He touts himself as a 3 time Super Bowl champion. I heard it's all about the number of ringzzzzz and nothing else. Since 3 are better than Shula's 2 that makes Lombardi better than Shula. Totally logical and anyone who disagrees is just a h8r.
The main thing the podcast points out is that
Mike doesn't even have 3 rings.
Near the end of the video Torre goes through the timeline and shows that Mike was not a member of the Patriots staff for the season when they won the third ring Mike claims to have.
He "has" a 3rd ring because Bill chose to buy him a low-end ring from the ring company and present it to him as a personal gift.
Here's what the transcript says:
But you should know that in August of 2016, this was 2 months after his departure from the team was publicly announced that June of 2016, Lombardi joined WEEI to explain his exit. And he did it by explaining that he wanted to write a book. And that book, of course, would become none other than Grid Iron Genius.
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But just to be clear, according to multiple sources who were with the Patriots at the time, Lombardi was fired by the team after the 2016 NFL draft, which explains why after being listed as assistant to the coaching staff in the 2015 Patriots media guide, the only Lombardi mentioned in the 2016 media guide at all is Vince. as in Vince Lombardi. As in the Lombardi Super Bowl trophy, Mike is not mentioned at all.
But the other thing about the timeline here, right, so I want to get these dates correct because the dates provided to me make very clear something that I think is gerine to our ongoing investigation into this legend. Because Mike Lombardi, he is hired by Bill to this amorphous, you know, uh, assistant role in February 2014. Okay.
So, that means that when it comes to the Super Bowls, he is claiming, right? Yes. There's the one from uh 1984. Mhm. Balfour pendant. Yes. And then here we have the one that he won in that 2014 NFL season. Right. the first season that he was with the Patriots as an assistant to the coaching staff. Um, it has been described to me, by the way, as something I should look into because it reminded one NFL source as quite similar to the one he won with the 49ers in which he shows up and that first year in which he just is inheriting the accumulated work of truly some football geniuses, he gets to win a title. At least he was he was physically there.
Yes, I know where you're going. Flam, I urge you to recall your NFL experience. This is unbelievable. And tell me, when did an NFL team generally start having training camp? Oh my god. For the upcoming season. So, Lombardi, the grid iron genius, gets fired in June. The Patriots basically start their season with training camp in July and August. They go on to win the Super Bowl. 7 months after parting ways with Michael Lombardi.
At the top of every bio, at the beginning of every interview, every speech, every goddamn page of this book is the fact that he's a three-time Super Bowl-winning executive and strategist. And he wasn't even there for that one. He wasn't even there.
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So, we should also mention here that we did ask Lombardi via Carolina Football PR, quote, "Did the New England Patriots organization award you an official Super Bowl 51 ring as a Patriots employee during the 2016-17 season?" The answer, as a for mentioned, was we respectfully pass here.
But what I'm told by multiple Patriot sources is that Lombardi did remain in contact with Belichick throughout that 2016 season in a purely personal capacity and that after Super Bowl 51, the 28-3 comeback win against the Falcons in February 2017, something happened that still people who were in that building away because Bill , I am told, personally bought and presented Lombardi with a Super Bowl ring.
Not an official team-isssued A-grade ring with the real diamonds in it and all that, but the kind that a top executive could buy for his family members. Or to quote the words again of Craig Walsh, Bill Walsh's son, the Balfour pendant version of a Super Bowl ring.
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This is mindblowing because it's been it's literally on the front of the it's on the front cover of his book. It's it's it's introduced on television, right? On the covers of a zillion different things. It's just one of those things that you say so often that you begin to look like someone who did it. No one thinks to go, "Wait a second. Those dates don't match up." I mean, this is unbelievable.