Bill Belichick re-emerged from a long media hiatus this week for an interview on the Pardon My Take podcast.
The hour-plus-long conversation touched on moments from throughout Belichick’s career, as well as his thoughts on pro and college football, with the legendary head coach opening up in a way that PMT uniquely gets its guests to do. But notably, the interview did not include any discussion of Belichick’s notorious younger girlfriend, Jordon Hudson.
It didn’t take long for Toucher & Hardy at The Sports Hub in Boston to seize on this missing link, with cohost Fred Toucher saying he was “annoyed” at what he saw as an abdication of the responsibility of interviewing Belichick.
“Pardon My Take is a very, very popular show, and I’m told a very, very good show, and I’m not doubting that,” he said. “I just am a little annoyed that they didn’t ask him about Jordon Hudson and a little surprised, because I don’t know why you would agree to do an interview with someone who’s most well-known for dating Jordon Hudson than anything else.”
The show also mocked PMT producer Hank Lockwood after he told Belichick during the episode that the coach helped many Boston-area kids like him learn what it was to be a winner during the New England Patriots’ dynasty, calling it “sad” and suggesting Lockwood “needed a male figure” in his life.
In the subsequent episode of PMT, Lockwood and host Dan “Big Cat” Katz addressed the criticism. Of Toucher and Hardy, Lockwood said simply, “f*ck them.” But Katz offered a more detailed defense.
“I don’t know how many times we have to say this, we are not journalists. We will never be journalists,” Katz explained.
“Not a single person in this room went to a journalism school. We don’t pretend to be journalists. We can barely even read, we’re as biased as possible, we will be open about our bias. We will do softball interviews if we want to. We don’t care, we’re here to entertain you and make you laugh.”
The Toucher & Hardy show weighed in again on Thursday, saying the interview simply did not live up to expectations, regardless of whether the hosts were trying to operate as journalists.
“When I heard Pardon My Take, which is a good show, is having Belichick on, you [go], ‘Oh my goodness, something might happen,’ but then they didn’t address it, which is just disappointing,” Toucher said.
The hosts also argued that if entertainment was the goal, asking about Hudson may have been even more pertinent than it would be for a journalist. The Sports Hub hosts believe the Barstool stars are tiptoeing around the Hudson story because they want to stay on the right side of Belichick’s camp.
Criticism around how a fan-oriented show like PMT chooses to conduct interviews is always fair game, but in this case, it’s unclear what the motives were from Toucher or Hardy. Early in the first segment, they seemed to suggest they had not listened to the interview all the way through. However, they did listen to and react to certain segments during their show. So clearly, there was news value in PMT having Belichick on, and it’s hard to judge the full interview from rival hosts who acknowledge they haven’t watched the whole thing.
Considering the central complaint from Toucher was that Belichick, an eight-time Super Bowl champion, is “most well-known” for dating Hudson, it’s tough to fully see his perspective. A more traditional reporter would have asked at least a handful of questions about Hudson (even if Belichick has made it clear he will not engage on the topic), but the PMT hosts asked questions about his career that were arguably just as pertinent to understanding Belichick as the more salacious ones Toucher wanted to hear about.
About Brendon Kleen
Brendon is a Media Commentary staff writer at Awful Announcing. He has also covered basketball and sports business at Front Office Sports, SB Nation, Uproxx and more.