Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Mike Lombardi personifies how different Carolina football will be.
Mack Brown relished his weekly press conferences. “Welcome, everybody,” he began and then talked for 30 minutes before he answered every question for the next 30.
Lombardi, general manager of the Tar Heels and Bill Belichick’s right-hand man for 30 years, conducted the first official press conference of the Belichick era and spoke for less than two minutes before asking for questions. Belichick will likely hold regular pressers but they won’t last very long if what he did in the NFL applies to his new job. Lombardi assured that.
He said the program is being built on the vision and the identity of the greatest coach of all time. “The philosophy we come from is the school of building a team inside out,” Lombardi said. “That school is about physical and mental toughness, and that school is about dependable and hardworking players. So who’s doing the messaging, it is really his message.”
Lombardi used the recent Super Bowl as an example of what Belichick and his staff will do in constructing what they are calling the 33rd NFL franchise in Chapel Hill.
“What we learned watching the Super Bowl is the same thing we’ve learned before,” he said. “The teams that can control the offensive and defensive line wins games. On Sunday, it was pretty clear the Eagles were in the lead and in control. There was really no dispute. But if you go back to the (Patriots’ comeback win in the 2017 Super Bowl) 28-3 game, Atlanta was in the lead, but not necessarily in control. So the only way you can get in control of the game is through the offensive and defensive lines. That’s what we’re gonna continue to do. My job is to help maintain that philosophy.”
Lombardi also worked for Bill Walsh during his Super Bowl-winning days and said building those interior lines determined who the 49ers would try to trade for and draft.
“Coach Walsh asked me to write a report on three players, Al Toon, Eddie Brown and Jerry Rice. And he said to me, we are now finally in a position to go get a big time receiver because the team’s really good around him. And I asked him what he meant by that. He said, ‘We can get the ball to a great player now because we’re good in both lines.’ And that’s impacted me my whole life. And now we’re in the mock draft season and on TV you’ll see 42 receivers going in the first round as if everybody forgot about how the Eagles won the Super Bowl.”
So how will Carolina have an inside-out team with a roster built from returning players, portal transfers and high school recruits from the classes of 2025, ’26 and ’27?
“At the end of the day, it is what Bill wants the team to look like,” he said. “And so all of our jobs is to execute the plan, but it’ll all be driven off a philosophy that’s been set in stone.”
Featured image via Associated Press/Aaron Beard
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
Comments on Chapelboro are moderated according to our Community Guidelines