Hour 1: Cowboys-Lions TNF Reactions, plus NFL Insider Tom Pelissero

24:37Tom Pelissero:They had just gotten D.J. Reid back. They lose Terrion Arnold, who had tried to play through that shoulder injury. I mean, he was told two months ago this is probably season ending, got a second opinion, decided to push it. It just got to a point where he had to have shoulder surgery that if it hasn't already happened, it's happening in the next couple of days here. Kirby Joseph hasn't played since week six because of a knee injury. And now Brian Branch, who's one of the versatile pieces in the secondary of any NFL team, is out for the season as well. That's a lot to take on. I mean, we're past the trade deadline here.

25:08Tom Pelissero:There aren't just players available that you can go get. So once again, Kelvin Shepard and that staff in Detroit is just going to have to go, all right, you know, as much as next man up becomes a cliche, that's very much what it is at this time of year. And we'll see whether some of those other younger players are able to sustain this thing for a Lions team that's right in the playoff mix.

25:26Rich Eisen:And then amazing how things can turn in the NFL. I mean, we see it every single year. We see it every single week. Dallas is now 6-6-1 with four games to go, and it's going to be a very steep hill for them to climb now after their first loss in a month. And George Pickens goes from the Cowboys have no choice but to re-sign him, and then Richard Sherman giving voice on the post-game show last night to what a lot of people were observing during the game is, and what maybe some people in Pittsburgh were sort of Rick Dalton from Once Upon a Time in Hollywood jiffing, like pointing at the screen that's right there he didn't try for a ball that could have lost in the lights or he wasn't running crisp routes uh Richard Sherman was pointing out that Pickens um was giving the Cowboys maybe or should thoughts about why would we want to give him 40 million a year what are you hearing uh coming out of the Cowboys loss about that or anything else

26:21Tom Pelissero:well certainly I mean George Pickens is a very rare uh talent physically but there's a reason that he wasn't even a first-round pick. And it was the same things at Georgia that you saw in parts in Pittsburgh and that perhaps, and I'm not inside that locker room in Dallas, but perhaps you saw some of those parts come up yesterday in terms of some of the mistakes that are made on the field. I've got no question that George Pickens is going to get a boatload of money. It might come in the form of a franchise tag in 2026. But you're right. People can look at the Steelers and go, well, why'd they give that guy away for a third-round pick?

26:58Tom Pelissero:Well, number one, they just acquired DK Metcalf, and you were probably not going to have those two guys together in the same receiver room. Number two, Aaron Rodgers really values guys who he knows exactly where they're going to be on the field. Pickens' style, his play style, may not be a great fit with Rodgers. And then the other part of it is this is kind of how the Steelers, Rich, have operated for a long time at wide receiver. And Mike Tomlin deserves a lot of credit for the way that he has, let's say, managed different personalities over the years at that position. But think of the number of Steelers wide receivers who they have traded away through the years, whether that was going into a second contract or while on a second contract.

27:40Tom Pelissero:It's Antonio Brown. It's Martavis Bryant. It is Chase Claypool. It's Deontay Johnson. and there's a long history of them taking on various personalities, getting everything they can out of them, and then moving on from them before they actually have to make a large commitment or another large commitment in terms of the contract. Again, George Pickens is going to be fine. He's too talented. This is not a wide receiver group in free agency that anybody's looking at and licking their chops to go out and pay some of these other guys$35 million per year. But it certainly is going to weigh into the broader calculus here of, you know, what's the commitment level?

28:17Tom Pelissero:It's always seemed like the most logical outcome of this is a franchise tag for George Pickens, but we'll find out in February, March, exactly what direction it goes.

28:24Rich Eisen:Tom Pelissero here on the Rich Eisen Show. Tommy P, Mike Tomlin in Pittsburgh, things are happening that we, you know, let's just say it's reached a pitch that we've rarely seen in Pittsburgh, certainly when it comes to Mike Tomlin, despite a lot of voices from the fan base. It feels different. It just does with a month to go. What are you hearing about that situation, if you will, going into the first of two big-time games against the Ravens between these two?

28:57Tom Pelissero:Well, start right there. They're tied for first place in the AFC North. I know they've lost, what, five of their last seven years. But they still got two matchups with the team that they're tied with. Let's see how these next five weeks go before thinking about, you know, what the broader picture is going to be. But to that extent, there's a lot of different things that go into this with Mike Tomlin. And frankly, I would say this is five Decembers in a row that we've had some level of whether it's reports or speculation. We haven't had, you know, the fire Tomlin chants and things like that. But certainly the impressions and the feelings about Mike Tomlin in Pittsburgh seem like they have always been, you know, not aligned with the views of Mike Tomlin nationally.

29:37Tom Pelissero:I mean, he's obviously got the streak of never finishing below 500. He's also a guy who hasn't won a playoff game since the Obama administration. I certainly understand where that plays into some of the frustration. You look at the number of different swings. I mean, think of the number of different quarterbacks that have started a game for Pittsburgh since Ben Roethlisberger's retirement. They took their swing on Kenny Pickett. That was not a strong draft class. If there was one guy who they were going to take, it was Pickett. For a variety of reasons, it didn't work out. And then you've got Mason Rudolph that's in there.

30:09Tom Pelissero:And you take your shot last year with Russell Wilson and Justin Fields. and now it's Aaron Rodgers. You're trying different things, but you haven't used that high, high type of draft capital to go and get a quarterback, and it's not for lack of trying, nor have they swung a big trade to acquire someone like they could have if, you know, ultimately, for instance, the Rams had decided to move on from Matthew Stafford in the last offseason. What I would tell you, Rich, is based on everything I know, and this is in part from a conversation I had last year, last summer with Art Rooney, where I asked him, you know, what goes into deciding to stick with a head coach for as long as the Steelers have, not just with Mike Tomlin, but in prior cases as well.

30:51Tom Pelissero:And Art's philosophy on this is, as long as you believe in the coach, and the coach still has the locker room, there's not a reason to make a change. I don't see signs right now that Mike Tomlin has lost the locker room in Pittsburgh. I don't see any reason to believe that Art Rooney is going to do something that the Steelers never do and fire Mike Tomlin. In terms of whether there could be, for instance, a trade, whether Mike Tomlin could want to go someplace else, that's a conversation that Mike would have to initiate with the organization. He's one of the highest paid coaches in the NFL. He's got two years left on his deal.

31:26Tom Pelissero:There were certainly teams last year, including the Bears, who would have had some level of interest. It just didn't line up. I mean, what job out there is Mike Tomlin going to look at and say it can be better than what he's got in Pittsburgh? He's got a lot of authority.

31:40Rich Eisen:I'll just jump in. Giants, you got Jackson Dart. You got that front seven. You got Malik Neighbors. You got Cam Scadaboo. You got a fan base that's dying for him. Truly every Giant fan I know. And I know this is stirring it up. This is speculation because you're right. There's two big, fat Steeler Ravens games that can change all of this. The tenor can change. But you can also read some tea leaves. You can also use your own two eyes as to what this team's going to do if they have the ability to get something going. Anything can happen, clearly. But Giants, and honestly, and if I'm any head coach, forget just Tomlin, and I feel like my situation's not that great.

32:21Rich Eisen:College or pros, that's not a bad job right there, Tom. I agree.

32:30Tom Pelissero:The Giants job has plenty of things going for it, but you're also, So, I mean, Mike Tomlin has seemingly infinite job security in Pittsburgh. He has a lot of authority over the roster. He's out in the scouting process involved in those things. He's got a pretty good setup in Pittsburgh. So, again, this is not – I don't anticipate, and you never say never, but I don't anticipate Art Rooney is going to come to a conclusion that the Mike Tomlin era has run its course. If Mike Tomlin comes to the conclusion that the Mike Tomlin era has run its course in Pittsburgh. Now it would be interesting to see exactly how this would play out.

33:07Tom Pelissero:There's not a lot of occasions in recent NFL history of executing a trade. Even the Sean Payton trade was different because it was a year later and they already had a head coach in Dennis Allen. Sean wasn't going to try to come back and get that job back. He wanted to be traded, but it's far different than the timeline even in terms of trading a head coach after the season and then potentially putting yourself behind in terms of the interview process It's not impossible, but that's a decision and a path that Mike Tomlin would have to want to go down for the Steelers to go down it.

33:38Rich Eisen:I've got Tom Pellicero here on the Rich Eisen Show. Jacoby Brissett is going to be starting for the Arizona Cardinals against the Rams this weekend and for the Arizona Cardinals for the rest of the season. As Jonathan Gannon, prior to you stepping into our Zoom room, stepped to the podium and said that the injury for Murray is, quote-unquote, not progressing where it's going to make sense that he can go and ruled him out for the rest of the season is he done in arizona tom i think it's a fair question to ask certainly based on his cryptic comment about potentially not being around when the new facilities open up in two years that caused a lot of eyebrows to raise before he got hurt what do you got for me on that front

34:19Tom Pelissero:tom well the cardinals have a lot of things that they've got to figure out they've lost i believe nine of their last 10 games um you know you're in year three of the program you'd like to think by this point, you've learned to win more than the Cardinals seem to have learned how to win. They're in every game. Jonathan Gannon and his staff, they're all a bunch of young guys. They're bright coaches who all have big futures in this league. This has been a bumpy season for a lot of reasons. They've had a ton of injuries. And Kyler Murray, quite frankly, was never their quarterback. Now, when Jonathan Gannon got there, he threw everything he had behind Kyler Murray and has been a big backer of him and drew petzian and the offensive staff same thing they also didn't have a choice kyle murray's contract which of course at the time was a heavy focus of media members and fans because of the infamous homework clause that once that was revealed ended up getting stripped out it's also a remarkable document in terms of how long out the guarantees have flowed he still has in 2026 almost 40 million dollars fully guaranteed and another almost 20 million dollars becomes fully guaranteed if Kyler is still on the roster as of March 15th it would be unlike Arizona to simply say we're going to eat 40 million dollars cash and release him is it possible that they could pay it down prior to that additional 20 million dollars vesting for somebody who wants Kyler Murray as a bridge quarterback would another team be willing to take on 60 million dollars of guaranteed money for Kyler Murray.

35:52Tom Pelissero:Those are some of the moving parts, all of which is a way of saying, I think by any logical measure here, Rich, you'd say Kyler Murray is probably going to be someplace else in 2026. Again, it would be assuming that things remain static there with Jonathan Gannon and Monty Austin for it, which I'm not assuming because again, there's a lot of decisions that have to be made. But if they are, you'd like to think, all right, this is going to be the opportunity to go and get your quarterback. Maybe that's Jacoby Brissett, who leads in every category it seems like since he took over as a backup quarterback while by the way playing with a you know fourth and fifth string running backs Marvin Harrison Jr.

36:27Tom Pelissero:has been in and out of the lineup they've had other injuries at wide receiver I mean there's been a lot of different challenges that they've had here but the contract is going to be a piece of this just like it is with Tua Tonga-Vailoa in Miami it's kind of a similar type of a calculus here which is all right can we pay it down and trade him to somebody who needs a bridge quarterback all right but then if you pay it down for the bridge quarterback. Now you've got to pay to get your own bridge quarterback in. Arizona has that answered hypothetically because Jacoby Brissett's under contract for 2026.

36:57Tom Pelissero:But this is part of what's going to be, I believe, Rich, a really, really busy and fascinating quarterback carousel as we get not even into March, but these things tend to start, you know, rolling out as we get through January and towards Super Bowl week.

37:10Rich Eisen:Before I let you go, I'll open the notebook on who's in, who's out injury-wise, starting with T. Higgins. What do you got for me here? Is he going to be available for Joe Burrow come Sunday in Western New York? T.

37:22Tom Pelissero:Higgins is back for Cincinnati. Cleared the concussion protocol. They are still two games back. They still have a winning record in the division. They're not completely out of it here, and this will be the first time that we've seen Joe Burrow with his full compliments of receivers since the very beginning of this season. So that's big for them. You know, the commanders at this point are essentially buried in terms of the playoff calculation. But Dan Quinn, right before we came on air, announced Jaden Daniels has cleared, you know, he'd been cleared by doctors for contact with that dislocated left elbow.

37:54Tom Pelissero:So he's going to be out there on Sunday. The commanders are not waving the white flag just yet. They're going to go up against the Minnesota team that we don't have a formal announcement yet from Kevin O 'Connell, but I fully anticipate J.J. McCarthy is going to be out there and starting for the Vikings on Sunday. which again, when we're talking about all these moving parts in the offseason, the Vikings are a team that's got big-time decisions to make in terms of the quarterback position as well. Justin Herbert seems to be trending in the correct direction, was limited in practice yesterday. The big thing, you know, it was four days ago that he had surgery on his left hand to stabilize a fracture, but it seems like his full intention is just they've got to get the swelling out.

38:34Tom Pelissero:That's the biggest thing. He wore the glove on it after the injury occurred last week, But if anybody's going to play with that type of an injury, it's a guy who also had a high ankle sprain. I think it was last year, had about five rolls of tape on it and somehow was out there playing through it. That's just Justin Herbert's mentality. It's one of the many reasons that Jim Harbaugh loves him.

38:54Rich Eisen:I know this is more than maybe a minute and a half, but that's all I've got. Is Lamar healthy? What's going on? Because he's not practicing fully all week. We know that that might be the way for the rest of the season. Is there something up? We don't know. Because he just hasn't looked the same since coming back.

39:11Tom Pelissero:Short answer is no, he's not healthy. He's been on the injury report virtually the entire season. It was a hamstring that sidelined him for several games. He didn't come back quite as quickly as they were hoping on that. Then he pops up on the report with a knee injury, and then the following week gets an ankle. The reason he didn't practice yesterday, from my understanding, and I know Ian Rappaport put this out earlier, is he got stepped on. It was not like a major type of a thing. But you watch him play, and I'm not going to profess to be an expert to the quarterback position, but he doesn't look quite the same.

39:41Tom Pelissero:There was a next-gen stat that came out that Lamar has forced zero tackles, zero missed tackles on designed runs this season. What's Lamar Jackson's calling card? It's the runnability, and it's not just the design stuff, but the scrambling stuff. We all know some of those stats about he has the highest passer rating or one of the highest passer ratings of anybody in NFL history. a big part of that is driven by he sees different looks on the back end because everyone is scared of him running. When you lose the Lamar run threat, even though he's still a threat, but if you lose that absolute elite elusiveness, it has a trickle-down effect on how defenses play him here.

40:21Tom Pelissero:We'll see, can he get healthier as this season goes on? There have been a bunch of seasons where we've seen Lamar kind of get, you know, worn down a little bit here. I've got no question that he's, pending the final injury report, that he's going to be raring to go. He was back on the practice field today. But both the injury report and my eyes would tell me this is not quite 100 % Lamar Jackson as they get set to go up against a Steelers defense that's got pretty much everything on the line this week.

40:47Rich Eisen:You the man, brother. I'll see you Sunday, game day morning. Sounds great. I'll be there. Tom Pelissero, everybody, in his usual Friday spot right here on the Rich Eisen Show. Got to run. Let's take a break. Come back. 844-204-RICH. Number to dial. What's more likely? Bruce Arians, Andy Garcia, and studio, all still to come.

41:30Rich Eisen:today. Oh, oh, oh, O 'Reilly. Auto Parts.

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42:24Rich Eisen:We're going to take your phone calls in a quick second right here. ESPN Radio is presented by Progressive Insurance. Not only does Progressive let you bundle your insurance, they also give you round-the-clock protection. Quote today at Progressive.com. Okay, everybody. LeBron, pass the ball. He's an all-time great assist, man. He is indeed. He passed the ball when he had only eight points. You're sounding like Ron Artis now during that presser. Kobe, pass me the ball. No, he had eight points. I know. It was over 1 ,200 games he'd scored at least 10 points in a row. He had to know. Oh. LeBron strikes me as someone.

43:05Rich Eisen:But he was double-teamed. Very much-noticed. And he found Rui for the triple. That's the thing about LeBron, right? He's always going to make the best basketball play. I think that's nothing you can argue about. If you recall. That was a negative early in his career. Back in the day. Bingo. Yeah, people. Shoot. And it was attributed to him. He didn't want to have the blame. The moment was too big for him.

43:31Tom Pelissero:He didn't want to blame if he missed.

43:32Rich Eisen:So the fact that that man who... Living his life like this every day professionally. But I'm saying he ends up scoring the most points ever when in the beginning it was like... He's not taking the shot. Take the shot. Take the shot. Give me the shot. did you see who's top 10 now in the history of the lakers in 40 point games luka luka the lakers popped that out on instagram the other night i'm like that's gotta be a misprint he's played like 13 games for him like well he scores a lot he scores a lot he scores a lot god that would be so great if the lakers just go on some big fat run great for who great for Who?

44:14Rich Eisen:Everybody. What are you talking about? Not everybody. It would be awful. Why would it be awful? Because people like O'Shea will come in here. And then just like a true Celtic fan over there. What's your problem? I am a true Celtic fan. I know that. I know that. And then the stupid ass car flags that start showing up. Yeah, we don't. We don't need any of that. By the way, the Dodgers won, Rich. We don't need the Lakers winning. You live in this community. What's the matter with you? So? Everyone always says that. Oh, you live there. Why don't you root for the teams? No, no, no. You don't have to root for.

44:42Rich Eisen:No, no. I'm not saying I do that. I'm not saying that, but. You got nothing to say over there, do you? Oh, I sold those flags. One of those. I got a good deal on them and I was out. Who wants flag? You know, Feller has always got some type of racket. Like a hundred of them. We're just walking down the street. So like sometimes we if I was say trying to, you know, inch my way into a parking lot at the old Staples years ago. I set up at Home Depot. okay so you would set up in a parking lot of the home depot yeah okay yeah oh my god always a businessman by the way uh a different meaning of that these days sure but so you would you would you would be there like selling laker carflex i did it one season it was a long time ago and got a good deal i'm not saying last week jay's got a bunch of people as soon as we get there again okay why i'm saying let's come on man i would rather you don't want to see you don't want to see like fill in the blank terrible organization than root for the lakers no stop it lebron at the end of his career is he staying is he not all of that stuff against say the oklahoma city thunder in a western conference semi or final you don't think that would be awesome of course it would be and i would root for oklahoma city leaves jj reddick it's great for business hell yeah that's what I'm referring to.

46:05Rich Eisen:But for me personally, and him, I think I speak for him, it would be awful. Clipper and Celtic fans. I gotta talk to O'Shea Jackson Jr. a lot, Rich. You know how annoying that would be? It's great. You, Nick, fan, should not want the Lakers to ever be good. You know what? I am talking about as the host of the Rich Eisen show right now. That's secondary to your fandom. I don't think it is. What are you talking about? Come on, man. You should put your fandom first. You're the king of you know what it's better to when fill in the blank is better for the nfl what what why what do you care isn't it better you know what when you know it's better for the nfl it's better for the lakers go 82 the jets being better would be great for the nfl it would not no one cares about the jets it's why i'm i'm talking about the host of the rich eisen show and sometimes i'll veer into the personal we're not a basketball-centric program guess what we are i mean excuse me I saw us being aggregated by ESPN's various basketball.

47:03Rich Eisen:Yeah. Brian Windhorst was up in there. And don't sell us as anything other than a terrific program where you can talk all sports and pop culture. Yeah. How dare you? TV, movies, everything. How dare you? Pro wrestling. How did we get from. What are we doing? Selling car flags to that. I'm just saying it would be great if the Lakers got that good. And they are. The Ridge Isis Show Podcast. You can't reason with the sun. Trust us. We've tried. This summer, it's time to put that angry ball of fire on mute. Columbia's OmniShade technology is engineered to protect you from the sun's harsh rays that can burn and damage your skin.

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