Michael Lombardi spent more than a decade building a career around football analysis. He worked in NFL front offices, became a regular voice on podcasts and television, and eventually moved into the college game with North Carolina. That final chapter ended much faster than expected.
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Lombardi resigned as UNC’s general manager on Sept. 3 after the university placed him on paid administrative leave in July. The timing is important because Lombardi did not stay away from football for long. On September 19, he announced that he had started a Substack called Football Done Right.
The project will feature his NFL writing, including weekly reviews, quarterback and power ratings, a Friday preview, and longer analysis. His first promoted piece examined why Dan Campbell has not fixed the Detroit Lions’ defense. Lombardi also indicated that his podcast career could resume.
He said he planned to return to The GM Shuffle, the show he had hosted before leaving media for the UNC job. The announcement might have been routine under different circumstances. It was not this time. The UNC baggage followed him.
“I loved you on Pods with Bill and listened to the GM podcast every week. Between what happened with UNC and the reporting from Pablo, it’s important for people to hear from you regarding those items. It’s a bit tone deaf to just pop back in and act as if nothing happened,” wrote a user.
Many other users shared a similar sentiment about the timing of his return.
“A tone deaf first tweet lol,” another user wrote.
One user replying to Lombardi on X questioned if anyone would even pay for his Substack after the UNC controversy.
“Nobody is paying for that s–t😭,” they wrote.
Some fans also spoke about how he would have eventually done something, this was too soon.
“Quicker than I thought. No shame. If I subscribe, will I find out why your GM tenure at UNC was a complete s–t show?” another user wrote.
Lombardi’s move back into media came only 16 days after his resignation. Bill Belichick hired Lombardi as the program’s GM after taking the UNC job. Lombardi received a three-year contract paying roughly $1.5 million annually, making him the highest-paid college football GM at the time. He described UNC as operating like an NFL franchise and famously referred to the program as the “33rd team.” The results did not match that ambition.
Reporting from WRAL has detailed questions investigators were asking about the conduct inside the program, including allegations involving drugs and relationships. That was after Lombardi and Steve Belichick leftUNC. Lombardi’s attorney, though, has disputed the allegations.
Speaking with The Athletic’s Bruce Feldman. Feldman questioned whether Lombardi’s NFL background had caused him to underestimate people with deeper knowledge of college football. One example discussed on the podcast involved Lombardi allegedly lecturing someone about what it takes to play in the NFL, despite that person’s greater familiarity with the college game. Lombardi’s resignation also carried an unusual financial detail.
His contract contained a voluntary-resignation buyout that would have been roughly $1 million based on the timing of his departure. Yet he did not have to pay UNC anything. The university also did not owe him additional money, according to WRAL. That has now left plenty of unanswered questions. And fans are now targeting Lombardi for those answers after his X post.
UNC’s investigation had already become bigger than Lombardi himself. Steve Belichick later resigned after the university concluded that its investigation had uncovered actions that disregarded UNC’s standards, while the school said those incidents were isolated rather than systemic. Bill Belichick remained in place.
But the reaction to his September 19 post showed that the UNC chapter has not disappeared just because he has started writing about the NFL again.