Hour 1: Guest Host Tom Pelissero, Good Morning Football’s Jamie Erdahl

0:00Tom Pelissero:Are all batteries the same? That's like asking if all soccer players are the same. Take Messi, the most decorated player ever. Is there any other player who has achieved that? No, just him. Now take Duracell. Is there any other battery with Power Boost ingredients inside? No, just Duracell. Remember, goats only trust goats because they're built different. And Messi only trusts Duracell.

0:31Tom Pelissero:This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome, that's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50-page restoration block, or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online make sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responses set up required, compatibility and availability varies 18+. This is the Rich Eisen Show. Hey, everybody. Can't get enough of the Rich Eisen Show? You're in luck. You can find us everywhere.

1:05Watch us weekdays on Disney Plus from noon to 3 Eastern. Miss the show? We've got a podcast so you can listen anytime. But here's the best part. Our YouTube channel. Subscribe at youtube.com slash Rich Eisen Show and you'll never miss a moment. Now, on with the show. Let's do this. This is the Rich Eisen Show.

1:30Tom Pelissero:I feel like I try to do my best at blocking out the noise. With guest host Tom Pelissero. Then you get 100 text messages, keep blocking out the noise. Live from the Rich Eisen Show studio in Los Angeles, today's guests. Good morning football co-host Jamie Erdahl. NFL Network insider Ian Rapoport. Plus, latest news and more. And now, it's Tom Pelissero. A Rich Eisen-less edition of the Rich Eisen Show. Tom Pellicero with you right now on Disney Plus, the ESPN app, ESPN Radio, presented by Progressive Insurance. In studio here with my boys, TJ Jefferson. The candle is lit over there in the corner.

2:13Tom Pelissero:Make sure you blow that out before you get on the plane to London. Oh, yeah, because that would be bad. After the show. Yeah, don't. Mike Del Tufo is here. What's up, folks? Amazingly enough. Brockman also rolled in a suitcase. I feel left out. I'm wearing the Beatles shirt we're going on. Yeah, let it be, baby. You were there for 72 hours? Not even? Oh, no, I'm there. I'm actually coming back Saturday because I'm a great father. That can't be it. Why are you really coming back? I'm there for about 60 hours. It's a quick turn run. So what is the plan? Again, you rolled in with the suitcase. I assume it was empty, and then you just filled it with the shirts you keep under your desk.

2:54Tom Pelissero:Factual. Stop telling my secrets. Are you staying up and going directly in to do the show? Like, how is this working tomorrow? Yeah, so we're on an afternoon flight, me and TJ, one way to London. We get in at 10 a.m. tomorrow. So 10-hour flight, eight-hour time difference. 10 a.m. local. 10 a.m. local London time. And then the show, right now, you'll watch it now, but it'll be 5 o 'clock p.m. for us. So we got to get, you know, get our stuff, get off the plane, do that thing, go to the hotel. Hopefully they let us check in a little early. I'd love to get a two hour power nap in. Seems unlikely.

3:33Tom Pelissero:You're banking on after an international flight, a hotel in London, just be like, oh, yes, you can check in five hours early. Listen, I mean, due diligence. I sent an email already. Oh, see, my man. I learned them to. That's what you do. The fact that I'd be there early. They said too bad. So but the thing is, I did ask. So they said, no, you've already been rejected. Oh man. They said, they said, um, they'll try to accommodate if they can, if force comes to worse, they can just store the bags for us. I love the early check in sleep on the couch. You check in. It's like you were confirmed early check.

4:04Tom Pelissero:And then you get there and they're like, what's not three o 'clock. What are you, what are you talking about? It's like that. It's like that commercial with Nick Saban. Uh, check-ins three o 'clock. It's two 55. I know. Five minutes early, baby. Hook it up. Thursday night football, by the way, It will be 3.15 a.m. Friday morning kickoff. Do you anticipate? I do. I'm going to do my best since I'm only there for a short amount of time. To stay on L.A. time. Yeah, we're going to find a London bar. Yeah. Like last year. Middle of the night. Last year we found. You need to find a London breakfast spot for the 3.15 a.m.

4:37Tom Pelissero:kickoff. Do you want to cruise all the way through the end of that game? I want some bangers and mash. I don't even know what that is, but I know they say that over there. Here's the other thing, too, Tom. Do we really want to watch Bengal Steelers? I actually think that would be a good name for this game. It's Bangers and Mash. The Joe Flacco, Aaron Rodgers biopic. Although yesterday, Cam Hayward gave us a different official name for the match of the two 40-something-year-old quarterbacks. Oldest quarterbacks playing this week. Let's go. Icy hot ball. I love it. Icy hot ball. As a big proponent of icy hot.

5:14Tom Pelissero:from my youth baseball playing days when sometimes you didn't put the icy hot on your arm. Let's be honest, on the bench. Icy hot, Bo, I love it. But also even now, I got an ache not to turn this into an icy hot ad here, but I'm a fan. Ice up, son. And when you got two 40-year-old quarterbacks going at it on a short week in Cincinnati, the first time, by the way, that two 40-something-year-old quarterbacks have squared off since 2020. It's only happened three times in NFL history. It's got to be Brady and Breeze, right? All three times, Drew Breeze and Tom Brady. The only other times that this has happened in NFL history.

5:55Tom Pelissero:Aaron Rodgers also spoke on, he was asked about the novelty of that type of a matchup. I think it's great for all the old guys, you know. I know that when I watch other sports, maybe it's because I'm the older guy, but I tend to pull for the older guys to win, to win championships. I've been friends with Steph for a long time. Steph is one of the older guys in the NBA now. Anytime the Warriors are playing, I'm always pulling for Steph to ball out for them to win. But it's great. I mean, I've known Joe for a long time. He's been great coming to my charity event. He's been a great ambassador for the league.

6:35Tom Pelissero:He's had a great career, and it's fun that we're both still playing. A very nice way for Aaron Rodgers to say, I'm 3-0 all time against Joe Flacco. I think in this moment, I've got this thing. It's a pivotal moment in the season if you're the Bengals tomorrow night. It has the feeling of if you are going to make a run and get back in this, you've got to win this game. Short weeks are weird. Thursday night games are weird. They've been good this year, too, though. A lot of points on these Thursday night games this year. There have been. but I think that's part of the uniqueness of it. The game planning process is a little bit different.

7:12Tom Pelissero:There's different things in terms of injuries too, whether or not you're holding out guys who were injured on Sunday or if they were injured the previous week, you held them out on Sunday and they've basically got a 10, 11 day window to get back for the games. There's a lot of different factors in this. Everybody's got different theories in terms of how you handle the short week games, but for a Bengals team that's lost four in a row and they played better and better through the course of that game in Green Bay. If you watch Joe Flacco, he had two days of work with Jamar Chase, not even three, because Jamar Chase was sick and didn't practice on Friday.

7:43Tom Pelissero:He had basically no reps with his best receiver, but when you needed him to make a play down the stretch, and it's maybe the catch of the year by Jamar Chase in traffic by the pylon, but Joe Flacco puts that ball on him, and then that's a tough route if you haven't had the time on task with that wide receiver. If you're going to make a run, it's a lot easier to do it. Still hard, but a lot easier to do it at three and four. By, by the way, knocking down the number one team in the division to four and two. Heck of a lot easier than falling to two and five. And then being in a spot where it's like you got to win nine or ten of your remaining ten games to have a shot.

8:21Tom Pelissero:At least eight to even have a chance. The rest of the upcoming schedule, especially to the bye, the Jets, they're winless. That's a home game. You got the Bears who have played better. Obviously, Caleb Williams had the most controlled game that he's had in his career on Monday night against Washington. Then he got the bye to heal up. You get another crack at the Steelers. It does get more difficult as you're looking at it after the bye. But you still got Baltimore twice on your schedule. And to the extent the Ravens have to claw back into it, they're one in five. You split those games. You've done yourself a service.

8:54Tom Pelissero:You lose a fifth straight game. And the questions going into Jets week around the team are probably not going to be so much about how do the Bengals get back into the playoff race? It's should they be selling at the trade deadline, which, by the way, hits during their buy. It's right after that game against the Bears. That Tuesday is the trade deadline. It feels momentous. It also feels like the culmination of a storyline I don't feel like we've given enough time to over the past couple of days. because the quote came out on Monday while we were on. We briefly reacted to it on the show. But there is not one thing in the NFL that more people have called me about, more than why the Titans fired Brian Callahan after six games, more than what's going on in the trade market.

9:41Tom Pelissero:I've gotten more questions about what Mike Tomlin had to say when he was asked about the Browns trading Joe Flacco in the division to the Bengals. You know, to be honest, it was shocking to me. Andrew Barry must be a lot smarter than me or us because it doesn't make sense to me to trade a quarterback that you think enough of to make your opening day starter to a division opponent that's hurting in that area. But that's just my personal feelings. From Cincinnati's perspective, did it make sense for them? It certainly made sense from Cincinnati's perspective. I've covered the NFL since 2003. three.

10:22Tom Pelissero:That quote does get funnier every time I hear it. And the smile on his face when he's half the ball, I'm like, yeah, it's it for them. Yeah. I've covered the NFL for over 20 years and it's possible I'm forgetting something, but I do not remember whether it's joking or not, whether it's serious or not. And I'll get to that momentarily. I don't remember a head coach mentioning by name, an opposing general manager in critiquing a trade that did not directly involve you ever it does not happen and it has created a ripple effect through the course this week and again the media availability is different on a thursday night game too guys aren't around the locker room's not open as often there's not as many press conferences kevin stefanski the browns coach was asked about it said in short i have no comment on that bangles coach zach taylor also came up in his pressure tomlin spoke today about being surprised that the browns would trade joe flacco to you he said he said that you know it doesn't make sense to me to trade a quarterback that you think enough of to make your opening day starter to a division opponent that's hurting in that area were you surprised that a team in division was willing to help you so i was happy that's that's my only comment i love that as zach is hearing that question unwind and whether he knew about the quote or not i'm guessing he did but he's almost trying to hold back laughter by the end of it and you see him kind of biting his lip about it yeah you're happy now again we'll see what it means they could get blown out by the steelers on thursday night but at a time that jake browning who you would count it on to be able to fill in if joe burrow were out is turning the ball over at an unbelievable rate this gave you a glimmer of hope there's only one position at which you can make a sea change and that is quarterback the one spot where you can go we brought this guy in now everything's got a chance to be different whether that's real or not there's a more than a placebo effect if joe flacco finds it if he gets on track with one of the best receiver duos in entire nfl they've got some hope joe flacco not surprisingly also was asked about tom let's comment uh i don't know i didn't see it uh i didn't see i didn't get to see how upset he was uh but you know i i think he's probably just playing the game a little bit and you know doing whatever he has to do here's what i would say in exploring the dynamics let's put it that way of this comment over the past couple of days.

13:03Tom Pelissero:I do not believe, and I'll let Mike Tomlin, if he ever wants to speak for himself on this subject, but I do not believe that was Mike Tomlin playing the game. Every week, the Steelers, Tomlin has his press conference normally on Tuesdays, and he will go through talking about how great every player on the opponent is, the challenge they present. If you were facing the 0-6 Jets this week, he would talk about, man, Justin Fields is a problem. We had him here. He would talk about some of the players they got on defense, Quinton Williams and Sauce Gardner. He was going to say positive things regardless of any opponent.

13:40Tom Pelissero:But I believe we got a very honest remark right there from Mike Tomlin. Because if you're watching the tape of Joe Flacco and the way that he has played under tough circumstances in Cleveland and under different but also tough circumstances last week, playing with guys. He was acquired five days before that game in Green Bay. And while they lost to the Packers, they were functional as an offense. Oh, yeah. Joe had some type of a foundation in it. He was winging it. Jamar Chase, by the way, real quick, also had a very brief comment on his feelings about the Mike Tomlin comment. What did you think when you saw it?

14:22Tom Pelissero:I kept scrolling. I think that should be the new We need to clip that off We need to clip off I just kept scrolling Which by the way, that's a good That's a good life policy In a lot of different areas here Keep scrolling But I believe that was Mike Tomlin's honest remark Which was, if you watch the tape And you watch where Cincinnati was And you're trying to figure out Why would you help a division opponent I understand why you would be taken aback by it Now, it's none of his business. It's none of the Steelers' business. The Browns and Bengals can make whatever trades they want. But I believe that that's really how Mike Tomlin felt.

15:03Tom Pelissero:Why, if you thought Andrew Barry or any other GM made a terrible, illogical trade, you would call that out publicly rather than going, they're in the division. I want to keep somebody who's making bad trades in the division. That's a separate type of a conversation. Andrew Barry's a very smart guy. Okay, the Browns have had an up and down run throughout the course of his tenure, an up and down run since football returned to Cleveland in the late 90s. If you unpack why the Browns did make that trade, I've heard and I've had people propose various conspiracy theories to me over the past couple of days.

15:38Tom Pelissero:The most compelling one, I don't believe it's true. The most compelling one was the Browns, who have put everything into 2026, going back to the Travis Hunter trade, trading down, getting Jacksonville's first round pick next year, getting an upgrade of a pick in the Tyson Campbell trade, sending Greg Newsome was a better player. Why do you do that for? Well, because you get a cost controlled player and a higher pick. Right. By bringing in Tyson Campbell and then to the Flacco trade. The best conspiracy theory I heard was, well, they may have been getting nervous that the Bengals would be so bad they wouldn't get to play a last-place schedule next year, so they had to make sure they helped them to ensure the Browns finish line.

16:17Tom Pelissero:I don't actually believe. I don't know, man. That's a pretty good one. I don't believe that could be the outcome. That's a 4-D chess right there. The intent, it would be 3-D chess, absolutely. The intent, I think, is much more straightforward, which is Joe Flacco is no longer the starter. They would have loved to win more games. They would have loved if they don't miss a field goal in week one to cost them a game that could have gotten them off on a better foot when they played the Bengals to the wire with Joe Flacco at quarterback. Once they benched Joe Flacco sooner than they wanted to because of where the season was, because Flacco struggled in Detroit, Joe Flacco was never playing again.

16:51Tom Pelissero:Ownership, Jimmy Haslam said back in training camp, we absolutely need to see the rookie quarterbacks. Because when you got to first in 2026, you're going to be able to potentially go and get whatever quarterback you want in the draft. You got to know if these guys can play. And once Dylan Gabriel has an opportunity, he's played two games. They did not look particularly good last week, but it's also a rookie quarterback with all kinds of moving parts on his offensive line. No true number one wide receiver. They're going to give Dylan Gabriel some time. You also at some point need to see Shadour Sanders and elevating the guy who's been the emergency third and not even technically active on game day to the starting role would also be unusual.

17:27Tom Pelissero:So you clear the decks of Joe Flacco. He wasn't going to be around probably for the long haul if he wasn't playing anyway. He certainly wasn't going to be coming back. You offload about$2 million in salary, and you upgrade from a sixth to a fifth-round pick. That's really it. If you want to just baseline logic, the ideas of trading within the division have changed over time. We've seen far more, anecdotally speaking, in division trades over the last, let's call it, five years than I can ever remember seeing before. Because GMs go, okay, yeah, we've got to face the guy twice a year. It impacts us kind of in a passive way in terms of the division standings.

18:03Tom Pelissero:But if we feel like we're getting value, why do I care? The Vikings and Lions made multiple trades. The Vikings set the pick for Jamison Williams to Detroit. And then they also acquired TJ Hawkinson from the Lions because Brad Holmes and Kwasi Adolfo Mensah are both like, whatever, it's a trade. We feel like there's a good trade for everybody. We're just going to make a good trade. But the fact that you had Mike Tomlin come out and mention Andrew Barry by name. This is not the last we have heard of this. This is certainly not all you're going to hear about this in terms of the broadcast tomorrow night.

18:38Tom Pelissero:I am sure that Al Michaels has that exact quote clipped off and written in big letters on his sheet. It will come up a few times with him and Kirk. Never say never, but never. apparently once in a while the browns and bangles do indeed make a trade i'm sure we could talk a lot more about this a chock full good week seven slate across the nfl who better to get into that with more than our good friend jamie erdahl host of good morning football she is in studio right after this on the rich eyes and show tom pelissero in for rich

19:17Tom Pelissero:The Rich Eisen Show Podcast.

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20:28Tom Pelissero:While the world watches the stars at the FIFA World Cup this summer, Hyundai has its eyes on the next generation of talent. Future stars who are already turning heads at age 14. Because Next doesn't wait for an invitation, and neither do we. Hyundai has always moved the future within reach. We did it when we made advanced safety standard on every vehicle and engineered EVs with ultra-fast charging capability. Because the future isn't some far-off concept. It's already here. Next starts now. Hyundai, an official partner of FIFA. welcome back to the rich eisen show on disney plus the espn app and espn radio presented by progressive insurance week seven of the nfl season quickly approaching right here and who else would we want to break that down with my very good and old friend jamie erdahl is here with us How's everybody doing?

21:23Tom Pelissero:Doing fantastic. You? Great. You know, this is like hour nine for me, awake and functioning and talking about football. So just a quick drive over from Good Morning Football to here to just keep it rolling. The last time that we were sitting here was right after you moved to Los Angeles. There's been an evolution of this show, obviously, since then. Manti Teo has been fantastic on the show. Yes, he has. With you guys out here. How are you adjusting to life on the West Coast? You know, my kids are a little younger than yours. The young kid life lends itself to the morning show life. So our whole house is just dark at 8.30 p.m.

22:01Everyone's asleep by then. And I get up at 3 and I do the show and I'm home. Usually if I'm not doing something like this by 10 a.m.

22:07Tom Pelissero:I'm sorry to take you away from it. So not only you're hosting Good Morning Football, but you have a new YouTube show called No Breaks with Jamie Urdal. And I was like, oh, and I now contributed to the no break thing. This is normally probably the break. Yep. When one of the kids is at school and instead you're here, which I appreciate. Walk the walk, talk the talk, live the life. And it does feel like right now in this era, there are no breaks for me. And also a play on the all gas, no breaks football thing. But this is no commercial breaks because no one's paid me to take one of those yet. So I just talk and yap for about 35 minutes every day live on YouTube at 4 p.m.

22:43Eastern. and it's pretty much all the thoughts that I don't get out on Good Morning Football. So it's anything that's not football related, parenting, family, friendships, marriage, what have you. So it's kind of a fill in the blank Mad Libs type show.

22:58Tom Pelissero:How much of scheduling that at 4 p.m. is about making sure that you actually power through and then aren't taking like periodic naps through the day so that it screws up your overnight sleep? It's actually a great question and you saw right through me. So it is locally done at 1 p.m. And if I didn't have something to do at 1 p.m., I also had this realization the other day as I was walking to the little studio that I built into the house for it, which was I walked right past the treadmill and the exercise bike that I had. And I was like, you know, it's weird how I fully carved out 45 minutes of my day to do more talking and sitting and not like, what could I do for my cardiovascular health instead?

23:35And I just was like, no, I'm going to go do that YouTube show instead.

23:38Tom Pelissero:And today you're talking and sitting. More sitting and more talking. which we greatly appreciate you coming by. You got to know what you're good at. We're a third of the way through the NFL season. What's the biggest surprise to Jamie Erdahl so far this season? You know what I love about this season is that everyone's right and everyone's wrong and people can stop complaining or yelling at you if you got something wrong about their team because everyone's kind of mediocre and I like it. Everyone predicts things and I just hear less beef and less chatter in the inbox, if you will, from fan bases because everyone's been humbled at some point already this season.

24:15We were talking this morning on Good Morning Football, 11 four-win teams, and I like it like that. I personally think that it's more fun if you don't have the juggernaut because then we kind of are really all focused on the juggernaut. And I like the fact that teams are demanding us to talk about them in normally a term that we wouldn't, like a Seahawks team, like a Jaguars team. So I like spreading the wealth because at least editorially, it makes it more interesting for us.

24:42Tom Pelissero:11 four-win teams. There's also, I looked this up yesterday, 20 teams that are three and three or better. Yeah. So right now, sitting here, we're 20 days out from the trade deadline. And to the extent that in talking to, in texting with GMs yesterday, everyone's like, yeah, it's really quiet. It's like, because there's not many teams that yet can convince themselves, much less their owners, like, hey, we should trade everybody right now. everybody except maybe the Jets and the Titans are kind of in a spot where it's like well we still got an opportunity there's a path for us to get back into this thing and then you just got done talking about like the Tomlin the weird AFC North triangle which I was really enjoying that conversation and just like we always look at the Cowboys as and Jerry Jones as he says things to kind of stir the pot and I fully think Tomlin doesn't take that approach I just think he says things to say them that's on his mind and it's not to stir the pot it's how he actually feels so So it's, you know, I was wondering that about the trade deadline.