Michael Lombardi explains origin of North Carolina’s program-building philosophy

There’s a new regime running the North Carolina Tar Heels football program. It’s headlined by head coach Bill Belichick and general manager Michael Lombardi. With them, they’re also bringing a new philosophy on program building.

The idea is to build the program from the inside out, starting with the offensive line. The logic behind that philosophy is something that Lombardi recently explained.

“The great thing about football is you can study winning on any level and there’s a formula for why teams win and why teams lose,” Michael Lombardi said. “And if you pay close attention to it, it’s not that difficult football. Football, going back to when [Vince] Lombardi coached the Packers in the 60s, to when you know Bill coached the Giants, or Bill Walsh coached the 49ers, it’s about who wins the line and who controls the game.”

Lombardi pointed to the recent Super Bowl and other NFL champions to prove his point. Teams that control the game, control the line of scrimmage. Those are also the teams that end up winning.

“There’s always two elements in a football game, who’s in the lead and who’s in control. On Sunday, it was pretty clear the Eagles were in the lead and in control. There was really no dispute,” Lombardi said. “But if you go back to the 28-3 game against Atlanta, 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. So, if you believe that philosophy, that’s building the team inside out from the lines to the receivers.”

In 1984, Michael Lombardi got his first NFL job as a scout with the San Francisco 49ers. That’s where he began learning about roster building from Bill Walsh, one of the great coaches in NFL history.

“And I’ve been influenced before I met Coach Belichick by Coach Walsh when we traded for Jerry Rice, we had the 28th pick in the draft. We had just won a Super Bowl, and Freddie Solomon was our best receiver on the team. Nobody remembers before Freddie passed away, but he was a great receiver, along with Dwight Clark,” Lombardi said.

“And Coach Walsh walked in and told me to write a project — he asked me to write a report on three players, Al Toon, Eddie Brown, and Jerry Rice. And he said to me, when he asked me to write that report, he said, ‘We are now finally in position to go get a big-time receiver, because the team’s really good around them.’ And I asked him, ‘What do you mean by that?’ And he said, ‘Well, 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.”

Lombardi knows that North Carolina starting on the line of scrimmage won’t necessarily win headlines in the offseason. However, it’s on that basis that he hopes to make the program sustainably good.

“Now, we’re in the mock draft season on TV, you’ll see 42 receivers going in the first round,” Lombardi said. “As if everybody forgot about how the Eagles won the Super Bowl.”