Former Raiders executive Michael Lombardi has joined Bill Belichick at the University of North Carolina and will reportedly have a ‘general manager’ type role with the college football program.
With Lombardi presumably leaving the media ranks, his hot takes on the internet will presumably stall in the months ahead, but he didn’t miss an opportunity to take a shot at his former team in a recent guest appearance on the Jim Rome Show.
Lombardi addressed the recent rumors around Belichick potentially returning to the NFL, and explained why the Raiders’ job wasn’t one Belichick was interested in.
“The Patriot Way came out to the Raiders when Josh McDaniels got the job,” Lombardi said on the Jim Rome Show on Thursday.
“He didn’t even last two years. They didn’t even give him two years to install the program because most of the players went to the owner and complained about working too hard. So why would coach [Belichick] want to go back into a situation where the players are talking to the owner about how hard they work, and they don’t want to work?”
Obviously, Lombardi’s words aren’t Belichick’s words, but he was clearly speaking on Belichick’s mindset.
As always, it’s hard to take Lombardi’s critiques of the Raiders seriously because of his history with the team. That dynamic only got even more complicated when the Raiders fired Lombardi’s son along with McDaniels in 2023.
At the time, Lombardi defended the offensive efforts of the coaching staff by saying the quarterback on the field couldn’t complete a high school pass. The quarterback Lombardi was referring to was Jimmy Garoppolo and while it’s a fact that Garoppolo had a bad season under McDaniels, the former 49ers quarterback did get to a Super Bowl with a head coach not named Josh McDaniels.
The Raiders were moving in a bad direction under McDaniels and only a biased observer could justify the environment he created in his 21 months with the team.
For better or worse, the ‘Patriot Way’ is coming back to Las Vegas in 2025 and there’s a possibility that it will include more than just Tom Brady.
The Raiders and Patriots are considered the favorites to hire Vrabel, with many believing the Patriots have slightly better chances of luring back their former player.
But as long as Brady is in the building (or wherever he’s working remotely these days) and Vrabel isn’t under contract with another team, don’t rule out something happening between Vrabel and the Raiders. Brady won’t have any issues spending Davis’s money and Davis will do just about anything to bring back the glory days to the Raiders.
x: @raidersbeat
Lombardi is just a big baby, sour because the Raiders canned him, and that’s being polite!
Poor baby has nothing better to do with his life !
Working too hard? Really that’s their spin? Bill has been a helluva coach particularly on defense. Lombardi and sons have gotten away with acting like football guys for too long. McDaniels did exactly to the Raiders what he did in Denver, he destroyed the team by thinking he knows how to be a leader. By going Patriot west after Rich did a decent enough job to earn the HC the team roster was decimated by bad trades, bad drafts and worse player evaluations. Nobody was looking to hire McDaniels as a HC except Tom Brady ( who was still playing at the time for TB). Since Josh was hired the team has lost its franchise QB, RB, TE. Plus multiple OL and plenty of good defensive players. Some because of the Patriot west and some due to the aftermath. I don’t like or want TB to anything to due with the Raiders, but if Ben Johnson comes in any part because of TB then I’ll be at least neutral about TB.