Pablo Torre Finds Out - Exclusive: Bill Belichick, Jordon Hudson and the Carolina Blue Box of Palace Intrigue

Episode Date: October 17, 2025

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, The Belichick Ring Mystery, Solved• Subscribe to "Casuals with Katie Nolan"• Listen to "Sorry for Your Loss" by Michael Cruz Kayne Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to Pablo Torre finds out. I am Pablo Torre, and today we're going to find out what this sound is. He told you, Sal. Right after this ad. Are you morphing into Mr. Beast? Where you just take unwitting people into a room and you make something bad happen to them? In a week of insult that I personally have suffered, that is, that, that's the worst. And then someone locks a door, right?

And then they show us a man eating c'em out of a tub. Tell me that's not torture And the room's filling with water Hello by the way Hi is there chocolate all over my face Did you also have a protein bar of some kind No just as Snickers I called this a protein bar

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

Yeah. Is now we don't get any off-camera stuff we can't say on-camera time. I know. Which, there's so much stuff we can't say off-camera on camera. There's a lot of, there's, I, I know in respect that you both are a bit frazzled. Not me. Not me. Michael has his hands on the table like he's taking a lie detector test.

And Katie is. I'm going to absorb the negative energy of the room. I'm getting set. I'm doing my own hair and makeup. Digesting a snickers bar. It's a 90s woman and she can do it all. I was just going to say I'm sucking the nuts out of my teeth. Can you imagine if I had said that? I'm so glad you didn't say that.

Me too. Can you even imagine? I couldn't even imagine. There is a bit of an escape room vibe today. I love an escape room. When I can see the puzzles. Yeah, if I could see the puzzles. What if they're all puzzles I don't know how to solve?

Show me the pus. Are you going to chew gum the whole time or just for the beginning here? Just pack it away. Good to have you both back here. I don't know yet. I reserve my right to say how I feel about being here. 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. Is it moving? Why is it up on it? See how it's up on the sides? It is up on the side. What's that about?

It's just a wonderfully wrapped package. It's a little a stance. It looks like if you pull it and it's attached, it's going to be attached. to like a... Yeah. What color? There's a human hand in there?

Yeah. For those who are not watching on YouTube... It's Tiffany Blue. You know what it is. But the ribbon isn't from Tiffany's because it's a different blue. 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.

I literally just said it was Tiffany Blue. It's teal. I personally would say it's perhaps a little Carolina blue. Oh, fucking Christ. What's happening? The ribbon is a special color for a special occasion. We're doing it again, guys. Oh my God. Oh my God. No. What is there to do? What? I've had a lot going on this week, okay? I just think it's been too long since we did an old-fashioned

Bill Belichick, Jordan Hudson, and now North Carolina football episode. Oh, fucking hell. Have you guys been paying attention to what's been happening at the University of California? I know they're not doing good. But like, they're not a foot. They've never been a football. school. What did people think? He was going to turn it all around in a year with Mike Lombardi's help? The guy uses a typewriter. 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. I thought we were done. Every five or six months. I was done. 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. The team has been, in fact, so terrible that on Monday, the highest paid public employee in the state of North Carolina, Bill Belichick, making $10 million a year on a guaranteed three-year contract, had to go and stand behind a podium to reiterate, that in fact he is not seeking a buyout on his contract five games in.

Last game was 28 to 3 after the first quarter, people clearing out after half time. 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 neck out to bring you here. I mean, can you acknowledge, you're telling me that you believe this process. is working? Yeah, absolutely.

It's a learning curve. We're all on it together. But we're making a lot of progress and the process will eventually produce the results of 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.

It's like one of those learning curves where the arrow just goes straight down. But it curves a little... Yeah, it's a little bit of the air. Yeah, it curves itself a little more, little more down. The Great Depression of Learning Curves. It's never good when the question you're being asked is like 40 straight minutes of all the horrible things that are happening. 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 loss to power 14s. 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 Jordan 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. Unfortunately, the All-Axed docus series that Bill Balliachek and Jordan Hudson had announced was coming to Hulu. Done. Yeah. No moms.

Was supposed to replace the Hard Knock series that Jordan Hudson, in her quest for general control, had derailed, as previously discussed on this show. That Hulu thing is not going to come out. 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.

When it gets so bad that it's now unbelievably compelling. We would all watch it. If that was the point, we would all watch it. I would click on it so fast. I would absolutely watch it. 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, docuseries. 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 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 with you guys. Oh, no. Oh, no. What? Oh, no, I don't like this. My tummy hurts. You don't want to hear about my now 12 sources I've been talking to? Yes, give me 12 sources. Oh, God, I'm going to be sick. 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. 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. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. It's worse than we thought. 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? I know of him, obviously. I know him vaguely. we, I think, worked maybe at Fox Sports together for a time. Yeah. That's all I'll say on that. Okay.

Very good. We're going to put a pin in the pregnant pause. I'm feeling strong negative reaction, but I'm not familiar with the uver of Mike Lombardi myself. 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... Oh, God. The 33rd NFL team. Everything we do here is predicated on building a pro team.

We consider ourselves the 3013 because everybody's involved with our program has had some form of aspect in pro football. The brief scouting report year. 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 Ballot, 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, this was, I am 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. Oh.

To try and fundraise over there. Come on. This story was made in a lab to piss me off. You didn't hear about the Riyadh College Football Festival? Oh, my God. Bill Belichick's other shoulder, of course, is Jordan Hudson. The parallel here, Jordan's relationship with Bill Belichick is also the biggest reason for her sustained credibility and employment.

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, yeah, me. For us, Hansel and Gretel. For us to notice. And one example of this is that Jordan showed up to the first game of the season, that 48 to 14 blowout lost to TCU. wearing something that I'm not sure a lot of other people noticed. Her cheer ring?

No, it was... The necklace. It was... The necklace. What are we looking at? What are we looking at here? You just describe what we're seeing. A photo of Jordan?

Yeah. Walking. She's got a blue tank and blue jeans that have some sort of, maybe that snake skin. I think it's like a kind of pants where the snake skin appears starting at the legs. Like an animorphs kind of pattern.

Yes, exactly. Like she is more... Yes. Let's zoom in on the neck, though. The word in this slide deck that I hope you can make out is what? B-A-N-N-E-D. That's right. B-A-N-N-E-D. That's right. There's many homophones. Yes, that's true. This is a necklace with the word band that Jordan 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 from attending and scouting Carolina football games this season?

Which is a thing. She's reclaiming it. Well... You called me banned. Well, I am banned. How about that? It is, to Michael's point, a reference to something that happened at this desk

back in May of 2025. 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? Bill Belichick's family.

Uh-oh. He's extraordinarily concerned. There is deep worry for how detrimental Jordan can be for not just North Carolina, but Bill's legacy, reputation. The Carolina Athletics Department tells ET Jordan Hudson is welcome, and, quote, will continue to manage all activities related to Coach Belichick's personal brand.

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. It's 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. Can't wait. Should we hold hands? 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. Whoa.

It's like Game of Thrones up in there. The other advisor on Bill Balochek's shoulders. Wow. I don't know if Jordan knows that. You think we're breaking news to her right now? So that's the sort of episode we're in four. This is Calus intrigue. I can't believe this.

It's an episode about tension and territorialism between the allegedly separate football life of Bill Ballicheck and his personal life. Mike Lombardi and Jordan Hudson, allegedly, respectively. I just consider this a bit of the decoder ring that explains what the fuck is happening at Carolina right now. Shout out decoder ring. Shout out decoder ring.

The kids decode things with rings anymore? Absolutely a million percent not. The other thing I want to decode here, though, is that you know, the Hulu docuseries, 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.

After the break. So are you guys actually familiar with escape rooms? Of course. Wait, what? Yes. I can't tell, so I can't tell if Katie is like the greatest or worst escape room teammate. I love doing them. I hate having to work as a team. 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 not totally unlike the one we're sitting in right now, I dare say.

The space is operated. The walls fall down. We're there. It was operated this whole thing by an influencer management agency that works with UNC on its name, image, likeness stuff, called Article 41. I should say that the founder of Article 41, a guy named Ben Gilden, declined comment to PTFO for this episode.

Ooh, that's you. But what I can tell you, as me, according to multiple other sources, is that before week one of the college football season, Bill Ballicheck and Jordan 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?

I don't think so. Did you watch Dynasty? No, I didn't. So Dynasty, I hate this. Dynasty, which is the 10-part Apple TV docu series. 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. So the reason Valichek 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. Copyright Craft Dynasty LLC 24, all rights reserved.

The copyright holder is the author of the cinematographic or audiovisual work for the purposes of Article 15, parentheses, two of the Burn Convention and all national laws giving effect there to. What are we talking about here?

What is this? Good job, by the way. Thank you. The Burn Convention, obviously, it's the fact that Jordan Hudson's last retweet on September 6, 2025, is a screener. of what you see at the end of an episode of Dynasty,

the Apple TV series aforementioned. Crafts massage coordinator, which is the username, which I do not co-sign for legal reasons, that person screenshoted 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.

It's something that 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, docuseries, and he didn't know that Bob Kraft controlled 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 Jordan Hudson wanted to do was make a Carolina football centric show that Belichick's company, with Jordan Hudson running it, obviously, would own.

They wanted to own this new Carolina media project themselves. Is this all making sense so far? I dig that. Yeah, sure. Okay. Take control of the narrative. They're content creators. They want to own the IP.

Parentheses, Bill's version. Nice. 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 going to co-host a weekly video show with Bill Belichick, which the two of them would break down handpick 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 switches and cameras and a graphics package and telestration technology. And if the premise for this Belichick co-hosted show seems at all familiar, 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. 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 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. 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 that just somethings that need to make, trades, things like that. Yeah, I was getting bored. too, thanks. So that show was named Coach. It was produced by the sports game and company.

That's already a show. It's this show. What do you mean? Oh, you mean the... Sorry, the scripted show. Sorry, I was being silly. Go back to... Start again.

Sorry, sorry, sorry, I won't do it. You're trying to put Craig T. Nelson in this episode. Yes. You're unilaterally Craig T. Nelsoning. I'm so sorry, I could. Coach was the big podcast project that Bill Belichick started during the 24 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. I'm just girding my loins. We're in Mount Laurel, New Jersey. Ooh. That's right. I don't know.

It's the home of NFL films. I bet they appreciate that. It's the home of NFL films. Actually, nice office. And flanking Bill Belichick, who's 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. Jordan Hudson, who very quickly became, be self-appointed boss of this whole enterprise. And there was also a third person in the inner circle. Ooh. At this point in the timeline.

It was actually the primary co-host of the show, ahead even of Mike Lombardi, on the death chart. And Katie might recall this person as well from her Patriots fandom. Welcome to coach. I'm Matt Patricia, and this is coach Bill Belichick. We're going to step behind the scenes into the coach's office. And coach, we're going to talk every week. Game plan must.

Tuesday players, situational analysis, and a special segment called the library. Coach, I'm excited to be... Katie, do you want to explain who Matt Patricia is to people? Matt Patricia was the longtime defensive coordinator of the Patriots. And then he was the head coach. Why are you whispering? Because I don't want to do any of this anymore.

This is like, yeah, I remember these people. They were 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... I feel ill, Pablo. I feel ill. Wait, Matt Patricia was also the head coach of the... Detroit Lions. Lyons. Right?

Yes. Matt Patricia, in fairness, Matt Patricia, was the only rocket scientist coaching in the NFL. He was actually a rocket scientist? He went to RPI. Oh, Rensselaer. Polytechnic Institute. Yep. He graduated from the School of Engineering's Mechanical Aerospace and Nuclear Engineering Department, also an undersized offensive 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 in NFL films at this time, was that Lombardi, Jordan, and Patricia all disliked each other. And they all were kissing Bill Belichick's ass. This is so such a pathetic visual. It's kind of like a King Lear situation with the, you got your Regan and your goneril and the third one.

Aren't there three of them? Steve. Steve, I believe, Lear's three daughters. 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. 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. I mean, Matt went in there and I've set it on this program many times. I've set 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 acriman in terms of coaching, never proved to be correct in Detroit. When you use a laminated sheet and keep a pencil behind your ears. That's a pretty good. I was going to say, what is this? The burn convention? Nice.

Holy shit. Screenshot that. Guys, Katie has arrived. I got your dynasty right here. She's back. Oh, all right. 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, complain to multiple sources that Jordan Hudson was a big reason why Bill Ballicheck was less obsessed with football over his last two years running the Patriots. Oh, yuck. Oh, yucky. 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?

And do we know how old? she was. Did we remember? Is that still the part we're nailing down? 24 in 2025. So doing some math, that was four years ago. Okay. 20. Getting close, but not there, right? All I'm here to report is that the last two seasons at Bill Belichick had in New England were 22 and 23. She shows up in the fan cam footage in 2021. meaning that Jordan 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. And there's a little like triangle of distaste going around among the three of them, just underneath Bill.

And this is when I want to direct you, Michael. Oh, wonderful. To the package at the center of the desk. Okay. We'll agree that it's the center for now. Can you describe what you're reaching for and opening? Okay. Blue paper, you know the paper?

You know the paper that's inside the things? Yeah. That's what's in it. Tissue paper. Yep. Okay. Another one. Now this one looks like there's another package inside of here.

I would like Katie to open this box. Oh, my God. This is the stupidest I refuse. This is for you. Instead of a banned necklace, Katie Nolan. Should I clear this from the... Jordan was wearing on the field of Carolina. based on our reporting year.

Uh-huh. What do we have inside of that box? I'll tell you. That was easy to untie, by the way. Yeah, it certainly was. Delicate. Classy. More tissue weight.

Deliberate. Okay, this is, I mean, this is filthy Tiffany box. I don't understand what's happening here. Oh, my God. What is this? It's like a thumb drive? What is that? Should I be wearing gloves?

What is this? That is? A thumb drive. It sure is. It's a thumb drive on a ribbon. For all of the episodes and conversations and posts and magazine covers about Jordan Hudson, it is worth pointing out that we've never actually really heard a lot of her talking. Oh, boy.

CBS News, you may recall, decided to show just a snippet of that behind-the-scenes footage of Jordan Hudson interrupting Bellichick's interview. Oh, boy. 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 Jordan 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... Not talking about this.

No. And then we heard from her briefly at the Miss Main pageant, where she finished second runner-up this year. But what Pablo Tori finds out has exclusively obtained for the first time, if you want to plug that thumb drive, Katie, into this computer. It would be an honor. Wait, first, but yeah, it would be an honor, I think. So what we have here is behind-the-scenes footage from the set of coach at NFL film studios. Bill Balliwick 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 Brown's defense against the Cowboys. And Jordan Hudson is doing what? Flipping through a big binder. Yeah, 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 Balli-check, there's Patricia, there's Jordan Hudson. There's my voice cracking. We could take that again if you want. No one's going to judge. We're going to leave it in.

And I think you'll get here a pretty decent sense of the dynamic at play. 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. Yeah, yeah. There'll be, it's a 100%. 100%. 100%. I feel that applies to all. We just said that the Cowboys offense is the best offense in the league. They have the most yards for game. Okay, so they're going to get the ball down there. We know they're going to get the ball down there.

Preventing touchdowns and forcing the field goals, there's going to be a key of the game. I mean, we could say it differently. Is that red zone specific conceptually? Well. Should that say red zone instead of end zone? Well, there's explosive plays at all. It's okay.

Yeah. So you guys haven't reviewed these before this moment here? Not the actual graphic itself, no. Stuff type is what I sent last night. So the visuals on that, Jordan Hudson leaning over the desk, with some questions, with some truly... I don't think that first question is an irrational question, right? Of course, you always want to keep everybody out of the end zone.

That's, I mean, I'm not a football player, but that feels like one of the big things you're trying to do. Yeah. I think that's a fair take. But I think Bill's response is also pretty fair, that it's like, you know, you can let him 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. Maybe we had to speak. I think he knows a difference. Yeah, this guy for sure knows. I think she's got a valid question. I think he gives sort of... She did say conceptually.

Yes. Before pushing back on the greatest football coach of all time. But the point being that it's not a lot of, a bad question. It's simply, oh, this is like the beginning of this show. And here comes Jordan Hudson, Bill Belchick'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. 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 feels like a pretty

ballsy question to ask. So I think to be like, why don't you review the... 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... 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. If he's editing on this and you have a PowerPoint on here or what another like,

I almost feel like that's a little bit easier. I thought for these like game plan must and whatnot that they were going to end up with like really, you know, custom looking graphics. Call it for each section to like coat them by section. You know, like the background on here is honestly like for game play. planned mess. I thought this was going to 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. This feels like 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 this that

and the other thing. It's like a lot of salary to pay for this. And that just shows it on his screen, which would take five minutes to put it together. Were these the deliverables that Ali said that she wasn't going to work on the shit that we asked her for because she wanted to do this instead? No, that's completely different. All right, so going forward... We're going to build hundreds of those? I mean, not hundreds, but we... If we're going to use show to show, we can definitely build out, but I just want to make sure we're going to use stuff.

So we're not spending things we're not going to use. Right. I mean, damn. Yeah, it's not cheap. If somebody puts on a clock, I could create this in five minutes. That's what you give me two grand to do that. So you think we're better off doing this than taking a PowerPoint which is like Matt doesn't need you doing PowerPoint.

But just the concept of a PowerPoint and put it up on the screen. Like, what's the difference? I mean, I think these look better than the PowerPoint. I don't know. The PowerPoint like you're really? I mean, these are brutal. So we can change things. Well, I gave it alley.

I sent her a text. and I could 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 in red pen. And that that was going to 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 these are not so we'll have local prior we'll have new designs we'll create new templates can we do that with them and sit there and say as they're doing it no that's wrong yeah we'll give you guys we'll mock them samples yeah can we set up a meeting with like the entire graphics even anybody that has anything to do with this yeah graphics

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? Yeah, please. All the clarity. I would like to offer you. 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. I would point out without full granular detail about the timeline you have. When you watch episode one, they are wearing the same clothes that they're wearing in this. And now that I'm seeing this, 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? Right. I mean, listen, what she's basically saying is this looks like a thing that you could type up in PowerPoint, I believe, is what I'm understanding her to say, is that. 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. Michael, can you read the list? Yes, we've got Stop CD 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. And there's a big, you know, orange brown's helmet behind it. I mean, I'll say it's totally fair to say like that's not the most creative graphic I've ever seen. I could see... 100% looks like a page in a PowerPoint. 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.

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 to 270. yada, yada, yada, so on, so on. Right. With a picture of the Brown's helmet. Right, right. I mean, look, I would say this. The set is also fine.

It's all fine. I think a key contextual detail here is that this is September, 24. 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 interested. produced initially as this is Bill's girlfriend. Oh, that's also an interesting point. She was not brought in as, like, creative advisor.

She's not a producer on the show. 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 us. I thought she was a producer on the show. She runs his media company, but was his media company involved in this? Or is this him being paid? And I think this exact question is where she has a very clear view of what her job was.

And everyone else was like, I suddenly woke up one day and realized I'm working for Jordan Hudson. And they had no idea who she had been. 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. When she goes, can I have $2,000? I could do that for you. And you want to 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.

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. Oh, man, more. You want to create, yeah, editable templates on Mac can just plug numbers into? Well, we'll get somebody else to do it. 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, you just go 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 up the screen and then just upload it. And it takes literally like three minutes to do it. it. I mean, I was able to build out his entire website with animations, with all of these things.

I've zero, you know, real graphic experience, and he's a live website with all of these things on it. It was just a matter of, you know, pressing some things around. It's like, oh, well, you don't like that. And then adjusting the info. Yep. Bylaws. 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 here. I mean, honestly, we can turn it into a segment and just lean into it. That's true. I don't think lean into the PowerPoint presentation. Hey, here, you want to know what it's like to be in a, in a Patriots team. Well, sure, that's a whole other conversation. 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. Yes. Clicking a button the way that he has this in front of them. We're just going to 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. 100% agree. I think the point of the graphics package is to have a uniform look. Are they going to be different segment to segment? Won't that be part of the ability to decipher them? Well, in general, shows have fields, right? Shows have a similar looking background. Shows have similar looking funds. We're more than happy to use them. Yeah. Can they create graphics that, you know, we actually plug it in? to a legitimate PowerPoint, like, if they're going to come up with something that we can edit in real time,

that if it's going to look a certain way and that we want to need to use a certain font, then we just basically create a copy of it and then run with it that way. I mean, if they're going to do the graphics, like, I don't know enough about that. That would be a question. Oh, my, this is brutal. This is a brutal watch. When she says, 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. It's great.

Why is everybody just letting her go and go without somebody going, hello, we are all creating something. And 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. It also seems like Bill trusts her inherently in a way that's like. Yeah, I mean, that's his boo. That's like, but I think it's really like, that's his little mermaid.

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. She knows everything. She knows everything. 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? It's got to be Bill. It's never going to be Bill. I know, but that's who's got to be. Welcome. to Balichick productions. This is nuts.

This is what these things are. That's the power dynamics. A lot of people standing around afraid to make him feel like he's not in charge or whatever. I think, like, in fairness to Jordan, I think the questions about like, I wish the graphics look different. Totally valid. It's totally fine. It's their dog graphics.

That's what I was saying. The studio kind of also, you're like, what is that jersey? What are we doing? Sure. It's clearly not. But that's kind of because the people that it's going to appeal the most to are. going to be people who do not care about the window dressings of it. They want to hear those two talking about what they know and how they work.

And they're also operating within a budget of some kind. And if you look at like the graphics for the last thing that we saw, I think it was the Brown's defense. The like 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. For example. It like follows standards for. things happening here that she's maybe not aware of. 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. And she's like, I made his website with little or no. Can we talk about the website for a second? If you go to Bill Belichick.com, this is what you see. If anything, it looks exactly to me in the style or quality of the graphics that she's criticizing. It also says via giffy all over it, which I feel like means it's all, she didn't like. actually invest any money into...

The website seems to be a three-across scroll of Bill Belichick Gifts from Giffie. Graphic design is her passion. Can I draw your attention to the title of... In the browser, the tab. Oh. Yeah, it says Bill Belichick but with 2Ks.com. Yeah.

Why is that? I think I would ask the webmaster. 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. comes from a good place. You just got to have a little bit of humility.

And a little awareness of yourself. I think that's a big word. Because 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 shit about this industry. And it's like, the guy's like, okay. And see, the thing is, is I do. So if you could just let me do my job. I feel for those people.

Me too. They're like producers in the room? Yes. The guy who made the great job. The graphic isn't some guy that's not around. He's probably there. What about the hot guy leaning over the chair? What's his deal?

He probably just showed up. He seemed dismayed. Yeah, I felt so bad for him. It was Matt Patricia looking straight down at the desk. It was what Michael described fairly as... The hot guy. There's a hot guy. Just standing there.

Also silhouetted same angle of skull at desk. Yeah, it'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. And so when I talked to the many people who were around this set at NFL films, studios. Working on Coach, this ill-fated show from Bill Balli-Chek, one of the funny things that did become clear is that nobody was even sure whether Balli-Chek was aware of, like, this degree of just general tension and dysfunction emanating through this whole enterprise, right? So, Matt Patricia,

looking the way you did, Lombardi being off somewhere off-screen, Jordan 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, of Jordan 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 shihing on other people. Oh, that looks great. Okay.

Thanks, good. Yep. Yep. All right. Damn, we should have Tony built this time. you should send him one of those texts like even when I'm working even when I'm with somebody else I'm thinking of you I was thinking you the whole time you want to sound like we should actually we should get toned in here he would make this place better than what it is I'll tell you that on like a really serious note on some of the things that we want to have mounted and whatnot

There's some things that pulse with cracks, but for the most part, everything is actually really well done. You don't have to give Tony every single little detail. No. That's right. He needs very little help. I just think that you should have Jim Neely. I don't know if you could actually have somebody rather than try to talk their what is you want to happen. You want to say like this is what we're going to do.

Right, but I think that that's, you need to. and say like, we're going to take care of this because it needs to be done a certain way. And we literally, honestly, you're better air casting up there. Just like up to the television. 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, I'm talking like that would be so much faster. I don't know, I have four. That's not really a joke. That's what Matt and I were just talking about. It's not really chose. For us, then we have to figure out

who's available to do that, you know? Who knows how to arrange the stats? I have a graphics person who helped me with the ones. We need a football person. I think they're using all the undergels aside from what they do on all the other shows, which on is the same thing that we ran up,

like the final thing for the coat logo that we ended up with was like white leather. Oh. Did she say make it leather? Make it leather. I think she means to have the background be textured in some way. Okay. 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 shit. You can talk shit. They don't think anybody else is listening to them. I'm feeling pretty. conflicted about having access to this. Like, I don't agree with what they're saying, but you should be able to talk shit.

You should be able to talk shit. People's work, though, when they're working, when the job is supposed to... She came in during work hours and said, I don't like this grocery store. No, I agree. The grocery store runs like this, and then he's talking about the grocery store

on the grocery store's microphones. 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 Jordan 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.

Damn. I mean, yes, it is absolute evidence. of the contrary of her conception of herself. Right? It's like you think you're an expert. Guess what? We're all listening to you on these live microphones. Yeah.

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

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 going to 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 Matt Patricia to Leonard Bernstein? Leonard Bernstein. I think probably Bill would be Bernstein, and she's Jerome Robbins. Oh, okay. I think she's our Robbins in this case. She's just backing up, trying to choreograph beautifully.

Yeah, this story turns out to be completely non-existent. That's fine. Just cut it right out. Zip this right out. And then we'll loop it. And then you can release this on a thumb drive for Jordan to play on her podcast. That's right. In this same shi-heep.

In this same Tiffany's box. 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 Bellichick 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 who is this total hard ass truly to your observation before.

Like deferring to the counsel. She says aircast, we could just aircast it, and you know he's like, well, whatever the fuck 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. She thinks everything you did sucks and is bad, and she's going to go talk to him privately about how to replace you with somebody else. And also she's the CEO of Belichick Productions, a job that you did not know existed before. And she calls it Adobe Photoshop, like the Lord intended. All of this is the vibes of the inner circle.

That's a bummer. And 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 shit out of Carolina

by more than 30 points. I mean, if you stopped filming after the first... Play? Yeah, then it was a great game. No amount of graphics would have saved the recap of that game. 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 from, 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.

Oh, my God. It's like truly a different man. He just seems like he's comfortable, he's happy. You'd grab a beer with him if that was something he'd be into. He's pimples. Yeah, he's jolly. He's got a jolly man's hat on. He has one of those hats that they wear in peekie blinders.

I was going to say scally cap, but is that wrong? But there is, in all of this, with the Carolina Postgame 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 film set, Bill Ballicheck, Mike Lombardi, and Matt Patricia,

under the supervision of Jordan Hudson, gathered for a, quote, raw and real conversation about Sala's firing and what it feels like to be in the hot seat. 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. 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 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 to get. 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. 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. I think we've been lucky too, right? And I think to me, I don't want to speak from that, 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. Well, we'll be back to talk about it again next week. Thank you for joining us. Please make sure you rate, review, and subscribe to the coach channel. They did change the set. The set. They did. The set's different. Now, instead of looking like a boardroom and like a nondescript video game, now it looks like your granddad's man cave.

I'm not trying to tell everybody in college football. I told you so. It does sound like you are trying to say that. In fact, you kind of just said it. Do you want us to say it? He told you so. Let me take that. Three, two, one.

He told you so. So, yeah, you're welcome for that. 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 Tumenello. 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.