OverDrive - Chatham on Belichick's college coaching debut, the transition from the NFL and Brady being around teams

Episode Date: August 27, 2025

Former NFLer and Super Bowl Champion Matt Chatham joined OverDrive to discuss Bill Belichick's opening season with North Carolina, his transition from the NFL to college football, Tom Brady being in the production with teams and more.

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Loud, crowd, and all yours. No passports required, just press play. Tap into Made in Canada now on iHeartRadio.ca. Or the free iHeartRadio app. Here's a guy that knows him well from a professional standpoint when he was still coaching in the NFL, Super Bowl champ down in New England. Here's former NFL or Matt Chatham. Matt, what do you anticipate Belichick's first year in college to look and sound like

in terms of the spotlight being on him and his ability, if he wants to, to get a lot of eyeballs on a school that doesn't have a really crazy football history? Well, I guess off the back, It'll just be interesting to see how kids respond to him. I know they're excited. You know, it's a sort of chance of a lifetime to have this sort of narrow window where a guy with his resume sort of slides into that world. But you know it won't go on into perpetuity.

He can't do it for presumably 15 or 20 years. You know, maybe this is a chance where if you just came there as a freshman, you may get him for your full four years. Who knows? But in my view, that kind of makes it almost more attractive, especially if you're one of those high-end guys that says, hey, I might not stay for four. It would just be interesting to see how the guys that he's attracted to the place in this short amount of time, how they respond to him early on, right?

Because college is so much different as far as, you know, these aren't professionals yet. You have an unlimited amount of the time. You're really capped in how much you can do with them. Can they get up to speed in that amount of time, you know, in their high teens and early 20s, like he was always able to do that with guys much older with much more time on their hands. So that's the challenge. I think it's going to be exciting.

I'm certainly interested in looking to watch too, but I don't think anyone knows even Bill. I mean, he knows how to coach the game as well as anyone on planet Earth, but this is a new challenge. Did you ever envision this kind of career arc for Bill Belichick, like leaving the NFL, coaching college ball, but not even really at such a prominent football school, but is this something that if someone told you this was going to happen,

and, you know, 15 years ago, would you have believed that this is something that would be coming true? I think one of the big lessons in the NFL life as a whole is that, like, you can't be surprised about anything. I mean, it just most, most guys, you know, Tom Brady, if we had the same conversation as Tom as a buccaneer, he said, no, of course not. You know, like this stuff, the unexpected happens, right?

It's just kind of part of it. So, I mean, right now, what, we're Pete Carroll's in Vegas, I think, right? Yeah, I mean, just the point of this is, like, Just don't be prepared to not be surprised by just about anything. Is it the first guess I would have made now? But I think it can reinvigorate you. Maybe it's a little bit like Tom's situation, a new environment, new people to sort of interact with in a new place. You know, like you said, you're dealing with maybe a highly touted 19-year-old kid or, you know, a kid who transferred in who's 21 or 22 and just looking to push it across the line and get in the NFL.

That's a different kind of dude. it's a different kind of challenge. You wake up and do something different each day, and he's on the sort of 19th hole here of his professional career. Sometimes just that new thing at the end, I think, can give you a little more juice and keep you rolling. As far as the on-field game planning, how does that shift from what he did in the NFL

to now working with younger athletes in college with shorter timelines? Yeah, I mean, that's an awesome question. I think as much as anything, we were always kind of considered like a place, both sides of the ball, really all three elements of the game, where it was sort of like graduate level stuff, where, you know, we could, we could handle way more defenses on a weekly game plan than most, right?

We're going to, we're going to be multiple. We're going to be different. You can scout the hell of us from what we did. We could go, but we're going to do something different now. Offensively, it's like, you know, you're this massive install through these exceedingly long camps, and you're going to be, you know, you're going to be multiple all year long. You're going to be the team that has a harder,

harder sort of approach to prepare for. College is so incredibly limited with time and with young kids who just may not be there yet to be able to do that. That's kind of one of the cool sort of twist to this, you know, how much of what he wants to do can he do. And he'll be learning in real time as we watch it ourselves. But the one thing I know is they'll never have been as prepared as they were now. I mean, you can imagine these kids, you know, I've got a high school senior now, awesome coaching staff. I mean, like, as good as you can ask for at the high school level here in Massachusetts. But the way they're prepared at high school level is so much different that you went from like, you know,

a really good high school program to like a year later as this freshman with your eyeballs just popping out of your head like, what the hell? How does this guy know that? Or where did he come up? Where did he come up with that? Or like, I thought I watched film the last, you know, three or four years of my life. I'd never seen that before, right? So it's just sort of like graduate, graduate level in a hurry. So, you know, how well the kids take to that at a young age?

And I think some will just respond exceedingly well to it. It's like, wow, he's giving me the answers to the test. If I just do what he says, you know, and I can have success. So that's generally the message. It's like, wow, never been given such great information. What am I going to be able to go do with it? With Super Bowl champ longtime patriot, Matt Chatham. You mentioned Brady a moment ago, and there's a report out today

that the NFL will now allow Tom to take part in production meetings with coaches and teams this season, obviously working with Fox. and last year Brady was banned for much of the season from the information gathering sessions because he's a minority owner of the Raiders and he has not hit from that he's been around camp he shows up he's wearing the Raiders gear he's on the field

you know he's pretty heavily involved in that you know what do you think his end game here is Brady in terms of you know continuing to work for Fox but also trying to help Vegas get over the top and do you think he can marry the two and it's going to be all good for him on both sides you know, for the next five, seven, eight years?

I don't know, but I do know that it's a massive TV deal. It's the kind of money you don't turn down. It's a great gig, and he's going to get an opportunity to continue to grow in that. But, I mean, from obviously not doing the level of games that Tom was, but I did years and years of production meetings for our TV broadcast stuff and preseason games and things like that, and all for ESPN college football stuff. And I can't imagine as the color guy going into a game without part of that.

I mean, it's just a lot of the material. When the camera light goes on and there's dead time between plays and you've got to talk to the roster, those conversations you have back at the hotel, the night before are huge and getting a little perspective from the coach on what they're seeing, what they're thinking, what they're doing. It's helpful, man, it's just content. You know, you're trying to get through three and a half hours of talking. So, you know, handcuff the guy a little bit to be able to like, you can't interact with him, just show up to the game and watch some film on your own

and hope your relationship with your play-by-play is great. I mean, it is a little weird, to be honest, so to let him. them just kind of do the normal course of things, that just seems natural, I guess. Like, I don't understand how they were ever going to expect different than that. Now, how can it, you know, coincide with him trying to grow the Raiders? I don't know, but they allowed it. So, you know, do you think the teams will be comfortable, though? Like, do you think the Chargers and the Broncos are like, come on in, Tom?

Like, do you think, how can you do that? Yeah, exactly. It's weird, right? It's weird. I don't know, right? I mean, are you going to be, you know, standoffish, a little bit cold? You know, you have to make available certain players. You send in, you know, the last guy on the roster, not your quarterback Atlanta.

I don't know. How does that work? Like, it's kind of a, you know, it's a little bit of chess. But I think also something that could be interesting is, you know, you get late in the season. And, you know, Tom is a charismatic guy. He's an awesome dude. Obviously, knows that position as well as anybody. And you could have him a position where he's, you know, just chatting with guys that may become pre-agent someday.

You know, so it's just, it's a good. a weird dynamic, but it's apparently allowed, and I'm sure he'll make the most of it. We were talking about Belichick and how you shouldn't be surprised by anything. You mentioned Pete Carroll and Tom Brady. I mean, maybe this is fairly

obvious, but do you think this is really it for Belichick? Like, do you think there's even a slimmer of a chance that he would return to the NFL in the right situation? I mean, I think all those things are decided, you know, how these next couple years go there.

I mean, if you just, you know, does exceedingly well, they're, you know, in the tournament. At the end of the year, they surprise people. They load it back up with an incredible recruiting class. And all of a sudden you've made a place that was, you know, an ACC school. But like a next tier, you know, it's not like a perpetual top tenor kind of place. But you do that really quickly. You meet really, you know, big-time goals that you might have in a short amount of time. Yeah, then maybe your point of view changes.

But I don't know. It's a new challenge. the NFL life is a lot different you're doing different things you're not recruiting kids you're working budgets and free agency and all that I know I have cells a little bit similar but it's just

all I would say is he can't know that I would presume unless he came into it wanting to get back and was using this for something else all the things I've heard from from friends and other people that know him and other people that are down there now is that this is authentic

he wants to go down there and make that place successful and maybe that in and of itself will be incredibly fulfilling, and then you're done. But, you know, if it goes an unexpected way, and we're sitting here three or four years, and there's a weird opportunity out there for another couple of years of the place up here in the NFL, maybe that's too. I mean, I just think we're so far from, you know, him experience it, much less, you know, looking at other prospective places.

How do you think his other college coaches are viewing this massively well-known NFL coach coming down to coach in college? I would imagine it's a fun little challenge just because college concepts can be different. You know, the stuff that you're running is a lot more spread concepts. There's a lot more, hey, you know, this is not professional offensive line play. This is get the ball out quick. This is, you know, guys with giant, you know, whatever, four-foot placards from the sideline going in their plays. And, you know, there's ways you can work over other teams if you're not sort of familiar with operating in that world.

and he's presumably bringing in this heavy pro-style both sides of the ball, how the whole operations run, and that versus a more traditional college thing. I guess we haven't seen what the result of that would be, but, you know, it's just got to be fun. You know, it's not as if guys haven't had big challenges against Bill and won them in the NFL when you'd see first time head coaches or up-and-coming new guys that get their big shot.

Bill's won his fair share and lost them too. So I don't know, I just think it puts you juice in everyone. You get a play for him, you're excited. You get a play against them. You're excited. And, you know, guys generally try to rise to that. With Matt Chatham. So what's the, every time we talk to you, we're talking barbecue with you and rub smoke.

Is it rub smoke love? Rub smoke open? Yeah, rub smoke love. How are we feeling about that these days? Because still barbecue season up here in Toronto. Yeah, here too. I mean, it's, you kind of transition. We have Labor Day coming up, and we have a big event for about 250 people.

We're not a caterer, but we're a manufacturer, so we sell, I think we're in about over 400 stores up here in the Northeast right now. So it's chaos. We just added the new chain for September 1st. So we're just kind of trying to hold it together as all young, small businesses are growing fast due. So we've just transitioned Labor Day is obviously a huge day, and then you move into sort of tailgate time, right? And, you know, what you're aiming for then, what can be executed in a parking lot a few hours before King Day? is a little different than the guy that's trying to do, you know, all-day-long brisketes and things like that at home for the weekend.

So we're trying to be versatile, so our stuff is great for just about all of it. But it's a fun time of year. People love to eat at games, and we've got the stuff to do it. I love it. Awesome, man. Good luck with that. Enjoy the season. We'll do it again soon.

Thank you, Matt. All right. Thanks, guys. Take care. Matt Chatham, Super Bowl champ, entrepreneur. The biggest songs in the world. You've heard them countless times. Now, learn the details of how they came to be.

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