NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal - NFL Around the League: August 12, 2013

Episode Date: August 12, 2013

Rich Eisen graces “The NFL Around the League Podcast” with the Gregg Rosenthal, Dan Hanzus and Chris Wesseling to break down all the preseason hype. Eisen also reminisces on his craziest career moments. Tweet @NFL_ATL or #NFLATL and tell us your favorite Rich Eisen story.Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comNFL Daily YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/nflpodcastsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Hey, everybody. Daniel Jeremiah here. And I'm Bucky Brooks. On Move the 6th, we take you inside the game from breaking down college prospects and NFL rookies to evaluating team building philosophies, coaching trends, and how front offices construct winning rosters. We study the tape, talk to decision makers, and give you a perspective you won't find anywhere else.

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Listen to the NFL Fantasy Football podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Toyota, the official automotive partner of the NFL. Visit Toyota.com slash NFL now to learn more. Welcome to another Around the League podcast. I'm Greg Rosenthal alongside Chris Westwood. and Dan Hansis just heard our second theme song in two shows. That one we're calling the Batman theme song, and we're trying out a few different ones, so let us know which ones you like.

It couldn't be any worse than the Barry White theme that we were using on Friday. I actually, I was, as you know, in Texas with the family, and they said, oh, let's hear the podcast, so I started to play it. And as soon as the music came on, I cringed, and they all reacted as if there had been a mistake in the studio. But I said, listen, that was something we were trying out. But I don't think we're going to go with Barry White, right? Well, the fans voted for Barry White, and I have to admit I was leading the charge. And, you know, I'm willing to admit a mistake when it happened.

So we're going to try out Batman, and we might try out another one. I like Batman. And we got to hear from all of you. Well, today is a special show. I'm going to do something a little different than what we normally do. We have Rich Eisen coming up in the podcast studio in just a few minutes. So really this show is going to be mostly dedicated to talking to Rich. We just have a few minutes before he does join us.

And we also have a special guest here. I don't know if he's special, but we have a guest here. Our regular producer, Alex Wilk, wanted to make an announcement today. I do have an announcement. I was looking at my Twitter feed as I do most moments of my day. That's sad. And I noticed that one crystal rich of NFL.com, was my 300th follower

and as a special prize to Crystal Rich I'm giving her producing duties of the ATL podcast so I will no longer be on the ATL podcast at least for now maybe I'll make a special guest

appearance later on so it's not goodbye forever it's just goodbye goodbye so I mean we didn't think we could make it nine shows in but we somehow made it this far and Wilkes already

you mastered it in nine shows I'm just taken off well Crystal behind the glass welcome a boy board. Great to be here. I can't wait to see the ratings skyrocket. Yes, they will.

The new queen of the ATL podcast. Did you know that Crystal back in the old ATL debate club days did have some role early on? So she's not a complete rookie in dealing with around the league. But now Crystal on a semi or regular basis for the time being. So that's exciting. Regular, totally regular on the reg. Totally regular. And Crystal doesn't mess around.

I mean, she's hitting us with emails. She's hitting us with plans. She means business. Oh, yeah. Much more business than I ever meant. Hashtag hashtag NFL ATL. Ah. Remember that.

She loves the hashtags. I like to liken this to like Ringo leaving the Beatles after I want to hold your hand. That's Wilk in this case. I think I'm jumping off the ship as the rocket is going straight into the atmosphere. I think I might be that other beetle that left even earlier. Yeah, you're Pete Best. Okay. So we're going to have Rich on in just a few minutes, but we're going to hit a couple football topics right before we get to him.

We're just going to make it quick. A quick tour around the quarterback battles in training camp. Chris, I think you watch more preseason football than any man in America this weekend. One of your assignments was the Jets. What were your takeaways from that quarterback battle? Well, Sanchez started out, as we would expect, with the pick six, but rallied, came back. Gino Smith really didn't look that good. Three and out on two of three series.

By the end of the game, it seemed like Sanchez had maybe gained some momentum. Gino Smith is back practicing again, so we'll see what happens. I think in any of these battles, the Jets is the hardest one to read, because what we know about quarterback battles is you follow the money trail or the draft pick trail. And that works when you have a coach who was hired by the GM. It really works. You can tell 90% of the time, wherever they're invested, that's how they're going to slant the competition. The coaches have control of basically how the competition is going to play out.

With the Jets, we've repeated this. Rex Ryan and John Idzik do not have the same goal in mind here. Idzik wants to see Gino Smith, I'm sure, because he drafted him. Rex Ryan wants to win, so he might go with the veteran. But I think Sanchez may have pulled ahead a little bit. It's funny that you said, I agree with you, too, notwithstanding that horrific pick six, which I got to see again this morning, and it almost turned my stomach. But, you know, it seemed early on in training camp that Gino was heading towards the job,

and now it seems as if Sanchez is back in front because Smith just doesn't seem like he's ready and now he's got an ankle injury. I'm also, by the way, excited that the first and only time Wilkes in the studio, we were talking Jets. Wilkes' least favorite topic. And he's taking off his headphones and just is enjoying the show as a fan at this point. He's walking out. This is it. And he goes into the sunset, a hero.

He's going to miss all the glory days of the Iran League podcast to come. Yeah, I think Sanchez is probably the leader right now, but it's early. And I think that was similar with all the quarterback battles this weekend. Really, Jacksonville, neither one stood out, but Blaine Gabbard kind of stood out in the wrong way. Yeah, he definitely stood out for ineptitude. 19 attempts, no, what was it? 10 attempts and 19 yards. That's tough to do in the NFL.

1.9 yards per attempt. Well, yeah, when your yards per attempt is lower than your yards per carry as a quarterback, you're in trouble. So we don't have a big takeaway there. The Eagles, I think Michael Vick kind of held serve, looked very good. There's no reason to think he won't win the job if he continues playing well, and he looked very good. And then Buffalo was the other interesting one. Kevin Cobb didn't play this week, but we got to look at E.J. Manuel a little bit on Sunday, Chris. Yeah, I thought the results were mixed.

what we can take from that game is that the bills are going to be one of the run heaviest teams in the league and if Manuel gets the job which I expect him to they're just going to manage him his first year they're going to run the ball they're going to they're going to

E.J. Manuel's going to throw short passes might take a few chances downfield every once in a while but this is not going to be something where Manuel's going to come in and do what the rookie quarterbacks did last year. I just want to say to everyone that's getting excited about this. I've read some things. I've seen some things. I've seen some things about E.J. Manuel, what a great first performance. Are you watching the same game?

It was, he didn't move the offense until the Colts third string defense was in there. Pipe down. It was, you had 21 attempts for 106 yards. That's not good. That's, that's the Blaine Gabbard zone. He did nothing wrong. He did nothing too exciting. He moved the ball in a nice two-minute drill against the third stringers. But it's the same thing we talked about with the Browns last week that they're just looking for something to get excited about. The expectations are awfully low in several cities in America. Buffalo fans, they deserve hope. So, you know, even though maybe the performance wasn't necessarily dynamic,

he didn't, you know, bomb either. So there are things that take out of that game. But let's not get carried away, I agree. No, he was fine. And if he is fine throughout the preseason, I expect him to be the starter. Just because everything else about him, I think they love, the intangibles, the leadership. And so if he's just okay and doesn't really mess up, I think he'll be the guy. I'm excited about our next guest, our first guest, into the Iranians.

the league podcast studios we are pleased to be joined by rich eisen rich just passed his 10 million podcast download we've just hit 10 downloads that's fine you got to start from somewhere man you got to start from somewhere well you are the sensei of podcasts out here yeah maybe out here i don't know i was the first to do one here and it was fun uh just to attempt it and it's just taken on a life of its own and you know i i love doing it it's just you know it's difficult to go back to the the day job for like a better phrase when the producers in your ears saying you know two minutes left three minutes left or you've got to um share the rock with all of your analysts and um it's a different format but i love this one yeah i love it i've been lucky enough i've sat

behind the glass for the Around the League blog and listen to some whether you had Mayock on the phone or other guests and I can't thank you enough by the way you guys have been spectacular well we bring the news and you bring the news well the downloads have clearly I believe have clearly gone up ever since your your unit was created and I meant that figuratively and you know what you guys have done in terms of your writing style and how you how you post your material it really has been great so not to interrupt you but thank you for that no well that thank you very much uh but yeah my point was is that you know i remember you saying uh on one of the podcasts i was sitting in on how this was your baby how the podcast and i guess that ties into what you're saying yeah it is i mean

it's just you know obviously my name's on it and um and it's something that um with what we do for living um who are i guess for the lack of a better phrase content creators with what we do um to be able to have a forum in which you decide what you're going to talk about and who you're having on as guests and how you put it all together and execute the game plan as your own producer. It's really a blessing. And, you know, it's been great seeing other podcasts created

under the NFL media label. Yeah. And I just look forward to the technology catching up with what we're doing here. And so when you guys have a podcast, it, you know, directs people to mine and vice versa. Right. And, you know, we're still as a unit here getting used to that. And, you know, we're still young on the podcast front,

certainly compared to what other people are across the industry are doing. And it's just fun to see. It's just fun to see more and more of them come up. So what would your advice be for us as we're just starting up? Just stop. It's futile. It's futile. It's futile. It's got nothing to do with what I do or anything.

here it's just you know no i mean just um enjoy it you guys clearly are enjoying what you're doing that's obvious yeah right yeah i mean we're trying to bring it just downstairs we're talking all day about these stories so if we can just bring that upstairs that that's it well you know in in in all honesty that's what pt i is was is two guys sitting in a newsroom who are wildly entertaining and extremely well-informed and spectacular friends and taking that and finding the proper format and a superb producer

and producing staff actually that they have there at PTI. I know the guys who put that together. I mean, it's really one of those rare instances in our industry where it all clicks on every cylinder and you've got really talented people at every spot on the program on and off the air. And that's what we do. I mean, some of the most fun exchanges happen

in the newsroom. I didn't think about that with PTI, but yeah, that's the organic Cornheiser. Wilbon and Cornheiser known each other

for forever in a day and the way they would act towards one another off the air and probably in the newsroom just put that on television. Yeah.

But find a way to do it with the rundown and the characters and the concept with the clock and all of that stuff. It's not too far removed from just sticking a microphone between them

as they're going about their day. Well, that's what they've tried to do And they've, they certainly replicated that. So I feel like we could talk about, I have so many questions I want to ask you, but we only have so much time. The other day you had Larry David on, which is great. I feel like you could have Larry David on.

Me too. It would just be. Me too. I could list that guy is outstanding. I love his offensive philosophy. He's a four-down guy. Yeah. He's a four-down guy.

Which isn't that crazy, you know. Well, it's not. You know, it's not. That's why he says that two-minute drills are so successful is that there's no, You throw out your conscience when it's fourth down because you have to do it. You know, you use all four downs. So it makes sense. In a way, if you think it's what Chip Kelly's doing, not in the fat and that he won't punt

or that he has no conscience, but it's just basically like every down is one to put the pedal of the metal. It's sort of a Madden way of playing the game. And I don't talk about John Madden, the individual or the video game. So maybe Larry's at the forefront here. You asked him about if he was commissioner for a day. Yes. You know, what would he do?

I threw him on that one. I don't think he had a real answer for that. He kind of tapped and around that one. Yeah. I want to know because I know you have some strong thoughts about the rules and regulations after being with the league. What you would do, commissioner. Well, I don't know.

I'm sort of like a Red Sox fan after they won the World Series. I got no windmills to tilt that right now. Once the talk rule got thrown out, you know, that to me, was an abomination because the idea of tucking the football and concluding that that's part of the throwing the pass action to me made no sense because you're tucking a football. That's the clearest indication that you no longer intend to throw it and you are now trying to do something else other than throw it.

So finally, I'm glad that the league caught up to what I was putting down for so long. from a common sense perspective yes um you know to me um it would be reviewing more penalties now i understand that they want to have the flow of the game going on but reviewing the helmet to helmet contact call that should be reviewable that because officials are out there trying to err on the side of player safety and um so they're going to throw flags when they think they see it but so many times the helmet is touching a shoulder pad or the shoulder pad is touching the helmet and we're not seeing the clashing of face masks that the referees thought they saw in real time at an absurd rate of speed and those 15-yard penalties

are drive killers or they they alter or they their drive accelerators right and it alters an outcome because more often than not 15-yard penalties when they are assessed, let's put it this way, they're assessed in the favor of the offense, I would proffer to say a large percentage of those drives are going to result in points. And so I think saying let's pause a minute, go under the helmet and really see if these helmets collided, I would love to see that, but that's non-starter with every person I talk to in the NFL because it's a Pandora's box if the plays and if the flag's not called and the coach believes there there was helmet helmet contact will we allow that coach to throw the flag

to challenge it now right and how many other penalties are you going to allow that for because they want these games to be played in a timely fashion as opposed to sitting and pausing and having a guy run under a hood which I spoke to Dean Blandino this week just give him a tablet, you know? Why do we need a hood at all? Why does the guy on the field need to be part of it? It seems very 80s, the walk. Well, I've talked about it.

Is that because here's why. I've mentioned this all the time to Puba's focus up our flow chart here. Coaches want to have the referee on the field be part of the process because they want to look the guy in the eye of who's making this decision. they don't want it to be like college where some guy some you know retiree who isn't at practice or isn't up to the game speed who's up above the field and hasn't really been boots on the ground literally and figuratively like college make these decisions because they want to look the eye and the referee in the face what did you see you can't have a referee come back at them with a call they don't want to hear that is so crucial it's basically, basically say I don't know you have to ask him upstairs and I've said many times that the league should be like what the NHL does where they make the call from their headquarters in New York City just do it just own the process and that way Dean Blandino the VP could just be called over hey boss something's going on in Buffalo you need to stand here and hope that something also doesn't happen at the same time in Cleveland that would require his presence as well. But you just train somebody in New York to make these call.

That way the league owns the call and can't say, well, what happened at the game was wrong. And we are now sending out a press release admitting that a mistake was made. All of that happens. All of that just boils down to a coach in the NFL, wants to look the eye, see the eye, look the guy who's making this decision right in the face and have an answer. And that's part of why there was so much going on with the replacement refs where there was a lot of arguing and a lot of coaches out by the numbers and a lot of coaches losing their steam,

the modern-day Lombardi touching an official is because they did not trust the person they were looking in the eye to have done a competent enough job because they didn't even think that that person they were looking in the eye even could run the game. Forget about knowing the rule. just actually run a game. It's kind of hard to even like think about that

and realize that that happened less than 12 months ago. Less than 12 months ago, yeah. It was almost surreal, especially after, of course, the fail-Mary to think that that was happening on such a grand stage. But that's what I would change for, you know, I would do that. I have a question, changing gears a little bit,

going back to Rich Eisen, the NFL Network guy. So 2003, you come on. Yeah. And so 10 years this fall? Well, I mean, 10 years ago right now, I had just come back from the 40th anniversary of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, where I went with Eric Weinberger and Charles Copland, who's now with the NHL network, he was the head of our programming department back then. The three of us and maybe one other person whose name escapes me, we went there. And we went there to shoot a couple of interviews with many of the. returning hall of famers it would the list for the 40th was

equally as impressive as the list for the 50th perhaps even more so because of the old old school folks who have since passed were who were walking around there one of them merlin olson for instance who as I told when I emceed the jacket dinner this week sitting down for those sets of interviews we we set up of some uh directors chairs in the bust room and uh interviewed had three sets of interviews one with coach is one with quarterbacks and one with the hardest hitters. And we had the, for the hardest hitters was Ronnie Lott, Merlin Olson, and Lawrence Taylor, who never showed.

So it was just me, Merlin, and Ronnie Lott. And I asked Merlin Olson, what's the hardest you ever hit somebody? And he said, without a question, it was Jim Brown. I hit him so hard that we were talking all week long when the Browns were coming in the L.A. Colise and that we just had to hit him. All of us were talking about Deacon and Rosie and, you know, you know, Lamar, all of them were talking about. They had to take care of Jim Brown.

So sure enough, Jim Brown comes around the end, one play, and Merlin's got the clearest shot he's had in his entire life in the playing field, and he unloaded on Jim Brown, and he said he had visions of Jim Brown's eyes rolling in the back of his head. He hit him so hard, and he got up, looked up, and saw Jim going another 70 yards for the time. And that story he told me that shoot, and it's still maybe the best story,

I've ever been told in the 10 years and I've been told a lot of fun stories but we were there and I remember people were coming up to us saying so what is this NFL network we're hearing about because we didn't go on the air until November week 10 of the 2003 season and you know because to the credit

of those who were putting this network together they understood we got to get our ducks in a row we don't have to be ready week one if we're not ready we're not going so they made a decision I don't know why or who you have to ask others but week 10 the Tuesday of week 10 November 4th 2003 we went on the year

And so a lot of people, this was August 03. They didn't, you know, we were on the air. They didn't know, and there was a lot of the league employees were coming up to me because they knew I had been hired from Sports Center to do this. They're like, tell me what's going on. And I'm like, I sort of don't know myself. You know, I just got to figure out what I'm doing for these interviews, which we, by the way, kept in the can for an entire calendar year.

We didn't air them until the summer of 2004. We made some shows out of it. So some of us, including myself, could fly from L.A. Ohio to anchor our coverage from there because we didn't have somebody else to do it. So we put those shows on the air as like a de facto total access and hope that news didn't break, which we did a lot of in the first in the first days. So you were, you're obviously, you've been the face of our coverage for every major event just about a face, but I appreciate you.

You had your own ad campaign to start out. Let's be real here. That was pretty sweet. It hasn't happened since, but that's okay. So, yeah, I mean, the Super Bowl blackout, you know, that brought to mind, you know, the pressures that come with live TV. Yeah. And I guess we were downstairs talking about, what are we going to ask Rich? And one thing we were curious about was the trickiest moment you ever had to deal with on air in the past 10 years.

Here, on the air, trickiest moment. Some of them have to be, you know, when we're on live TV and at the games. One that leaps to mind was our first year. We were in Atlanta, and it's Cowboys and the Falcons on a Saturday night. And in 2006, and I come out of the locker room, or I come out of our green room area, which is in one of the corners of the end zone in the Georgia Dome on the Falcons side of the field. And somebody who I didn't know from the Falcons comes running up to me saying, And DeAngelo Hall says T.O. spit in his face.

Oh, yeah. And do you have video of it? I have no idea what you're talking about. I know I saw DeAngelo Hall go sort of, you know, ape on the sideline, get really upset, but I have no idea what it is. And sure enough, it apparently had happened. One of our 20 cameras didn't see it. And we're on the air after the game. cut to a half later it's on the air after the game

and DeAngelo Hall says as much in his post-game comments and then Terrell Owens in his post-game comments admitted he did in fact do that and now the Cowboys won the game and it's now time for our post-game guest who's it going to be? It's Terrell Owens and one of us has to get up from the seat

to make room for him because we had a really small set So Marshall Falk volunteered. I've never asked him. I think Marshall gladly got up as opposed to sitting with Terrell Owens. I don't want to talk for him, but it struck me that he was more than happy to vacate the reaction. To vacate the premises. Michael was not with us yet, so it was just me and Mooch and Dion with Terrell Owens.

And as I see Terrell approaching in a golf cart, I just lean over and just wondered to, you know, some of the simplest questions, some of the best questions of the simple ones, I turned to Mariucci and I say to him, I'm like, have you spoken to T.O. since you left San Francisco? And he goes, nope. And here comes Terrell Owens walking up on live TV. Hadn't spoken a word to the guy, you know, who suspended him from the star and all that stuff and the Sharpie and all that business.

and who had just done something absurd in the game, had to ask him about all of that stuff. And it was awkward. It was awkward. And by the way, interesting enough, that night was the last win for Bill Parcells as a head coach in the NFL. He left Dallas after that year.

And it was his last win as Cowboys head coach. They eventually made the playoffs, and that's when the Romo bad snap happened. Seahawks game. They lost their last their last. last a couple games that year so that was subsequently because you know bill had never coached again i mean he did go to to miami but um you know interesting enough and then there was another one last year where uh in seattle a couple years ago where irvin sort of um uh defended deshawn jackson

even though as you remember in that game that was the one where vince young started and the the dream team had fallen to complete crap and Deshawn was half running routes and got to narrow it down a little bit more even no no I know it's a Thursday night game and and and in a way Irvin was sort of giving the Deshawn point of view and I argued with Michael on the air and it got it got uh it got heated and it got a little bit awkward but you know the beautiful thing about Michael is that he understands what I'm attempting to do on the air and that we have such a mutual respect and love for one another that none of us are trying to make points with the viewers at the expense of the other. And everybody who I work with on the air here knows that.

Michael especially, who was at my wedding in 2003, because he worked with my wife at Fox Sportsnet years before, and she ran into him in New York City a couple of days before we got married, asked him to come. He said he would and showed up in an electric blue tuxedo. Perfect. And was the talk of the wedding thereafter where all my friends are coming up to me saying, was that Michael Irvin sitting back there?

Because he didn't stay for the reception. He did come just watch us get married, which is pretty cool. That's awesome. You must be, when those moments are happening, there's got to be a part of you that steps outside yourself and realizes like it's good to you. Like when Joe Flacco was with you guys after the Super Bowl, are you kind of sitting there just inside being like.

Well, those are my favorite moments, Greg. You know, we've been on that. I mean, ever since our first Super Bowl was the Patriots and Panthers in Houston and we were just 11 weeks old and we sensed what we could do at that Super Bowl the league was fully behind us they distributed us fully in all the media buses

and in the convention center and all the hotels that was really our coming out party where people because we were only on in direct TV when we started in various other small cable outlets It's probably about 12 million homes. And, you know, we really, we got some great guests. And, you know, to be very honest, kick some serious ass that week

to the point where my previous employer had sent a couple of producers to our set in the convention center to ask some of our guests if they would come to their set afterward. And we were just 11 weeks old. And we had George Bush, Sr. that was booked by Bob McNair at Tagliabu's request. and Brett Fav came on. This was the season in which his father had passed away, and the season ended with him being picked in Philadelphia by Brian Dawkins in the playoff game and hadn't been interviewed since,

and he came on. And, you know, and Eric Weinberger, our executive producers, always had the knack for taking the guest and surrounding the guest with people that he's either played with before, who's on our staff, or players who he goes out, who are out of the playoffs and invites to be correspondence or, you know, guest analysts. So we had Farrv on that set on that show. To his right was Sterling Sharp, who's been with us since day one.

And to his left was guest analyst Warren Sapp. And, you know, and Farrv basically was immediately relaxed on the set. Because Tirel Davis was there, too. he was just beginning to kick the tires on the TV business. And, you know, T.D. was the guy who denied him a second Super Bowl. In San Diego, he was the MVP of that game, who I believe was the one who scored when Holmgren let Denver score at the end of the game so they could get the ball back.

So there's T.D. sitting on the set. And in between Favre and Sapp, and he taps Sterling on the knee and says, you raised me and taps Sapp on the knee and said, you aged me. And those are the great moments where I'm the fly on the wall. And then later that week, the week ended with Solomon Wilcox and I running on to the, you know, I mean, we were already, I was on the field for the last three minutes of that game. There's also a moment where I realized just, you know, how good Tom Brady is also as he was moving

the Patriots down the field for yet another Venetary game winner. And every time he let loose the football, he had been. moving away from us for standing in the end zone. As he released the football, he was throwing it directly to a Carolina Panther each time. And with every last split second, one of his receivers came running right into that spot and caught the ball in a perfect spot. And after two or three times, I realized, oh, okay, Tom Brady knows exactly what he's doing. He's running his offense and trusting his receivers to be in the spot, which is why the Chad

Johnsons of the world, who go there, Brandon Lloyds of the world, don't succeed. because if you're one yard off on your route, Tom Brady is not going to look your way again. So that's why it works with the Troy Browns of the world. I mean, I'll learn that right from the get-go. Long story short, the game's over, and we run out on the field with director's chairs, and Solomon and I were there,

and it was the first post-game show we ever had in the history of the network, and we've done that in some form or fashion after every Super Bowl, and the guests that we get afterwards, We didn't get too many. Bob Kraft stopped by with the trophy that time,

but we didn't get anybody. Like our first coach to sit down because we got Belichick the first two years and he did Berman and not us. God bless him. The first coach we got was Cower. It was year three of our Super Bowl

after they beat Seattle. We got Bettis, but Rothlisberger didn't come by because, as you remember, he didn't statistically do very well. And I don't think he was going to be, he didn't want to put himself out there after that game.

So the first quarterback we got in our postgame after Super Bowl was Eli Manning after beating the previously undefeated Patriots. Because the following year, we didn't get Peyton either in 06. Peyton did not come by. But we got Eli in 07. And the people we get, I mean, I'll remember to, you know, Sean Peyton came after winning that game. and he was he hit my hand so hard when I just extended it to shake it he thought I was like trying to slap him and he just hit me so hard my my hand stung for the entire interview just just these guys coming so fly I guess I'm long in the mouth now but flacco coming on afterwards ed reed came

on was essentially crying and those are the moments where you just have to shut up and let it play out and have flacco essentially say stuff like you know yeah I can't wait to get paid you know which is sort of out of character for him. And so the network has always been really proactive and getting us on the field right after the game and getting those great moments. And I'm just so lucky to be in the middle of it. Well, we could talk to you all day,

but I know we're short on time. Oh, it's all good. And we appreciate you coming by. You didn't even get a question out. I know. Well, you want to do it? I don't know. So Rich and I just met last week.

Yeah. I'm in this chair because one day, six, seven years ago, I'm feeling squirly, send Greg Rosenthal an email. Okay. He happens to be receptive that day, you know? He's in a good mood. Were you in the Florio Empire at that point in time? Not yet. I like this wrestling origin story.

I didn't see this coming. So this is how I'm kind of like, that's how I ended up here. I know you have something where you're doing your northern exposure thing in the California mountains, and you get an email from ESPN. So did your life just change overnight? Oh, I didn't get an email. Or a phone call. I got a phone call. I worked at KRCR TV, the ABC affiliate in the Redding Chico Market, and I had a blast, man.

It was great. There's a longtime employee of that operation, a fellow named Mike Mangus, who was a long-time sports director. He's now one of the – I guess he's doing the news as well as sports up there. one of the sweetest guys I've ever met who and I mean we are from two completely different backgrounds but um you know I love the guy and he looked out for me I'm sure he saved my job a couple times with some of the stuff that I set on the air up there just because I thought it was just a way to get noticed or I want to get on SportsCenter in the worst way you know that's what I former stand-up comics I wanted to get the you know did some of the I probably stepped out of

bounds a couple times. Do you remember any of your calls that maybe you regret? Oh, yeah. On YouTube somewhere? No. When there was a baseball strike and they used replacement players, I called them all scabs, you know. I want to hear the stand-up jokes.

I'm from a, well, I did, well, this is documented. I did, my big finish was doing the Penn House forums and Howard Coasell's voice. So I did that for years. But at any rate. Yeah, I called it Scab Ball. I even put the word scab ball over the, as a graphic. It was not my finest moment, you know. There were a couple of things, too, that I would just say on the air,

and I left my resume in the copy machine once that really did, in fact, happen. But at any rate, I sent a tape to a headhunter, and it was one of those phone systems in Redding where the phone would ring twice for an outside call for a long-distance call. Me being from New York, it was pretty much when my parents and my brother called. And I got a ring ring, and it was from an agent at the William Morris Agency saying that he had heard I was the hottest up-and-coming sportscaster in America. And I'm like, if you say so, brother, because I am not feeling so hot. You know, I got to go drive 45 minutes to cover, you know,

X, Y, and Z with my three-quarter-inch equipment that was attached to a deck by this fat coaxial cable, and I wasn't feeling that. Let's put it that way. And he's like, send me this tape that I'm hearing so much about. I'm like, okay. So I called my brother, who lived in Los Angeles at the time. I'm like, you never guessed this phone call. I just got.

This is incredible. So I told him about it. And then 15 minutes later, the ring, ring happens again. And I thought to myself, watch, I'm such hot. You know what? that's Al Jaffe that'll be ESPN on the phone and sure enough it was in fact

Al Jaffe who is the talent Puba or as I called him the king maker he's the one who found Kilbourne in Salinas California Was he the Robert Guillaume character on Sports Night?

The Robert Guillaume character on Sports Night was the sports director of it and they're you know I got a funny story about that one too if you want I'll hear that one but just to finish this story

is that, you know, I thought my brother had called my buddies from Staten Island to say, you know, Rich just got this call from an agent, call him up and say you're Al Jaffe from ESPN, he'll totally buy it. So I almost carpet F-bombed Al Jaffee. And because I didn't believe it. And then I realized it really was him and I tried out for Sports Center in January of 96. And I remember I stayed in the Radisson Hotel across the store. street from Bristol, which is, I think, a different hotel now. And I watched Dan and Keith do a Sunday night sports center figuring I should just watch that

before I try out the next day. And I'm glad I did because the same tapes they used for that show, they used for my thing. So a couple of things that I, when I watched the Dan and Keith big show, I'm like, I would have done it this way. And I actually got the chance to do it that way. So I was a little more prepared for my audition. Then I started in the middle of February of 96, my first sports. Center was a March something of 96. Larry Beale. Sir Lawrence of Beal was my co-anchor.

Oh, yeah. He was on Sports Center. But at any rate, what is my, well, my Robert Guillaume story. Yes. You know, they, because they, you know, Sports Night was an ABC show. A friend of my podcast, Josh Charles, who I've met many times since that. Big Ravens, he's, he's the real deal, by the way. Yeah. I mean, seriously, like, he will start telling you about how thin they are and at second string and various. positions on the field and means it he's the real deal yeah um and so you know they would say to you uh at bristol you know we would get filled a ton of phone calls from media critics wondering if this is real or not like how real is sports night right and Aaron Sorkin came up one time and had us all in a room like eight of us and picked our brains tell him like he downloaded all of our favorite stories.

So like the famous Steve Levy moment where he said that Randy Johnson, we'll talk about his back problems, that Randy Johnson was out with a bulging dick. He said, and he was doing that show with Oberman. And Oberman was on camera next after that reader. And they cut to Keith, whose glasses were off and his face was buried in his hand. And he waved the camera back. wordlessly to Steve leaving and one of the all-time great sports center moments

that he incorporated that, I think, in sports night by saying that, you know, there was a story about that and there's the prompter that they need to fix the word disc because the letters are trying, like he did it in a way that was suitable for network television and I believe it was me or somebody else told him a story that in the old sports center studio when it rained, there was a leak in the roof.

So there's many times you're doing highlights or even on camera. The water would drip on top of your head, and you'd feel it dripped down your head, and you couldn't break stride because you're on camera. I mean, that happened. So there was a sports night episode where it leaked. But, I mean, if you remember a sports night, they're in their glass-en-cased office, ivory tower in Midtown Manhattan, and we live in, you know, prefabricated cubicle, Bristol country.

and that's part of why the sports center commercials work so much is the perception and reality of working for sports center and what people see what the SPN is, you know, it doesn't jibes. So they always take you backstage and this is SportsCenter and the cubicles where you're on the phone or ordering pizza or something like that. That's why those sports center commercials work.

Long story short is, so they called us up and all these Washington posts, New York Times. How real is it? So I got a call from Bristol PR saying, well, the L.A. Times wants to do a story on sports night. And I want to know how real is it? And two things.

It's an ABC Disney show, so you can't bash the show if you don't like it. And two is you can't bash Bristol. You can't bash Bristol. So can you do that? And I'm like, no problem. I can handle it. So they asked me, what's the main difference?

And I said, it's pretty much the same except we don't have Benson running around here telling us what to do and sure enough one of my proud moments is they pulled that quote underneath my picture in the LA Times next to a photo of Robert Guillaume which it's the typical no one can ever take that away from me no sort of situation I'm glad Wessling got his question in yeah that's good well you guys know where I am so we can do this any other time we will take you up on that thank you You got it, guys. No, thank you, too.

Thanks again. What you guys do is really entertaining the read. And now that you're bringing it to a podcast, it's pretty neat. Appreciate it. Thank you. For Rich Eisen, Chris Wessling, and Dan Hansis. I'm Greg Rosenthal. That's it.

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