Rich Eisen of NFL Network brings his wit and intelligence to the DL. At least that’s what his NFL bio says he’s know for. And frankly, it’s pretty dead on.

The interview was originally scheduled for two weeks ago, but was moved because the PR people didn’t want Rich to speculate on certain topics. Which was code for enormous news between Comcast and NFLN will be coming soon. And it did, so Rich and I talk about how great the new deal is for NFLN. For those who don’t know,

NFLN will be available on the digital basic tier for Comcast and when you add in the existing deals they have with Verizon, DirecTV, Dish Network, Cox and others, the NFLN will now be in more than 45 million homes in 2009. About freaking time. Rich points out that the deal its not only good for the network and cable provider to get past this, but it will be great for the fans to actually get a chance to watch the network now.

1. “I think this will be a really, really good thing for NFL Network. And for the fans, which is the most important thing – that people see us. For the network it’s important because we don’t want to be defined by what you’re not seeing. We want to be defined by what you’re seeing on the network. It’s a great thing for fans who will get their 24/7/365 football fix in a very informative, entertaining way and they’ll see what they’ve been missing out.”
   

Eisen left ESPN in 2003 to be the lead guy for a start-up network covering just the NFL. Did he really expect it to work? And what does the NFL Network do differently than ESPN in their football coverage? Not tethered to covering all the other sports on their network, are they able to get more in-depth than a one-stop shop can be?

He also notes that the NFL is a year-round sport these days, and NFLN has done a lot to cover the league throughout the year. He brings up the example of Jay Cutler, who was the story of the off-season and even during the Final Four weekend was the hot topic around the sports world. That said, those at NFLN are aware that there are other sports going on, and factor that in when not just programming what to put on the network, but also when conducting the interviews of players and coaches. Just because it’s the NFL doesn’t mean people weren’t watching the NBA playoffs as well.

Rich talks to a lot of players and coaches. So what’s worse...coach speak or player talk?  He gives his rundown of the top three coach speak cliches, that when joined together sound like every single press

conference we’ve heard from an NFL coach. And yes everyone’s favorite is in there -- ‘it is what it is.’

“I’d love to say, ‘if it is what it is, I’d love to know what isn’t, coach. What isn’t? What is what it isn’t? Tell me that.’ That would really throw somebody – I’d look like a Coors Light commercial. That would throw the coach, I think well off, if somebody followed that up. ‘Coach, tell me what isn’t what it isn’t?’ That’s a follow up. That would be a great follow up question.”

We transition into Brian Baldinger’s pinkie as I wonder if it’s the grossest thing Rich has ever seen (it’s not) before talking about his book Total Access which has a photo on the cover of Rich running the 40-yard dash in his suit. The video of this is as funny as it sounds. But it leads to a conversation about our fascination with the

Combine and the Draft. Why do we care so much about the rookies’ measurables in football when we don’t care in any other sport. Eisen thinks it’s because we know who the players are before they come into the league. College football is such a huge business in this country it’s different than the high school players or foreign players coming into the other leagues. We know who these guys are, so we can follow their progression from college to workouts to the Draft.

And speaking of the Draft, we talk about how massive an undertaking that event is to anchor. And with the NFL Network coming in the last few

years to challenge ESPN’s draft coverage, is there any acrimony between Eisen and his former colleagues at the World Wide Leader?

1. “Of course they want to be the best out there and so do we. You know, it’s a competition. It’s a professional competition. So, yeah, we want to be better than them. We want people to say that NFL Network has a better Draft product or a better football product than ESPN and they feel the same way. They are the World Wide Leader in Sports and they don’t want to be seen as second to any other sports product that’s out there. There’s a prideful, professional rivalry that goes on I’m sure.
   

1. “We just do what we do. We don’t do everything with the eye that ‘we’re going to be better than ESPN.’ We take the approach of going out there and doing what we do the way we do it, with our personalities and our staff and if people think it’s better than ESPN, so be it.”
   

2. 
   

Rich worked with Jon Gruden during the off-season and said on Dan Patrick’s show last week that he expected Gruden to be working for NFLN this season, going as far as to say he thought there was a handshake agreement with Gruden and the network before he got the Monday Night Football job. Eisen backs off that statement a bit, stating that the decisions like that are made above him.

1. “Listen, I don’t know. That’s above me on the flow chart. The bottom line is, he’s fantastic. There are a lot of people interested working. We were clearly one of them, since we were the ones who put him on the air initially at the Combine and the Draft. And obviously ESPN was watching the NFL Network Combine coverage and the NFL Network Draft coverage and thought it a quality product where they hired Gruden site unseen, quite honestly.”
   

He does think that Gruden will be great on TV and have a long career if he chooses to stay in the booth and not on the sidelines.

But Gruden going to ESPN is on the heels of Collinsworth going from the NFLN booth to the NBC booth and rumors that Adam Schefter is leaving NFLN for ESPN when his contract runs out this summer. It leads to the question of whether NFLN can compete with the big guys in terms of keeping talent. I ask Rich if it feels like they are a small market baseball team and ESPN, NBC, etc are the Yankees and Mets and Red Sox.

1. “I went to college with Adam. I love the guy, he’s fantastic. Another way to look at all that stuff is obviously the greatest form of flattery would be taking somebody else’s talent. I wouldn’t call us the Kansas City Royals or the Oakland A’s of this business at all. No. I wouldn’t tell that to me, or Deion Sanders or Marshall Faulk or Warren Sapp or Terrell Davis or Rod Woodson. My gosh. I wouldn’t say that at all.”
   

Shifting gears completely, how sad was Eisen when Bea Arthur died? And how exactly does his name come up whenever you Google “Bea Arthur Joke” when, in fact, the joke that is referenced wasn’t even his joke! It’s amazing how even back in the day, things get on the internet and stay there forever.

Speaking of on the internet, Rich is on Twitter. And he’s not one of the Oprah celebs who say they are on it because the cool kids are doing it. He actually interacts with people. So follow him. And us while you’re there.

We end with some actual football talk...sort of. As the face of NFLN, which story makes him cringe more to know that it’s far from over....Vick or Favre? We both agree that while the Favre story is annoying and nobody likes to talk about him, the Vick story is still really just a sad one all the way around.

Housekeeping:

This was long awaited for me, so my great thanks for Rich for coming on. Kornheiser back on next week to talk about his radio future (or podcasting future). Tomorrow we have a lot to cover, including some topic requests from emailers. So keep them coming.

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