NFL Insider Tom Pelissero

24:33Rich Eisen:We have questions. He has answers. He's Tom Pelissero back here in the Rich Eyes. Good to see you, Tommy P. How are you? Yeah, Tommy P.

24:39Tom Pelissero:Good to see you, Rich. What's up to my fellas in the studio? Yeah, what up, baby? Hey, Tommy P.

24:42Rich Eisen:I don't know. Tom, I'm a little upset with you.

24:44Tom Pelissero:It's good to see TJ showed up for work today. I did not think that was a given. No, I know.

24:50Rich Eisen:He was in his own darkness retreat yesterday. You could have given me a heads up, Tom. That's all I'm saying. All right, Tom.

24:55Tom Pelissero:A lot of people will feel that way.

24:59Rich Eisen:Tom, why did this happen? I know the Joneses were talking up Kenny Clark, and I know that we're talking about stopping the run, but we all know 26-year-old elite first-team all-pro pass rushers don't get traded for three-time Pro Bowl 30-year-old defensive tackles straight up for a playing season. I know there's draft compensation, but for the 2025 season, it was essentially a trade of Micah Parsons for Kenny Clark. That just doesn't happen. So why did this happen, Tom?

25:31Tom Pelissero:Let's start with the timeline here because there seems to be a misconception that, as Jerry Jones said last night, that they got this thing done in five minutes. That was not the case, regardless of any rumors or whatever was reported out there. This has been going on for weeks. The Cowboys, once Micah Parsons requested a trade in that lengthy statement back on August 1st, they inevitably started getting calls. And I know of multiple other teams beyond the Packers who made those phone calls. In the early going, it was difficult to tell whether the Cowboys would seriously consider trading Micah Parsons.

26:07Tom Pelissero:The compensation, if they were to do that deal, was pretty clear, which was it would be something in the neighborhood of the Khalil Mack trade back in 2018, which was actually a little bit less than two first-round picks because then there were some swaps and there was a two that went back to the Bears in that deal. But basically, it was still going to be two first-round picks, give or take. That was going to be the price. We now know from Jerry that they eliminated some teams if they did not feel those teams had a defensive tackle that was worth them bringing in as part of the trip. Let's set that aside here.

26:42Tom Pelissero:This trade with Green Bay, in terms of the trade compensation, was done three days ago. The Packers and Cowboys had agreed. It was going to be two first-round picks. It was going to be Kenny Clark. This is the only team. So in order to get to that, Rich, of this is the one team, this was weeks of them surveying the landscape of, hey, what else potentially could we get out there? The last piece of this then became the contract, and that was what was going on over the last 48 to 72 hours. David Mulageta, who presided over another really unique situation several years ago with Deshaun Watson, also presiding over this one.

27:20Tom Pelissero:And knowing that, much like in the Watson case, regardless of what was going on in terms of off the field and potential disciplinary considerations, they had a lot of leverage because it was basically free agency. In this case, you had kind of a free agent vibe in terms of what he was able to do, not playing four teams off each other like he did with Deshaun Watson. But the reality that it's very rare players who are on one roster truly get to negotiate a contract with a different team, which effectively gave Micah Parsons veto power over that trade. In other words, if the Packers don't pay what the price is, you simply say, I'm all good.

27:57Tom Pelissero:I'm not going to go to Green Bay. hey, they're not going to give up two first-round picks in their starting nose tackle for a guy going into the last year of a contract. So the Packers went to$47 million per year in terms of the new money on the extension. Even if you consider this a new five-year$212 million deal, which it kind of is from a team accounting standpoint, that's still over$42 million per year. That's still the biggest deal ever for a non-quarterback. The fact that Packers were able to make that type of commitment to Micah Parsons goes against so much of how they have operated for decades here.

28:33Tom Pelissero:There are countless trades that they have been close to. Randy Moss, Tony Gonzalez. I mean, name all these players over the years where they're in it, and then it came right down to it that's, oh, we don't want to do that extra one round in the pick. They had to trade a first-rounder, much less two first-rounders, since 1992 when they acquired Brett Favre. The year after that, they signed Reggie White as the first free agent. Those two helped usher in this golden age of Packers football that really has remained undisturbed for several decades. But if you look around the rest of the league at what the teams have done that have won Super Bowls, which for all the Packers' success, they have not yet done in the Matt LaFleur era in Green Bay, there's been something bold about what they've done in the trade market.

29:20Tom Pelissero:Howie Roseman does it every year. He's in on every trade, and he makes a lot of trades. You have the Rams, of course, who are trading all their picks to bring in guys that could help them right now. The Chiefs have been very aggressive, not just trading four guys, but trading guys away, like the Tyreek Hill trade. And there's a corollary here, Rich, between that trade and what Dallas did. In a completely different spot, you're talking about a Chiefs team that had gone to the AFC Championship game that year, that had won Super Bowls with Tyreek Hill on the roster. But they felt like not just getting what at the time was a first and a third round pick, but freeing up$30 million per year in cash and cap space would allow them to address all these other needs.

30:01Tom Pelissero:Rebuild the defense, rebuild the offensive line. They did that. They went back and they won two more Super Bowls and went to a third last year. For the Cowboys, you heard Jerry Jones talk a little bit about that last night. That, hey, this is not just the two first round picks and Kenny Clark. This could turn into five players. He wasn't talking about trading down in the draft. He's talking about, we got all this extra cash and cap space because we're not paying a pass rusher now$40-plus million per year. And I get the people that sit there and go, well, you'd use those picks just to try to find the next Micah Parsons.

30:33Tom Pelissero:What this was, as much as anything rich for Dallas, was a referendum that they did not ultimately believe that Micah Parsons was going to be the difference or not to them winning a Super Bowl for the first time in 30 years. They tried to do the deal. Jerry thought they did the deal in April and March. In the end, Micah Parsons said, no, you need to negotiate that with my agent. They were not willing on the Cowboys' standpoint to do that. They never talked with David Mooligetta. They never tried to do a deal. He did confirm, reporting by our James Slater last night, Jerry did, that in the end they made one last shot.

31:10Tom Pelissero:Parsons and Mooligetta came to the Cowboys like, hey, we're still willing to sign with you. And the answer a few days ago from the Cowboys was, you're on the fifth-year option, you're under contract, get ready to play next Thursday in Philadelphia. That was basically the end of Micah Parsons as a Cowboy. It just took a few more days for the Packers financially and otherwise to finalize Micah Parsons being a Green Bay Packer.

31:32Rich Eisen:Okay, Tom, you just said a lot there, and I appreciate it. Excellent information. You gave me what happened. I need why it happened. I need the why, Tom, because I understand they need to stop the run. I understand they need Kenny Clark. I understand even what you said that without now paying Micah all that money, they could pay other people that money, which, by the way, they might have had room to do a little bit. Have they signed people like Dak or CD earlier? I mean, but that's for another day. We've had those days quite a bit and waiting for resolution for this. You don't trade away 26-year-old generational pass rushers at the elite all-pro level for somebody four years older at a defensive tackle position.

32:30Rich Eisen:You just don't do it. We don't see it because you don't do it. These things you do not do. Not for a defensive tackle.

32:37Tom Pelissero:But the Raiders did make similar timeline, similar type of trade with Khalil Mack. The key was this rich, though. They got the capital, right? They got the capital to go, all right, we're going to rebuild. That was John Gruden's whole philosophy, too. It was much like the Cowboys thinking, which is you tie up that much money in someone who's not your quarterback, it hamstrings who else hurt. But what did they get out of that trade? The Raiders drafted Ryan Edwards, a wide receiver who was basically never heard from again. They drafted a safety named Bless Austin. they drafted Damon Arnett a cornerback in the first round who they cut after they put a video on the internet of him waving guns around and threatening to shoot somebody and they got Josh Jacobs that was the fourth player they got with the picks in that trade he was a good player then they ultimately weren't able to re-sign him and now he's teammates with Micah Parsons with the Packers you get all the picks all the cash space all the cash you want right if you don't find your next Micah Parsons we're all going to reflect on this and say it's a massive error no correct obviously on the Cowboys part.

33:33Rich Eisen:And I get it. And the Cowboys have had an excellent history of drafting well, recently as well, you know, except that the defensive tackle position, which is maybe why part of why we're here. Is there anything to the fact that they were sick and tired behind the scenes of Micah Parsons? Because this was in my mind, watching the Jerry Jones press conference on our network, the subtext of almost every answer he gave. I don't have a problem. the locker room is not going to have a problem as a matter of fact i feel better you know i think that you know i'm not saying that micah wasn't we greatly appreciated his time here but we're in a better position we have a better chance to win which to a cowboy fan and pretty much again anyone else you do not trade 26 year old kids at this position for somebody four years older in an interior lineman you just don't do it and and they did it and and and there was a break of down of trust.

34:28Rich Eisen:There has to be some, is there anything to this Tom?

34:33Tom Pelissero:It is fair to say, Rich, if you believe that a 26 year old elite pass rusher who's had double digit sacks pro bowl every year, he's been in the league. If you believe that guy is one of your absolute core players, cornerstone dudes, locker room leader, you're not trading. That's absolutely fair. And you go back to last fall, they got it done with CD lamb because he's one of their guys. They got it done with Dak Prescott because he's one of their guys. They did try. Again, Jerry thought he had a deal done with Micah Parsons, and they could have strung this out and said, you're just going to play on the fifth-year option.

35:09Tom Pelissero:We're not listening to the trade calls. You want to lose$1.3 million a week or whatever it would be by missing games, go for it. We're going to take that money. If you don't show up by midseason, we toll your contract. We own you for 2026 as well. And then we got two franchise tags beyond that. They could have gone down that road. But I still go back again, Rich, I know I've talked about it here before, to what we reported on Super Bowl Sunday, which is the Cowboys were having these internal discussions about Micah Parsons going back to last fall. And it was not simply, though this was certainly a big part of the conversation, the fact they got$60 million a year in DAC.

35:43Tom Pelissero:They got$34.5 million in CeeDee Lamb. Is it really wise to pay what at the time would have been like$35 to$40 million for Micah Parsons? It ended up being a much higher number. But they had serious considerations of, is this in the best interest of the Cowboys to resign him? Or should we trade him and get a bunch of compensation and kind of be able to address all these other needs that we feel we have? Well, they clearly came to the conclusion that, well, when in doubt, signed the guy. They thought in Jerry's mind they had a deal done. And then Micah said, call my agent to finish the deal. And the Cowboys said, no, we already negotiated this deal.

36:21Tom Pelissero:There are other factors in this. There is certainly, and you go back, why did Micah Parsons slide? Not that far, but why did he not go top five in the draft? Part of it was just some of the things about, you know, is he an independent contractor? Is he going to be one of the leaders on the team? You know, all this other stuff, is he kind of on his own program? And you see that, you know, guys will be in OTAs where you'd like to have your guys around, and he's off sumo wrestling somebody in Japan. I mean, that's just Micah. He's into, you know, podcasting and doing all these other things, but he's a hell of a player.

36:54Tom Pelissero:That's the thing. Like the Cowboys have dealt with a lot worse than a guy who sometimes goes on podcasts and says things that you wish he shouldn't. There's currently a whole Netflix documentary about how you can win with guys who are doing things much, much worse than anything that Micah Parsons is doing. But Jerry Jones is operated by a certain code. And you heard parts of this when he's talking last night. He felt like in his business life, in his football life, when you shake somebody's hand, you feel like you've got a deal. That's it. And he has done this with so many other players. Him and Bill Belichick are the two guys through the last couple of decades, two, three decades of football, who would do this all the time.

37:30Tom Pelissero:Bring the player in, get with them, say, here's the contract, work it out. Then basically call the agent and say, hey, we got a deal. You can sign off on this now. This was the rare occasion where a player went, no, actually, I don't feel comfortable with this. He's got an agent who's done tons and tons of deals, and they simply never engaged. Now, Jerry, last night when he was asked about some of the recent answers that he gave to our guy Irv, among others, about not trading Micah Parsons, and he basically said, well, why would I tell you I want to trade a guy if I'm trying to trade him? I would do the opposite, which is what exactly he did here.

38:04Tom Pelissero:And that, again, reinforces what we've reported, which is regardless of the timeline of when certain information came out, Rich, this was a several weeks process. they finally felt like they have the proper compensation to pull the trigger on this deal with the Packers. This was done sometime, I'm messing up my days now, but I believe it was around Tuesday, it was three days ago, that they had the trade locked in, which then gives the leverage to the agent to go, all right, Packers, you want them? This is what it's going to take. He ends up with a monster contract, and the Cowboys end up with what they hope can be a very small, size-down version of the Herschel Walker trade that Jerry Jones invoked last night, talking about how that was the launching point from a dark moment in Cowboys history, a one-win season, and then all of a sudden drafted a bunch of future Hall of Famers and winning a few Lombardis.

38:53Rich Eisen:What can you share about what the market was then? I mean, clearly, because again, the Cowboy fans, it's a bitter pill. The Ice Bowl team, the Favre team, the Rogers team, the Descaught-It team, the team that won and done McCarthy team just a couple years ago. Why Green Bay? And again, I understand they needed the cap and they wanted a player. Who else was in this mix? How wide a net was this thing? Best you can tell.

39:23Tom Pelissero:There's a lot of Packers-Cowboys connections. I know that. And it's tough. Gary said he didn't take into consideration You said, other than trading them in the NFC East, we don't really care because you play half these teams on a yearly basis. Anyway, I mean, what I would tell you is there were, I mean, a bunch of other teams. Okay, I got a lot of calls, had a lot of conversations with GMs, coaches, and people in the league, all trying to get to the bottom of why is this situation so weird? Like, what is actually going on with Micah? And a few weeks ago when I was talking to people, and inevitably I would say, like, the price was pretty clear, but I'd say, do you think that they really want to do it?

39:56Tom Pelissero:And everyone's kind of like, we can't tell. They talk about it. They talk about a price, which would indicate what it would take to get the player. But are they actually, is Jerry ultimately going to say, yes, we are doing this? That only became clear really over the last week or so here. The other thing that I thought was informative, Rich, was when some teams were digging into this with Micah Parsons, they didn't see a guy who necessarily was going to be an ideal fit. And I know that that sounds completely crazy. Again, I would go back to the draft when Micah came out, where there were some coaches who would say, well, what does this guy really do?

40:31Tom Pelissero:Is he a lineman? Is he a defensive end? What is he? The answer from the teams that liked him was everything. He can do everything on the field. But if you're going to give up$47 million per year on an extension like the Packers did, 42 and change in terms of the life of the deal, and give up two first-round picks, and give up a player, You better have a really good plan for him Monday through Saturday, as well as on Sundays, to get the most out of Micah Parsons. There were some teams that just kind of backed away a little bit just because this is such a gut check, Rich. We didn't see 10 years ago, you didn't get trades like this.

41:08Tom Pelissero:Trades are a relatively new phenomenon in the NFL. We now have seen a handful of trades involving two first-round picks for a player. The Rams did it with Jalen Ramsey. the Seahawks did it with Jamal Adams some years ago there's a few other examples but it's not a not a really long list of times the teams have been able Khalil Mack obviously although that ended up being you know in terms of the picks that went back a little bit less than 2-1 it doesn't happen very often usually you only see those caliber of trades involving quarterbacks because that's the one position where you can really make a seat change but for the Packers again a team that for decades had not operated like this to go all in it really seems like a reflection that the time has come and the league has evolved and it's worth taking this type of a risk the Packers can justify it in their heads as well it's not really two first round picks we'll just count Micah Parsons as our first round pick next year and we get him this year and okay one additional pick beyond that but those first round picks also are the your young cheap workforce that keeps your salary cap and your roster healthy, which has been a hallmark of what the Packers have done.

42:17Tom Pelissero:Ron Wolfe hired Brian Goodacunst into the organization in 1999 as an area scout. Ron Wolfe was the same guy who pulled off the far trade and signed Reggie White. This was a Ron Wolfe-style move from one of his, at the time, very young protégés. And texting and talking to people in the building yesterday, Rich at Green Bay, I said this on TV earlier, but Matt LaFleur has texted me with a few other words I won't mention it, it was, I cannot sit down. They are floored about this magnitude of a move we can change out from the season.

42:48Rich Eisen:A jolt in the building. In the 90 seconds I have left, Tom, give me the split on the number of people around the league who are texting you saying this is insane or actually see the Cowboys' point of view. What's the split?

43:02Tom Pelissero:I would say that more people are surprised that the price wasn't a little bit more for Micah Parsons than anything. It really depends. It's impossible to go apples to apples with a trade involving a player, because if the Cowboys viewed Kenny Clark as a guy that in isolation they would have traded, let's say, a third round or second round pick for, okay, then basically you got two ones and a two or a three. But there were other teams that thought, you know, just based on how good the player is now productive, how young, that even with the cost in terms of salary, that, you know, they would have anticipated that the Cowboys could have gotten a little bit more.

43:34Tom Pelissero:There's an understanding about the reset value of this. What people were floored by is just the fact that these two teams made this type of deal. Jerry Jones, who year after year has his pedal to the metal and is 82, 83 years old, and you wouldn't think has an appetite for a rebuild, is now talking about, hey, we're going to get all these picks over the next couple of drafts to build the thing. And the Packers, who never the team that finalized this deal, are all of a sudden the ones making an all-in type of move that just historically has not been their jam. It's a fascinating storyline that we'll be following all season, and particularly, Rich, looking forward to that Sunday night game, Week 4 in Dallas.

44:14Rich Eisen:Tom, thanks for the info. You'll be well. We'll chat next week.

44:21Tom Pelissero:O-O-O-O 'Reilly Check engine, ABS, or maintenance light on? Take the guesswork out of your warning lights with O 'Reilly Veriscan. The service is free and provides a report with solutions verified by ASE certified master technicians. And if you need help, we could recommend to shop for you. Ask for O 'Reilly Veriscan today. Oh, oh, oh, O 'Reilly. Auto Parts.

45:14Rich Eisen: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.

45:29Rich Eisen:During the filming of The Outsiders, you turned 18 and the other boys in the cast pranked you by trashing your hotel room by saran wrapping the toilet and spraying fire extinguishers into the room. Is that a true story? Absolutely true. That was like, That was my college experience. I was turning 18. It would have been the equivalent of going away from home for the first time. And that's my fraternity. Those guys are my frat brothers. What a shot that is severed across, man. Jeez, look at that. It's a good group. Look how tough Tom Cruise is trying to look in that photo. Dude, Tom Cruise was such a baller.

46:01He was. He was probably one of my closest friends. And he was so great. And I always looked up to him. And he always had these cool things he would come up with. And I remember he was the first guy that ever came up with this conceit of tightening the titles of the movies he was in to make them sound badass. Like what? Like he did this, you know the football movie, All the Right Moves? Yeah. But yeah, man, when I was making moves, and I was like, he's a badass. That's baller. It's so baller. But then, you know, it was a problem when he'd be like, yeah, when I was making cocktail, it was kind of a, you know, and I liked ****.

46:35Rich Eisen:No. The other one's no good either. He's long. Yeah, when I was in tail. When I was in tail. Can't do it either way. Can't do it either way. It's no good. So you'd go like wing? Is that what you do when you did TV? No, when I was doing West. When you were in West. When Marty Sheen and I were doing West. You know, on the set of Boy, me and Chris Harley. Yeah, on the set of Boy. And Oxford Blues sets up just blues. See, it's important to choose. If you choose the wrong one, it's not as good. There's always one that's cooler. Like, which is, like, when I was doing recreation. Yeah. But if I'm doing Parks.

47:10Right. Instead of Parks. You did Parks. Yeah, man, Amy Poehler and I in Parks, we laughed all the time. On Parks.

47:16Rich Eisen:On the set of Wayne, I was just, you know. And by the way, you want to talk about Tom Cruise, too. This was the fact that blew our minds when the last Mission Impossible came out. And he was running all over London. Those are the best movies ever. I'm like a broken ankle that had just healed or whatever. is that he is right now the age in these movies doing this that Wilford Brimley was during Cocoon. That's a fact. That is. That's boom, like mind-blowing. It's mind-blowing. And I don't know what it is. What makes it mind-blowing is that Tom Cruise is doing that at that age or Wilford Brimley was really that young in Cocoon.

47:51I did a movie with Wilford Brimley. He was the first great character actor I ever worked with. There was a movie called Hotel New Hampshire. What are we doing on that one? So when you did Hampshire? Hampshire? No. when I was doing Hampshire it's better than hotel when you did hotel when I was doing new

48:09when I was working on new with Brimley

48:13Rich Eisen:so much fun man we were talking about that with Adam Ray yesterday when he was leaving because Adam Ray did Kreisch's pod with Rob Lowe and we told him that story that is a non-stop wormhole. We could keep going on and on with that game. Did you say Kreischer's podcast? Kreischer's podcast? I thought you said he did Kreischer's podcast.

48:43Rich Eisen:Kreischer's. Just did Kreischer's podcast. When he did the Burt, I don't know, because it's Birdcast. We're doing Burning. I think I'm doing that in a couple weeks. You are? Yeah, we're doing a home-to-home. You did that at the Birdcast? What's burning again? The Tuesday in between weeks one and two, the two in-studio guests that are going to cross paths here are Burt Kreischer and Al Michaels. Oh, goodness. We got to get them together, right? Al and the machine. Al and the machine. All right. Where are we going here? Noah in Portland, Oregon. This is good. RES Consulting Unite. Here we go, Noah.

49:20Morning, guys.

49:21Rich Eisen:What's going on, Noah? So I'm going to find myself in New Orleans in November, and I wanted to see if my Panthers were going to play. They're not. It's going to be Atlanta. I got tickets anyway. Is it inappropriate to wear my Panthers jersey? Yes. Noah, Noah, Noah, this is a big thing for RAS Consulting, and we may be swimming upstream on this one, but we think there is no bigger stadium foul than wearing a jersey to a game involving a team that is not playing in that stadium that day. It's just a massive fan foul. We indicates all of us. It's not unanimous, but if we're an on-bank voting process, we break it down individually.

50:06Jay Feli? I mean, I wear jerseys all the time. I'm not going to wear it if neither team is there. Sorry. All right. Smart.

50:14Tom Pelissero:Can I give a shout-out to Anna? Real quick. And then I do have a couple of fantasy football names I wanted to run by you.

50:22Rich Eisen:Okay. Real quick. What do you got?

50:24Tom Pelissero:Okay. So in honor of you guys, my family league, I'm with all due respect.

50:29Rich Eisen:Very good. That's an excellent one.

50:30Tom Pelissero:And in my bar league, this is from Goodfellas. It's blank. You pay me.

50:35Rich Eisen:Okay.

50:36Tom Pelissero:That allows me to spell it actually out.

50:38Rich Eisen:Right. Good. Yeah. I mean, those are great. Those are great ones. Those are great ones. And more of the wig man should be your avatar for that one. Thank you. No in Portland. Listen, when I went to the Mets-Yankees game with Coopie Doo, Fanatics Fest, I think was that weekend? It was Yankees-Orioles. Yankees-Orioles. So I went to Yankees-Mets, not with Cooper, with my buddy Paul. A guy wore a Braves-Freddie Freeman jersey. Why? It's offensive to both teams that are there. Also, Mets fans don't want to see a Braves, and a Yankee fan certainly wants to see Freddie Freeman. You know what I mean? And it's just like, what do you do?

51:13Rich Eisen:I know you're a fan. That's what I'm saying. The thing about Saints-Falcons, too, that is a heated rivalry. And so you're going to stroll in with a Panthers jersey? Like, what are you doing? Like, you're a fan of football. Enjoy it. What are you doing? You can wear a hat, but like a jersey is a lot. I mean, hour three coming up, what's more likely? More R.E.S. consulting, more phone calls. Well, I mean, in a second, we'll talk about it. Because, again, of course you disagree because you have so many teams that you root for. No, not just that. Like, as someone who, in the mid-2000s, when the jersey craze was at its highest, I probably wore more jerseys than everyone here combined.

51:49So I would wear a jersey just because I wanted to wear a jersey. But it's 2025. You're going to go to Giants, Commanders, and a Cowboys jersey? If I wanted to, yes. But why? Because you want to. How can you ever tell anyone what they can and can't do? We're not. We're just saying it's a faux pas. If you want to, then do it.

52:10Rich Eisen:It is a massive faux pas. Let me ask you this question. What is a bigger stadium foul? wearing someone else's jersey in a stadium that they're not playing in that day, right? Or standing the entire game with people sitting behind you? I would say standing is the greatest foul. Standing the entire game, right? Who are you really bothering because you're wearing a jersey? Like, you're not, like, as a Clipper fan. No, you're just making yourself look silly. I mean, standing is egregious. As a Clipper fan, I would see so many Laker jerseys come through Staples when we were playing, and it was annoying, but it's like, whatever, that's your choice.

52:47But you stand, you're messing it up for people. Right. You are. Especially if it's like, I mean, look, fourth quarter, close game, everyone's standing, awesome. First quarter, you're the only idiot standing and clapping. Like, sit down, man. And that happens a lot at wrestling matches. Like, you know, people in the first few rows who've got great seats want to stand up the whole time, and then you're sitting there like, I can't see anything. I forget the name of the band.

53:10Rich Eisen:I forget the name of the band. I was in the NFL Network suite for the Saints Colts Super Bowl. And there was a band from New Orleans. I forget there. They were standing the whole time. And I complained. And they stared at me like I was the asshole. You're just standing. And it's just like, excuse me, whose suite are you? It wasn't me. I wasn't paying for it. But it was the NFL Network suite. Like, I have every right to be here. wait a second time out time out you're the interloper you're in a suite though like yeah right they're in the front row of the suite yeah but they're standing the entire time you can see over somebody in the suite bro it's i will tell you this i and i'm very proud of this fact okay i'm very proud of this fact i'm very lucky to do what i do for a living and i'm very lucky to go to these super bowls i will not watch the game at the game on a monitor or a television set i won't do it.

54:08Rich Eisen:I'm at the game. So I'm going to see. If I'm privileged enough to be there, I'm going to watch that. The Super Bowl between the Steelers and the Packers, I was watching the whole entire first quarter on the Jerry-tron. And I'm like, I forced myself. I got to watch the action. I watched that game in Jerry's suite. Okay, very good. Not anymore.

54:37and 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. 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.