Longtime listeners of The Bill Simmons Podcast know that Michael Lombardi is a big fan of nicknames. And as he assumed the role of North Carolina\u2019s general manager, Bill Belichick\u2019s right-hand man issued a new moniker for the Tar Heels program.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe consider ourselves the 33rd (NFL) team because everybody who\u2019s involved with our program has had some form or aspect in pro football,\u201d the ex-New England Patriots executive told reporters in February<\/a>.<\/p>\n Lombardi has repeated the nickname on multiple occasions in the months since, including while explaining why<\/a> North Carolina dropped out of being featured on the offseason version of HBO\u2019s Hard Knocks, which seems like something an alleged NFL-like operation would want to do. Meanwhile, on the field, the Tar Heels have stumbled to a 2-3 start to their debut season under Belichick, with their losses not coming against the Chiefs, Bills, or Eagles, but rather the TCU Horned Frogs, UCF Knights, and Clemson Tigers.<\/p>\n To put it mildly, UNC\u2019s operation has looked anything but professional, even in an era where players are now paid. And yet, for as underwhelming as the Tar Heels have been on the field, they\u2019ve been even more embarrassing off of it \u2014 and not just because their 73-year-old head coach was recently featured on the cover of Us Weekly<\/a> alongside his 24-year-old girlfriend.<\/p>\n But while it\u2019s been easy to poke fun at college football\u2019s most famous couple or the pettiness of Belichick\u2019s ongoing cold war with his former employer<\/a>, a new villain within North Carolina\u2019s punchline of a season has emerged. That would be Lombardi, the ex-NFL executive-turned media darling, who as recently as last year lambasted the New York Giants front office<\/a> for their Hard Knocks appearance.<\/p>\n \u201cTo me, it was a little bit offensive,\u201d the former Cleveland Browns general manager told The Pat McAfee Show<\/a> of the Giants\u2019 performance on the offseason docuseries.<\/p>\n If Lombardi was offended by the Giants\u2019 poor showing on HBO, one can only imagine what he\u2019d think about a first-time college football executive who proclaims his program to be the NFL\u2019s 33rd team only to be sitting at 2-3 with the three defeats coming by a combined 87 points. North Carolina\u2019s lackluster performance on the field, however, has only paled in comparison to the negative publicity it has generated off the field, not all of which has come from Bill Belichick and Jordon Hudson.<\/p>\n The latest black mark in Chapel Hill comes via a report from On3 UNC affiliate site Inside Carolina<\/a>, which revealed that the program is scrapping its previously announced behind-the-scenes docuseries, which was supposed to be available on Hulu. Lombardi \u2014 who reportedly earns a $1.5 million salary \u2014 had previously touted the Tar Heels\u2019 plans for the project while explaining the decision not to appear on Hard Knocks.<\/p>\n \u201cThe problem was that we control the story we need to tell here,\u201d Lombardi told The Pat McAfee Show<\/a> in March. \u201cAnd the story that we want to tell doesn\u2019t end after we play TCU. The story that we want to tell is about how we\u2019re rebuilding this program, how we\u2019re going to honor the great players that have come before us. How we\u2019re going to restore Tar Heel football and make this stadium come alive on Saturday afternoons, like a lot of the other schools in the ACC. That\u2019s the story we want to tell.\u201d<\/p>\n Clearly, the Tar Heels weren\u2019t able to stick to the script.<\/p>\n