Pod Insights Pablo Torre Finds Out Exclusive: Bill Belichick, Jordon Hudson and the Carolina Blue Box of Palace Intrigue About this episode 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
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Transcript 11,726 words · 17 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Speaker 00 Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out. I am Pablo Torre and today we're going to find out what this sound is.
0:06 Pablo Torre? He told you so.
0:09 Speaker 00 Right after this ad.
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2:15 Speaker 02 Are you morphing into Mr. Beast? Where you just take unwitting people into a room and you make something bad happen to them?
2:23 Pablo Torre? In a week of insult that I personally have suffered. That is... that's the worst.
2:29 Speaker 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.
2:36 Speaker 03 And the room's filling with water.
2:38 Pablo Torre? Hello, by the way.
2:39 Speaker 02 Hi, is there chocolate all over my face?
2:41 Pablo Torre? Yeah, big ol' chocolate face. Did you also have a protein bar of some kind?
2:45 Speaker 02 No, just a Snickers. I called this a protein bar. I said, "This is a granola bar."
2:51 Pablo 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.
3:01 Speaker 03 Thank you.
3:01 Speaker 02 What's happening and why is it sitting like that? Also, you know what I don't like about this?
3:06 Pablo Torre? Yeah.
3:06 Speaker 02 Is now we don't get any off-camera stuff we can't say on camera time.
3:10 Pablo Torre? I know.
3:11 Speaker 02 Which, there's so much stuff we can't say off-camera, on-camera.
3:14 Pablo Torre? There's a lot of... I...
3:16 Speaker 02 To talk about.
3:17 Pablo Torre? I know and respect that you both are a bit frazzled.
3:21 Speaker 03 Not me.
3:24 Speaker 03 Not me.
3:25 Pablo Torre? Michael has his hands on the table like he's taking a lie detector test. And Katie is...
3:29 Speaker 03 I'm gonna absorb the negative energy of the room.
3:31 Speaker 02 I'm getting set. I'm doing my own hair and makeup.
3:33 Pablo Torre? Digesting a Snickers bar.
3:34 Speaker 02 She can do it all.
3:36 Speaker 03 She's a 90s woman and she can do it all.
3:39 Speaker 02 I was just gonna say I'm sucking the nuts out of my teeth. Can you imagine if I had said that?
3:43 Pablo Torre? I'm so glad you didn't say that.
3:45 Speaker 02 Me too.
3:45 Speaker 03 Can you even imagine?
3:47 Speaker 02 I couldn't even imagine.
3:48 Pablo Torre? There is a bit of an escape room vibe today.
3:51 Speaker 03 I love an escape room.
3:52 Speaker 02 When I can see the puzzles.
3:54 Speaker 03 Yeah, if I could see the puzzles.
3:55 Speaker 02 What if they're all puzzles I don't know how to solve?
3:57 Speaker 03 Show me the puzz.
3:58 Speaker 02 You gonna chew gum the whole time or just for the beginning here?
4:02 Speaker 03 Just pack it away.
4:04 Pablo Torre? Good to have you both back here.
4:06 Speaker 02 I don't know yet. I reserve my right to say how I feel about being here.
4:09 Pablo 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.
4:22 Speaker 02 Is it moving? Why is it up on, see how it's up on the sides?
4:25 Pablo Torre? It is up on the side.
4:26 Speaker 02 What's that about?
4:27 Pablo Torre? It's just a wonderfully wrapped package. It's a little, it's a little askance.
4:30 Speaker 02 Like, it looks like if you pull it and it's attached, it's gonna be attached to like a...
4:34 Pablo Torre? Yeah. What color? There's a human hand in there?
4:36 Speaker 02 Yeah.
4:37 Pablo Torre? For those who are not watching on YouTube...
4:38 Speaker 02 It's Tiffany blue. You know what it is. But the ribbon isn't from Tiffany's because it's a different blue.
4:44 Pablo 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.
4:48 Speaker 02 I literally just said it was Tiffany blue. It's teal.
4:50 Pablo Torre? I personally would say it's perhaps a little Carolina blue.
4:55 Speaker 02 Oh, [bleep] Christ. What's happening?
5:00 Pablo Torre? The ribbon is a special color for a special occasion. We're doing it again, guys! Oh my god, oh my god.
5:08 Speaker 02 No, Papa, I've had a lot going on this week, okay?
5:13 Pablo 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.
5:22 Speaker 02 Oh, [bleep] hell.
5:24 Pablo 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.
5:29 Speaker 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!
5:43 Pablo 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.
5:58 Speaker 02 I thought we were done.
5:59 Pablo Torre? Every five or six months.
6:00 Speaker 02 I was done.
6:02 Pablo 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.
6:37 Speaker 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?
7:04 Speaker 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.
7:24 Speaker 03 It's like one of those learning curves where the arrow just goes straight down.
7:27 Speaker 02 But it curves a little.
7:28 Speaker 03 Yeah.
7:30 Speaker 02 It's a little bit.
7:30 Speaker 03 Some of it's, yeah, curves itself a little more, a little more down.
7:33 Pablo Torre? The Great Depression of learning curves.
7:35 Speaker 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.
7:40 Pablo 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.
7:54 Speaker 02 Wow, that's a lot.
7:56 Pablo 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.
8:41 Pablo Torre? Unfortunately, the all-access docu-series that Bill Belichick and Jordon Hudson had announced was coming to Hulu.
8:46 Speaker 02 Done.
8:47 Pablo Torre? Yeah.
8:47 Speaker 02 No mas.
8:48 Pablo 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.
8:57 Speaker 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.
9:07 Pablo Torre? When it gets so bad that it's now unbelievably compelling.
9:10 Speaker 02 We would all watch it.
9:11 Pablo Torre? Yes, extremely watchable.
9:13 Speaker 02 If that was the point, we would all watch it.
9:14 Pablo Torre? I would click on it so fast.
9:15 Speaker 02 I would absolutely watch it.
9:17 Pablo 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.
10:02 Speaker 02 Oh, no.
10:03 Pablo Torre? With you guys.
10:03 Speaker 02 Oh, no.
10:04 Pablo Torre? What?
10:05 Speaker 02 Oh, no, I don't like this. My tummy hurts.
10:07 Pablo Torre? You don't want to hear about my now 12 sources? Yes, give me 12 sources.
10:11 Speaker 02 Oh, God, I'm gonna be sick.
10:13 Pablo 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?
10:24 Speaker 02 Uh-uh.
10:24 Pablo 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.
10:33 Speaker 02 Oh my god. Oh my god, it's worse than we thought.
10:37 Pablo 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?
10:54 Speaker 02 Uh, I know of him, obviously. I know him vaguely. We, I think, worked maybe at Fox Sports together.
11:00 Pablo Torre? Sure.
11:00 Speaker 02 Uh, for a time.
11:02 Pablo Torre? Yeah.
11:04 Speaker 02 That's all I'll say on that.
11:05 Pablo Torre? Yep, very good. We're gonna put a pin in the... Yeah. ...of pregnant pause.
11:10 Speaker 03 I'm feeling a strong negative reaction, but I'm not, I'm not familiar with the oeuvre of Mike Lombardi myself.
11:16 Pablo 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...
11:25 Speaker 03 Oh god.
11:26 Pablo Torre? The 33rd NFL team.
11:29 Speaker 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...
11:40 Pablo 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,
12:23 Pablo 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.
12:36 Speaker 02 Oh.
12:37 Pablo Torre? To try and fundraise over there.
12:39 Speaker 02 Come on, this story was made in a lab to piss me off.
12:43 Pablo Torre? You didn't hear about the Riyadh College Football Festival?
12:46 Speaker 02 Oh my god.
12:47 Pablo Torre? Bill Belichick's other shoulder, of course.
12:51 Pablo 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.
13:13 Speaker 02 You.
13:14 Pablo Torre? Yeah, me.
13:14 Speaker 03 For us.
13:15 Pablo Torre? Us.
13:16 Speaker 02 Hansel and Gretel.
13:18 Pablo 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.
13:30 Speaker 02 Her cheer ring?
13:32 Pablo Torre? No.
13:32 Speaker 03 The necklace.
13:33 Pablo Torre? It was the necklace. What are we looking at? What are we looking at here? Can you just describe what we're seeing?
13:40 Speaker 02 A photo of Jordan.
13:41 Pablo Torre? Yeah.
13:41 Speaker 02 Walking. She's got a blue tank and blue jeans that have some sort of, maybe that snake skin.
13:47 Speaker 03 I think it's like a kind of pants that where the, like, the snake skin appears, starting at the legs.
13:53 Pablo Torre? Like an anamorphs kind of pattern.
13:55 Speaker 03 Yes, exactly. Like, she is morphing.
13:57 Pablo 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?
14:06 Speaker 03 Banned.
14:08 Pablo Torre? That's right.
14:09 Speaker 02 Like, B-A-N-N-E-D, not B-A-N-D.
14:12 Speaker 03 That's right.
14:13 Speaker 02 There's many homophones.
14:14 Speaker 03 Yes, that's true.
14:15 Pablo 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.
14:33 Speaker 03 She's reclaiming it.
14:34 Pablo Torre? Well.
14:35 Speaker 03 You called me banned. Well, I am banned. I am banned. How about that?
14:39 Pablo Torre? It is, to Michael's point, a reference to something that happened at this desk back in May of 2025.
14:46 Speaker 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?
15:01 Pablo 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.
15:13 Speaker 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."
15:22 Pablo 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.
15:44 Speaker 02 Here we go.
15:44 Speaker 03 Can't wait.
15:45 Speaker 02 Should we hold hands?
15:46 Pablo 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.
16:03 Speaker 03 Mike Lombardi, whoa. It's like Game of Thrones up in there.
16:08 Pablo Torre? The other advisor on Bill Belichick's shoulders.
16:10 Speaker 03 Wow.
16:11 Pablo Torre? I don't know if Jordan knows that. She might.
16:14 Speaker 03 You think we're breaking news to her right now?
16:16 Pablo Torre? So that's the start of the episode we're in four.
16:19 Speaker 02 Oh my god, I can't believe this.
16:23 Pablo Torre? It's an episode about tension and territorialism between the allegedly separate football life of Bill Belichick and his personal life.
16:30 Speaker 02 Wow.
16:31 Pablo 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.
16:40 Speaker 02 Shout out decoder ring.
16:42 Speaker 03 Shout out decoder ring.
16:43 Pablo Torre? Do kids decode things with rings anymore?
16:45 Speaker 03 Absolutely, a million percent not.
16:49 Pablo 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.
17:23 Pablo Torre? After the break.
17:41 Pablo Torre? So are you guys actually familiar with escape rooms? Of course.
17:44 Speaker 02 Wait, what? Yes.
17:46 Pablo Torre? I can't tell if Katie is the greatest or worst escape room teammate.
17:51 Speaker 02 I love doing them. I hate having to work as a team.
17:55 Pablo 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.
18:18 Speaker 02 The walls fall down where they are.
18:21 Pablo 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.
18:36 Speaker 02 Ooh, that's you.
18:37 Pablo 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?
18:57 Speaker 02 I... I don't think so.
19:02 Pablo Torre? Did you watch Dynasty?
19:04 Speaker 02 No, I didn't.
19:06 Pablo Torre? So Dynasty...
19:07 Speaker 02 I hate this.
19:08 Pablo Torre? Dynasty, which is the 10-part, Apple TV docu-series.
19:12 Speaker 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.
19:18 Pablo 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.
19:37 Speaker 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.
19:53 Speaker 02 What are we talking about here?
19:54 Speaker 03 What is this?
19:55 Pablo Torre? What we're talking about.
19:56 Speaker 03 Thank you.
19:57 Pablo 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
20:42 Pablo 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?
21:17 Speaker 03 I dig that. Yeah, sure.
21:18 Pablo Torre? Okay.
21:18 Speaker 03 Take control of the narrative.
21:20 Pablo Torre? They're content creators. They want to own the IP.
21:22 Speaker 02 Parenthesis, Bill's version.
21:23 Pablo Torre? Bill's version.
21:24 Speaker 03 Nice.
21:25 Pablo 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...
22:05 Pablo 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.
22:18 Speaker 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.
22:49 Speaker 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.
23:01 Speaker 02 Yeah, I was getting bored too. Thanks.
23:03 Pablo Torre? So that show was named Coach. It was produced by the sports gaming company Underdog.
23:10 Pablo Torre? It's this show. What do you mean? Oh, you mean the...
23:12 Speaker 02 Sorry, the scripted show. Sorry, I was being silly. Go back to it. Start again. Sorry, sorry.
23:16 Pablo Torre? Are you trying to put Craig T. Nelson in this episode?
23:19 Speaker 02 Yes.
23:20 Pablo Torre? You're unilaterally Craig T. Nelsoning.
23:23 Speaker 02 I'm so sorry. I got bored. Go back to it.
23:25 Pablo 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...
23:40 Speaker 02 I'm just girding my loins.
23:43 Pablo Torre? We're in Mount Laurel, New Jersey.
23:44 Speaker 05 Ooh.
23:46 Pablo Torre? That's right.
23:46 Speaker 05 I don't know.
23:47 Pablo Torre? It's the home of NFL Films.
23:48 Speaker 02 I bet they appreciate that.
23:49 Pablo Torre? It's the home of NFL Films and its studio.
23:51 Speaker 02 It's actually a nice office.
23:52 Pablo 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.
24:23 Speaker 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.
24:38 Pablo Torre? Katie, do you want to explain who Matt Patricia is to people?
24:40 Speaker 02 Matt Patricia was the longtime defensive coordinator of the Patriots. And then he was the head coach.
24:47 Speaker 03 Why are you whispering?
24:48 Speaker 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.
25:05 Speaker 03 Wait, Matt Patricia was also the head coach of the...
25:08 Pablo Torre? Detroit Lions.
25:08 Speaker 03 Lions, right?
25:09 Pablo Torre? Yes. Matt Patricia, in fairness to Matt Patricia, was the only rocket scientist coaching in the NFL.
25:16 Speaker 03 He was actually a rocket scientist?
25:18 Pablo Torre? He went to RPI.
25:19 Speaker 03 Oh, Rensselaer.
25:21 Pablo Torre? Polytechnic Institute.
25:23 Speaker 03 Yep.
25:23 Pablo 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.
25:59 Speaker 02 This is so... such a pathetic visual.
26:02 Speaker 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?
26:09 Pablo Torre? Steve.
26:09 Speaker 03 Steve, I believe. Lear's three daughters.
26:12 Pablo 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.
26:26 Speaker 03 Eee.
26:27 Pablo 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.
26:40 Speaker 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.
27:11 Speaker 02 When you use a laminated sheet and keep a pencil behind your ear.
27:14 Pablo Torre? That's a pretty good, that's a pretty good take.
27:15 Speaker 02 I was gonna say, what is this, the Bern Convention?
27:18 Pablo Torre? Nice. Holy screenshot that. Guys, Katie has arrived.
27:24 Speaker 03 I got your dynasty right here.
27:25 Pablo Torre? She's back.
27:26 Speaker 02 Oh, alright.
27:28 Pablo 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.
27:48 Speaker 02 Oh, yuck. Oh, yucky.
27:51 Pablo 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?
28:00 Speaker 02 And do we know how old she was? Did we remember, or is that still the part we're nailing down?
28:05 Pablo Torre? 24 in 2025. So doing some math, that was four years ago.
28:12 Speaker 02 Okay.
28:13 Pablo Torre? 20.
28:14 Speaker 02 Getting close, but not there, right?
28:19 Pablo 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.
28:46 Speaker 03 And there's a little like triangle of, triangle of distaste going around among the three of them, just underneath, underneath Bill.
28:52 Pablo Torre? And this is when I want to direct you, Michael.
28:55 Speaker 03 Oh, wonderful.
28:56 Pablo Torre? To the package at the center of the desk.
28:58 Speaker 03 Okay, we'll agree that it's the center for now.
29:00 Pablo Torre? Can you describe what you're reaching for an opening?
29:06 Speaker 03 Okay, blue paper, you know the paper, you know the paper that's inside the things?
29:09 Pablo Torre? Yeah.
29:10 Speaker 02 That's what's in there. It's tissue paper.
29:11 Speaker 03 Yep. Okay, another one. Now this one looks like there's another package inside here.
29:16 Pablo Torre? I would like, I would like Katie to open this box.
29:18 Speaker 02 Oh my god, this is the stupidest, I never, I refuse.
29:22 Pablo 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?
29:35 Speaker 02 I'll tell ya.
29:36 Speaker 03 That was easy to untie, by the way.
29:38 Speaker 02 Yeah, it certainly was.
29:39 Pablo Torre? Delicate.
29:40 Speaker 02 Thanks, boys.
29:41 Pablo Torre? Classy.
29:43 Speaker 02 More tissue paper. Okay, this is, I mean, this is filthy Tiffany box. I don't understand what's happening here.
29:52 Speaker 02 Oh my god, what is, what is this?
29:55 Speaker 03 It's like a thumb drive? What is that?
29:56 Speaker 02 Should I be wearing gloves? What is this?
29:59 Pablo Torre? That is a thumb drive.
30:01 Speaker 02 It sure is. It's a thumb drive on a ribbon.
30:05 Pablo 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.
30:17 Speaker 02 Oh, boy.
30:18 Pablo 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.
30:25 Speaker 02 Oh, boy.
30:26 Pablo 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...
30:41 Speaker 09 Not talking about this.
30:43 Pablo 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.
30:56 Speaker 02 It would be an honor. Wait, first, but yeah, it would be an honor, I think.
31:00 Pablo Torre? So, what we have here is behind the scenes footage from the set of Coach at NFL Films Studios.
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32:37 Pablo 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.
33:15 Speaker 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.
33:21 Speaker 12 Yeah, there'll be.
33:23 Speaker 05 100%, 100%.
33:25 Speaker 09 I feel like that applies to all defenses.
33:28 Speaker 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.
33:46 Speaker 05 I mean, we could say it differently.
33:47 Speaker 09 Is that red zone specific, conceptually?
33:50 Speaker 05 Well.
33:51 Speaker 09 Should that say red zone instead of end zone?
33:54 Speaker 05 Well, there's explosive plays and all, yeah.
34:03 Speaker 09 So you guys haven't reviewed these before this moment here?
34:07 Speaker 12 At the graphics.
34:09 Speaker 05 Not the actual graphic itself, no.
34:12 Speaker 12 Stuff type is what I sent last night.
34:14 Pablo Torre? So the visuals on that, Jordon Hudson leaning over the desk with some questions, with some truly...
34:21 Speaker 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.
34:32 Speaker 02 Yeah.
34:32 Pablo Torre? I think that's a fair take.
34:34 Speaker 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.
34:45 Speaker 02 Yeah, maybe we had to, I think he knows the difference. He's got no difference.
34:49 Speaker 03 This guy, this guy for sure knows. I'm, I think she's got a valid question. I think he gives sort of...
34:53 Pablo Torre? She did say, "Conceptually."
34:55 Speaker 02 Yeah.
34:56 Pablo 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.
35:15 Speaker 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?
35:34 Speaker 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.
35:49 Speaker 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.
36:06 Speaker 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.
36:43 Speaker 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.
36:57 Speaker 05 And Matt just shows it on his screen, which would take five minutes to put it together.
37:02 Speaker 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?
37:09 Speaker 05 No, that's completely different.
37:13 Speaker 05 All right, so going forward.
37:15 Speaker 09 Are we gonna build hundreds of those?
37:16 Speaker 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.
37:26 Speaker 09 Right. I mean, damn.
37:29 Speaker 13 Yeah, it's not cheap.
37:33 Speaker 09 If somebody puts on a clock, I could create this in five minutes, we can make two grand out of that.
37:38 Speaker 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?
37:52 Speaker 14 I mean, I think these look better than the PowerPoint.
37:55 Speaker 05 I don't.
37:56 Speaker 09 I don't.
37:57 Speaker 14 The PowerPoint like you're, really?
38:01 Speaker 05 I mean, these are brutal.
38:03 Speaker 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.
38:35 Speaker 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.
38:43 Speaker 14 These are not, so we'll have, look, we'll have new designs, we'll create new templates.
38:48 Speaker 09 Can we do that with them and sit there and say, as they're doing it, no, that's wrong?
38:53 Speaker 14 Yeah, we'll give you guys, we'll mock, we'll mock everything up.
38:57 Speaker 09 Can we set up a meeting with like the entire graphics, even anybody that has anything to do with this?
39:01 Speaker 14 Yeah.
39:03 Speaker 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?
39:11 Pablo Torre? All the clarity, I would like to offer you.
39:13 Speaker 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.
39:32 Pablo 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.
39:43 Speaker 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.
39:59 Pablo Torre? Right.
40:00 Speaker 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.
40:25 Pablo Torre? Michael, can you read the list?
40:26 Speaker 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.
40:37 Pablo Torre? And there's a big, you know, orange Browns helmet behind it.
40:40 Speaker 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.
40:45 Speaker 02 Hundred percent looks like a page in a PowerPoint.
40:47 Speaker 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.
40:56 Speaker 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.
41:10 Pablo Torre? Right, right. I mean, look, I would say, I would say this.
41:15 Speaker 02 The set is also fine. It's all fine.
41:18 Pablo 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.
41:39 Speaker 02 Oh, that's also an interesting point that this is not, she was not brought in as like creative advisor.
41:44 Speaker 03 Oh, she's not a producer on the show.
41:46 Pablo 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.
41:57 Speaker 03 I thought she was a producer on the show.
41:59 Speaker 02 She runs his media company, but was his media company involved in this? Or is this him being paid?
42:06 Pablo Torre? And I think this exact question is where she has a very clear view of what her job was.
42:11 Speaker 02 Uh huh.
42:12 Pablo 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.
42:20 Speaker 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.
42:28 Pablo Torre? She's making a handout.
42:29 Speaker 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.
42:43 Pablo 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.
43:03 Speaker 02 Oh, man, more?
43:05 Speaker 14 You wanna create, yeah, editable templates that Matt can just plug numbers into?
43:10 Speaker 15 Well, we'll get somebody else to do it.
43:11 Speaker 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.
43:24 Speaker 15 Yeah.
43:24 Speaker 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...
43:51 Speaker 15 And then adjusting the info, yep.
43:52 Speaker 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.
44:05 Speaker 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.
44:22 Speaker 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.
44:29 Speaker 15 Yes.
44:29 Speaker 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.
44:37 Speaker 15 Hundred percent agree. I think the point of the graphics package is to have a uniform look.
44:42 Speaker 09 Are they gonna be different segment to segment? Won't that be part of the ability to decipher them?
44:49 Speaker 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.
44:57 Speaker 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.
45:18 Speaker 15 I don't know, I don't know enough about that, that would be a question.
45:22 Speaker 02 Oh my, this is brutal. This is a brutal watch.
45:26 Speaker 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.
45:30 Speaker 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.
45:56 Speaker 03 It also seems like Bill trusts her inherently in a way that's like.
45:59 Speaker 02 Yeah, that's his boo.
46:01 Speaker 03 That's like, but I think it's really like.
46:03 Speaker 02 That's his muse, that's his little mermaid.
46:05 Speaker 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.
46:13 Speaker 02 She knows everything.
46:14 Speaker 03 She knows she can do everything.
46:15 Speaker 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?
46:24 Speaker 03 It's gotta be Bill. Bill's gotta be the one.
46:26 Speaker 02 It's never gonna be Bill.
46:27 Speaker 03 I know, but that's who it's gotta be.
46:29 Pablo Torre? Welcome to Balachek Productions.
46:31 Speaker 02 This is nuts.
46:32 Pablo Torre? This is what these things are. That's the power dynamics. A lot of people standing around afraid to make him
46:39 Speaker 02 Ay yi yi.
46:39 Pablo Torre? Feel like he's not in charge or whatever.
46:42 Speaker 03 I think like in fairness to Jordan, I think the questions about like, I wish the graphics looked different.
46:48 Speaker 02 Totally valid.
46:48 Speaker 03 That's totally fine.
46:49 Speaker 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?
46:54 Speaker 03 Sure.
46:54 Speaker 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.
47:09 Speaker 03 And they're also operating within a budget of some kind.
47:11 Speaker 02 Yes, exactly.
47:11 Speaker 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,
47:18 Speaker 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.
47:25 Speaker 02 It like follows standards for...
47:26 Speaker 03 There are like little things happening here that she's maybe not aware of and...
47:30 Speaker 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.
47:37 Speaker 03 And she's like, I made his website with little or no...
47:40 Pablo Torre? Can we talk about the website for a second? If you go to billbalachek.com.
47:44 Speaker 03 Oh, brother.
47:44 Pablo Torre? This is what you see.
47:46 Speaker 03 If anything, it looks exactly to me in the style or quality of the graphics that she's criticizing.
47:53 Speaker 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...
47:59 Pablo Torre? The website seems to be a three across scroll of Bill Balachek gifs from Giphy.
48:06 Speaker 02 Graphic design is her passion?
48:08 Pablo Torre? Can I draw your attention to the, the title of, in the browser, the tab?
48:12 Speaker 02 Oh. Yeah, it says Bill Belichick, but with two K's? Dot com.
48:19 Speaker 03 Yeah.
48:19 Speaker 02 Why is that?
48:20 Pablo Torre? I think I would ask the webmaster.
48:22 Speaker 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.
48:27 Speaker 02 It comes from a good place.
48:28 Speaker 03 You've just gotta have a little bit of humility, I think.
48:29 Speaker 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.
48:50 Pablo Torre? I feel for those people.
48:52 Speaker 02 Me too.
48:53 Speaker 03 Like producers in the room?
48:55 Speaker 02 Yes.
48:55 Speaker 03 Oh, yeah.
48:56 Speaker 02 The guy who made the graphic isn't some, uh, a guy that's not around. He's probably there.
49:00 Speaker 03 What about the hot guy leaning over the chair? What's his deal? He probably just showed up.
49:03 Pablo Torre? He seemed dismayed.
49:04 Speaker 03 Yeah, I felt so bad for him.
49:06 Pablo Torre? It was Matt Patricia looking straight down at the desk. It was what Michael described fairly as.
49:11 Speaker 03 The hot guy.
49:11 Pablo Torre? Hot guy.
49:12 Speaker 03 There's a hot guy just standing there.
49:13 Pablo Torre? Also silhouetted, same angle of skull at desk.
49:17 Speaker 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.
49:21 Pablo 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
50:05 Pablo 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.
50:25 Speaker 09 Oh, that's awesome.
50:26 Speaker 14 Let's go back, let's go back.
50:27 Speaker 06 Okay.
50:28 Speaker 14 Let's go.
50:29 Speaker 06 Yep, yep.
50:29 Speaker 14 Alright.
50:30 Speaker 09 Damn, we should have had Tony pull this out.
50:32 Speaker 12 No kidding.
50:34 Speaker 14 Thank you for helping solve this.
50:37 Speaker 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.
50:46 Speaker 09 I was thinking, I was thinking of you the whole time.
50:50 Speaker 09 Do you want to something, we should actually, we should get Tony in here.
50:53 Speaker 12 He would make this place better than what it is, I'll tell you that.
50:59 Speaker 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.
51:11 Speaker 09 You don't have to give Tony every single little detail.
51:13 Speaker 12 No.
51:14 Speaker 09 For him to **** figure it out.
51:15 Speaker 12 That's right. He needs very little help.
51:17 Speaker 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.
51:31 Speaker 12 That's what I was trying to get to.
51:32 Speaker 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.
51:40 Speaker 06 Yeah.
51:41 Speaker 09 Just like up to the television.
51:45 Speaker 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.
52:11 Speaker 12 I can't do **** that.
52:12 Speaker 09 Right.
52:14 Speaker 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?
52:33 Speaker 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.
52:39 Speaker 12 We need a football person.
52:40 Speaker 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.
53:00 Speaker 03 I'm hoping it tickles.
53:02 Speaker 02 Did she say make it leather?
53:03 Pablo Torre? Make it leather.
53:04 Speaker 03 The background, I think she means to have the background be textured in some way.
53:07 Pablo Torre? Make it leather, make it something.
53:08 Speaker 02 Oh, okay.
53:08 Speaker 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.
53:25 Speaker 02 I'm feeling pretty conflicted about having access to this.
53:30 Speaker 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].
53:36 Speaker 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."
53:42 Speaker 03 No, I agree with you.
53:43 Speaker 02 Grocery store runs like this, and then is talking [BLEEP] at the grocery store on the grocery store's microphones.
53:47 Pablo 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.
54:24 Speaker 02 Damn.
54:24 Speaker 03 Yo, I mean, yes, it is absolute evidence of the contrary, of her conception of herself.
54:29 Speaker 02 Yeah.
54:30 Speaker 03 Right? It's like, you think you're an expert, guess what? We're all listening to you on these live microphones.
54:35 Speaker 02 Yeah.
54:35 Speaker 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.
54:46 Speaker 02 Yes.
54:47 Speaker 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.
55:31 Speaker 03 I think she's our Robbins in this case.
55:33 Speaker 02 She's just backing up, trying to choreograph beautifully.
55:36 Speaker 03 Yeah, this story turns out to be completely nonexistent, just.
55:38 Speaker 02 That's fine. Just cut it right out and then we'll loop it. And then we'll lift it.
55:42 Speaker 03 But then you can release this on a thumb drive for Jordan to play on her podcast.
55:47 Speaker 02 In this same [BLEEP]. In this same Tiffany's box.
56:01 Speaker 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.
56:16 Speaker 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.
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57:21 Pablo 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,
58:05 Pablo 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.
58:27 Speaker 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.
58:33 Pablo Torre? And also, she's the COO of Belichick Productions, a job that you did not know existed before.
58:37 Speaker 02 And she calls it Adobe Photoshop, like the Lord intended.
58:41 Pablo Torre? All of this is the vibes of the inner circle.
58:44 Speaker 02 That's a bummer, that's a bummer.
58:47 Pablo 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.
59:22 Speaker 02 I mean, if you stopped filming after the first...
59:25 Pablo Torre? Play?
59:25 Speaker 02 Yeah, then it was a great game.
59:29 Speaker 03 No amount of graphics would have saved.
59:33 Speaker 03 The recap of that game.
59:35 Pablo 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.
1:00:19 Speaker 02 Oh my god, it's like truly a different man.
1:00:22 Speaker 03 Emanating joy.
1:00:23 Speaker 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.
1:00:29 Pablo Torre? He has dimples.
1:00:30 Speaker 02 Yeah, he's jolly.
1:00:31 Pablo Torre? He has dimples.
1:00:32 Speaker 02 He's got a jolly man's hat on.
1:00:34 Pablo Torre? He has one of those hats that they wear in Peaky Blinders.
1:00:37 Speaker 02 I was gonna say scallycat, but is that wrong?
1:00:39 Pablo 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."
1:01:14 Speaker 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.
1:01:23 Speaker 03 Yeah.
1:01:24 Speaker 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.
1:02:07 Speaker 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.
1:02:35 Speaker 05 Well, we'll be back to talk about it again next week.
1:02:37 Speaker 06 Thank you for joining us. Please make sure you rate, review, and subscribe to the Coach channel.
1:02:50 Speaker 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.
1:03:00 Speaker 02 Her notes were applied.
1:03:00 Speaker 03 Now it looks like your granddad's man cave.
1:03:05 Pablo Torre? I'm not trying to tell everybody in college football, "I told you so."
1:03:10 Speaker 02 It does sound like you are trying to say that. In fact, you kind of just said it.
1:03:14 Pablo Torre? Mmm.
1:03:15 Speaker 02 Do you want us to say it? "He told you so."
1:03:17 Speaker 03 Yeah, let me take that. Three, two, one. "He told you so."
1:03:23 Speaker 02 So.
1:03:23 Pablo Torre? Nailed it.
1:03:23 Speaker 02 Yeah, you're welcome for that.
1:03:34 Pablo 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.
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1:04:39 Speaker 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.
1:05:12 Speaker 11 With a Discover Cash Back Card, it's payback time when you earn cash back on everyday purchases. Activate and earn 5% cash back at different categories each quarter on up to $1,500 in purchases. That's 5% cash back at different places each quarter, like grocery stores, on gas, and at restaurants. It pays to discover. Terms apply. See discover.com/five for details.
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