So I really, you know, studied those tapes. I would take them out of the bin, put them in the machine and just stare and you know, write notes and whatever.
And I'm in my own little world.
And then one time I'm looking at, you know, the screen, and the tapes come out and they pop them in, and all of a sudden, I just felt this presence to my left and I look up and it's Dan Patrick.
He goes, so you're nervous. Hello, my favorite listeners. This is the podcast we like to call Off the Beat, and I am the host that I like to call Brian bombcart nerd Listen. Some people may say the holidays end right after New Year, but those people are very very wrong. True believers celebrate the real holiday season all January long, straight through until the second Sunday in February. That's right. I am talking about the holy days of the NFL playoffs. And my guest today is, well, he's
a holy man. Rich Eisen one of my favorite fellas in the business. He was a renowned sports reporter partnered with Stuart Scott on Sports Center on ESPN for many many years. He then was the first hire and is now the face of the NFL Network. He's also hosted his Emmy nominated talk show, The Rich Eisen Show for almost a decade now, where I am a frequent contributor.
We have to celebrate a victory today as well, because Rich is a proud alumnus of the University of Michigan, and just a few hours before we recorded this, the Michigan Wolverines won the Division one twenty twenty three college football Playoff championship. Go Blue, as Rich would say, So we're going to talk about that. We're going to talk about his career in journalism, and of course wild Card Weekend.
Let's see how right or wrong Rich was, and then of course everything leading up to the big game next month. Here he is one of my favorite people on the planet, Rich Eisen. Bubble and squeak, I love it. Bubble and Squeakna bubble and squeak. I could get every mon left over from the ninety before. Well, hail to the victor. That is correct. I appreciate you referring to me as a victor.
Brian, have you slept it's Monday like a baby.
Like a Yeah, you've slept really well, except I'm sure your phone's going off every forty five minutes as you're sleeping with all the news pouring in. I know, it's been insane, brother, it's been insane. Today we're recording this January the eleventh. Bill Belichick is no longer the coach of the Patriots. Yesterday, Nick Saban no longer the coach
at Alabama. Your thoughts, It's been totally insane, man. I you know, I've been fortunate to do what I do for a long time since ninety six nationally and never seen it like this. Never never had the modern day Lombardi and the modern day Paul bear Bryant retire within a span of fifteen hours before the other one mutually
parted ways with his longtime employer. And you know Belichick twenty four years at New England, seventeen years for Saban in Alabama, and to have them both leave their current positions within that time period, preceded by Pete Carroll after fourteen years in Seattle, I don't recall a quarterback a coaching carousel spinning off its axis like this one. Well, and also vray Ball leaving Tennessee, which I think most thought was unexpected.
Yes, and then about to cannonball into this coaching carousel or pool is Jim Harbaugh, my guy from Michigan. So it's nuts man. So you've got a six time Super Bowl champion head coach and a seven time national champion head coach in Saban departing the current national champion head coach potentially entering the twenty twenty one Coach of the
Year in vrabel switching jobs as well. And Pete Carroll, who like what Jim Harball wants to be is a super Bowl winning head coach with a national championship in his trophy case as well from college. It's nuts man, It's totally crazy.
I want to talk a little bit more about your time at Michigan, but before I transition into your life, I just I have to ask you one question. Is that a Packers gay? I can't know you. I know where you're going. That's the other g I know you're going with this. Well, first off, should Georgia have been given the opportunity to play Michigan? No? Why should they have? Why? Four best teams? Okay for market one of the four best teams. Let me ask you this, QUOESU and Brian.
In nineteen ninety seven, Michigan won a National Championship and had to share it with Nebraska, right, because they had the misfortune of playing the last I guess one would say a college football season before the BCS was born. Where had the BCS taken place in nineteen ninety seven, Michigan and Nebraska would have faced off the next week
against one another, and that didn't happen. So I have spent nineteen ninety seven to the present day having to push back at Nebraska Cornhusker fans, Well, you know, I know, you know you had well, I guess Tommy Fraser at the time, I don't know who the hell it was. You know, we had, you know, Charles Woodson patrolling the secondary and you know Tom Brady on our sideline. He wasn't playing. It was Brian Greasy. But I think you get to see where I'm going this whole argument. I'm
not going to have it with you about Michigan. What would happened had Georgia taken on Michigan. I'm just not going to countless it because the bottom line is for Georgia to have made it, they needed to beat Alabama, which it did not do, right, And then Michigan took on Alabama the next week and retired Nick Saban. So you know, obviously you could sit here and say Georgia's
better than Texas and Georgia is better than Washington. But Washington went through its season and a conference undefeated and won it.
Absolutely.
Texas went through its conference season and won it. Didn't go undefeated, but they did beat Alabama, which beat Georgia. So you couldn't put Alabama in over Georgia, and you couldn't put Alabama in over Texas either, because Texas had beaten Alabama heads up. So for Georgia to have just avoided this whole conversation and they just needed to beat Alabama and didn't know that would have been interesting. Had
they made it. They would have taken on Florida State in the Rose Bowl, and Michigan would have faced Washington one week earlier, and then we'll see what had happened. I don't know, but I get what you're saying now.
I know it is interesting. I talked to Josh Brooks, the athletic director at the University of Georgia, the week before, and I asked him what happens if Alabama wins? You know, Georgia was hurt. Bowers was hurt. Conkey was hurt, and he wouldn't he said, well, I always have to win. Yeah, that was it. That was it, you know.
But I'll tell you what it would have been an interesting battle because Michigan was way better and deeper this year than the time the two of our schools faced each other in the Orange Bowl two years ago, where Michigan wasn't ready for that. This year, I think Michigan would have been a bit more ready for it.
Now you deserve of all kudos, congratulations and and yeah you did it, and now I did it. Yes, you did well. You you would part well if you have Portnoy did it right, you you should have as much say as him, right.
I was just down the road from him at the Rose Bowl. Yes, as a matter of fact, And you know, my twelve year old son was sitting next to my nephew, who's a senior in Syracuse and is well versed on the travails of the stool Presidente and his seven figure bet on Michigan.
At the Rose Bowl.
My twelve year old son turns to me in no fewer than about eight times during the game, he goes, Dad, is that guy over there really betting a million dollars on this game, and I'm like, I believe, so, I believe so that you should ever do such a thing.
But yeah, yeah, so I hear you. You grew up in Stayland, Yeah yeah, and Wagner High School there. When did you get an idea? I always liked talking to people about you know, when you're a kid, you have a dream of being a fireman or being a quarterback of the Patriots or whatever. When for you did you start thinking that that journalism at least was something that you wanted to do well.
It was basically when I realized I couldn't hit the curveball, make the jump shot, throw the perfect spiral, run very fast. And I did love sports, and I always did love the idea of being a sportscaster. You know, I learned early on that if I ever wanted to reach a certain level within the sports world, it wasn't going to be through the athletic part of it. It was going
to be through the verbal part of it. So I grew up having emulate Marv Albert was the NBC local sportscaster at night, also called Knicks Games and Ranger games, And I grew up listening to Marv and watching him Howard Cosell on Monday Night football was somebody who I emulated, and so I always thought to myself, that's something I'd want to do and found my way into it through just a long journey from college into working for a local newspaper in my hometown as an intern working for
the student newspaper at Michigan and Sports Center came into the world in nineteen seventy nine, and then while I was in college from eighty six to ninety that's really when it began to explode and was kind of put on my radar screen as a goal of wanting to do that. Oh you were thinking about it then in college? Hell, yeah, absolutely, Well.
I did a couple of things extracurricular in college. One was work for the Michigan Daily and I covered beaucham Beckler's final season as the football coach there and covered the Rose Bowl that year actually, and that's what's kind of emotional for me to see Michigan with Harbaugh win the Rose Bowl this year and bring my wife and kids and nephew to the game, and so you know, kind of point like that press box right there is where I sat in that in nineteen ninety and now
here I was in January first of twenty twenty four with the you know, my whole family watching Michigan Win. It was really emotional for me. And the other thing I did was stand up comedy. That was when stand up really exploded in the mid to late eighties, when they made Tom Hanks Sally Fields movie out of you know, stand up comedy, and people were waiting around the block to get in, and the student union was having a comedy night once a month, and I did comedy there
probably once every other month. Sometimes I did it one month after another, and I loved it. I loved the feedback. I loved trying to figure out what a crowd was into making jokes and having a set and doing that. And it was the toughest thing to date, Brian, that I've ever had to do is stand up which is another reason why I love to have funny people on
my show every day, and comedians. You know, not only because I grew up also watching Johnny Carson and Letterman and that's the lifeblood of talk shows, are comedians coming in and you playing straight man to him or her. But I also just really respect the craft. Those are
the two things I did in college. Who do you remember like loving or you know, kind of following in terms of stand up as you were doing it, or was there anybody you emulated or well, I mean, I don't know if I really was into that, I mean about getting into who I emulated. I just loved going and doing something and the immediate feedback of performing in front of a crowd. I've always never really had a
problem with that. And at this point, you know, in time in my life and my career, I'll make a joke on NFL Network or my Daily show, or I'll have done it on Sports Center, which is again in college, it kind of mixed all the dreams together of comedy and performing art and sportscasting, which is what Sports Center really was at the time. And so I really didn't have one comic that I was trying to emulate. I was just being myself and having a good time. And
I loved it. I just like I said, I really loved it to the point where now I'll make a joke on any of those sets, and it's not the job of the you know, the folks behind the cameras on the floor to laugh at my stuff. But if I don't get an immediate feedback to a joke I make on the air, I'll think it's fallen flat. So I do miss the feedback. I do miss all of that, and it was amazing, man. I I loved doing it, loved it.
Well. You know, another thing that was happening at this time was the huge comedy Second City that was birthing out of Chicago. I know you spent some time in Chicago before moving on to ESPN. You got a job of the Chicago Tribune. Were you covering sports there? Jeez? Was I covering in Chicago? I'm not really. I went.
I went there for a hot minute, really for graduate school, and that's where I really had hoped to move into the TV world in Chicago, because I after graduating Michigan, I went back to my hometown newspaper for three years and worked there for a while and had a great time, but realized that wasn't really what I wanted to do. I really wanted to try sports casting. We really wanted to get into TV. So I went back to Northwestern lived there for about six months, I you know, just
to pay some bills. I did some stringing for the Chicago Tribune, where I would, you know, go out to Wheeling or Schomberg and and and get the stats from the coaches of the high school games and call them in to the sports desk. You know, like that's what I did, right, But I also had a great time covering sports for the school you know, or I guess for my school work. And that's when Jordan retired for the first time. Okay, that was wild. Was there met Harry Carrey as the Cubs once I think it was
they named Tom Treblelhorn their new manager. So I met Carrie Carrey before the press conference.
It was noon. He was already into a couple bloody Mary's. I'll never forget that.
So that's what I basically did in Chicago while I was there trying to get my degree, my master's degree.
Right, you know. One of the other things that I like to touch on our people that others don't know about, who have sort of a profound impact on you. I read Mike Mangus, yea there in Northern California, read and reading, Yes, you worked at k r c R there. Yeah, did he have a specific he was a sports director, have a specific idea? Was in your director.
Yeah, I got my first job in Reading California after I was done with Medill at the School of Journalism There I graduated, and I got a call from one of my fellow classmates who got a job in Reading California, and she told me, you know, the sports casting job is open here.
You should apply for it. And I did.
And it took really I had to really, you know, twist the arm of the news director to let him know that this kid from New York City was really serious about coming to his hamlet in northern California and treating a job with seriousness, but also bringing my brand of sports center isms to local sports casting. And I did that. And Mike was the main sports anchor there. He had been there for a long time and he's
still there now. And there were four sports casts there that per day, at five o'clock, five thirty, six thirty, and eleven. So I did the five and the eleven, and so it was a long day. But I just remember a lot of the stuff that I did was just off the wall. I brought a sports center style to local TV. And you know, there was a big wrestling match that was going on in the high school
prep sports world there Anderson High School. Their school's nickname were the Cubs, and they were going against another local high school and a big, you know, real wrestling competition, and I decided to make like a wrestling promo out of it and turn myself into the junkyard Cub, you know. And I enlisted Mike in to be the straight man,
like the mean gene of it, you know. And there were a lot of people there and reading who were like, you know, what is wrong with this person, you know, like and they'd call up and they'd complain, like he's not taking this seriously. My son is trying to get a wrestling scholarship, or my son, this is really important. I used to wrestle for Anderson, and my kid is now wrestling because it's a legacy, and he's treating it like it's it's the WWF because I believe it predated
the WWE. And Mike, I mean, I don't think he ever told me, but I'm sure you saved my job a couple of times, you know, where he took the figure it a bullet for me and the complaint department and the general manager of the station at the time, who was very you know, matrician and buttoned up and probably was wondering, why did we hire this person who's creating so much of a ruckus that we're getting calls
at nights. Then we never got calls from people over twenty o'clock sports cast, like what the hell is happening?
You know? So Mike.
Mike was always awesome to me and gave me the space, knowing that I wasn't planning on being there to make a career out of being and reading. My goal was to get to Sports Center, and remarkably I got there from reading, Like I really like won the lottery by being discovered by ESPN while I was at KARCRTV, and I went from there to Sports Center at age twenty six. It was like getting struck by lightning.
But what an incredible gift, though, to have the experience before being thrown in there, to be able to do, you know, some different ideas, to allow you to explore your own brand of humor, and to have that experience in front of a camera with a crew around. You know, it's not just in your basement, but having that on air experience that seems like a great gift.
Well it was, and you know, I mean, when I walked into Sports Center for the first time, Brian, there were more people in the newsroom than were in the entire employee list of KRCR, you know, and then you look around the newsroom and it was everybody that I was dreaming of becoming a colleague of, or had been emulating or ripping off in my sports casts. And suddenly I was thrown into that world. And it was the
golden age of Sports Center nineteen ninety six. When I strolled in there, it was Dan Patrick, Dan and Keith. At night the big show, the six o'clock Eastern Sports Center with Bob Lee and Robin Roberts and Charlie Steiner, and then the overnight show was Craig Kilbourne and Linda Cone, and you know, a whole host of others. Mike Tarrico is occasionally doing it still, like Kenny Maine. Kenny Maine obviously.
Yeah.
And then you know, the ultimate obvious one is Stuart Scott, who I was connected with more often than not for about a seven year period after that.
Were you intimidated walking in, Oh hell ya.
Of course, you know. I mean I remember trying out. I mean, they flew me all the way across the country from Reading to Connecticut, and unbelievably, there was a snowstorm on the East coast. The first time I attempted, it couldn't get as far as Chicago. Had to go back to Redding without telling anybody there where I was going. And I was just like broken hearted that I had to go back because I'm dreaming as I'm flying east
and then I'd never get there and turn around. I'm like, maybe this is a sign that's never going to happen. But two weeks later I went back and I remember staying in the hotel across the street on the Sunday night before the Monday, I was auditioning, and I just couldn't sleep, just not only because I was so hyped up, but it was one of those hotels where you could hear this stream of water above you and you realize it was the person urinating in the room above you.
So I couldn't get any sleep, and I'm like, you know what, let me just turn on Sports Center now and get in the mode. And I'm watching the Dan and Keith Big Show, and as they're going through their highlights, I thought to myself, I would have done it this way I would have used that line. My thought would have been that not this or that was a great line, but I would have tried it this way. That's how I was going, just to keep my mind as an
exercise going through it. Next day, go in, it's now time and they give me the rundown, you know, piece of paper with the list of the highlights that I would be calling and the you know, hey, write us in on camera, lead in into this highlight, and then you'll do three three highlights, and then you'll do this on camera, lead into those highlights. And the highlights that they gave me were the exact tapes from the Dan
and Keith show the night before. So I was unwittingly preparing exactly for the audition I was going to have the next day. And so I crushed it. Man, I knew exactly what I was going to say, all the stuff. If I would have done it this way, I then did that, did that right, And I nailed it. I mean I crushed the audition, crushed it. And I remember Al Jaffy was the VP of Talent at the time, coming out and he was elated because, you know me, he's flying some kid, twenty six year old kid from
reading California across the country. I'm sure there were some of his colleagues going really like, is this the guy you really want to throw in the mix with all these, you know, with everybody, And and I then got completely intimidated by walking in there. When I was fully hired. They had me observe I was the last hire before ESPN News was created where they would then put all the future hires on there to cut their teeth. I was the last one that they hired and threw directly
into the Sports Center pool. And the one thing that I did observe that I did pick up on it. That's something that sticks to me to this day is every single one of the Sports Center anchor colleagues that I was so eager to be colleagues with, and that I thought I knew because I watched them each and every one of them walked in the room and was the same exact person that they were on the air.
And I remember thinking to myself, Okay, so if I don't know if you can curse on this pod or not, yes, okay, I mean so if you're going to try any bullshit on the viewer, they're gonna smell it that you have to be completely authentic. I mean when Chris Berman walked in the room, because he rarely did sports centers back when I started, but he would just kind of parachute in for one week and go back and do sports centers,
and that was the week I was observing. So to watch Berman walk in the room and be the Chris Berman I watched on the Draft and Sports Center, I'm like, wow, okay, like that's the way to do it. You can't come out and give some sort of a voice, some sort of you know, bullshit. Just be yourself and everyone Dan Keith name it, everyone killboard my god. I mean that he's as genuine from on the air as off the air as anybody I've seen. So that was definitely a lesson I learned real fast.
It seemed like, or I don't know, from the outside, it seemed well like you and Dan seemed to clearly have a great relationship. Now both of you visit each other's shows fairly regularly. Did you feel like there was a lot of internal competition because everyone at that point, Oh okay, there was yeah, oh yeah, I'm sorry I mean to interrupt you. No, no, no, yeah, yeah, no, I.
Mean, but you know you also had to understand as well, you know, like sure there was some internal competition, but there was also some tough love. And you know, I got some from Keith about my on air style and Dan hayes me. You know, like the tapes that I told you about that that I was able to audition off of and know already because they were from the
show the night before. When I would do the two AM Sports Center, the eleven o'clock tapes would come upstairs and most of them would be reused, you know, the when there was a baseball game that was over for the eleven o'clock show, and they would just use it again for the two am show because there wasn't anything that was that needed to be added to it. So
I really, you know, studied those tapes. I would take them out of the bin, put them in the machine and just stare and you know, write notes and whatever.
And I'm in my own little world.
And then one time I'm looking at you know, the screen, and the tapes come out and they pop them in, and all of a sudden, I just felt this presence to my left and I look up and it's Dan Patrick.
He goes, so you're nervous, And I thought.
To myself, you know, like, all right, I think I'm being as here. And I took that as a little bit of a He wouldn't have done it if he didn't think I could handle it or I that was that, you know, when when Keith left to go to MSNBC and his seat was open, there was I wanted it bad. Stuart was pissed that I wanted it bad. He's like, we're a team, Like, what do you want to leave our team to go just be with Dan? Like Dan was with Keith, Like you know, you don't need to
create a new team. We're the team, you know. Like, but you know, and when Kenny got it, there was some a lot of people like, well, you know, I deserved it.
There was some of that, no doubt about it.
But it was just an incredible place to be and certainly at the time that Sports Center was having it was I'm really lucky to have that time, really lucky.
What were you most proud of during your time there?
Uh, just most proud of being myself and growing up and having a great time with Stuart. And I'm just proud of the fact that I still run into people again. I'm fifty four now, and I'll have like it's crazy, man. I'll have like I'll be standing there at school, you know, with my my kids, you know, I had kids a little late with my wife. I'm standing there and a dad whose kid is in my kids class will come up to me and tell me, you know that they grew up watching me on Sports Center, you know, before
they went to fifth grade school. Because Sports Center used to be re aired, the one that Stuart and I did was wrapped by three am. Like my regular out time average was about three thirty in the morning, and then I'd go to sleep and the shows would be reared from five am Eastern all the way to one o'clock Eastern. There would be a noon to one o'clock Eastern show. Now, as you know, ESPN is live programming NonStop, but at the time they would just rea air those
Sports centers. I got some of the biggest exposure television exposure of my career while I was sleeping, you know, I was aids the world, like sleeping at eleven in the morning because I needed my six hours, you know.
And so I'm just proud that it still resonates for so many people, and that whenever the subject matter may come up on social media or wherever I meet people, they've got like this warm and fuzzy feeling about their own childhood or growing up, and they view me as some sort of a figure from that time when they were young and innocent and learning about sports and having fun watching Sports Center, that I'm that person for them here in twenty twenty four.
I'm really proud of that. Yeah, that's really awesome. And I love to hear you say how authentic everyone was, because I would say, particularly you and Stuart worked so well together and felt so comfortable, so different in so many ways, but just complimented each other perfectly. Yeah, did you get to meet him? I did get to meet him? What and where was it early SBS? I think yeah, the first time and and maybe the first couple of times, yes, And saw him on the golf course actually the ESPN
thing they used to do. Uh yeah for the SP's right out for the s that's right. Yeah. Yeah, he loved to play golf.
He was terrible at it, terrible, He was terrible at it, yes, but he loved it and he had no concept of how to score none at all. I mean, you know, we we had to tell him at one point, like listen today, if you hit the ball out of bounds and you then drop the ball where there is a white steak, you need to go back and read tea it. If you drop it where there's a red steak, you may hit it from there, but it isn't your second shot,
you know. Like we had to tell him that, and it wasn't It wasn't him being you know, trying to teach it like there was no money on the line or anything like that. We're just like, dude, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no no, there are provisionals like pro v's. He thought meant provisional. I'm like, no, that's the name of the golf ball man, you know, Like.
I remember, and I think I played with him twice, and this was before this was a thing. I don't know if if this was a normal thing or maybe it was a weather.
He wore sleeves like a long, tight part of that is because he was ripped. He was ripped. I think you want to show off as physique. Stewart was ripped. He was always ripped that. Oh yeah, and it was a Jordan thing too. I'm sure he had all the latest Nike gear from his buddy MJ.
And Tiger.
Oh god, Tiger loved him, and he loved Tiger. He always Stewart always looked great on the golf course. He always had the latest of this, that the other thing. And then he'd go out and shoot a buck thirty and tell you he shot in eighty nine and we're like, dude, oh my god, like you gotta be kidd me.
And then again, like his eyesight was very poor.
Just watching him look for a golf ball, We're like, dude, you've got fifty of them in your golf bag. You know, Tiger just sent you a box of nine hundred of them. Just drop one and count it as a stroke, you know when you do it. Oh my god. I just love being around him. He was just he was always a blast man. And we did we did get along. We did get along from the very very beginning. One of my favorite Sports Center commercials we did together. It's
very rarely seen. We ad lib the entire thing. It was right around We shot a Sports Center commercial around that they said they were gonna air and they were gonna air it around Christmas. They wanted to shoot a Christmas time spot, and they didn't even have a script
for it. They just had an idea that Stewart would present me with an IFB in a box like one of those ear pieces and just present it to me, like, come up to me in my desk and we add lib the whole thing where I'm just typing away, taps me on the show and he goes, this is for you, and I'm like for me, and I open it up and it's the my earpiece they had mine and I'm like, oh my god, it fits you know, my size and everything.
Thanks man, And we would then we paused and waited and quickly gave the bro hug and then separated like a right, you know, cool, and he walked away wordlessly. It was perfect, like we did it and like one
or two takes. It was exactly thirty seconds. They're like good enough on and we thought they'll never air it because there was no script, and those Sports Center commercials were really closely guarded, like they would walk around the Widen Kennedy people with the ESPN folks from the marketing department. If you were chosen for those spots, that was very competitive too, Like you like how many.
Spots did they get? How many?
Because I only got one? And you like, and you know, am I you know how much am I in it? You know that's that was very competitive back at the time. And they're like, you know, we were thinking of doing one for Christmas. You guys want to try it, and they put my earpiece in a box. He walked, tap me on the shoulder. I remember, I was sitting at my desk. It's rarely seen. I don't even know if it's on YouTube or not.
Wow, I loved it. We just we ad lived it the whole thing and it was I love that guy, man, love it. It's awesome. Uh, you leave seven eight years at ESPN and you become I mean, I think it's safe to say the face of the NFL network, the first higher, first talent higher in two thousand and three. You've now been there over twenty years. How difficult was it for you to leave ESPN? Oh it's real tough. Oh it was real tough. But they made it easy.
I mean, you know, after a while, you know, Sports Center changed as an entity because just a you know, in our fast paced media world, man, I mean, the advent of cell phones and the explosion of I know I'm dating myself the Internet. It really changed Sports Center from a show, and at least in the mindseye of management of a show telling you what happened, assuming you hadn't seen it yet, or assuming you'd only seen it once and wanted to see it again in a entertainingly
presented highlight form. And it went from that when I first got there to the end of them assuming you've not only seen it, you've seen all the highlights. Now you just want to know why something happened, or an argument over why something happened and whose fault it was, or you know that sort of thing. And that was how things changed. I went from being a sports center anchor to a crossfire moderator sometimes is how I felt.
And I also saw that, you know, Disney had just recently bought ESPN, and I wanted to play with other
toys in the Disney chest. I thought I should have a presence on say, Good Morning America when a big sports story hit, or do other things like play by play, and at the time management only wanted me to do more sports centers right, and I firmed my ground, and towards the end they gave me a possibility, like literally two weeks before the end of my contract, being up to the idea of maybe hosting a show called Cold Pizza that turned into their morning Venture in New York City.
I turned that down for various reason, even though I wanted to live in New York City, and so I guess they took that as an opinion of, Hey, we tried our best and you're out. That was tough, man, I mean it was tough. I never thought I would leave ESPN. It was my identity. They took me out of Reading California, and so I joined NFL Network. I had another opportunity to potentially call Braves games for TBS because they were taking full and complete control of the
Braves broadcast into a re tooled TBS. And I guess I'm just trying to think here, would I have wound up on TBS more than you.
I don't know anymore?
Okay, not anymore, I know, not anymore, but back in two thousand, you know, back in the aughts, you know, and in the early sure. Okay, I'm just I know, I'm just throwing out I'm just trying to find like, because they were retooling TBS into a spot where people would watch comedy and stuff like that and and then
braves games and things that nature. But I chose NFL network out here in LA and you know it was run at the time by Steve Bornstein is the former president of ESPN, and you knew what I could do. I always tell Stevie smart enough to have hired me twice, and now here I am twenty years in man.
Twenty years. You do an amazing thanks job on the network. I feel like, you know this sounds weird, but I feel like you're very, very fair when you perceive there to be multitude of sides. Thank you. I appreciate that, you know.
I honestly I always feel, you know, Brian, like there's got to be some version of a nuance, you know what I mean that maybe I'm not thinking about or anybody else is thinking about.
I don't know.
I just want to take the approach that I hope is completely open, too.
Normal.
I don't know, you know what I mean, like don't I don't know what else how else to describe it, but it is something that I'm I'm hopeful that people appreciate it. Yes, And I always try to be as reasonable as possible, but I'll sometimes fly off the handle.
You know, I don't know. Well, you know, I love the NFL and by the way, the work that they have given me an opportunity to do on Good Way Football a number of times. I love seeing you on it, man that really enjoy doing that, even co hosting it very rarely. But you know, I think the thing that the NFL is awesome. They're not always right, and everything that happens on the field doesn't always go correctly. And to me, just as a person doesn't have to be perfect,
that entity doesn't have to be perfect. I think where I think at times people get frustrated is when we are all expected to pretend that it is perfect right, and I feel like you, in a very even handed way, are are very fair. Well, I appreciate that, but.
I mean, look, I'm fortunate. I'm fortunate to that when I took my job with the NFL. So I got I got let go by ESPN, and late in May of three I got married. On June seventh of o three, I went on my honeymoon. On my honeymoon, I was driving from Venice where I signed my contract, down to Tuscany and on driving my wife on me a one.
My phone goes off and you know, and so she answers it because of course she's not going to give it to me driving in Italy where people, you know, drive this close to your bumper, and then she hands me the phone and I'm like, this must be someone important. It must be The president said it was Dick Vital. He was sad that I had left. But the reason why I bring all this up is I got a call when I came back from my honey moon from the COO of the NFL. I was unfamiliar with the
NFL float chart. Brian completely unfamiliar with the float chart.
I didn't know.
I did more baseball than anything else when I was at ESPN, and I call up Bornstein and I'm like, I got a call from an executive who says he would like to meet and talk. He goes, who is it. I'm like, it's the CEO. His name is Roger Goodell, and he goes, Roger called you, and I'm like yeah. He goes, hang up for me call him back, and I'm like, okay, I got it. And I called Roger Goodell, the Chief Operating Officer of the NFL, and he got right on the phone, welcome to the NFL, and do
you play golf? And I'm like yeah, and he goes, do you want to play? And I'm like sure. And within the next week to ten days, I was on a golf course with him, just me and him, and we're playing around.
And I remember where I was.
Because it was at the time what I appeared to be in my life, the deepest sandtrap I'd ever been in. And you'll remember those, right, Brian, even though you're not in those very often. I know you're a game, You're a great state. I remember getting out of that sandtrap and he finally got around a business in the back nine. He says to me, you were hired to do a job for us, and I want to make sure you
do the job that you were hired to do. If there's anybody that ever pushes back against something that you say, you know, and you're uncomfortable about that, you reach out to me and I'll help fix it. That's what he said to me before I even uttered a syllable for NFL Network, I didn't come on the air until November
of that year. This was the summer, and true to his word, honestly, so, I feel safe if you will to criticize officiating or coaches decisions or anything that may happen when it comes to changing a rule or anything like that. I feel completely at ease, And I think that helps.
You know with what you're talking about. You know, I was going to ask you about this. You mentioned it before, obviously I know now it is something that's exciting to you. Celebrate twenty year anniversary in November. The next day you call the Chiefs. Yeah, the Chiefs Dolphins game from Germany, only the second time there? You like calling the games? Oh? Man? Do I love it?
I love it because everything that you know I've in this conversation is you know, your listeners probably would gather by now. What I've done my entire career is talk about things either after it's over, or talk about things in advance of them to get.
You ready for them.
Yes, and here I am talking about it in real time and I'm the one describing it for you.
I love that.
What a what a complete blessing it is to have, you know, quarter century into my career, an opportunity to try something different, to be challenged by the endeavor and love every second of it, you know, like the kid that learned fast. I can't hit the curve, and I can't throw the spiral, and I can't make the jump shot. I would be the one watching those who could and calling the action in the street in Staten Island, you know.
And now here I am doing that, like doing that, and not just anywhere in these different locations around the world. These very important games for the league to try and sell the game abroad, and the crowds there are awesome.
They are awesome. The crowd in Munich, Germany.
You know, ask Brady, ask Pete Carroll anytime you see him, what was that game in Munich like? And they will tell you it felt like a super Bowl and it did. The games in Germany this year, the games in London, whenever I get to do them, and then the ones that I call domestically, I don't take them for granted for various reasons. One because there is such a fleeting time where you get to do something new and love it,
so I'll take advantage of that. Also, I better get it right because it is the largest audience that I speak to. I mean, you could take you could take the ratings of the Sunday Morning show that I've been fortunate to do for thirteen years now. Add it up for an entire season, and it doesn't equal potentially the audience for name a game like that Dolphins Chiefs one. What a huge h audience it was. So if I get something wrong, twenty five years of my credibility could
be flushed right down the toilet on the spot. And then the last thing is it is a serious responsibility for somebody to call a game accurately but not overwhelm the viewer. I've got to be additive, right, you know, I can't be subtracting from your enjoyment of the game because I'm screwing it up or I'm talking too much, and it is really challenging.
You know.
One last thing on it. It just dawned on me this morning. I said this to my wife when it woke up. I mentioned it on my show today that in the twenty four years of Belichick being the head coach of the Patriots, the number of big games he coached in right, all those Super Bowls. The first one was called by Pat Summerle In his last game in the booth was Tom Brady's over the Rams in that
Super Bowl with John Madden in the booth. It was the last ever Summer All Madden game, and then their next Super Bowl was Joe Buck's first game in the booth calling a super Bowl for Fox with Collinsworth and Aikman in the booth. And Jim Nance has called all those Super Bowls for him as well, and Al Michael's called the Malcolm Butler super Bowl moment in all of those AFC Championship games and Monday Night games and Sunday
Night games. The person who called Bill Belichick's last win as a head coach of the New England Patriots, you were looking at.
You here you go.
So what I told my wife this morning, I'm like, isn't that something that's so cool? I called it on Christmas Eve?
Yeah, you know. And I'm like, okay, I'll put that on my resume. Yeah I got that, And I don't take it for granted. Man. I'm like, that's I got to do it. I'm really lucky. That's awesome. There's so much I could talk to you about the Rich Eisend Show, but you've been on and I may be on again soon. I don't know if you've heard the word yet. But I will be in Las Vegas for the Super Bowl
this year. Let's go. Sure someone will call you about Okay, good, okay, all that you have done for Saint Jus Research Hospital, through that, the amount of money that you have made on Run for Run, Rich Run. I can't let you go though. We're here on January eleventh, wild Card weekend. Yes, you have your own job. They pay way more than I do on NFL network. But I want, I want you to give me a thought about each game.
Brown Okay, you're ready. This will help me prepare. You're helping, just a thought. You don't you don't have to do at you. I know what you're looking for. Browns. Texans is fascinating.
Uh. CJ.
Stroud is only the sixteenth rookie starting quarterback. Again, we're counting brock per in this, even though he didn't start a full year like CJ.
Stroud did.
Somebody who is unquestionably the starting quarterback for someone's team as a rookie going into the playoffs. He's He's the sixteenth such quarterback in the Super Bowl era to do what he has done. I believe he is going to be the offensive rookie of the year. He has been dynamite. He has been dynamic. He has taken the Texans from
worst to first. And the guy he's facing is a thirty eight year old starting quarterback just like you know, Purty in a way, got the gig late in the season and he is the most mister relevant guy in a long time. And Joe Flacco as Super Bowl MVP for the brown thirty eight year old going against a twenty two year old Brown's against Texans. I can't wait.
It could be a matchup between two of the finalists for Coach of the Year in Stefanski and Damico Ryans, and the Browns have an opt opportunity if they win that game, depending on if the Chiefs do beat the Dolphins in that night game, which we are possibly expecting because the Dolphins, as you and I are talking right now, don't have Xavi and Howard one of their defensive backs Jalen Waddell and Raheem Moster are questionable for that game.
Tyreek Hill was in a walking boot, and I'll just say this, despite his remarkable physical capabilities and athleticism, I profer to say ankles that are already a little bit banged up. Tighten up in zero degree temperature, which is what this is supposed to be like in Kansas City. And it's the Tyreek Kill game against the Chiefs in Kansas City that we did not get because that matchup was called by me and NFL Network in Germany, so we didn't get that. We're going to get that now.
And then the rarity of the third playoff game of the week, and those are the two on Saturday. Get Peacock, folks, because it's only streamed that Kansas City Dolphins game. Woe to what works in the Foe and Banks in Thirty Rock and Burbank in New York and California of people calling up on Saturday saying where is that Chiefs Dophins game. It's on Peacock. It's only being streamed. So there's that. And then the rarity that the third playoff game, the
first on Sunday, completes the entire conference. The AFC will be done and wrapped up of Super wild Card weekend before the NFC plays a single down on this weekend. It's the Steelers in Browns at part of the Steelers in Bills on Sunday, and the Bills a team that a lot of folks didn't think they'd make the playoffs at six and six, and the Steelers go from seven
and seven to make the playoffs. You got a six and sixteen as the two seed now hosting a seven and seven team that you think was going to go there. And everybody from Pittsburgh, as you know, makes a straight line up to Buffalo to actually go and see that game. Potentially you put it all together, and there's bad weather coming for that one too.
Do the Packers have a chance.
So the Cowboys and the Packers, as you know, my god, you know green Bay very well. I know you're a Packers and Falcons guy together. And so you know Rogers' success against Dallas in his two playoff games. One of them was Des caught it in Lambeau. The other one was Jared Cook caught it in Dallas. Farv had less success against Dallas in his times against the Cowboys in the playoffs for Green Bay, which, as we all know, if Fox wants to show some Ice Bowl footage, I
think they'll do that too. These are classic teams to face each other in a perfect perfect matchup for Jordan Love in his remarkable first playoff season as the full time starter in Green Bay. I'm psyched, man. What better way for the Cowboys to be tested at home where they seem to be invincible than have a team that doesn't know any better because they're all like nineteen years old, you know what I mean. And so I can't wait
to see what that one is. And then of course the fact that it's Mike McCarthy against the Packers against the guy that replaced him. It's pretty sweet on every front. There then the Lions taking on the Rams. Math of all the people for the Lions to have to stroll into their building, them all the gin joints in all the world. Okay, it's been thirty years that this gin joint has hosted a playoff game, and the Lions have
been waiting this for decades. The one guy who strolls into one and done him in that situation is the Lion King himself in Matthew Stafford. And then there's the fact that you know he's on the Rams because the Rams flipped Jared Golf to Detroit and he's the guy that's trying to show McVeigh that, yeah, I know you got your ring with Stafford, but not today. And Dan Campbell's bite kneecaps off and that's why I think the NFL chose that one for Sunday Night Football on Sunday
Night on NBC. And then you've got the Monday Night finale between the Bucks and the Eagles. And last year the Bucks were on Monday Night with Brady couldn't get past the Cowboys? Can Baker get past Philly which has looked like a shell of a team compared to what they looked like even in the first dozen weeks of this season, let alone last year's NFC Championship game. And the Eagles and Bucks have a playoff history for sure.
Warren Sapp always loves to tell me how the team shut down the vet in their Super Bowl season years ago when they went to the Super Bowl and won it, and then the next year opened up the New Link and beat the Eagles. There that back to back boom boom. They beat the Eagles twice, shutting their old building and christening their new building with a big fat L. They go way back, and I can't wait. I hope that's what you were looking for for a bold card preview.
That's why you're the best in the business. Thanks Rich Eison. I mean if that didn't get you excited for this weekend. Nothing here we go, nothing will. Congratulations on your Wolverines, Thanks Pal, as Pat McAfee said pregame Monday night. Despite all the distractions this year, these players found a way to impose their will and they did and they won and your has.
To full disclosure. Pat said that, and then chose Washington. So I saw it. I see everything, Brian, I see everything.
Well they made No he was right. He just wasn't right about that. Well done. Congratulations and good luck this weekend. Thanks Pal. Thank you Rich. It's always fun talking a little NFL with you and so interesting to hear about your journey from Redding, California to well Bristol, Connecticut. I'm looking forward to see how your predictions play out over the next few weeks. Thank you everyone for listening. Come back next time. An old friend be in the studio
with me. She's a hell of a lady and she loves cats. Off the Beat is hosted and executive produced by me Brian Baumgartner, alongside our executive producer Ling Lee. Our senior producer is Diego Tapia. Our producers are Liz Hayes, Hannah Harris, and Emily Carr. Our talent producer is Ryan Papa Zachary and our intern is Ali Amir Sahem. Our theme song Bubble and Squeak, performed by the one and only Creed Bratton,