The first three-quarters of Bill Belichick’s “CBS Mornings” interview hums along nicely. The first-year head coach of the University of North Carolina football team comes across as chatty and relaxed, just as any first-year college football coach would be if invited to sit down for some pleasant offseason national television exposure.
It’s the last couple of minutes of that interview that make even loyal “In Bill We Trust” fans wonder what’s going on with Belichick.
Bill Belichick, second in all-time NFL wins and a six-time Super Bowl champion, talks with “CBS Mornings” Tony Dokoupil about his father’s advice, Tom Brady, and his new book, “The Art of Winning.” https://t.co/SsQxUwmape pic.twitter.com/kSAt2pLKcq
— CBS Sunday Morning 🌞 (@CBSSunday) April 27, 2025
This is no ordinary first-year college football head coach, even if Belichick’s new gig at North Carolina makes him just that. This is the Bill Belichick whose eight Super Bowl rings — two as an assistant with the New York Giants, six as head coach of the Tom Brady-quarterbacked New England Patriots — establish him as one of the greatest coaches in NFL history. Belichick also has carved out quite a reputation for being a tough interview, often using icy stares and such oratorical off-ramps as “We’re on to Cincinnati” to avoid providing any real information.
During the CBS interview, then, it was only a matter of time before interviewer Tony Dokoupil would ask a question that Belichick didn’t want to answer — or, in this case, never got a chance to answer. Nearly six minutes into a roughly eight-minute segment, a voiceover from Dokoupil brings up Jordon Hudson, the 24-year-old girlfriend of the 73-year-old coach. Says Dokoupil: “Jordon was a constant presence during our interview.”
A still photo is shown of Hudson standing on the set next to a seated Belichick, and then we’re back to the interview.
“You have Jordon right over there, everybody in the world seems to be following this relationship …” Dokoupil says, with a cutaway shot showing Hudson off-set, seated at a desk and huddled over a monitor. It’s as though her job here is to be Belichick’s personal defensive coordinator.
“How did you guys meet?” Dokoupil asks. The shot is set up in such a way that Belichick’s back is to the camera, facing Dokoupil. The shot is pulled far enough back to reveal Hudson seated at the off-set desk.
“We’re not talking about this,” Hudson says. CBS added captioning in case any viewers were unable to hear what she said.
Now, if you’re here for piety and pearl-clutching over the age difference between Belichick and Hudson, you’ve come to the wrong place. He’s an adult. She’s an adult. But why is it that Belichick now finds it necessary to have somebody, anybody, sitting in the wings, poised to fend off unwanted questions? Bill Belichick needs that?
In the past, Belichick had no problem delivering non-answers to questions that didn’t interest him or serve his purposes. Heck, he was on his game of stony avoidance earlier in this very interview, as when Dokoupil asks Belichick why he makes no mention of Patriots owner Robert Kraft in his recently-released book, “The Art of Winning.”
Dokoupil: “I have to ask about Robert Kraft … 24 years together, six Super Bowls. Unless I’m wrong, he’s not in this book. How come?”
Belichick: “He’s not. Well, again, it’s about my life lessons in football, and it’s really more about the ones I experienced directly.”
Dokoupil: “He’s not even in the acknowledgment section.”
(Three-second pause.)
Belichick: “Correct.”
Dokoupil: “Do you feel like you were treated with dignity and respect when you were let go by Robert Kraft?”
Belichick: “Yeah, well, it was a mutual decision for us to part ways.”
Dokoupil: “He said ‘fired.’”
Belichick: “It was a mutual decision.”
Like it or not, that’s vintage Belichick right there. That’s also when the topic turned to Hudson. It’s at this point that viewers can easily throw the coach a lifeline, say to themselves that, hey, Hudson is part of Belichick’s private life, that this should not have been part of the discussion, that he was there to talk UNC football and the good old days with the Patriots.
But the Belichick-Hudson relationship has become quite public — and by design, what with Hudson’s active social media presence. There’s also the issue of Belichick reportedly asking that Hudson be cc’d on the coach’s work emails. Maybe she’s Belichick’s for-real defensive coordinator, not just the off-camera question deflector.
Belichick has earned a reputation over the years as a storied micromanager, known for attending to every last detail of every last situation. As for media appearances, Belichick has been known to be historically, unapologetically elusive — but also occasionally funny.
In January 2015, when the Tom Brady “Deflategate” saga was in its early stages and Belichick was grilled with questions during a Gillette Stadium news conference, he pulled the film “My Cousin Vinny” out of thin air when he said, “I would not say that I’m the Mona Lisa Vito of the football world as she was in the car expertise area.”
Belichick also would occasionally wander into what I’ve called “Storytime with Bill.” This would usually happen on the Friday before a game, by which time the media throng was generally limited to beat writers who know their X’s and O’s. That’s when Belichick, if he was in the mood, would deliver a compelling lecture on some obscure facet of football history, of which he knows plenty.
We’ll never know what direction Belichick might have taken the interview when asked about Hudson. Might he have been elusive? Funny? Perhaps a story about his father, the late Steve Belichick, and his brief NFL playing career with the 1941 Detroit Lions? We’ll never know because Jordon Hudson stepped in and threw a challenge flag.
It’s not “wrong.” But it sure is puzzling. If the plan here was to portray Belichick as cool, what with his social media-savvy girlfriend fending off the old-school, on-set question asker, then the plan failed. Belichick instead came across as somebody who needed saving. And it’s hard watching this interview while defending Belichick as the ever-vigilant micromanager who misses nothing.
Will this interview inspire the biggest and best recruits to take their talents to Chapel Hill? Doubt it. Will it help get Belichick back on the radar for a head coaching job in the NFL? That’s looking less likely.
There used to be a Bill Belichick “brand.” Grumpy. Rumpled. Genius. Now there’s a Bill Belichick-Jordon Hudson brand. We’re on to “awkward.”
(Photo of Belichick and Hudson: Kirby Lee / Imagn Images)
