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Chris “Mad Dog” Russo summed up ABC’s strategy behind Bill Belichick’s sit-down on “Good Morning America” last Friday in one word: “Horrific.”
When dissecting the Q&A between “GMA” anchor Michael Strahan and UNC’s new football coach — whose romance with 24-year-old Jordon Hudson has been widely scrutinized — the sports media personality slammed the exchange as “one of the most awkward interviews I’ve ever seen in my life.”
“What ABC did there, ABC gave carte blanche to Belichick. ‘Bill, we want you on, tell us what questions you want asked.’ Horrific,” Russo said Monday on “The Rich Eisen Show,” guest-hosted by Suzy Shuster.
“… ABC was horrific that essentially, they sold their journalism chops to make sure Belichick, cause he was in the news, was on the air. That was a horrific job by a worthy news organization and then they put Strahan in a tough spot because we all know Strahan and again, he’s not Mike Wallace, he’s an ex-football player, no knock against Strahan, but that’s an impossible situation.”
While promoting his new book, “The Art of Winning,” Belichick, 73, was asked by Strahan, 53, about the attention his romance with Hudson, a former college cheerleader, has received.
“She’s been terrific through the whole process, and she’s been really helpful to me,” Belichick said of the Miss Maine USA hopeful. “She does the business things that don’t relate to North Carolina that come up in my life, so I can concentrate football and that’s really what I want to do.”
When pressed about what Hudson means to him, Belichick relayed he’s happy and that he’s “not talking about personal relationships.”
Although Strahan’s nine-minute conversation with Belichick touched upon Patriots anecdotes in the book, Russo wanted more on the controversies entangled with the coach’s legacy, including the 7-year-old mystery of why Malcolm Butler was benched in Super Bowl 2018.
“If you’re going to have Belichick on-air in that situation, you gotta ask him about Malcolm Butler. You gotta ask him about not [having Patriots owner] Bob Kraft in your book,” said Russo, who appears weekly on ESPN — which, like ABC, is owned by Disney.
“You gotta ask him about how it ended with New England. You gotta ask him why, somehow he didn’t get the Atlanta [coaching] job two years ago. There’s so many things you gotta ask him, and they asked him nothing. Oh my God, it was bad.”
Belichick spent 24 seasons in New England and guided the Patriots to six Super Bowl victories before parting ways with the organization in January 2024.
The eight-time Super Bowl winner’s decision not to include Kraft, 83, in his book only fanned the flames of a rift between the two.
“It’s about my life lessons in football, and it’s really more about the ones I experienced directly,” Belichick said during his infamous “CBS Sunday Morning” interview with Tony Dokoupil last month.
Belichick, who sat out the 2024 NFL season after losing out on the Falcons coaching job to Raheem Morris, is preparing for his first season at the helm at UNC.
The Tar Heels open the season on Sept. 1 against TCU.
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