Hour 2: Guest Host Tom Pelissero, NFL Insider Mike Garafolo, Titans Fire Callahan

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1:27Now, on with the show. To Taysom Hill This is the Rich Eisen Show K-Back with his first career touchdown Live from the Rich Eisen Show studio in Los Angeles Daniel Jones to Tyler Warren Touchdown The Rich Eisen Show With guest host Tom Pellicero Today's guest NFL Network insider Mike Garofalo Plus latest news and more And now sitting in for Rich It's Tom Pelissero.

2:01Tom Pelissero:Welcome back to the Rich Eisen show. Tom Pelissero in for Rich, who I believe has already grabbed his coat, headed off to dinner with Susie in London. Is this the first time that the starting quarterback has been pulled three innings in in show history? Well, actually, we're getting the fourth and we're going to the pen. It wasn't a pulled situation, but we're coming back from the Super Bowl. Rich got sick and was like vomiting while he was talking to Dan Arlovsky. Susie came in. To be fair, not the first time that's happened with Dan. Right, of course. You never know. So he did leave mid-show once.

2:39Tom Pelissero:This is more like the pitch count when you're coming back. The starter, it's his first rehab start. He's going to throw 45 to 50 pitches, and then we got to get him out. You know, 50 minutes. Got to get him out. I feel like I'm Snoop Huntley coming in, just shot out of a cannon. not to make Rich the Cooper Russian the situation and the bar being set where it was we need you to be more like Jeff Hostetler lead us to a championship I would like that but that would require the Phil Simms to never return from London I believe Rich will be with you guys in London at the end of this week so I need all the good fish and chip spots I didn't get invited I'm mildly offended about that I would have taken a trip.

3:24Tom Pelissero:Of course you would. I would have been there. What if Rich has Orlovsky on and once again gets nauseous? What are you going to do? I sat backstage for an hour just now in case something went wrong, technically. You were ready. Well, you've got kids to watch, Tom. So, you know, you've got to. Yeah, you just can't gallivant until Monday. It's just unnamedly clear to me after being out here for a week. Yes, I have responsibilities at home that I do need to be taken care of. There's a lot. We got two hours here. There's a ton to unpack from the Sunday of week six in the NFL season. I want to start right there with the Ravens.

4:01Tom Pelissero:And of all the teams that are sitting there at one and five, or in the Jets case, oh, and six, the Ravens are the one team that at least I sit back and still go, it might be okay. John Arbaugh is after the game, talking about the state of the roster, where they are, the disappointment, but also just a rather optimistic tone, quite frankly, about where they stand. The opportunity that lies ahead for the Ravens. But it takes me back to what I thought at the time. This is not second-guessing, and Eric DaCosta has been as good as anybody at roster building and always being aggressive, but I remember thinking back in March.

4:43Tom Pelissero:The Ravens giving Cooper Rush a two-year deal worth up to$12.2 million. was an odd decision. And not because Cooper Rush hasn't won in the league. He has. Statistically, in terms of wins and losses and his time in Dallas, he's been one of the best. But you've spent so long building an offense around a quarterback who can move. And you go to a guy, Cooper Rush, who does not move. He is a strict, pocket-passing quarterback. And when you watch the Ravens' offense over the last, well, let's say seven quarters, because started the fourth quarter yesterday. All of a sudden, Stu Putley's out there, and lo and behold, quarterback run threat.

5:26Tom Pelissero:You can call different plays. It looked like they didn't have a really good plan in place for how they were going to utilize the guy. And that's not to indict the coaches here, but realistically, when you are building an offense through the offseason, when you've been building it around Lamar Jackson like the Ravens have for eight years, and everything that you're doing in an offseason like this one is about how do we complement this unique offense we've already put in place and now do things that are additive to it how do we challenge defenses with all these things that we can do that nobody else can do because nobody else has a Lamar Jackson when you take away the quarterback run threat you take away the keepers you take away the option plays, you take away the scrambling ability.

6:16Tom Pelissero:It changes everything, and it makes your entire offense more predictable. Think about it this way. The Ravens offense, they've been one of the best teams in the league for years at utilizing the tight ends. And not just because Lamar is very comfortable working the seams, working the middle of the field, and getting the ball to Mark Andrews, getting the ball to Isaiah Likely, but also because those guys are more like receivers in terms of the blocking phase. When they get out and Lamar takes off, they can block in space. They're receiving tight ends, but they can do it in space. When you got Cooper rush and all of a sudden you're like, we got to play more in line.

6:52Tom Pelissero:We've got to change things because this guy's not going to get out in space. Everybody knows what you're doing. And it doesn't put those guys in a position to succeed. When you're building your run game again, off the threat of Lamar, Every time that there's an inside handoff to Derrick Henry, you've got the threat he might pull in and go outside. You might be able to do that once with Cooper Rush. We've seen Tom Brady and Peyton Manning on the occasional naked over the years, right? Sure. But what you're not going to do is regularly giving him the option to do that. Derrick Henry finally got rolling a little bit yesterday.

7:27Tom Pelissero:First 100-yard game he's had since, I think, week one. Week one, yeah. They fumbled the football again. Zay Flowers, who never fumbles. He had a shoulder. I don't know if that's a factor in it. It was kind of iffy through the week. If he was going to be able to play, he went out there. He fumbled twice. Makes me think that maybe there was an issue with the shoulder. But the way that that offense functioned again, Sue Putley made the Pro Bowl once several years ago when he took over for Lamar. Even then, if you look at the Ravens stats, it's not like they were scored a ton of points. He was playing good enough.

7:56Tom Pelissero:He was like the seventh alternate. Yep. And he ends up getting into the Pro Bowl. Sure. But when he came out there, so you were like, oh, this is what we're used to seeing from the Ravens, because you had those types of threats. We know they've been as beat up as pretty much any team outside of, well, definitely as of yesterday, San Francisco takes the cake. They are number one with a bullet. Bucs are not far behind. We'll get to both those teams in that game, which was a ton of fun to watch in a little bit here. But the Ravens have had a ton of injuries. Here's part of what John Harbaugh had to say post-game yesterday about the state of this Ravens team.

8:35There's so many things in the game itself. I mean, the players we have, we're going to have healthy players coming back. I mean, our quarterback's going to be back. That's probably a big one. Our middle linebacker will be back. And then all the things from the tape that we saw, I thought our defense played pretty darn well against a high-powered offense. It was good to see. We needed to see that. We added a safety. I thought that dynamic was a good dynamic for us on defense. when you watch that. You're probably going to feel pretty good about that when you watch that tape again. And within that, the way individual players played.

9:07So that's it. Only three teams have done it? Good. Good. What an opportunity.

9:12Tom Pelissero:Only three teams beginning 1-5 and making the playoffs. This is a 17-game season. And when you take a look at the standings right now in the AFC North, the Steelers are 4-1. They're on a short week going to Cincinnati, which is in second place at two and four, despite a four game losing streak and multiple quarterback changes. And then you got the Ravens who are tied with the Browns at one and five. The Ravens though, still I tend to side with John Harbaugh and this could be totally wrong. Not having Roquan, not having Lamar. They got Kyle Hamilton back yesterday. They got Ronnie Stanley back yesterday.

9:51Tom Pelissero:They are getting healthier. Now I'm going to be mad at BK's out for the season. That's a bigger deal than I think people realize. They've gone stretches without Kyle Van Dooy through the course of the season. Isaiah likely is clearly still getting his legs back underneath him. But I tend to believe what John Harbaugh is selling here, which is that get Lamar back, get Roquan back. Why can't you make a run? If you take a look at the Ravens' schedule, and again, so they got the bye. They're off in week eight. you got the Bears at home at Miami at Minnesota which has major moving parts in terms of the quarterback position we'll talk about that in a bit at Cleveland home against the Jets and then you got the Bengals twice in a three-week span which by that point the Bengals will know are they still in it or does this thing continue to go sideways beginning Thursday night against the Steelers in a battle of 40-something-year-old quarterbacks on three days rest, which should be a lot of fun Thursday night.

10:55Tom Pelissero:It's set up for the Ravens to get themselves back into this thing, assuming that Lamar, as I said yesterday morning on Game Day Morning on NFL Network, and as John Harbaugh reiterated, they believe, they're hopeful. Hopeful is the best word. That Lamar is back after the bye. on the flip side of that and again we are we're basically at the one-third point just like this show me take it over for rich one-third we're also one-third of the way into the nfl season six weeks into an 18-week schedule yesterday to me sitting back after uh my 2 a.m wake-up call doing tv being back at the hotel by 5 15 watching games the entire day yesterday felt like the day where the players on a lot of these bad teams realized it ain't getting better.

11:47Tom Pelissero:You go back to the Jets game. Garrett Wilson reacted before halftime exactly as I was reacting watching it, exactly as Kurt Warner, who was rendered speechless on the NFL Network broadcast, was reacting to it. I have never seen a sequence like that in the NFL from, and Richard Kirk kept saying, you know, all the Broncos sniffed out that fake punt. They sniffed it out because Brees Hall is on the field as the personal protector. What gave it away? And they didn't run it fast. They took forever to get out there. They've got a solid 20 seconds for Darren Rizzi to go, guys, Brees Hall's on the field.

12:31Tom Pelissero:You see him? He's going to get the ball. They still run the play. They pick it up. You're going, okay. That was wild. I don't know why they would have thought they could sneak their starting running back out there on a special teams play against people as attuned as Darren Rizzi and Sean Payton. Somehow they got away with it. They then ran a grand total of three plays over the final minute, including the last play with 37 seconds to go. And I understand we heard from Aaron Glenn earlier in the show. There was confusion about did they pick up the first down? Did they not? But at a bare minimum, you're not at your own 20.

13:10Tom Pelissero:You're almost at midfield. And if you don't have a quarterback who you think can at least throw the ball to the end zone and let Garrett Wilson go up and try to catch it, what are we doing here? That's even setting aside some of the other decisions, punting on fourth and one late, where every analytic metric would tell you, go for it and try to win the game. Garrett Wilson being apoplectic, I'm with him. That happens sometimes. Receivers get upset about getting the ball. This wasn't even like, throw me the ball. This was throw anyone the ball. Not to mention, they ran it on the snap after the fake punt.

13:48Tom Pelissero:So they gave the ball to Brees Hall on a fake punt, but then also ran it on the next first down. There was no urgency. There was no attitude to it. And I'm not ripping Aaron Glenn here. He's six games in. Nobody should ever judge a head coach six games into his tenure. But Nathaniel Hackett, back four years ago in Denver, the Broncos hired a game management consultant one game in for lesser sins than what we saw yesterday from the Jets. They literally were like, well, he can't do it. we got to bring somebody in here the way that that entire game was managed was just frustrating and i know there's a lot of corollaries from where aaron glenn came from in detroit he's trying to build a culture he's trying to build that attitude into the program but you saw evidence that even when the lions were losing early early on of we're going for it we're a team that goes for it on fourth down we're a team that is going to have attitude and run the football particularly in the latter stretch of the season that first year with Dan Campbell where he took over the play call and they just ran the crap out of the football it just seems like the Jets are trying to figure out who they are and there's a lot of times and again I mean this with deference to Aaron Glenn as a young head coach who is learning there's a lot of times where it feels like they're a team with nothing to lose that is playing not to lose which when he drops back nine times he gets sacked he doesn't want to get the football out I I get to a certain degree, but that moment, I agree, run the clock down.

15:20Tom Pelissero:But snap it with three seconds to go and try to make something happen. You are struggling to find anything resembling offense. Get a snap off. The Browns, one and five. Miles Garrett was at the podium postgame. A guy who, let's remember, back in February, January, February, requested a trade. And that was not a negotiating tactic. That was not him trying to get money out of the deal. That was Miles going, I don't want to be here anymore. I don't want to go through a rebuild. This is clearly a rebuild. I don't want to be part of this. Andrew Barry, the organization had a plan. It did not involve trading Miles Garrett.

16:05Tom Pelissero:Miles tried everything, including going directly to the owner. And the answer was, we are not trading. so he did the only other thing he could do as a guy who didn't have much leverage from a contract perspective because he was signed for so long he took the raise you can't get out at least you can get more money but when he's being asked repeatedly like is it frustrating to keep losing the same way yes yes it is the browns and kevin stefanski you you could feel it from him because he's trying to get a young quarterback in Dylan Gabriel rolling. He's trying to pour everything he's got into a guy that he believes in.

16:44Tom Pelissero:And he's not getting a lot of help around him. Every game, the Browns might lead the league in in-game offensive line changes because guys get hurt. Yesterday, Jack Conklin gets a concussion and then the left tackle Cam Robinson gets rolled up. He leaves the game. They've had like eight different tackles or something this season. And then Jerry Judy's dropping the football. There's no help. The whole thing isn't there. But it felt like a moment yesterday where it's, this is not going to get better. And probably the prime example of this was what we saw in Miami. And I don't put that game at the feet of Tua Tungavailoa.

17:22Tom Pelissero:He threw three picks. He has not played well enough the entire season. I've talked about that on this show before. Tua, and you look at it statistically, he's not the same guy that he was the last three years when he was healthy with Mike McDaniel. Statistically, he's one of the least efficient quarterbacks in the NFL. But he did throw a go-ahead touchdown with 46 seconds to go. You'd like to think, no matter what's gone wrong, that's enough. And instead, you give up a 40-yard kickoff return to a guy who hasn't played a game in three years, and then he can't bring down Justin Herbert or Ladd McConkie.

17:57Tom Pelissero:They go down, kick a field goal, and you lose once again. That paled in comparison to what happened at the podium moments after the game when Tua Tungvaloa said this.

18:13I think it starts with the leadership in helping articulate that for the guys and then what we're expecting out of the guys, right? We're expecting this. Are we getting that? Are we not getting that? We have guys showing up to player-only meetings late, guys not showing up to player-only meetings. There's a lot that goes into that. Do we have to make this mandatory? Do we not have to make this mandatory? So it's a lot of things of that nature that we've got to get cleaned up,

18:44Tom Pelissero:and it starts with the little things like that. I could do an entire segment on that quote from Tua. But we've got to get to Mike Garofalo in a few minutes here. So I will keep this as brief as I possibly can. There are a litany of issues with the way that Tua approached that. And this is not the first time that Tua has said something at the podium where you went, whoa, go back to Tyreek Hill in the spring and the way that he called him up publicly. At the time in talking to people, that was part of the broader strategy, which is we're trying to communicate. We're trying to hold everybody accountable.

19:14Tom Pelissero:That's on everybody. And so that was something that I didn't get the sense that people minded in the building. yesterday Tua comes out and by stating that the way that he did he impugns literally everybody in the building including possibly accidentally himself yeah yeah if you're saying the leadership needs to get better right he's the player only meetings you are a team captain and the quarterback that's you the highest paid player on the team that's your leadership but you also put Mike McDaniel in a position where, and Rich said it in the first hour, it looks like Mike McDaniel, because he's now got to answer questions about it right after that, what he's talking about.

19:53Tom Pelissero:And Mike's kind of going, I guess he was talking to somebody specific. So whoever that is, I hope the message gets through, but everyone's answered to me. It makes Mike look like he doesn't know what's going on. But here's the thing. I've talked to people in Miami last night and this morning. Okay. I have asked around on this. Nobody knows what the hell two is talking about. This is not an issue in the building. When we talk about player-only meetings, you usually think it's, hey, we're losing, we've got to get the whole group together, call people out or whatever. They haven't been doing that.

20:24Tom Pelissero:There have been defensive meetings where guys get together and watch tape, but that's common in virtually every building. There's been no issues with tardiness. There's been no ongoing problems from a cultural perspective. so in other words Tua is outside a building that by virtue of the record is doused in gasoline and for reasons that remain completely unapparent he decides to go I'm just going to light this match let's just throw that in there and start the blaze it's a really rough position to put your coach in to put every one of your teammates in when you're the guy who's been turning the ball over and not playing as well as you can to your point as the highest paid guy on the team.

21:08Tom Pelissero:You want to talk about leadership? Tua, in these moments in particular, needs to show a lot better leadership publicly for a guy who, let's remember, is on the books for$50 million, fully guaranteed still in 2026. All right, let's take a break here. Thanks, everybody, for watching on Disney+. We are on the ESPN app. We are at ESPN Radio presented by Progressive Insurance. Mike Garofalo, my colleague from the NFL Network, joins us right after this. How are the Eagles going to fix things? We'll ask him next.

21:47Tom Pelissero:The Rich Eisen Show Podcast.

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23:14Tom Pelissero:Welcome back to the Rich Eisen show on Disney Plus, the ESPN app and ESPN radio presented by Progressive Insurance. Tons to get into. news around the NFL coming off of the Sunday of week six. We got a double header tonight. By the way, we will break down those games. Pretty big one in Atlanta. One up against the Bills. The Falcons are going to be in this. The Jaden Daniels, Caleb Williams rematch. Hopefully with Tyreek Stevenson facing the correct direction in critical moments this time around. Right now, though, let's bring in my colleague from the NFL Network. NFL Media Insider, Mike Garofalo is with us.

23:53Tom Pelissero:Mike, it is fantastic. to see you today. Let's jump right in. Big injuries from Sunday's games. Puka Nakua, an odd situation where he goes down grabbing his ankle. You can't tell what happened. They announce he's got a foot, comes back in the game, then Sean McVay says it's an ankle. Where do we actually stand on Puka, his health, and his availability here moving forward? Hi, Tom. I'm going to cut my head off. Hold on. There we go. That's better. The solo hair. Hey, wow. We can go kind of right there. I think that's a good spot. Beautiful. Probably should have done this before you popped me up.

24:30Puka. Puka has an ankle sprain that is of the non-high variety, which leaves the mid and the low. We're narrowing it down. I still don't know when it occurred, to be honest with you, because you're watching the whole play. You're always looking for when a guy goes up and comes down, like, oh, the impact coming down. He sort of landed on top of the defender. so I think it happened on the takeoff or maybe the step before that so it is it is an ankle sprain Sean McVay called him day-to-day today it you know it I sounds like he was in pain a lot of pain yesterday and and swelling obviously what you get with it with ankle sprain as well it's always tough to tell these things six seven days out if it's more of a day-to-day rather than a week-to-week thing like high ankle sprain it's like okay two to four weeks four to six weeks whatever uh you sort of know that guy's not playing this is in somewhere in between that and uh he does have the bye after this one so it could be two weeks to allow him to rest fully and come back the rams are in a pretty good spot it almost feels like one of those if it happened late in the season it's a crucial game or it's a playoff game or something like that he's playing he's not gonna be 100 but he's gonna battle through those kind of things now it's in that area of it's not late in the season you're in a decent spot can you get by without him this week which you never sort of want to do that I feel like the Eagles and Jalen Carter sort of did that last week it's like well we can win this game without him like we'll be okay and oops couldn't really use them so um the the international flight as you've mentioned you mentioned it with JJ McCarthy a couple of weeks ago always uh sort of a factor here as well so we'll see how it goes with Puka ask me right now I would say he's a no-go this week I'd probably lean more that way but we'll see as the week goes on how he feels.