If the Jaguars wanted to replace Doug Pederson with the greatest head coach in NFL history this offseason, they missed their opportunity as Bill Belichick transformatively took the same position with the University of North Carolina on Wednesday, his first job in college football.
Of course, Jacksonville was never officially linked with Belichick. But as the Jaguars’ nightmare of a 3-10 season has inched on, NFL reporters far and wide considered the team and coach a potential future pair.
And if Belichick’s first hire to help manage the Tar Heels would have followed the head coach to Jacksonville in this hypothetical scenario, he made clear he would have done things differently than how he perceives the Jaguars have historically operated.
On ESPN’s Pat McAfee Show Wednesday, new North Carolina general manager Michael Lombardi took a jab at the Jaguars while discussing his and Belichick’s plan to utilize the NCAA transfer portal as they rebuild UNC’s roster.
“If you want to play for the greatest coach of all time … please enter the portal, we’ll take you.”
New UNC football GM Michael Lombardi with a message to college football players on the @PatMcAfeeShow. pic.twitter.com/lMZf80IvnO
— ESPN (@espn) December 12, 2024
Likening the portal to NFL free agency, given the influence of Name, Image and Likeness in transfer recruiting, Lombardi referenced the Jaguars’ history of spending big in free agency and far from stellar draft record to emphasize his and Belichick’s desire to primarily acquire and develop players from the often less-expensive high school ranks.
Well, if you want to play for the greatest coach of all time and you want to be around a winning program, please enter the portal. We’ll take you. We’re going to go through it deeply. This is an advertisement for it. We’re going to go deep into it because we’re going to rebuild the team, and I think it’s important. I don’t think it’s just about — this is team building. This isn’t adding players, right? We’re going to systematically and strategically build the team the right way so that we have sustainable success, so that you can compete at the highest level of college football. I think that’s really important.
I think everybody makes too much about the cap. Certainly the players deserve to get paid, but more into the cap, there’s two things that involve the cap. It involves, how do we develop players to become good players, and how do we pay the players that already are good players? So there is two systems that are going on simultaneously and you need a head coach like coach Belichick who understands that. Player development is the key to salary cap. We’ve seen this. The Jacksonville Jaguars have done this for years. They buy players, they haven’t won enough games. You have got to develop your own players from within.
Lombardi reunites with Belichick after eight years out of football. The two previously worked together for the New England Patriots (2014-16) and Cleveland Browns (1991-95), with Belichick operating as head coach and Lombardi in various personnel roles.
