Questions For Tom Pelissero

24:51They didn't block anybody.

24:55You know, let them run in. You know, all four players, you know, they kind of just blocked them off. You know, I think, you know, it's not really holding. If the guy's holding me, you know, like a defense player is holding me, I think you're allowed to do whatever you want to the pass rusher at that point. If I'm in the grab, they can just grab him also and pull him off. It's kind of free range at that point, at that moment. I agree. Chris, you see holding, Eli sees grasping. That's what he sees. I see the greatest play ever. That's right. That's a giant. I was sitting right there. I was there in the building.

25:31That's it.

25:34That's such crap. Get out of here, Eli. It was a great game. What a great game. What are we talking about?

25:41Tom Pelissero:All right, the time has come. Rolled through a lot of the callers, what they wanted to talk about. I now open the floor for the next, let's call it 20 minutes here to you, fellas. Anything you want to know about the NFL, news, thoughts on teams, my training camps, whatever you want to know, lay it on me. Brock, let's start with you. So you did, what, 13 camps in 12 days? what was the biggest story that you kind of came across kind of behind the scenes that you didn't get to talk about on air from any of the camps that you visited? In the early stages of camp it's sort of the calm before the storm.

26:21Tom Pelissero:Like we're not to trades quite yet. That'll start ramping up probably later this week and more so in next week. About guys who are on the cup bubble you mean? Yeah. All of a sudden you're like some veterans with the the second group and you're like that's weird and then usually that guy suddenly that name may have popped into my head which is why i said that all of a sudden you're like what's going on there you've got a lot of money to not be with the uh with the starting group i would say one of the fun things in going to all the different camps is names that pop up that you hadn't heard in your life and then all of a sudden like someone's like oh this guy's really good the lions have a seventh round draft pick wide receiver he's a little banged up right now he's missing some time You got to look up his name for me because now it's already slipping me here.

27:07Tom Pelissero:It's not Isaac Tesla, who they also like as well, but their seventh round wide receiver. Literally everyone I talk to from coaches to front office people to literally the owner of the team brought up the seventh round pick and how good of a training camp that wide receiver is having. So you walk away from a camp like that. Are you struggling to find the Lions draft class there? Yeah, I was looking at the depth chart real quick. Can I just play? There's a guy named Tesla who plays for the Lions in Detroit, home of the muscle car. For the Ford? Dominic Levitt from Georgia. Seventh-round draft pick, making plays all over the place.

27:48Tom Pelissero:Again, he's a little banged up. He's missing a couple of weeks here. But I would not be surprised if that guy is a name that you're hearing as we get toward the regular season. There's 100 of those. Probably not 100. There's a dozen of those names that have popped up over the course of time, but like ones like that, you're like, all right, filing that away. Let's see what that guy can do. Yeah, and also, you know, we talked so much about the quarterbacks. Just kind of a big picture, like which quarter, you know, I always talk about, you know, Tua really needs to have a good year this year. Trevor Lawrence really needs to have a good year this year.

28:18Who are guys like that at the quarterback position who, they're not necessarily playing for their job because they did sign a new contract recently, but who really needs to have a good season?

28:27Tom Pelissero:The Miami dynamic with Tua and Mike McDaniel, you look at, again, the numbers. I always say this. You look at the stats, the win-loss record when Tua is out there with Mike. It's pretty good. 38-24 or something like that? They haven't played that many games together. It's something ridiculous. It's a very good rate. It's around 25-10. It's something like that when they've actually been together. But there's been so much time that Tua has missed that then you get these weird stretches of Skylar Thompson starting a playoff game, or, hey, we tried to roll somebody out there. That didn't work. Let's put Mike, or let's get Snoop Huntley in here.

29:04Tom Pelissero:Michael White was on the team last year. Two, his career record is 38 and 24. His record is 38 and 24. Yeah. But with Mike, it's a, he's only been there three years. Yeah, they have 20, they're 25 and 16. 25 and 16. So that's still, you're winning 64 % of your game somewhere around there. Like, that's pretty good. That's serviceable. But then you have these stretches where you're playing with somebody else. And even when Tua comes back, think about this. Think about the challenge that Mike McDaniel has every week to design a game plan that doesn't get the quarterback hit. Everybody else, you know, hey, on this play, we're going to get the right look, but you're going to have a free rusher and you might have to take a hit.

29:40Tom Pelissero:You can't do that with Tua. So the pressure on him every week is substantial. Having said that, any team that gets three, four years in, and they extended Mike before last season, But 18 that gets three, four years in, and either you haven't made the playoffs, which the Dolphins did make the playoffs twice, and then were banged up in those games. But 18 that hasn't won a playoff game, if you get four years in, and it's kind of the same thing, everybody's job is on the line. Mike McDaniel was brought in for a lot of different reasons, but a big one was he was the guy who came in in his interview and said, I can win with this.

30:14Tom Pelissero:Here's the plays Tua can do. I can make this work. This guy can be really good. Other coaches might have walked in and said, this isn't going to work for us. But he presented the plan saying, I'm going to embrace this. And but for concussions, you have to say it's been a success. Tyreek Hill did not have his best season in 2024. They had injuries all over the place, including their pass rushers. If you can be healthier and get a real Tyreek back, and if the message that they've been spreading in terms of accountability of everybody in that locker room and coaching staff, every person accountable to everybody else, which is where you've heard those two comments about Tyreek, if they can have those things come together, They've got a chance to be good.

30:51Tom Pelissero:No one's talking about the Dolphins being in that mix, but they won, what, 11 games two years ago? Last year was a mess, and Tua missed a bunch of time. When Tua's healthy, they've got a shot. If Tua does not stay healthy again this year, and you're talking about four consecutive seasons of this, and or they just don't get any better, and they don't advance in the playoffs, then you're probably talking about the Dolphins having to consider all options in terms of what's on the table. TJ, you got one? Yeah, kind of. You know, we know that you are an insider, right? And we know that we see you in your current form here on this show and on your insider's show.

31:31But as you and I were talking about the other day, like, why don't we let people know kind of like your journey, like the process that it took to get you to sitting in this chair, man? How did you start?

31:44Tom Pelissero:We covered this a little bit yesterday when Hanson was in here because he was talking about his first job being for what do you say it was $16 ,000? Something like that. Traverse City, Michigan, it was$15 ,000 or$16 ,000. Scott Hansen, host of NFL Red Zone, but he started out making literally that. I was getting rejected from those jobs. I can remember having VHS tapes that were based on me working at the community TV station in Newton, Massachusetts as part of coursework in college and clips from just random little things like editing together something when I had an internship at ESPN, but I had no idea what I was doing.

32:22Tom Pelissero:And the tapes, actually, I should dig that up the next time. I mean, I don't know if we've got a VHS player around here, but we could take a look at what's on that tape. I guarantee it's awful. I guarantee it's legitimately terrible. So I was applying for the same job that Hanson had, but everyone's telling me no. You didn't even hear back no. Sometimes they just mail the tape back to you. A lot of times when I was doing the same thing, you wouldn't even hear back from people. Right. And so my option at that time was I took a part time job at a radio station in Minneapolis, making eight bucks an hour, 20 hours a week with no benefits and not allowed to work overtime covering the Vikings.

33:00Tom Pelissero:So it's opportunity. It's no money. And I was definitely below the poverty line at that time. But it was like, all right, well, I'm going to work way more than 20 hours a week. I'm going to try to figure out this job on the fly. and thankfully there were people around not all the time but a lot of the time who kind of put up with me just kind of siphoning off other you know people actually conducting interviews i didn't know how to ask a question not knowing what to do in the locker room not knowing how to write a story it's reps you got to find your voice and so went from there to taking a job at the eau claire leader telegram in eau claire wisconsin for not a whole lot more than 16 000 a year and then from there to the Green Bay Press Gazette because I broke a story about Green Bay getting a Northwoods League baseball team.

33:45Tom Pelissero:That's how I got on their radar, and that's how I got the job there, as the assistant sports there when I was 26. And I'll leave that other story about how that job opened. I'll leave that for another time. And then went back because one of the people who worked with me at a radio station at the original radio station in Minneapolis, they were starting a different radio station in Minneapolis. They needed somebody to come in and lead the content team and so i came in to do that in 2010 which then somehow it went from there to usa today to nfl network so it's not like a linear path but that was how you know i got to this spot it was just that's one thing that and i i hate that i you know sound old what am i 44 at this point you know talking to greg about like his kids how you sports have changed but it has man has it's it permeates every level of what we do down to when you're a young kid.

34:38Tom Pelissero:Yes. Was there less pressure in youth sports when I was growing up? Absolutely. And because you just had, you had house league and you played and until fifth grade, I believe was the first time that there was travel anything. And all of a sudden it was like, Oh, the good kids now aren't in the league anymore. And I'm kind of like the one left behind. And so, you know, sixth grade, I try out and I make the travel baseball team, seventh grade, I get cut. Right. But like you learn through that process of like, you know, what it is to like just to go through those different things. Like the pressure points are different in the whole deal.

35:12Tom Pelissero:You would play games when it was like pouring rain unless there was lightning. And then you just go to the car for 10 minutes and hope the lightning stop. And then you come back out with your metal bats and you'd resume playing. now if there's like a 20 chance of a storm an hour before my daughter's soccer game gets canceled and i don't or if there's one some rain starts literally every parent and child runs to their cars and just drives off we're giving up that's it not playing tonight it's over my daughter played three and a half soccer games this entire summer in like a 12 game league everything else was canceled it's the the air quality is too low the it's might rain the it's wet on the field because it rained two days ago everything gets canceled and that is again i know i i come across as you know there's a generational gap and there's this will you know somebody will see this clip and be like oh you get off my stand we're taking care of kids they need those seven water breaks during in their one-hour soccer game.

36:21Tom Pelissero:We need to rotate. We drank out of a hose. When the kids show up. That had holes in it. And it was attached to the shed. When they show up 15 minutes late to the game, and the coach is like, all right, subs, go right in the game. We've been benched. Your parents can't get you on time. Not my problem. I'm not going to take away playing time from the kids and the parents who did get here on time. And they do it every single game, and you keep putting them out there. I don't know. That's just not how it came up. but then I think that a lot of that translates to like what media has become here and again I don't have all the answers I'm not sitting here like giving you a lecture on you should go and work for free and all that stuff what I would say is my personal experience of having to somebody had to give you an opportunity you had to convince somebody to put you on air you had to convince somebody to let you publish a story on a website now because there's no barricades it's a great thing.

37:19Tom Pelissero:I always tell this one, like, you know, young people will reach out and I try to call people back. If some kid emails me, I'm in college, I'm in high school, whatever. I'll try to call them back. And I'm always saying, like, you have fewer barriers to entry than we ever had. There was no YouTube. There was no social media. There were no blogs. This is like early 2000s. Like these things didn't exist. And so it's great. You can publish your own stuff. You can get all these reps that I had to. Somebody had to give me the opportunity to get the reps. You can just record stuff and if it sucks fix it do a different thing the next time experiment and find your voice it's i mean greg cited malcolm gladwell earlier it's the what is it 10 000 hours on task that that's what you need to become an expert in your field and that's been shot down by all sorts of other researchers but the point is like getting those reps that's the only way i'm not the greatest talk show host of all time but like i've become functional enough that rich lets me sit in this chair occasionally because of like going through and doing satellite radio shows and local radio shows and tv and just like doing it the issue in my opinion and again i'm sure somebody's gonna watch this and aggregate it out of context a big part of the issue is 95 of the stuff and i see because like my kids will just be flipping around random youtube stuff it sucks there's a lot of it that's terrible and there's nobody to say you suck it's not even like you're not good enough give up it's this is terrible this should never be on no one should watch this you should be ashamed that you thought this was good we all had a boss like that oh yeah and i'm not somebody who reacts well to being crushed but i've definitely had it and been like man screw that guy but then the next you're like, you know, that did suck.

39:04Tom Pelissero:That was terrible. You know, and like, you don't have that if you're just going, I'm starting a YouTube page. And again, there are people you can go fast track, you can amass millions of followers, and then a major media company will hire you to be a big part of their brand going forward. And it's like, wow, like, is that fair? There is no fair. There's only the fairness of like what someone will let you do. If you convince somebody you're that impactful and you're that good at your job and you could elevate everything else, someone's going to give you the opportunity what we lack at the lowest levels is people just go on and start tweeting stuff and i try not to read the mentions but like i'll see stuff and i'm like again i'll see you then you know click the bio and it's like i'm you know this blogger this i'm like there's like a bare minimum amount of research that i would like to think but you just all you do you plug in you create an account you're on you're on and you're on tiktok and you're on x and you're on threads and you're on Instagram and you're everywhere, but you're nowhere because you're not getting better.

40:05Tom Pelissero:I remember doing some of the worst, like in hindsight, I am glad that, you know, local radio websites, like they all get remade every three years. And the entire catalog is like wiped off the face of the earth. I am glad some of the shows I did 20 years ago don't exist. And like, and to your point, there's a long winded way of saying it, But like there are people along the way who had to see what I was doing and then go, I think he can do more. Paul Allen, who's still the voice of the Vikings, was like a huge influence for me and impact on my career. Because I was one year into being, again, Dotcom Tom at KFAN Radio in Minneapolis.

40:43Tom Pelissero:A name that I only got because I replaced a guy named Dotcom Dave with that. Dotcom Tom is pretty good. And PA the second year, he just saw how much work I was putting in. and he's like, hey, do you want to co-host Vikings Uncensored on Monday nights? And at a bar, we'd have a player on every week. One time a player showed up extremely high on painkillers slurring his words. We had to do another hour with him. We were getting calls and it was like, that was a very formative experience for me. But if I sucked at that and if I was bad, eventually we got the tap on the shoulder going, we're not going to have you on anymore.

41:14Tom Pelissero:You're making a YouTube page for five years and you're doing the same crap over and over again. somebody's got to jump in and say this is not good enough everyone needs an editor so it's true somebody somewhere you'd like to think can step in but that's all I would say I'm not telling anybody we're not trying to step on anybody's dreams I'm not trying to like listen not everybody's going to go and be you know taking box scores at 1130 on a midnight deadline in Eau Claire Wisconsin when you can't get the one coach whose town has 25 readers to answer the phone because he's out drunk at the bar because they finally won a game.

41:52Tom Pelissero:And then he misspells his kids' names. And then the parents are calling you and complaining, my kid's name was spelled wrong. And I'm like, I don't know. The guy who took that box score was high as hell. He made$5 an hour. He went home sick right after. And he couldn't tell me if he was sick from eating Taco Bell or Taco John's because he had both before he came in. I'm not saying you need to go do that. I am saying there is something about being at the absolute base level that is a really good thing. Out of all the answers, I'm amazed I even get to sit here with you guys. But we all got here somehow.

42:29Tom Pelissero:We're not, Tom. You're great, man. Don't ever.

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44:22Okay, here we go. Mike Del Tufo. I'm in my natural environment. You are. I'm in my field with cheerleaders. Emily, take it away. Hey, Mike, are you nervous? No, not at all. Go ahead. We'll hear your set of pop-ups. All right. Okay. Here, I'll take it. How do you guys hold on to these things? There we go. Give me your microphone. There we go. All right, Mike. So what move are you teaching him? Okay, so we're gonna do a dance. This is how it's gonna start. You're gonna step out and your arms are gonna go right, left, right. Oh my gosh. Okay, then you're gonna box and pump. Good. Box and pump. So right, left, right, box and pump.

44:56Five, six, seven, eight. One and two, three, four. Good. Now your hips are gonna go right, left while you frame your face. So five, six, and now... Get those hips in there, Mike. Come on. Hair. I got it really hard. Got a big hair flip to the back. And then hair flip all the way over to the front. Hair flip. Good. That's definitely one thing I couldn't do. Let's take that in count. Ready? Oh, my God. And five, six, seven, eight. One and two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Yeah. All right. Show off your red boots and walk. So hair flip, maybe? Yeah. It has to be a sassy walk. Yeah. Sassy walk.

45:44So walk one, two, three. That's not sassy enough. Step together. Four. Now pump it. Five, six, seven, eight. Oh, you got to really, no way. You got to get low on that. Focus. You got to get low on that. Coach, how about just a chair? So ready, take it from the hair flip. Ready, and five, six, seven, eight. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Can we do it from the top? Let's do it from the top. Ready. Okay, hold on a minute. Real fast. So how would I introduce what you're doing? This is HTC Mike. HTC Mike. I like it. Here we go. HTC Mike and the Houston Texans cheerleaders, everybody.

46:26Five, six, seven, eight. One, two, three, four, five, six, five, seven, eight. Walk one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Yes! Yes! Yes! Mike. Emily, tell him what he's won. Mike. Delphi. And for being a great sport, we brought you a fully signed Houston Texans Cheerleading Challenge. Yeah! Yeah! All right. Mike del Tufo's, it's a Delphi. It's the first Delphi of the week. H2C Mike. Fantastic You did great Not creepy at all

47:08Tom Pelissero:Where is that selfie Del Tufo Is it somewhere Yeah I probably hang It's pop up every couple of months for you It's hanging in the wall of his bathroom We can scroll his Instagram page But it would take a while with all the toothpicks He's got it framed It's on the wall Could you right now Del Tufo If you had to do that would you be better or worse than you were eight years ago? No, I still suck. Mike, you've lost like 40 pounds. I was going to say. Now, the problem is I'm not coordinated. I have no coordination, hence why I went into mixing. I learned at a young age, sports are not part of my – and that's like sports.

47:46Dancing's different, but no, I can't do that.

47:48Tom Pelissero:You're roller skating, though, right? Oh, no, I'm a pro. Champion roller skater. No, no, no, no. Now we're talking a different – now, yeah. That's athleticism. That is athleticism balance. Tom Brady when it comes to roller skating. I mean, and I will. I'll have friends call him right now. I was the best skater in my rink. Like, there were, like, maybe four of us that were the top. I know we have covered Del Tufo's roller skating career before on the show, but every time it comes up, I was like, Hyundai Reed, what is it? I completely forgot what we were doing. You couldn't even go. You were like a deer in that.

48:18Tom Pelissero:It was great. It stopped. You seem like you might be a tad top-heavy. Like, your legs seem like you got thick trucks. Very skinny as a kid. I didn't gain weight until I met my ex-wife. Because she didn't cook. And we ate fast food every day of the week. Did you meet her at the roller rink? No. At a bar. Which is a wrong way off the bat. That's a big red flag. Exactly. That was a red flag. Done. Did you skate into the bar? No. This is post-skating career. Were there poles at that bar? No, no. A different bar. Tom, every year, there's four to five playoff teams from the previous year who don't make it traditionally.

48:55That's right, Brock. Yes. Who do you are identifying right now as those teams from the previous year who could be in trouble this season?

49:03Tom Pelissero:All right, let's start with the teams that are not in trouble, in my opinion. I think that we see clearly the Eagles back. Yep. I think there's no question the Ravens are back. The Bills are back. Chiefs not making the playoffs is just a possibility that I'm not even going to entertain right now. So that's four. Other playoff teams from last year. Lions, I don't have much question. Lions are going to be there in the end again. Packers and the Vikings also made it last year as wild cards. I mean, the Packers, the fact that Jordan Love is banged up right now, it's his left thumb. He's going to be fine.

49:36Tom Pelissero:It's not the greatest omen, but this should be a more talented Packers team. So I would think that they're still right there. The Vikings is just an unknown. They're over under, you said yesterday, is nine and a half, I believe. I can't give gambling advice. But this is a team that if you are able to have J.J. McCarthy play, at a similar level to what you do with Sam Darnold, they should be pretty good again. Other teams, I mean, Denver, everything I've heard, I haven't been through Denver. Everything I've heard has been good. They were a team that came on late. Are they going to be able to sustain that?

50:09Tom Pelissero:I think that that's one of the teams you look at and just say, all right, are they going to continue to ascend? The Chargers, this is not a good omen for the Chargers. No. Najee Harris still hasn't been seen on the field since the 4th of July fireworks explosion. You lose Rashawn Slater. you lose Mike Williams to retirement you bring back Keenan out there's a lot of things there where a Chargers team you would think is taking the next leap forward and certainly Jim Harbaugh has challenged his team to do that that's another team that's going to be interesting we got 10 seconds who else did I miss from last year's playoff field Houston, Pittsburgh, Washington Pittsburgh man it's going to be interesting Aaron the day I was there didn't look like Aaron but he also missed the whole offseason so does he ascend we'll find out thanks everybody listening See you then, Tom.