if you want to plug that thumb drive, Katie, into this computer.

• 30:56Speaker 02

  It would be an honor. Wait, first, but yeah, it would be an honor, I think.

• 31:00Pablo Torre?

  So, what we have here is behind the scenes footage from the set of Coach at NFL Films Studios.

• 31:16Pablo Torre?

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• 31:49Speaker 10

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• 32:04Speaker 11

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• 32:37Pablo Torre?

  Bill Belichick and Matt Patricia are sitting at the table. Yeah. September 2024, in between takes of episode one, in front of a monitor that has a list of keys that you'll eventually see here for the Browns' defense against the Cowboys. And Jordan Hudson is doing what? Flipping through a big binder. Yeah, it looks like she's going through a script, maybe? A giant binder that she's holding. With a lot of tabs. And so, there's Belichick, there's Patricia, there's Jordan Hudson. Is my voice cracking? I was gonna say, we can take that again if you want. No one's gonna judge. We're gonna leave it in. And I think you'll get here a pretty decent sense of the dynamic at play.

• 33:15Speaker 09

  Is it necessary to say, keep them out of the end zone? Because I feel like that's pretty self-explanatory on defense. I don't know if there's like an additional point.

• 33:21Speaker 12

  Yeah, there'll be.

• 33:23Speaker 05

  100%, 100%.

• 33:25Speaker 09

  I feel like that applies to all defenses.

• 33:28Speaker 05

  Well, we just said that the Cowboys' offense is the best offense in the league. They have the most yards per game. Okay, so they're gonna get the ball down there. We know they're gonna get the ball down there. Preventing touchdowns and forcing the field goals is gonna be, is gonna be a key to the game.

• 33:46Speaker 05

  I mean, we could say it differently.

• 33:47Speaker 09

  Is that red zone specific, conceptually?

• 33:50Speaker 05

  Well.

• 33:51Speaker 09

  Should that say red zone instead of end zone?

• 33:54Speaker 05

  Well, there's explosive plays and all, yeah.

• 34:03Speaker 09

  So you guys haven't reviewed these before this moment here?

• 34:07Speaker 12

  At the graphics.

• 34:09Speaker 05

  Not the actual graphic itself, no.

• 34:12Speaker 12

  Stuff type is what I sent last night.

• 34:14Pablo Torre?

  So the visuals on that, Jordon Hudson leaning over the desk with some questions, with some truly...

• 34:21Speaker 03

  I don't think that first question is an irrational question, right? Should, why, keep that, of course, you always wanna keep everybody out of the end zone. That's, that's, that's, I mean, I'm not a football player, but that feels like one of the big things you're trying to do.

• 34:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 34:32Pablo Torre?

  I think that's a fair take.

• 34:34Speaker 03

  But I think, I think Bill's response is also pretty fair, that it's like, you know, you can let him get, get pretty close, but you can't let him score touchdowns. And then it feels like, when she says, should that say red zone, then I'm like, wait a second.

• 34:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, maybe we had to, I think he knows the difference. He's got no difference.

• 34:49Speaker 03

  This guy, this guy for sure knows. I'm, I think she's got a valid question. I think he gives sort of...

• 34:53Pablo Torre?

  She did say, "Conceptually."

• 34:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 34:56Pablo Torre?

  Before pushing back on the greatest football coach of all time. But the point being that it's not a bad question, it's simply, oh, this is like the beginning of this show. And here comes Jordon Hudson, Bill Belichick's girlfriend, and she's like, not afraid. She's just not afraid to ask questions. And that's cool, I think that's cool.

• 35:15Speaker 03

  There are two things I did not like. One was, should it say red zone? That to me seems like kind of a silly question now. And then the other one was, have you guys not reviewed these graphics before right now? That. That feels like a pretty ballsy question to ask. So I think to be like, why didn't you review the, why didn't you?

• 35:34Speaker 02

  It's like now you're just button in. Now you're really trying to involve yourself. Now you're going from offering helpful questions that might make someone go, hey, good point. Now you're stepping into, how is this the first time you're seeing this? You're inserting yourself into the workflow of the.

• 35:49Speaker 03

  I think she's taking a managerial role almost immediately. Setting the stage for, I would say, a very detailed conversation between Jordan and Bill and a couple of producers on the show. Talking at length about graphics.

• 36:06Speaker 09

  If he's editing on this and you have a PowerPoint on here or whatnot, I feel like that's a bit easier. I thought for these like game plan must and whatnot, that they were gonna end up with like really, you know, custom looking graphics. Call it for each section to coat them by section. You know, like the background on here is honestly like for game plan must. I thought this was gonna end up looking like a, you know, scribbled into a playbook rather than like a typed font and whatnot. Like I thought that that was what was taking them the time that it was.

• 36:43Speaker 09

  This feels like a how many people does it take to screw in a light bulb situation? Editors at NFL Films did something and then turned it around to their guys. And it's that and the other thing. It's like, it's a lot of salary to pay for this.

• 36:57Speaker 05

  And Matt just shows it on his screen, which would take five minutes to put it together.

• 37:02Speaker 09

  Were these the deliverables that Ali said that she wasn't gonna work on the [BLEEP] that we asked her for because she wanted to do this instead?

• 37:09Speaker 05

  No, that's completely different.

• 37:13Speaker 05

  All right, so going forward.

• 37:15Speaker 09

  Are we gonna build hundreds of those?

• 37:16Speaker 13

  I mean, not hundreds, but we, if we're gonna, stuff we're gonna use show to show, we can definitely build out, but I just wanted to make sure we were gonna use stuff. So we're not spending things we're not gonna use.

• 37:26Speaker 09

  Right. I mean, damn.

• 37:29Speaker 13

  Yeah, it's not cheap.

• 37:33Speaker 09

  If somebody puts on a clock, I could create this in five minutes, we can make two grand out of that.

• 37:38Speaker 05

  So you think we're better off doing this than taking a PowerPoint with like, like math doesn't need to be doing PowerPoints, but just the concept of a PowerPoint and put it up on the screen? Like, what's the difference?

• 37:52Speaker 14

  I mean, I think these look better than the PowerPoint.

• 37:55Speaker 05

  I don't.

• 37:56Speaker 09

  I don't.

• 37:57Speaker 14

  The PowerPoint like you're, really?

• 38:01Speaker 05

  I mean, these are brutal.

• 38:03Speaker 09

  So we can change things, yeah, for sure. Well, I gave Ally, I sent her a text and could, you know, pull up the email and said that, you know, there was a certain way that we wanted these to look to have a certain influence based upon what it was they're talking about that in the playbook, that this would have graphics that would almost look like they ripped the page out of their book and slapped it on this screen and that, you know, maybe it was, you know, like, you know, game most, you know, necessary and it looked like it was like underlined, underlined in red pen.

• 38:35Speaker 09

  And that that was gonna be the, call it like, basic idea theme throughout all of the graphics. And she typed back to me like, oh, we already have stuff that we're putting out there.

• 38:43Speaker 14

  These are not, so we'll have, look, we'll have new designs, we'll create new templates.

• 38:48Speaker 09

  Can we do that with them and sit there and say, as they're doing it, no, that's wrong?

• 38:53Speaker 14

  Yeah, we'll give you guys, we'll mock, we'll mock everything up.

• 38:57Speaker 09

  Can we set up a meeting with like the entire graphics, even anybody that has anything to do with this?

• 39:01Speaker 14

  Yeah.

• 39:03Speaker 02

  Let me get them all. Let me just go grab them all. What, can I just ask for a little clarity? Can I ask for a little clarity?

• 39:11Pablo Torre?

  All the clarity, I would like to offer you.

• 39:13Speaker 02

  Is, is this the filming time for this show? Like, are we at the, she's at the, we are now within the time that we need to be filming, capturing, we are at that stage, capture, and she is bringing up stuff that is from the planning process. We are, it's not the time to fix the graphics.

• 39:32Pablo Torre?

  I would point out, without full granular detail about the timeline you ask, when you watch episode one, they are wearing the same clothes that they're wearing in this, in this clip.

• 39:43Speaker 03

  And now that I'm seeing this, I, I understand her graphics question differently, because I thought the graphics question before was, you guys weren't prepared to do this. But now I think she's saying, did you see this before and not know? That they had failed to deliver what we had all discussed.

• 39:59Pablo Torre?

  Right.

• 40:00Speaker 02

  I mean, listen, what she's basically saying is this looks like a thing that you could type up in in PowerPoint, I believe, is what I'm understanding her to say is like, I thought it was going to be a graphic that like animates or whatever. This is just a list of things, plan musts, and that part is bolded because it's obviously the headline underneath it says keys for Brown's defense. And then there's a list of things. They're all in caps. I mean, an interesting artistic decision. It doesn't matter.

• 40:25Pablo Torre?

  Michael, can you read the list?

• 40:26Speaker 03

  Yes, we've got stop C D Lamb, keep Dak Prescott in pocket, crush run game and make them one dimensional, disrupt timing of passing game and keep them out of end zone.

• 40:37Pablo Torre?

  And there's a big, you know, orange Browns helmet behind it.

• 40:40Speaker 03

  I mean, I would say it's totally fair to say like, that's not the most creative graphic I've ever seen. I could see.

• 40:45Speaker 02

  Hundred percent looks like a page in a PowerPoint.

• 40:47Speaker 03

  Absolutely. And it's also a totally functional graphic as well. So I think like, I would imagine the varying levels of budget affect what we're looking at.

• 40:56Speaker 02

  Now we have one that says Brown's top ranked defense, 2023 defensive stats and their NFL rank. So it says that they ranked first in yards per game, two, 270, yada, yada, yada, so on, so on, with a picture of the Browns helmet.

• 41:10Pablo Torre?

  Right, right. I mean, look, I would say, I would say this.

• 41:15Speaker 02

  The set is also fine. It's all fine.

• 41:18Pablo Torre?

  I think a key contextual detail here is that this is September 2024. And this show is like the way that all of the people working on it, the various professionals who work on the show are meeting the person who has been introduced initially as this is Bill's girlfriend.

• 41:39Speaker 02

  Oh, that's also an interesting point that this is not, she was not brought in as like creative advisor.

• 41:44Speaker 03

  Oh, she's not a producer on the show.

• 41:46Pablo Torre?

  Oh, I should clarify, like, the reason why this is a thing for the people on set was that she showed up. And they didn't realize why she was doing any of this.

• 41:57Speaker 03

  I thought she was a producer on the show.

• 41:59Speaker 02

  She runs his media company, but was his media company involved in this? Or is this him being paid?

• 42:06Pablo Torre?

  And I think this exact question is where she has a very clear view of what her job was.

• 42:11Speaker 02

  Uh huh.

• 42:12Pablo Torre?

  And everyone else was like, I suddenly woke up one day and realized I'm working for Jordon Hudson. And they had no idea who she had been.

• 42:20Speaker 02

  It's also what makes part of that clip that made me so upset was when she brought up how much money people were being made to do certain tasks.

• 42:28Pablo Torre?

  She's making a handout.

• 42:29Speaker 02

  When she goes, can I have $2,000? I could do that for you. And, and you wanna go, yeah, had you gone in through the door. You know, that everybody else came in through. But that's not the door you used.

• 42:43Pablo Torre?

  And I think an underrated subplot of this dynamic again is just Matt Patricia. Because Matt Patricia is, again, at all times trying to like, go along, get along. But in this next clip, I just would like you to focus perhaps on him. Because the graphics conversation is not over yet.

• 43:03Speaker 02

  Oh, man, more?

• 43:05Speaker 14

  You wanna create, yeah, editable templates that Matt can just plug numbers into?

• 43:10Speaker 15

  Well, we'll get somebody else to do it.

• 43:11Speaker 09

  We could use Adobe Photoshop and honestly, this is, you know, something I've done before with, you know, what you're calling a template. Okay, so Adobe Photoshop, you know, and we have last week's thing. And then you literally just go back and say, oh, rather than Joe Montana.

• 43:24Speaker 15

  Yeah.

• 43:24Speaker 09

  You just go click, click, click, click, click on the delete button and then type in a new name. It's already formatted, it's already this, and you just upload it. Take a screenshot of that screen and then just upload it. And it takes literally like three minutes to do it. I mean, I was able to build out his, you know, entire website with animations, with all of these things. I have zero, you know, real graphic experience. And he has a live website with all of these things on it. It was just a matter of, you know, pressing some, some things around. It's like, oh, well, if you don't like that, we'll just...

• 43:51Speaker 15

  And then adjusting the info, yep.

• 43:52Speaker 09

  Right. So couldn't we like, you know, it's pretty elementary, do something, could the PowerPoint presentation just be, you know, if it's four slides? I mean, this isn't very many, and he just clicks the arrow when he's ready, the same way that he does on here.

• 44:05Speaker 15

  I mean, honestly, we could turn it into a segment and just lean into it. That's true. I don't think. Lean into. Lean into the PowerPoint presentation. Hey, you want to know what it's like to be in a, in a Patriots. Well, sure, that's a whole other conversation.

• 44:22Speaker 09

  But isn't that the point of this whole segment is that they're sitting here teaching the stuff that they would be otherwise in the office? Like, that's what they would be doing in the office.

• 44:29Speaker 15

  Yes.

• 44:29Speaker 09

  Clicking a button, the way that he has this in front of him, we're just gonna, you know, kind of click it to the side. It's not like it's not in the screen that they have computers in front of them.

• 44:37Speaker 15

  Hundred percent agree. I think the point of the graphics package is to have a uniform look.

• 44:42Speaker 09

  Are they gonna be different segment to segment? Won't that be part of the ability to decipher them?

• 44:49Speaker 15

  Well, in general, shows have feels, right? Shows have a similar looking background, shows have similar looking fonts. We're more than happy to use them. Yeah.

• 44:57Speaker 09

  Can they create graphics that, you know, we actually plug into a legitimate PowerPoint? Like, if they're gonna come up with something that we can edit in real time, that if it's gonna look a certain way and that we want to use a certain font, then we just basically create a copy of it and then, and run with it that way? I mean, if they're gonna do the graphics, like.

• 45:18Speaker 15

  I don't know, I don't know enough about that, that would be a question.

• 45:22Speaker 02

  Oh my, this is brutal. This is a brutal watch.

• 45:26Speaker 03

  You know, I don't have any real graphics experience. It's like, that's kind of the beginning and end of this, my bro.

• 45:30Speaker 02

  That's kind of what we're, it's cra- why is everybody just letting their go and go without somebody going, hello? We are all creating something and your, while your input seems very important to you, it's less important to me, the guy whose job it is to finish making this thing, that you are actively getting in the way of right now. So, we'll try to fix the things you're asking for, but I need you to get out of here so we can record with these two, because I only have an hour left of this studio.

• 45:56Speaker 03

  It also seems like Bill trusts her inherently in a way that's like.

• 45:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's his boo.

• 46:01Speaker 03

  That's like, but I think it's really like.

• 46:03Speaker 02

  That's his muse, that's his little mermaid.

• 46:05Speaker 03

  Like, she figured out how to reset his, she figured out how to reset his Capital One password, and he's like, she knows everything.

• 46:13Speaker 02

  She knows everything.

• 46:14Speaker 03

  She knows she can do everything.

• 46:15Speaker 02

  She knows everything. Yeah, but Matt Patricia, stand up, like, put your shoulders back and go, can we get on? With it, please. Somebody has to say, can we get on with the taping, please?

• 46:24Speaker 03

  It's gotta be Bill. Bill's gotta be the one.

• 46:26Speaker 02

  It's never gonna be Bill.

• 46:27Speaker 03

  I know, but that's who it's gotta be.

• 46:29Pablo Torre?

  Welcome to Balachek Productions.

• 46:31Speaker 02

  This is nuts.

• 46:32Pablo Torre?

  This is what these things are. That's the power dynamics. A lot of people standing around afraid to make him

• 46:39Speaker 02

  Ay yi yi.

• 46:39Pablo Torre?

  Feel like he's not in charge or whatever.

• 46:42Speaker 03

  I think like in fairness to Jordan, I think the questions about like, I wish the graphics looked different.

• 46:48Speaker 02

  Totally valid.

• 46:48Speaker 03

  That's totally fine.

• 46:49Speaker 02

  It's their dog graphics. That's what I was saying. The studio kinda also, you're like, what is that jersey? What are we doing?

• 46:54Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 46:54Speaker 02

  It's clearly not, but that's not, it's kind of because the people that it's gonna appeal the most to are gonna be people who do not care about the window dressings of it. They wanna hear those two talking about what they know and what they, how they work.

• 47:09Speaker 03

  And they're also operating within a budget of some kind.

• 47:11Speaker 02

  Yes, exactly.

• 47:11Speaker 03

  And if you look at like the graphics for the, the last thing that we saw, I think it was the Browns defense, the like,

• 47:18Speaker 03

  it's not like the most ornate and beautiful graphics I've ever seen, but it does appear at least like some things are in different, the fonts like are in different sizes.

• 47:25Speaker 02

  It like follows standards for...

• 47:26Speaker 03

  There are like little things happening here that she's maybe not aware of and...

• 47:30Speaker 02

  When she kept saying Adobe Photoshop, I was like, I think they know what that is. I think they know what that is. You don't have to keep calling it by its full name.

• 47:37Speaker 03

  And she's like, I made his website with little or no...

• 47:40Pablo Torre?

  Can we talk about the website for a second? If you go to billbalachek.com.

• 47:44Speaker 03

  Oh, brother.

• 47:44Pablo Torre?

  This is what you see.

• 47:46Speaker 03

  If anything, it looks exactly to me in the style or quality of the graphics that she's criticizing.

• 47:53Speaker 02

  It also says Via Giphy all over it, which I feel like means it's all, she didn't like actually invest any money into...

• 47:59Pablo Torre?

  The website seems to be a three across scroll of Bill Balachek gifs from Giphy.

• 48:06Speaker 02

  Graphic design is her passion?

• 48:08Pablo Torre?

  Can I draw your attention to the, the title of, in the browser, the tab?

• 48:12Speaker 02

  Oh. Yeah, it says Bill Belichick, but with two K's? Dot com.

• 48:19Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 48:19Speaker 02

  Why is that?

• 48:20Pablo Torre?

  I think I would ask the webmaster.

• 48:22Speaker 03

  I think the idea of like, I want the show to look better. I think there's another level for this. I think all that is cool.

• 48:27Speaker 02

  It comes from a good place.

• 48:28Speaker 03

  You've just gotta have a little bit of humility, I think.

• 48:29Speaker 02

  And a little awareness of yourself. A little awareness of like, cause you're saying to the guy as you're criticizing what he does for work. You're saying, I know this and I don't know [BLEEP] about this industry. And it's like, the guy's like, okay. And, and see, the thing is, is I do. So if you could just let me do my job.

• 48:50Pablo Torre?

  I feel for those people.

• 48:52Speaker 02

  Me too.

• 48:53Speaker 03

  Like producers in the room?

• 48:55Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 48:55Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 48:56Speaker 02

  The guy who made the graphic isn't some, uh, a guy that's not around. He's probably there.

• 49:00Speaker 03

  What about the hot guy leaning over the chair? What's his deal? He probably just showed up.

• 49:03Pablo Torre?

  He seemed dismayed.

• 49:04Speaker 03

  Yeah, I felt so bad for him.

• 49:06Pablo Torre?

  It was Matt Patricia looking straight down at the desk. It was what Michael described fairly as.

• 49:11Speaker 03

  The hot guy.

• 49:11Pablo Torre?

  Hot guy.

• 49:12Speaker 03

  There's a hot guy just standing there.

• 49:13Pablo Torre?

  Also silhouetted, same angle of skull at desk.

• 49:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, he's like, I'm supposed to go fishing after this. I don't want to talk about graphics with this lady. I don't even know who she is.

• 49:21Pablo Torre?

  And so when I talked to the many people who were around this set at NFL Films, uh, studios, working on Coach, this ill-fated show from Bill Belichick. One of the funny things that did become clear is that nobody was even sure whether Belichick was aware of like this degree of just general tension and dysfunction emanating through this whole enterprise, right? So Matt Patricia, looking the way he did, Lombardi being off somewhere, off screen, Jordon Hudson, all of that. People were not sure whether it was because human emotion isn't Belichick's strong suit. They weren't sure if it's just because all of them kept on just kissing Belichick's ass in person. But the thing that came across as exemplified by this next clip

• 50:05Pablo Torre?

  of Jordon Hudson leaning in and attempting to have a private conversation with her boyfriend slash business partner slash boss on tape is that they did enjoy [BLEEP] on other people.

• 50:25Speaker 09

  Oh, that's awesome.

• 50:26Speaker 14

  Let's go back, let's go back.

• 50:27Speaker 06

  Okay.

• 50:28Speaker 14

  Let's go.

• 50:29Speaker 06

  Yep, yep.

• 50:29Speaker 14

  Alright.

• 50:30Speaker 09

  Damn, we should have had Tony pull this out.

• 50:32Speaker 12

  No kidding.

• 50:34Speaker 14

  Thank you for helping solve this.

• 50:37Speaker 09

  You should send him one of those texts of like even when I'm working, even when I'm with somebody else, I'm thinking of you.

• 50:46Speaker 09

  I was thinking, I was thinking of you the whole time.

• 50:50Speaker 09

  Do you want to something, we should actually, we should get Tony in here.

• 50:53Speaker 12

  He would make this place better than what it is, I'll tell you that.

• 50:59Speaker 09

  I'm like a really serious no on some of the things that we want to have mounted and whatnot. I mean, there's some things that fall through the cracks, but for the most part, everything is actually really well done.

• 51:11Speaker 09

  You don't have to give Tony every single little detail.

• 51:13Speaker 12

  No.

• 51:14Speaker 09

  For him to **** figure it out.

• 51:15Speaker 12

  That's right. He needs very little help.

• 51:17Speaker 09

  I almost think that you should have Joe Neely, I don't know if you get, if that's who you were talking about. If you guys could actually have somebody rather than try to talk through what is, what happened to you. Like, if you want to say like, this is what we're doing.

• 51:31Speaker 12

  That's what I was trying to get to.

• 51:32Speaker 09

  Right, but I think that that's, you need to probably put them and say like, we're gonna take care of this because it needs to be done a certain way. And we literally, honestly, you're better air casting up there.

• 51:40Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 51:41Speaker 09

  Just like up to the television.

• 51:45Speaker 09

  And even if he's not physically here, if you guys, if you say like, just be available to connect with us during this period of time. I mean, you guys have done the screen sharing thing. He would show you the graphics and say, here's what it is that we want to have done. And then you review it in real time, he makes the changes. And then honestly, then if he sends it to Matt and it's projected on screen, like I'm like, that would be so much faster. I don't know, they have four full-time graphics people.

• 52:11Speaker 12

  I can't do **** that.

• 52:12Speaker 09

  Right.

• 52:14Speaker 12

  That's not really Joe's thing. That's what Matt Ira's talking about, it's not really Joe's thing. Like, could we teach him to do it? Yeah, but then he becomes a graphics guy and we need somebody who did that for us. And we have to figure out who's available to do that, you know?

• 52:33Speaker 09

  Who knows how to arrange the stats? Because I have, I have a gra, I have a graphics person who helped me with the website.

• 52:39Speaker 12

  We need a football person.

• 52:40Speaker 09

  I think they're using all of the underdog people from the other thing. I don't know how to do anything else aside from what they do on all the other shows, which honestly, frankly, really isn't that good. The same thing that we ran, like, the final thing for the coat logo that we ended up with was like, white letters and a black background. I was like, we're not doing that. Make it leather, like, make it something.

• 53:00Speaker 03

  I'm hoping it tickles.

• 53:02Speaker 02

  Did she say make it leather?

• 53:03Pablo Torre?

  Make it leather.

• 53:04Speaker 03

  The background, I think she means to have the background be textured in some way.

• 53:07Pablo Torre?

  Make it leather, make it something.

• 53:08Speaker 02

  Oh, okay.

• 53:08Speaker 03

  Yeah, here's what I want to say about this. I think, actually, this is okay. Because it's just, the mistake is, you're on mic. But I believe personally, you should be allowed to talk [BLEEP]. You could talk [BLEEP]. They don't think anybody else is listening to them say this shit.

• 53:25Speaker 02

  I'm feeling pretty conflicted about having access to this.

• 53:30Speaker 03

  Like, I don't agree with what they're saying, but you should be able to talk [BLEEP]. You should be able to talk [BLEEP].

• 53:36Speaker 02

  At people's work, though, when they're working, when the job is supposed to, like, she came in during work hours and said, "I don't like this grocery store."

• 53:42Speaker 03

  No, I agree with you.

• 53:43Speaker 02

  Grocery store runs like this, and then is talking [BLEEP] at the grocery store on the grocery store's microphones.

• 53:47Pablo Torre?

  But I want to be fair, maximum fair in all of these ways, as Michael is helpfully doing. Because I think a key part of the context I want to add is, of course, that you have Jordon Hudson coming in with all of this self-proclaimed expertise about how to do the jobs of the people around her better. And that's okay if she wasn't also totally seemingly unaware that part of the job of working on a set is that you're talking into microphones pinned to your chest. And so what that video was, was something that was truly listened to live by an entire control room of people at NFL Films.

• 54:24Speaker 02

  Damn.

• 54:24Speaker 03

  Yo, I mean, yes, it is absolute evidence of the contrary, of her conception of herself.

• 54:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 54:30Speaker 03

  Right? It's like, you think you're an expert, guess what? We're all listening to you on these live microphones.

• 54:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 54:35Speaker 03

  That part is kind of inexcusable. And I think I'm sort of of two minds in terms of, like, us listening to this, which is the control room, that someone in there could be like, "Uh, by the way, we can hear you in here," to help them out.

• 54:46Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 54:47Speaker 03

  But the energy of it, I'm reminded, of course, of the great choreographer Jerome Robbins. I'm sure they're both thinking of Jerome, choreographed West Side Story, et cetera. There's a story about Jerome Robbins in Jerome Robbins Broadway. He's choreographing, he's an incredible choreographer. He's backing up as he's talking, and he's getting very close to the lip of the stage, and everyone can see that he's gonna fall off the stage. And they just let him fall. I don't know if this is a true story or not, but it's one that I was told. It has this kind of energy to it where it's like, someone could have stopped this recording from being made altogether. But they don't. They're just like, we don't like you. Are you comparing Patricia to Leonard Bernstein? Leonard Bernstein? I think probably Bill would be Bernstein and she's Jerome Robbins. Oh, okay.

• 55:31Speaker 03

  I think she's our Robbins in this case.

• 55:33Speaker 02

  She's just backing up, trying to choreograph beautifully.

• 55:36Speaker 03

  Yeah, this story turns out to be completely nonexistent, just.

• 55:38Speaker 02

  That's fine. Just cut it right out and then we'll loop it. And then we'll lift it.

• 55:42Speaker 03

  But then you can release this on a thumb drive for Jordan to play on her podcast.

• 55:47Speaker 02

  In this same [BLEEP]. In this same Tiffany's box.

• 56:01Speaker 10

  ActiveCampaign is the marketing automation platform built for big swings and big dreams. Generate ideas in seconds. Import your brand and create full campaigns with simple prompts. Get started for free at activecampaign.com.

• 56:16Speaker 16

  Hey, we're Nick and Jack, hosts of The Best One Yet. Behind every episode, there's research, emails, spreadsheets, and our shared Google Doc, the headline hammer. With Google Workspace with Gemini, Google's AI is built right into the premium versions of tools we already use, like Gmail, Docs, and Sheets. No new tools or extra logins, just personalized AI for the way we work. That means less time on the work around the work and more time finding the stories worth talking about. Get AI tools for work. Upgrade to Google Workspace with Gemini at goo.gle/workspacewithgemini. That's goo.gle/workspacewithgemini.

• 56:49Speaker 11

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• 57:21Pablo Torre?

  This is like the first glimpse anyone has is the dynamic here. The reason I'm showing it to you and to now everyone is not, "Man, let's cancel Jordan Hudson for her comments on graphics design and leather aesthetics." It's, "This is what the power dynamic is like around Bill Belichick." Like, what she is showing us inadvertently is, I am told, not dissimilar from what it's like at Carolina right now. It's what it's like at every stop, including the CBS interview, which we did see in that glimpse. It's kind of a consistent pattern that everybody who encounters Belichick Productions has attested to in my reporting. And also amusing is the fact that, yes, it's just like the greatest coach of all time,

• 58:05Pablo Torre?

  who is this total hard ass, truly to your observation before, like deferring to the council. She says, "Aircast." We could just aircast it and you know he's like, "Well, whatever the [bleep] that is." "God damn it, brilliant." But that dynamic of like, "Here's someone you just met, it's Belichick's girlfriend." Also, she's doing all of this now, and that's like, that's episode one.

• 58:27Speaker 02

  She thinks everything you did sucks and is bad, and she's gonna go talk to him privately about how to replace him with somebody else.

• 58:33Pablo Torre?

  And also, she's the COO of Belichick Productions, a job that you did not know existed before.

• 58:37Speaker 02

  And she calls it Adobe Photoshop, like the Lord intended.

• 58:41Pablo Torre?

  All of this is the vibes of the inner circle.

• 58:44Speaker 02

  That's a bummer, that's a bummer.

• 58:47Pablo Torre?

  One year later, to the month, they're trying to relaunch that show at Carolina. But none of it, of course, came to be. So, there were months of discussion, there was this mad scramble to be ready for the season opener against TCU, but there were operational problems, production problems, distribution problems, in part because Jordan, sources tell me, had wanted the show to live on the Coach Show's YouTube channel, the one that she had controlled with Bill in the way that we just saw behind the scenes. But the biggest problem, you could argue, was simply that TCU beat the [bleep] out of Carolina by more than 30 points.

• 59:22Speaker 02

  I mean, if you stopped filming after the first...

• 59:25Pablo Torre?

  Play?

• 59:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, then it was a great game.

• 59:29Speaker 03

  No amount of graphics would have saved.

• 59:33Speaker 03

  The recap of that game.

• 59:35Pablo Torre?

  So one sort of poetic part of this whole dynamic that I want to observe here is that one person has in fact achieved great success this college football season. It is the only rocket scientist in football that I know of who had been holding out for a defensive coordinator job in the NFL if Bill Belichick got an NFL head coach job again, which he didn't, in large part because, I am told, NFL teams did not trust which people Belichick would surround himself with. But now Matt Patricia is the defensive coordinator of number one Ohio State. He's running an apparently all-time defense. He's living a dramatically happier life than the one at North Carolina. Can we see, there, look at that.

• 1:00:19Speaker 02

  Oh my god, it's like truly a different man.

• 1:00:22Speaker 03

  Emanating joy.

• 1:00:23Speaker 02

  He just seems like he's comfortable, he's happy, he's, you'd grab a beer with him if that was something you'd be into.

• 1:00:29Pablo Torre?

  He has dimples.

• 1:00:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, he's jolly.

• 1:00:31Pablo Torre?

  He has dimples.

• 1:00:32Speaker 02

  He's got a jolly man's hat on.

• 1:00:34Pablo Torre?

  He has one of those hats that they wear in Peaky Blinders.

• 1:00:37Speaker 02

  I was gonna say scallycat, but is that wrong?

• 1:00:39Pablo Torre?

  But there is, in all of this, with the Carolina post-game show that we talked about dead and the Hulu docu-series dead, this one is from a year ago this month, it's October 2024. It's after the New York Jets happened to fire Robert Sala, their head coach, and over in Mount Laurel, New Jersey, at the NFL Filmset, Bill Belichick, Mike Lombardi, and Matt Patricia, under the supervision of Jordon Hudson, gathered for a quote, "raw and real conversation about Sala's firing and what it feels like to be in the hot seat."

• 1:01:14Speaker 05

  We all know that culture is such an important part of an organization all the way through, and honestly, that's what I love about being at this table with you two guys.

• 1:01:23Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:01:24Speaker 05

  Just our culture, just being able to talk football, to talk about whatever it is, whether it's... Offense, defense, special teams, draft, building a team, accountability, teamwork. It's just a great culture. And when everybody's, you know, pretty much on the same page, has the same vision, has the same passion, and wants to work at it, it's just so much fun to be around and do. And I can't thank you guys enough for all the times that we've had together through the years. When you think about culture, I think about how lucky I've been to be part of it. And I can kind of see in the Jets organization, you can just kind of tell it's not there. And so I've been really lucky to have guys, people like you. But for this show, for you guys to be here, I appreciate it.

• 1:02:07Speaker 06

  I think we've been lucky too, right? And I think to me, I don't want to speak for Matt, but for me, I can't really survive in any other culture but this. That's the one thing I've learned through my failures, is I need this, whether it's doing this TV show, or being in the NFL, or doing anything, is that this culture that I learned from you, and how to behave, and how to act, and how to think, is really the way it's become a way of life. It's become my operating system, and without it, it's really no fun.

• 1:02:35Speaker 05

  Well, we'll be back to talk about it again next week.

• 1:02:37Speaker 06

  Thank you for joining us. Please make sure you rate, review, and subscribe to the Coach channel.

• 1:02:50Speaker 03

  They did change the set, the set. They did. The set's different. Now, instead of looking like a boardroom in like a nondescript video game.

• 1:03:00Speaker 02

  Her notes were applied.

• 1:03:00Speaker 03

  Now it looks like your granddad's man cave.

• 1:03:05Pablo Torre?

  I'm not trying to tell everybody in college football, "I told you so."

• 1:03:10Speaker 02

  It does sound like you are trying to say that. In fact, you kind of just said it.

• 1:03:14Pablo Torre?

  Mmm.

• 1:03:15Speaker 02

  Do you want us to say it? "He told you so."

• 1:03:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, let me take that. Three, two, one. "He told you so."

• 1:03:23Speaker 02

  So.

• 1:03:23Pablo Torre?

  Nailed it.

• 1:03:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, you're welcome for that.

• 1:03:34Pablo Torre?

  Pablo Torre Finds Out is produced by Walter Avaroma, Maxwell Carney, Ryan Cortez, Juan Galindo, Patrick Kim, Neely Lohman, Rob McCray, Matt Sullivan, Claire Taylor, and Chris Tumanello. Our studio engineering by RG Systems. Sound design by Andrew Bersick and NGW Post. Theme song, as always, by John Bravo. And we will talk to you next time.

• 1:04:09Speaker 10

  ActiveCampaign is the marketing automation platform built for big swings and big dreams. With intelligent suggestions powered by AI and your data. Generate ideas in seconds. Import your brand and create full campaigns with simple prompts. Set personalized messages backed by real time feedback, smart segmentation, and effortless reporting that tracks every win. Let's redefine what's possible together. Get started for free at activecampaign.com.

• 1:04:39Speaker 16

  Hey, we're Nick and Jack, hosts of The Best One Yet. Behind every episode, there's research, emails, spreadsheets, and our shared Google Doc, the headline hammer. With Google Workspace with Gemini, Google's AI is built right into the premium versions of tools we already use, like Gmail, Docs, and Sheets. No new tools or extra logins, just personalized AI for the way we work. That means less time on the work around the work and more time finding the stories worth talking about. Get AI tools for work. Upgrade to Google Workspace with Gemini at go.o.gle/workspacewithGemini. That's go.o.gle/workspacewithGemini.

• 1:05:12Speaker 11

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