Hour 1: Live from Canton, Ohio with Hall of Famer Steve Hutchinson, plus ‘What’s More Likely’

0:00You know when you're locked in, focused and fearless. Welcome to the WNBA. Your vision narrows. You can't look away. Every assist, every stop, every logo three. From beyond the logo. Every did you see that moment. You bet.

0:18Rich Eisen:What records are going to be broken this season? All of it right here. Lock in. It's the WNBA on ESPN. All season long. 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. Watch 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 richeisenshow and you'll never miss a moment. Now, on with the show. This is the Rich Eisen Show. Live from Canton, Ohio, home of the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

1:06Rich Eisen:Today's guests. Pro Football Hall of Famer Steve Hutchinson. Pro Football Hall of Famer Marshall Falk. ESPN broadcaster Chris Berman. Pro Football Hall of Famer Rod Woodson. Pro Football Hall of Famer Willie Rove. Pro Football Hall of Fame inductee Luke Keekly. And now, Rich Eisen. Well, hey everybody. Welcome to this edition of the Rich Eisen Show live from Canton, Ohio at the Pro Football Hall of Fame Museum. And fans are filled up in the hallways and the bus gallery. And everything that you love about coming to the Hall of Fame only gets jacked up because it is time for an enshrinement weekend.

1:56Rich Eisen:for the 63rd time. This is the 64th enshrinement class in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and we are honored to be live here on Disney Plus and the ESPN app, as well as ESPN Radio and Sirius XM Channel 80. And our guest list is spectacular. We've got Steve Hutchinson. He's going to be our first guest up right here in the middle of this hour from the Canton class of 2020, and then the man who once upon a time proclaimed this being football heaven and the Canton Class of 2011 Pro Football Hall of Famer and current Southern University football head coach Marshall Falk will join us in the master of ceremonies for yet another enshrinement weekend on ESPN.

2:36Rich Eisen:Chris Berman will stop by. Rod Woodson from the Canton Class of 2009 will be here. Willie Rolfe back in the day from the Canton Class of 2012 will join us. And then at the end of the program, right in the middle of our third hour, somebody who's getting enshrined this weekend. Luke Keekly is kind enough to stop by here as he watched his Carolina Panthers go ahead and win the Hall of Fame game last night on the final seconds in a walk-off victory in one of the more exciting Hall of Fame games we've seen in quite some time. 844-204-RICH is still the number to dial. I'm sitting here back in Los Angeles, California.

3:15Rich Eisen:Chris Brockman and Mike Del Tufo are in their usual spots along with TJ Jefferson. What's up, Rich? Good to see you, Gents. How are you? Good to see you, Rich. What's up, man? What's happening? Can't do it up. Just so everyone understands, I'll paint the picture here because I know we don't have a – I guess if you want to take the Don Bowie, the wide shot here in our studio, the widest one that we have. We are sitting here. That's Cam Hayward's big mug that's right behind me because we are here. Yes, that is correct. We are here in a glass-encased studio, something called the Presentation Center for those who are scoring at home.

3:50Rich Eisen:We're walking around the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and it's a small room that is dedicated to the service aspect of being a Hall of Famer. Cam is on the wall because he's not a Hall of Famer yet, but the Walter Payton Man of the Year Award winners are basically honored, whether they're in the Hall of Fame or not, in this room, which is why you see him behind me for the rest of all three hours. Wherever you are, I'm sure you're working out right now in Steelers training camp. If your phone is blowing up, it's because your head is massive right behind me on our Disney Plus and ESPN app broadcast.

4:32Rich Eisen:But the interesting aspect of this, when I walked in here, guys, I thought to myself, I've been in here before. and sure enough this room used to be much larger and it used to be the room that was dedicated to honoring the incoming class of the pro football hall of fame with some of their knickknacks and their jerseys and their in their helmets and i i i'm glad to know that i'm not crazy because i did get a sort of different sense that i've been in this room before and sure enough years and years and years ago when NFL Network started broadcasting and honoring those who were enshrined in the Hall of Fame by covering this event every single year live on NFL Network, whenever there was a rain issue outside and we weren't yet in a covered situation in a set outside, we would come in this room.

5:29Rich Eisen:And one of the first broadcasts I ever did from the Pro Football Hall of Fame was from this room because the weather outside forced me and Mooch and everybody else to stand here with stick mics and fans were going crazy around us. So I guess it's only fitting, guys, that I'm sitting here in this room today. Man, that's wild. Rich, how far are you away from that room that we used to sit in, the glass room? Oh, the luncheon. I'm far away from that, but I am down the hall from the bust gallery. Oh. And so there's a lot of foot traffic to my right because it's the oldest portion of the hall, the building that everybody had seen for decades and decades and decades, nicknamed the juicer because there's a football, half a football that's on the roof that makes it look with a flat roof around it like you're placing a big piece of fruit on top and getting the juice out of it.

6:22Rich Eisen:And then a small hallway that leads to the bus gallery that's right to the right. And there's nothing like it, folks. Did you hear any voices this morning of them talking to each other? I did not. They did not. They weren't talking except the ones in my head saying, man, I wish they hadn't shut the doors on my connecting flight to Canton two minutes after I arrived. Listen, one what what I was saying to everybody here before the show and anybody that that will stop me, that that this place is open all year round. and the thousands of volunteers that make this thing go, they're behind the scenes this weekend and they're behind the scenes all year long, but they're the ones who truly have the passion for football that matches the fan base that shows up here on this weekend.

7:13Rich Eisen:This is a great place to visit all year round. It is an incredible shrine to football, and I just wanted to cape for my friends here at the Pro Football Hall of Fame just to start this show. So tonight is the jacket dinner that I'm going to be honored to be hosting once again. And this is the one that I know you guys have witnessed before. Oh, yeah. This is the event that's sort of a hidden jewel. It's not sort of. It is a hidden jewel. The NFL Network used to broadcast it live for a couple of years. But for some reason, it's not shown nationally. It should be because tonight is the first night or the first day in the lives of the incoming class of the Pro Football Hall of Fame in which they receive a tangible item.

8:05Rich Eisen:And nothing can make an emotion or a realization land quite like an actual tangible item. Now, as of now, the photograph that you see on the screen, the incoming class of this year's Pro Football Hall of Fame, Luke Kuechly and Larry Fitzgerald and Adam Vinatieri and Roger Craig and Drew Brees, they're wearing golf shirts. As of tomorrow, they will be wearing a gold jacket. But tonight is where they receive the gold jacket. They'll get a bus tomorrow and they'll show up to the enshrinement ceremony in a gold jacket. but tonight is when they receive the jacket you'll get a hall of fame ring later on this fall when they're honored at a football stadium near them or wherever they used to play football so obviously larry's gonna have his ring ceremony and in arizona and i imagine drew will have it in new orleans so on and so forth but tonight's where they get the jacket and tonight where it really lands on them.

9:08Rich Eisen:Chris, you know, not to rope your personal life into this, but I imagine on the day you and Sarah made it official, it landed the most when that ring got put on your finger for the first time. Yeah, absolutely. Correct? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And if you watch Women's Sports Now yesterday, that ring might be coming off. Sarah's planning on a second wedding. Kylie Kelsey was the in-studio guest yesterday and Sarah told Kylie that she wanted Kylie to be the officiant at her next wedding. Can I hear that appropriately? Yeah. So on the women's sports now, I guess a few months ago, Sarah had like her dream team of like who her bridal party would be.

9:54Rich Eisen:And she had Kylie Kelsey as, as the officiant. And obviously Kylie was unavailable the same weekend that we got married. And so Sarah said, yeah, yeah. at my next wedding you can be the officiant and and i just happened to be watching live uh yesterday and and kind of did a double had to rewind had to make sure i heard that correctly took you back a little yeah i was like oh cage was laughing he didn't care yeah it's about to say at least your son wasn't watching at the time oh wait a minute he didn't he didn't care unlike that unlike you then chris now that you've brought that into this um yeah equation uh nobody here in the canton class of 2026 is going to get broken up with by the hall of fame oh good yeah good only to run it back like that's not going to happen right um so once they're in they're in that's the end of it but tonight's the jacket dinner yeah and um this is again a very emotional time when they get the jacket slipped on them for the first time um it it dawns on them it really hits them hard for sure And for those who might remember, if you don't, when Shannon Sharp went in the Hall of Fame, and again, he was in Marshall Falk's class.

11:07Rich Eisen:It was Shannon Marshall and Dion in that class, just to name three in 2011. When Shannon went in the Hall of Fame in 2011, he had his brother Sterling put the jacket on him. Now, it's just so happened that back then the presenters for each enshriny at the Saturday ceremony also served as the presenters of the jacket the night before at the jacket dinner. So Sterling was bringing the jacket to the stage for Shannon as his Hall of Fame presenter. and um when he put that jacket on they cried like babies and they hugged it out and it was highly emotional and the standing ovation was long and their photograph uh of this moment wound up on the front page of the canton repository the newspaper here in canton And I'll never forget the next day in 2012, Chris, I was recording some interviews for the podcast version of this show that gave birth to all of us sitting here on Disney Plus, yada, yada, yada, years later.

12:27Rich Eisen:But I showed up here to do some podcast interviews and walked into the Hall of Famers hotel for that day's shoot. And there were three guys in the lobby. There was Shannon. There was Sterling. And there was the other individual holding up the front page of the newspaper, yelling at the two of them for crying. in the most profane manner yelling at them. And it was Deacon Jones yelling at them to tell them that they were big babies or big effing babies. And now, you know, Saturday's events were where you're supposed to cry, not Friday night. It was a classic moment where you're looking around saying, is there anybody else here witnessing this sort of thing?

13:17Rich Eisen:Anybody else see this? And tonight's that night. Tonight's that night. tonight's that night however a couple of years ago the hall of fame added a new wrinkle to the jacket presentation and it was born out of the way that they reintroduce all the returning hall of famers the beauty of this weekend as i've just mentioned is the passion of the sport from all the fans who show up excited to honor the past while thrilled to welcome the present in the dawn of a new football season that's what makes this weekend unique as well i mean again the basketball hall of fame is having its enshrinement ceremony next week in springfield massachusetts but that's not at the outset of a a basketball season college or pro hockey and baseball do it differently as Well, baseball does it in the middle of their season.

14:16Rich Eisen:Football last night had its first preseason game. It was very exciting. And it does mark this week, this event, the beginning of a new season while celebrating the past. The folks who are the volunteers make it so special as well. But when the Hall of Famers return and say we're coming back to that puts this event at a completely different level. And so at the jacket dinner, each Hall of Famer is introduced one by one by Dan Fouts, a fellow member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Each member comes out, waves on the stage where the jacket will eventually get presented. And then they move off to either the right or the left and form a gauntlet, as it's called.

14:57Rich Eisen:From each side of the stage all the way up to the exits where there's a riser on the right and a riser on the left. And on each one of these risers, one by one, alternating right to left, is a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame Canton class from this year. That's where they get introduced. And they wave to the crowd and then walk through a gauntlet of Hall of Famers, hug it out, high five it. It's my job to keep things going and trying to say, put your hands together and tap dance until they finally get to the stage to get their jacket. And so with this moment, the Hall of Fame, it dawned on them.

15:38Rich Eisen:Why not change this ceremony from having the Hall of Famers Saturday presenter present them the jacket on Friday night? Why don't we just leave that for Saturday and have each Hall of Famer choose, if they wish, and they kind of push them to do it, choose a member from the returning classes. Choose anybody you want that's coming back to the Hall of Fame this year to present your jacket. And it creates some strange bedfellow moments. If you remember, Joe Thomas, a couple of years ago, chose Jerome Bettis to give him the jacket. And a lot of Browns fans around here are like, wait a minute. You're choosing a Steeler to do this sort of thing?

16:23Rich Eisen:So I have the list here tonight of who's putting the jackets on. Because, you know, I have this sort of, you know, status here. Have you been authorized to reveal this? Can you do it? No, I've just gotten the script and I'm doing it. Also, Rich, I read somewhere that this is. It's not televised. I don't think. It'll be great. And for those who hear about it, it'll add to the moment, I think. Rich, I heard there's a record number of returning Hall of Famers coming this year. Did you hear anything about that? I did not hear about that. There are 387 total members in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

17:02Rich Eisen:I heard there's about 120 showing up. I love it. It's so great. It's so great. That is awesome to hear. And so that's a large pool of people from which you can choose. Drew Brees has chosen LaDainian Tomlinson to put the jacket on him tonight. He's got Sean Payton introducing him tomorrow. Roger Craig tonight, and he's been waiting a long time. Oh, I can guess this one. Go ahead. Who's going to put it on? Joe Montana. I back Brockman up. Really? Nope. Not Montana. I was with you there, Chris. It's Ed DiBartolo, senior. Okay. Pardon me, Eddie Bartolo Jr., my bad. Ed DeBartolo is going to be doing it.

17:48Rich Eisen:The longtime owner of the San Francisco 49ers. Luke Keekly, you want to guess? Let's do this now. Julius Peppers. Chris Brockman gets the prize. Oh, yes. Maybe it's one of the donuts that Tom from Canton dropped off here as he did. Adam Vinatieri. Oh. Adam Vinatieri. Carly Ursi Gordon. Oh, she's presenting him. No. She's presenting him. Right. She can't give the jacket. That's not it. Is it either a returning hall of famer? Is it either Ty Law or Richard Seymour? Oh, you're going to be... Peyton Manning. Here's the hint. Here's the hint. It's not a Patriot. Who would upset you the most? Oh, Peyton Manning.

18:32Rich Eisen:Peyton Manning. Nope. Come on. Why would Peyton Manning upset you? Because anyone but a Patriot would upset him. I don't know. Who would upset me the most? Like a jet like Curtis Martin? No. No. No. You're right, church, wrong, Pugh, at the Colts. Oh. Who would upset you the most? Who would anger you the most that this guy is putting the jacket on a Patriot goat? Oh, man. Well, just tell me. Break my heart. Bill Polian. I knew it. I knew it. God dang it. Are you serious? How did you not get that? That is infuriating. I wish I was there right now. I wish I was there right now instead of looking at you through the camera.

19:23Rich Eisen:So let me cleanse that palette with something that will be the warmest moment tonight. This is going to be the warmest moment tonight. Larry Fitzgerald has chosen to have the jacket put on him by Chris Carter. Oh, yeah, that makes sense. And if you recall, Larry Fitzgerald Sr., who just passed, was a longtime reporter up there in Minneapolis, Minnesota. And Larry Fitzgerald, the ball boy for Chris Carter, once upon a time, is now going to have Chris Carter put his Hall of Fame jacket on his shoulders tonight. I don't think there's going to be a dry eye in the house when that happens this evening.

20:12Rich Eisen:So I do apologize if I'm telling any tales out of school, but I guess don't give me the run of show in advance next time. But in all seriousness, though, I just wanted to at least bring to the people here something that's going to happen tonight that they might not see live. And just know it's going to be awesome. And it's something that fans should come to if they can. whenever you can. It's an incredible weekend, and it's just filled with emotion, and it's got all the feels, and it's football, and it's family, and it's back, and that's tonight. And I'm honored to be the host of this jacket ceremony once again, even though when I step to the podium, I'm going to be hearing OH nonstop, and you know Chris Carter's going to find me when that happens.

21:03Rich Eisen:It's going to be something, you know, I'll get past. bigger than me but in that respect I also get to do what I want to do which is respond and then also be able to do a show from here in Canton, Ohio and have one of the greatest in the history of Michigan football be my first guest that's Steve Hutchinson and he's here and he's about to join us next right here on the Rich Eisen Show live from Canton, Ohio with Marshall Falk and Chris Berman and Rod Woodson and Willie Rolfe and Lou Keekly behind them with a what's more likely Friday still to come, along with a Detroit Lions four downs. 844-204-RICH is the number to dial right here on the Rich Eisen Show.

21:45Rich Eisen:Steve Hutchinson is here. We're back with him in a matter of moments on the Rich Eisen Show.

22:04Rich Eisen:Rich Eisen here. Running a small business means every hire matters. A bad hire costs time and money, but the right one helps your business grow. The challenge? Finding that person without sorting through resumes. That's where LinkedIn Hiring Pro comes in. It screens candidates so you can focus on conversations with qualified talent. With Hiring Pro, you can hire with confidence and build the team you need. Join the 2.7 million small businesses using LinkedIn to hire. Get started by posting your job for free at linkedin.com slash Eisen. Terms and conditions apply. Rich Eisen here for Gusto. After all these years talking to athletes, coaches, entertainers, and people at the top of what they do, one thing is pretty clear.

22:43Rich Eisen:Success usually depends on getting the details right. For small business owners, that includes payroll, hiring, onboarding, benefits, you know, the work that keeps everything moving, even if it's not the reason you started the business in the first place. That's why there's Gusto. Gusto is online payroll and benefits software built for small businesses. It's all-in-one, remote-friendly, and incredibly easy to use, so you can pay, hire, onboard, and support your team from anywhere. Automatic payroll tax filing, simple direct deposits, health benefits, commuter benefits, workers' comp, 401k, you name it.

23:16Rich Eisen:Gusto makes it simple and has options for nearly every budget, and it's all built to save you time with built-in automated tools for offer letters, onboarding docs, direct deposit, and more. Plus, you get unlimited payroll runs for one monthly price. No hidden fees, no surprises. Try Gusto today at gusto.com slash rich and get three months free when you run your first payroll. That's three months of free payroll at gusto.com slash rich. One more time, gusto.com slash rich. O 'Reilly Auto Parts can help take the guesswork out of your vehicle's check engine, ABS, or maintenance light with O 'Reilly Veriscan.

23:54Rich Eisen:The service is free and provides a report with solutions verified by ASE certified master technicians. Ask for an O 'Reilly Veriscan today.

24:16Rich Eisen:The Rich Eisen Show podcast. Hutchinson here on the Rich Eisen Show. Our radio audience is returned we're just talking about the way it used to be to find out that you're in the hall of fame and so you're sitting in a hotel room waiting for that door knock and there would be time you got in how what was my third time so the first i sat in the hotel the first two times and you wait you wait and then you get a phone call and if you get the phone call you know you didn't make it and and then so so you know and i i joke when when david baker was president i guess you know they stagger us in the hotel by floor so if you're a guy that didn't make it you're not listening to a bunch of guys you know family celebrating and you didn't make it so they stagger us well i didn't realize that i was on the top floor so he started his way you know at the bottom floors and worked his way up so i've gone through it twice knowing the longer you wait the better chance you're not going to make it because they do the calls out from the knocks so it was getting pretty late by i'm looking at the clock and i'm like all right we're getting ready i'm you know this is this is not a good sign well i had i didn't realize i was i think i was on the 15th floor or whatever So by the time they got to me, I'm already in the mode thinking, all right, well, this is year three.

25:21Come, come and go. Then I got the knock and it, you know, it's listen, any way they do it, any way you do it now, it's great. And you almost have to appreciate going through it and not making it before you can really appreciate making it. You know, I always joke with the first ballot guys. I'm like, well, you don't know what it's like to have to go through it, not make it, you know. But anyway, but, you know, it's funny. We all sit here. We just had our meeting. We're doing the luncheon now. And once you get in, you don't care how many times, you know. how long it took you know to guys like Andre Reid waited nine years or John Lynch waited you know and once you're in you're in.

25:54Rich Eisen:Harry Carson waited forever yeah and at one point he said take me off the list I don't even want to go through this anymore right and then to the point where this was again back in the day yeah when you would get a phone call wherever you were right and Harry Carson said screw it I'm just going to go to Hawaii on the day of the induction announcement And he was probably on a flight. And he was on a plane. Yeah. And we were, because again, I was part of a broadcast that was televising the announcement live. Right. And they couldn't find, it kept going to Harry Carson's voicemail. And he gets to Hawaii, turns his phone on, it's like, you have 50 ,000 messages.

26:37Rich Eisen:You've got 7 ,000 messages. and and and the guy who who said i'm so pissed with this process and with everybody voting take me off the list he gets in he walks around here he doesn't care yeah like it sucked that the pro bowl was still at the in hawaii did he just stay and do the thing because they used to bring the guys out there i i don't recall i think he did just stay yeah for for that because they used to say wave hello in aloha stadium yeah remember we used to walk like kind of like they did last night with the they walk the gauntlet you know and then have all the teams line up right that's I remember that so there's a there's a new way of giving the jacket tonight they've done this the last couple of years where we're an incoming Hall of Famer chooses someone from the class of the Hall of Fame who presented you again I think Roger did all ours okay my presenter yes who was so my presenter was Rob Toback my center in Seattle okay and that was he was the one that did the introduction for you know the the enshrinement sure But I think Roger, if I'm not mistaken, I think Roger put all the jackets on.

27:39Rich Eisen:Today was a – by the way, today is the five-year anniversary of your actual enjoyment day. You had to wait a year because of COVID. And there was a 20th. It was a massive sort of let's get everybody caught up once in a decade. That was a unique – That was wild. We had the century. There's 20 guys in our class of 2020. Right. And then it rolled into 2021 because of COVID. So we had two classes, and it was a huge class beginning with it. So that was a fun weekend. I mean, it was kind of cool for me because I got to do my party on Friday night because we had to stagger them. We had too many guys.

28:19Too many guys. So we did the party and then did the after the jacket celebration. And then after enshrinement, I got to just kind of relax and go to everybody else's party.

28:26Rich Eisen:Yeah. So if the rules that are in now where you get to choose a returning Hall of Famer to put your jacket on were in place for you, who would you have chosen? Well, it would have to be an offensive lineman. It would have to be. Yeah. I mean, you know, it'd be probably Bruce Matthews or Randall McDaniel or one of those guys, you know, the guys. We're talking interior, too. Yeah, Munch, one of those guys, you know. But, yeah, I got in here to hear the – before you went to break and heard the Larry deal. And having played in Minnesota, I know that story. Please go ahead. Go ahead. But no, I think that, to your point, it's going to be pretty amazing seeing Larry have this jacket put on by Chris, who used to be the ball boy for the Vikings growing up.

29:18And when Chris was playing, it goes to show you just how impactful any sport is, professional sport. and you see the influence it has on young guys. And Larry's sitting there every day, and of course his dad covered the team, and so he grew up in it. But going out there and watching during camp, watching these guys work, going, you know, I'm going to do that one day. And here he did it. It's not that easy, obviously, but I just remember watching those guys when I was young playing and going, hey, I want to – not that I don't think when we're young, I don't think anybody strives to be an offensive lineman And when you want to be a quarterback, you want to be – and then we just kind of grow into that position.