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Rich Eisen here. At Hyundai, the SUV trophy shelf is getting a little out of hand because U.S. News and World Report named Hyundai the best SUV brand. That's five out of six years with hybrid SUVs like the premium and capable Palisade, the adventure built Santa Fe, and the tech infused Tucson. Which means at this point, the shelf will need its own structural support system and a dedicated construction crew.
Probably need those little visitor hard hats too. Visit U.S. News Best Cars at cars.usnews.com and visit. Visit hyundaiusa.com for more details. This is the Rich Eisen Show.
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On with the show. Bowers, for him to go through this right now, you know, he's earned it. This is the Rich Eisen Show. Bye, bye, baseball. The Rich Eisen Show.
What are your thoughts now being behind O three? We just got to get a win. Today's guests: long-time NFL writer Peter King, legendary broadcaster Bob Costas, Steelers running back Jalen Warren, actor Kevin Pollak, and now it's Rich Eisen. All right, everybody. Welcome to this edition of the Rich Eisen Show, live on Disney Plus, the ESPN app, ESPN Radio, Sirius XM channel eighty.
What a great day this is in these parts, particularly for yours truly. Not just because we're we're here together to chat. On a big sports day, but the guest list in particular is pretty sweet. For me personally, Peter King's in the green room, and he's got a new book coming out, and he's awesome. And has he ever been here?
I don't know. Oh, physically here, physically here. No, and so he's he's here, and. I'll tell him again when he comes out here. But when he on his MMQB on you know on SI dot com when he first said, "Hey, NFL Network's draft coverage is pretty darn good." It made us all feel the NFL Network as if we had made it.
So for him to be here is pretty special. He was always great, you know. When Susie was sitting in this chair, he would call in to be part of the program. He's just as first class as they get.
So he, the fact that he's here, and then when I first was on Sports Center all the years ago and covering baseball playoff action. For the first time on ESPN Radio, as the studio host for MLB on ESPN Radio, once upon a time Yankees, the Yankees were were hosting a playoff game. I was working it, and somebody had reached out to ESPN to connect, and then I connected with him because I was such a massive fan of his and emulated him as much as I possibly can. Invited me to. Go have dinner and give me a ride up to work.
His name was Bob Costas, and he's on the program, and that's awesome. Kevin Pollock, who is a friend, he's coming in in studio in hour number three. His stories that he tells on this show are legendary. My son is sitting here. Cooper is sitting off to the side.
He will join us later on for a higher register, and he's here because he's off of school today. You have one more. I did not.
Well, we can do that live. We have one more guest. It's Jalen Warren, who was on his guillotine league team. He got chopped too soon, and then Jalen Warren. Has not one but two massive touchdown runs and catches to be the offensive player of the week.
So it's kind of ironic and yet sad all at once. Poor Coop. And that's the way Dad says hello to his youngest son, who's here on the set. Kind of teach him right. Yeah, I mean, teach your children well.
As they said, teach.
So all together, it's kind of ironic and wonderful and warm and personal. Good to see you, Chris Brockman. What's up, Rich? And I get to hang with my friends, Mike Del Tufo. Good to see you.
Good to see you, Rich. T.J. Jefferson is the candle lit over there. Candle lit. Coop is here.
Peter King's here. All is well. Peter King's here. Tyler Pollock's coming. It's gonna be a great show.
Can we see this? Yeah. And by the way, what a massive football game tonight! What was so close to being Super Bowl '60s matchup, and I absolutely every single human that's going to be sitting in that stadium with a Broncos jersey on as a fan, or any Denver Bronco fan that shows up to this stadium tonight. Will go.
Oh, the starting quarterback that's out there right now against Seattle. If only he was healthy in the AFC Championship game, we would have gone to Santa Clara to take on the Seattle Seahawks, not the New England Patriots. I'll push back.
Now I know you'll push back. That's why I said every single Bronco fan that's in the stadium tonight. Obviously, you know. They would feel the results would be different. Cooper doesn't feel that way, and I'm sure again all the Patriot fans don't feel that way because the Patriots were surging with their young quarterback taken in the draft the same year Bo Nix was taken in Denver, and now in comes Seattle off of their second loss of the season.
First at home against the 49ers, who are there trailing by now two full games. You want to add the half game of being a head-to-head loss, so two and a half games back, if you will, of the Forty Niners, who are going to be sitting at home, popping on their Prime Video app, watching this game, and then knowing they're going to show up on the Disney family of networks on Monday night against the Washington Commanders team that I can. One thousand percent tell you, without even being in that facility, they're having a rough week. It's got a, it's kind of a long week for the Commanders. It gets even longer waiting for Monday night to wipe the taste of that disastrous finish against the Giants out of their mouth at one three and one.
So you have to sit here and say, the Niners are going to be favored in that game.
So the Seahawks need to go into Seattle, into Denver tonight, and win this game. Otherwise, the defending Super Bowl champs are five hundred after six weeks. And if we had told you that on the first night of the season, it would be like, oh yeah, because Sam Donald's still out, right? No. He's been back.
He's been back, and he's been the quarterback of this team that has lost twice. And we're sitting here wondering, okay, do they have the running game to get through tonight? Because one guy who has particularly run well against Denver this year, as we know. Is the guy who did it on opening night on ESPN, and then the next week on NBC, and then the week after that, and the week after that, and the only time, the only reason why Kenneth Walker the Third didn't do it last week is because he was off on a buy. And he is running and catching and throwing and making the Chiefs a bigger problem than they usually are when Mahomes and Kelsey and everyone else is healthy and surging.
So if the run game struggles tonight against Denver, then you know it's an open question of through six weeks. Did the Seahawks make the right rostering decisions? Or can the Seahawks just turn around from that loss against the Niners and say we are the defending Super Bowl champs? We are on the road and we are going to make Bo Nix's first half problems in the first month of the season look like a theme park ride. Because if he has trouble seeing the field and he thinks he's not aggressive enough, and he's wondering in his head, "Do I need to make the throw here?
Am I getting a chunk play there?" Guess what? Here comes the dark side, and you know this Luke could use the force all he wants. Ain't gonna happen because the Seahawks' defense is coming with their turnover takeaway happy defense. No Pat Sertan tonight for Denver. Ooh, he's not going to be able to answer the bell on a on a short week.
What's going to happen there? You know when JSN comes trying to wipe the taste of that wildly unexpected drop against the Forty Niners out of his palate. Can't believe that happened. Can't wait for this game tonight because the the Seahawks trying to avoid five hundred as a start in their title defense season, or they go four and two where they're going to stay ahead of the Rams. And right behind the Niners, regardless of the result on Monday night, Denver, fresh off of beating the Chargers, do they stay right behind the Chiefs, or do they go to five hundred?
And that silver and black object is closer in that rearview mirror, while the Chiefs. Take on the Chargers at home off a bye week. Andy Reid nine and four off a bye in his years with the Chiefs. He was even better when he did that with the Eagles. This is what's at stake tonight.
Can't wait! It's going to be awesome. What would surprise you more from the NFC West so far? If Seattle does lose tonight and they're three and three, or the Rams being at two and three? Rams being two and three.
We were talking about that team being undefeated going into their first game with the Seahawks in Week 16. No, and we weren't like doing a shtick. It was like, right, this team is so good. They and both both teams though that you mentioned very difficult schedules. Yeah, and unexpected injuries.
Right.
So I I would say that. You know, although the and tonight, you know, Sean Payton back calling the plays offensively against Mike McDonald, who has earned, well earned, his reputation of being one of the best, if not the best, defensive play callers, where a head coach had set on in the NFL.
So that's what's at stake tonight. And then while we're on the subject of defending champions. Struggling, Mike Del Tufo's Los Angeles Dodgers are having their backs against the wall, having lost last night in Chavez Ravine, falling down three games to none to the Milwaukee Brewers, and it was one of those games last night. Where we go into it, saying Dodgers are going to show up. You even, Chris, were saying Shohei Ohtani is playing.
You know, you were trying to bet a prop that he's going to homer. Yeah, absolutely. Right, he's going to for sure. He's going to homer twice. I like it.
All that stuff. His first at bat last night, first pitch swinging, flies out to left. Second time up, hit by a pitch. Walked as well. He, I mean, he did finally get a hit.
Yep. You know what I mean.
So it it did prove that he's not toast. Yeah. But what does it matter now that they're down three games to none? And the irony, the baseball gods that wink at you sometimes. And what do I mean by this?
This Dodgers team that watched Jackson Churio lead off with a first swing, first pitch home run to take a one nothing lead, getting all the Dodgers fans antsy, rightfully so. Only to have Will Smith step to the plate after Otani reached, and just I thought this was a. A home run. I thought this left the yard off his bat. Will Smith?
Yes. Yeah, me too. And instead, the park holds it. Two runs score. It's a two-one lead.
Place going not Dodgers doing their arms swinging dances with each other. And I thought to myself, "Here we go," because Blake Snell is lights out. And where have we heard that before in a playoff game with the Dodgers? Oh, yes, that's right. The 2020 World Series Game Six, Dodgers up three games to two.
This is the COVID year. We're in Houston, right? Or no, pardon me, the Metroplex in Arlington, and Blake Snell is dealing five and a third innings, gives up a single to Austin Barnes, and out comes Kevin Cash. I remember I was sitting at home. Oh my goodness.
I am like, what's he doing? Yeah, he's taking out Blake Snell. Oh my gosh! Oh wait, okay, third time through the order. Here comes Mookie Betts.
Got to take him out because that's what analytics say. We came on this show and we went all in, like everybody else, on the manager of the Rays, who's now three games shy of getting back to the World Series, with a game three in Cleveland going down on this day. But here comes the manager to take out Blake Snell, and you knew it was coming. Mookie Betts doubles, then you wound up after that a wild pitch, and then a Corey Seager ground out. There goes the one nothing lead for the Rays.
Dodgers take a two one lead. They win three one, and they win the World Series in a very difficult year. I'm not one of those asterisk guys, but that's for another day. Everybody else was dealing with the same schedule and the same problems, but now here we are. Crazily enough, wondering why Dave Roberts left Blake Snell in.
Can you make it up? Not really. We're wondering why he left him in, even though Snell had retired fourteen straight going into the inning, balling. He walks Andrew Vaughn, who gets replaced by Christian Yelich at first base. And up comes Jake Bowers, former New York Yankee.
And by the way, Verducci told an outstanding story, like an outstanding A plus plus story about Jake Bowers after he homered, hit one 412 feet after almost homering, but yanked one foul before it. To give the Brewers the lead back, and as Verducci's telling the story about Bowers was out of baseball, and was thinking about becoming a teacher because his wife was pregnant, and when we found out his wife is pregnant, he's like, "I got to go back to baseball for the insurance." Oh wow! I mean, this is what you this is what you want to hear from a sideline reporter or a dugout reporter. My gosh. And as he's telling the story, words are barely out of his mouth.
Garrett Mitchell homers even further. Bauer's home run went for twelve. Mitchell went for twenty-eight. And now Snell's over a hundred pitches, and everybody's now asking the manager, who got his first ring as the manager of the Dodgers, because Blake Snell was taken out too early. Why'd you take him out too late, Dave Roberts?
And this is what he had to say about that afterwards. I was trying to get him three more hitters, and we had Evan. You know, for that fourth hitter, he had his way with those two lefties and took care of Vaughn. And obviously, the leadoff walk hurt. Hasn't given up a homer all year, but it just—it's baseball.
And for me, I felt good with where Blake stuff was at. And you know, you got to give Bowers credit—he put together another good at bat, which he did at their place, and you know, spurred that rally. And then right there, saw eight, nine pitches, then end up hitting a homer. Makes sense, to be honest with you. Every word he said.
This makes more sense to leave Snell in the game than. Than what happened in 2020, and plus, how can you argue with Dave Roberts' button pushing? If it's if if it's finally run its course in terms of always working out or 99 working out, to salute as they said in the Godfather. Yes, tip your cap. Right.
As the Dodgers now try to avoid the dreaded sweep by going back at it tonight in Chavez Ravine on wait for it. The 38th anniversary of the Kirk Gibson home run. I'm staying till the end of the game, and wait for it—the last time I catch it, a team came back from an 0-3 deficit to win an LCS. Was a team that got sparked by a stolen base recorded by. The guy you just heard from, Dave Roberts, for the Red Sox against my Yankees—you can't make it up.
The baseball gods are are winking with both eyes. And wait for it—the dugout reporter for NBC Sports that night, 38 years ago tonight, is joining us in hour two. His name is Bob Costas. Holy crap! I told you this show was going to be off the rails, fun and special, and it is.
Peter Kings in the green room are going to bring him out. But before we do, when it comes to your home, Pella Windows and Doors are the experts at taking care of you and your home. At Pella, they find the products that meet your needs, and their experts install them. That means working with a company that builds and installs a quality product with real pricing, real simple, really beautiful. And when a trusted name like Pella chooses to partner with us, that says a lot.
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Peter King and his new book coming up. Rich Eisen here. At Hyundai, the SUV trophy shelf is getting a little out of hand because U.S. News and World Report named Hyundai the best SUV brand. That's five out of six years with hybrid SUVs like the premium incapable Palisade, the adventure built Santa Fe, and the tech infused Tucson.
Which means at this point, the shelf will need its own structural support system and a dedicated construction crew. Probably need those little visitor hard hats too. Visit U.S. News Best Cars at. Cars.Us.news.com and visit hyundaiusa.com for more details.
Today's forecast: falling leaves, football, and an eighty percent chance you're going to need a few more things for that backyard project. Running low on yard bags? Need a leaf blower? Let Express Delivery from the Home Depot bring them right to you. Get fall project essentials delivered fast, so you can get it done with plenty of time left for the game.
Get what you need in two hours or less with express delivery from the Home Depot. Subject to availability, order select in-stock items by 4 p.m. Restrictions and fees apply. Rich Eisen here for Gusto. On my shows, we talk a lot about what happens in the spotlight—the games, the highlights, and the moments that get replayed and debated.
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Peter King is here on the Rich Eisen show. His book is "The Game," available wherever you get your books. We're just chopping it up on the TV. Only seconds. There it is.
There's the the cover. Looks like a football, Rich. It does. You know, kudos to you. And the word Peter King looks like the Duke.
Yeah, that's right. That's right. You know.
So, and we're just talking about you know the advent of the combine coverage and the draft coverage and the year round aspect of it. And clearly, that's the big difference to when you first started to the current day. No, no question. And Rich, I when I started doing this book, I was looking for new things that I didn't know, and I did not know that in 2009 the NFL started to create this thing called the calendar wheel, the circular calendar that the NFL did not just exist in a 12-month basis. It existed so that one thing led into another.
The Super Bowl led into the scouting combine. Scouting combine led into free agency. Free agency led into all the pre-draft schmaltz and the pro days at Auburn and Oklahoma State, and then you know the pre-draft led into the draft, which led into you know off-season workouts, yeah, off-season workouts, OTAs, yeah, and so and so and then and then and so Peter O'Reilly, the NFL said, you know, I said, look at this thing. Jam packed. He goes well.
Look at late June, early July, and he goes.
Now Roger is pressing us to find something there. Yep. So I have a chapter on the calendar wheel, which I never heard of until about a year ago, and then I was able to do that.
So there is so much. About this game, that I enjoy just sort of delving into, from going back across across the country with John Madden, looking back at that story, looking at Bill Walsh's disastrous turn Super Bowl last year with the Niners to Tagliabue after nine eleven to. Did Reggie White really want to pick the Packers? I'm not so sure. Really, and and and why in the world did Nick Foles played the best game of his life in the biggest game of his life against the great and powerful as Bill Belichick?
How did that happen?
So those are the kind of things that I was able that I had so much fun diving into, spending two weeks on you know really trying to find out nine things about Philly Special that you didn't know.
So anyway, notes that you took from back in the day, or a press pass from back in the day that you unearthed through the research of this book that made you sit go, "Okay, I forgot about this." Yes, what what what what what leaps out at you? What leaps out at me, quite honestly, is I mean, the thing that I think is the the best part of the book, at least to me, is the nineteen eighty eight season with the Niners that everybody remembers as the The John Candy Super Bowl, yes, you know, with Montana Sand Harris Barton. Hey, look, there's John Candy, and then he throws the winning touchdown pass to John Taylor. Great, wonderful, everything. You didn't see how the sausage was made.
How so? In the middle of that season, Bill Walsh is sitting at Eddie DeBartolo's kitchen table in Menlo Park, California, crying his eyes out. Why? Twice, because the season was falling apart, and maybe Bill Walsh's profession. Me and his exi, his own personal existence was falling apart because football was so important to him.
And that year, there was a come to Jesus meeting of the coaches and that staff who didn't think Walsh was doing a great job. And Mike Holmgren, this neo-fight quarterback coach, who had Joe Montana and Steve Young in his quarterback room, and neither one of them was. Happy. The team wasn't happy because Walsh, you know, was was jockeying between quarterbacks, and this forty-year-old coach Mike Holmgren at that moment said to Bill Walsh, "said Walsh went around the room, 'Hey guys, what's the problem here? Tell me the problem.'" And Mike Holmgren said, "Coach, the problem is you.
You need to pick a quarterback." And Walsh got ticked off, and he stormed out of the room. And so Holmgren said, "Man, I left house, left my house this morning with a nice wife, Kathy, and three daughters, expecting their dad to come home with a job. I am not going to come home with a job. That guy's going to whack me today." And he came back. Walsh came back in.
He goes, "You know, I've been doing some thinking. Mike's right. I do need to pick somebody." And we're picking Joe Montana, and that is how we're going to go through the rest of the season. And you know what happened? That changed everything, and they went on to win the Super Bowl.
So, you know, those are the kind of things I never knew that. I don't think ardent Forty-Niner fans, honestly, knew that. And to me, that's the kind of you know, my white whale used to be. I want to spend a week with the officials, which I did. My white whale used to be.
I want to take the bus across the country with John Madden, which I did. This became my white whale. I want to find out some things about huge events in the last forty years that people don't know. Peter King here. The game got to get it.
It was released on Tuesday this week. Get it wherever you get your books. What was it like traveling the country with John Madden? Oh my God, that guy! I tell everybody this whole thing.
Madden is really Madden.
Okay, so the only thing that's different about Madden, he's a little growly. You know he had this rule on his bus. Rich said, "If you start a bottle of water, you got to finish it. If you open that bottle, you got to finish the bottle." It was fifty ounces. It was one of those giant bottles, fifty ounces.
And so we're like one hour into the trip from Pleasanton, California, all the way to the Dakota in Manhattan, where was the next door neighbor of Roberta Flack, where he was really good pals with yo. Koono, and we're an hour into this trip, and all of a sudden I hear, "What did I tell you?" And I and I thought, "Well, what what happened?" And I look around, and he goes. You start water, you and I said, "Oh my god!" He had told me that that that was a rule, and I just started a bottle, left it there, and went to talk to the bus driver. And so I said, "Oh my god!" Can you imagine if he throws me off the bus in Reno? I mean, what am I going to tell Sports Illustrated?
Yeah, I had this thing with John Madden, but I blew it because I broke the water rule on the bus. But he, Rich, you know what he is? He's curious. He's inquisitive, you know. If it wasn't looking at, gee, I wonder what that wildflower is when we're going across Nebraska on I eighty.
Turned out to be spotted knapweed. If it wasn't, you know, I wonder, you know, how the traffic is going to be coming in and out of New York. And I wonder how. I mean, he just was a curious dude, and I just, I, I love the guy. Everything that's said about him that's good.
You're right. You're just right. Mariucci told me that you know because Mariucci was tight with him. Yeah, not just because of the Northern California connection, because Pleasanton, California. He basically.
Owned the town, like real estate, all of it. He, when it was you know when he was the coach of the Raiders, he started investing in the town or whatever. And he and Mooch had a bocce ball tournament. That was a fundraiser every year. He told me that he was a diehard poker guy, and that the poker group threw cards in in the casket.
Wow, buried with a deck of cards. That is what he told me about that. That's really and and it just again it just it it it human. He's He was a human, yeah. And the few times that I got to meet him, it was such a.
And by the way, I love that you refer to him in the present tense in so many ways because he is ever present. And that may be one of you know. Again, I know I get accused because yeah, he was my boss for almost a quarter century. Roger Goodell's love of Madden, yeah. That they now have every Thanksgiving as a Madden celebration.
The coins have his face on it. Fantastic! You can't you can't celebrate the guy enough. Correct. And and and every broadcaster that does his job now, you could see that you could see that they all they all kind of pull a little bit from his from his style, and so the.
Just seeing the old school games with Madden calling him, it it just brings a wistfulness, but also a love that Rich. There's one other. There's one other guy who is the most like Madden of anybody I knew in the last forty years, and that's Steve Sabol. And I had no intention. I had no intention of doing a chapter on Steve Sabol, but I did.
And do you know why I did that? Because I went down to NFL Films and I sat with their guys. And they probably talked a little bit too much and shared a little bit too much, but they told me this story that I put in the book about how Steve Sabel choreographed not only what was going to happen down the stretch of his life, but he choreographed his memorial service, and he choreographed it all the way down to here is where, here is where I want my ashes to be spread, and it's in a. Dwarf elm tree that Steve Sabel could see growing out of his window in the you know in right in the parking lot at NFL Films. His ashes are buried there.
People can walk by there every day. But here's the reason why I ended up writing about Steve Sabel when he was just two years out of college. He took a Bell and Howell camera to Green Bay, and he went and he. Started to shoot Vince Lombardi, and he went to the ice bowl. And that night, it was New Year's Eve night, and he went into Vince Lombardi's house as Lombardi's guest.
He didn't know Lombardi didn't know he was going to bring his camera. He brought his camera, and he started taking you know film of this Christmas party or this New Year's party. And what was incredible about it is at one point Lombardi, the great and powerful Vince. Vince Lombardi says to him, "Hey, hey, maybe it's time to put the camera away now, kid." And Steve Sabol said, "I'm not putting this bleeping camera away because nobody will ever be in this position again to be able to have a camera in Vince Lombardi's prime to see these great, great moments." And I believe that that Steve Sabol is a gigantic reason why Vince Lombardi. Lombardi is not only a legend in football, but a legend in life today because of all the film that he took of Lombardi.
A million percent, I couldn't agree with you more. Yeah, and again, everything that you are saying, I'm. You love Sable, love Sable.
Well, how do you not love Sable?
Well, NFL Network doesn't exist without him. Yeah, as you know. Yeah, and and so I got to know him because of it, and I love the man. He was a rock on tour. He was an artist.
He knew everything. He knew everything about everything. You go to NFL films, and there's all of these the notes, the move.
Well, there's the movie posters on the wall that are all in foreign languages. Because he was a massive film. He was a film buff. Yeah, and he was also a man of arts and letters and language. Yeah, he was.
We I miss him every day. Um, and so I when I when I wrote my book, the last one that I did in 2007 about the advent of NFL Network. I asked him to write the the the forward. He did. He gave it to me within a day.
And then I had as soon as you brought him up, I had Chris Brockman pull this off the wall. I'm a pack rat; I save everything. Yeah, so I'm putting this right here. Hopefully, my the crew can can get an up close shot of this. Wow!
But it's it's a note he sent me after for the first time I was nominated for an Emmy award. For my work on NFL Network, yeah, and it was like two, three years. Two years into NFL Network, I was stunned that I that people were paying attention. To be honest, and he wrote me this note of congratulations. You have not only done well, but you have made everyone around you better.
You know, and and he basically said, "That's the mark of a great studio host." Good luck. I didn't expect this, and I saved it and I framed it, and it's here every day. Should be there because he is, you know, he. And then his dad. I'll tell you this story real quick.
I feel bad because I'm promoting your book, but you're you're bringing all these great stories. Yeah. Um. One day I'm at NFL Network, and it was this is in the early two first year, two years. Yeah.
And um, there was only about twenty of us. In the whole place, yeah. And I'm walking through the offices. Nobody's there. And I'm walking, you know, from the studio to the offices, and I'm walking back to the studio across the parking lot.
If you remember where it used to be, okay, yeah. And in walks by himself, no one around him, out of the blue, Ed Sabel, yeah, the man.
Okay, yeah, and I'm like. What are you doing here? And he's like, "I am going to catch a flight. I haven't seen NFL Network. I just told told the the driver just stop here." Wow!
And I am like, "Does anybody know you are here?" And he goes, "No." So I call, I got Steve Bornstein on the phone. I am like, "Steve, are you here?" He goes, "Yeah." What's going on? I am like, "Ed Sabel walked in." He's like, "What?" And I am like, "Yeah." He comes and it was. It was as if you know the founder of football had walked in the door. That's so great, you know.
You just stopped in, yeah. And you know, obviously, the stories of the Sables and NFL films. You're right; like it put the NFL on the map, and books like yours, networks like mine, yeah, don't exist without it. I think I really feel that's why. That's why.
I mean, Steve Sable did a Mount Rushmore of the 100 most important people that have made. The NFL, the gargantuan not only sporting sporting entity, but you know cultural icon that it is in America today. And Steve Sables in my top twenty, and everybody, oh boy, that's kind of high for Sable. I don't know. You just you have no idea.
You just haven't. If you don't think that Steve Sable belongs in the top twenty of the most important people ever in significance in the NFL, you just don't know it. And I. The one other thing I would just say about history itself: we do a bad job with it. One of the reasons I wanted to do that aspect of the book, I wanted to bring up people like Don Hudson, Otto Graham.
I wanted to put Paul Brown third, George Halas is first on the list, but I wanted to bring up these people who I think everybody kind of feels.
Well, you know, Belichick's got to be the greatest coach of all time. I'm not saying he is, and I don't think he is. I think Paul Brown is, but the point. Is we do not respect history enough. We don't know who Otto Graham is.
We don't know who Don Hudson is. I mean, Don Hudson retired after twenty five years of the NFL, and he was had three times as many catches, three times as many receiving yards, three times as many touchdowns as anybody in the history of the game. To that moment, he matters. You can't just say, "Well, it's Jerry Rice and nobody else." History matters, and that's one of the things I really hope to do with my book. And it's.
You you have you have I mean just again about Paul Brown he was one of the innovators of of you know looking for prospects for the draft yeah he was one of the first people to go oh my the other owners in in football aren't even paying attention to finding these players how about Rich how about Paul Brown invents a team in 1946 in Cleveland yes they play in the All American Football Conference they win the title four straight years then they get folded into the NFL. And Bird Bell wants to teach him a lesson. This new upstart Cleveland Browns schedules them in the first game ever as an NFL team in 1950 to play the defending champion Philadelphia Eagles in Philadelphia in prime time, and the Browns beat them 35 to 10. That's Paul Brown, man. Paul Brown is an awesome figure in the history of pro football.
Yeah, he was the first. Want to say why are we running people a hundred yards to see how fast they are? Yeah, let's try forty. Yeah, he also came up with so many other different taxi squads. Yeah, right.
Yeah, he came up with the also a great idea of hiring an offensive coordinator who came up with the idea of scripting the first fifteen plays, and his name was Bill Walsh. It's unreal. Yeah, about playbooks, everything like that. All of that. You ask Bill Belichick.
Bill Belichick thinks Paul Brown stands above them all. I mean, Bill Belichick's father wrote the first book ever on football scouting, and he asked Paul Brown to do the forward, which he did. And you know, so I mean, look, Paul Brown, in my opinion, peerless. I'm with you. Can I keep you to the end of the hour here?
Let's do that. I can. I just need to hear some great stories about some of the names that you've already mentioned right here on the Rich Eisen show. Again, the game is the name of the book. Get it where you get your books.
Peter King is here, real quick to let you know about the Sonos sound system. It pulls you into the moment because it follows you from room to room in your house. My youngest son Cooper is here. He uses Sonos. Sister Taylor, older brother Xander, Susie uses it.
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The Rich Eisen Show, the podcast. Few people know. I know you were a Giants beat writer, right? Weren't you? Oh, yeah, for four years during the Parcells era, yeah.
And he would really give it to you, right? I mean, like it was. What was that like? You got a great. How about this?
Give me your favorite Bill Parcells story, Peter King.
Well, when I first met Bill. He basically was this kind of larger than life figure already. Even though I covered him in eighty, started covering him in eighty five, they hadn't won anything yet. But I remember I asked my wife, the great Ann King, if I could live at training camp. I really there were nineteen papers that covered the team every day, and I needed to make a mark.
I was working for Newsday. People at the Giants never even saw Newsday. It was the Long Island newspaper. It's you now, Tuesday. Yeah, so what I she said, yeah, yeah, go ahead.
So I lived in Pleasantville, New York, for one month, and every day I got to the coffee room at Giants' training camp at seven a.m. And about the third day, Parcells said to me, he looked at me, triple take, and he said, "Who the f are you?" And I said, "I'm Peter King with Newsdesk." I said, "Bill, 19 papers cover this team. I, I'm competitive. I, I want to win this." And he just walked out shaking his head. But later that year, he would always because I, I would always hang around after press conferences and ask a question or two.
You know, sidling up while he walked away.
So much so that the PR guy there said at the end, "No more side." That's it. It's not happening anymore.
So I said to Bill, "Bill, if I really need to ask you a question, would you mind if I, you know, found some way to do it?" And he goes, "Yeah, beat my parking space when I get here in the morning." So he thought I'd never come in at five forty-five.
Well, one day I had a question about something, and I was at his parking space at five thirty, and as he was driving toward it, he just starts shaking his head. He just can't believe it, but you know, I was one of those people. I don't know. I just was a competitive dude, and I just, if I wanted a story, I just tried to go get it anyway I could. Great lesson for anybody out there right now, Matt.
You come, come heck or high water, or stand there at a parking lot. What was he driving? Do you remember what he was driving? I don't. I don't remember.
It was some sedan. It was not fancy like it was today. All right, but he, but. You know, here's the thing about Parcells. Yes, Parcells appreciated people who worked, and you know he really did his players.
He appreciated that. And I remember that was not an easy team to cover because there's a lot of guys in that locker room who did not like Lawrence Taylor. Because he got away with stuff, and Parcells always used to be. He always used to be. Hey, listen, you know, I'm not interested in being fair.
You know, I'm interested in being right. I'm interested in winning. You know, so sometimes you have to treat guys a little bit different. But you know, as you know, Rich, there is nobody who was more of a terror on the field for a game on Sunday than Lawrence Taylor. And so Parcells understood how to press his.
Buttons the right way and how to do it, and that worked. And tonight, you know, with the Seahawks and the and the Broncos, Parcells' fingerprints are kind of all over the place. Obviously, with the way the Seahawks are built, yeah, kind of like an old school Giants team with a defense-minded head coach, right? And Sean Payton comes straight—that's a fruit of the Parcells vine, yeah, one thousand percent. I have a chapter in the book called "Imagination," and it's all about I spent time with Sean Payton and the Broncos last year.
And I saw everything, and like Sean Payton, basically has. I'm not kidding you when I say this. On Saturday morning team meeting, part of the team meeting is a variety show. And I'm dead serious. He's got players who do funny things.
He's got two co-hosts of the show, including Malcolm Roach, a defensive tackle who is hilarious. And it's a very edgy thing that you know I couldn't quote hardly anything from that show because it's a little bit ribald, shall we say? Great word. Look it up, everybody. And so, but but anyway, everything he is he he he talks about.
Once a week, he's that's his that's his sensei. Why not? I mean, it's absolutely perfect. The game is available wherever you get your books. Peter King, what a pleasure!
What a pleasure! Thank you, Rich. You really enjoyed it. Right back at you. That's Peter King right here on the Rich Eisen Show.
Bob Costas coming up an hour too. Thanks for listening to the Rich Eisen Show podcast. You can watch and listen to the Rich Eisen Show live weekdays from noon to three Eastern on ESPN Radio, Disney Plus, and on the ESPN app. The Rich Eisen Show, the podcast.
