I told you Brandon Marshall had a future in broadcasting. I just didn’t say that future was now. B Marsh and Martellus Bennett are great sound bites…everyone else on the Chicago Bears roster is….well, they’re paid to play NFL football not say interesting and engaging things. After getting approval from the Bears, Marshall now becomes the first active player to work a weekly NFL studio show as he will be a very special guest analyst on Showtime’s “Inside the NFL.”
Marshall is truly going all Hollywood on us. He appears in the new Carrie Underwood open for Sunday Night Football this year. And he will get a private jet shuttling him between here and CBS/Showtime’s studios in New York City on Tuesdays to do the show. He debuts this Tuesday at 8 p.m.
“i’m looking forward to getting the opinions of one Brandon Marshall, to see how things were on Sunday,” Greg Gumbel said during my exclusive conversation with him at NFL Network/NFL on CBS Media Day.
“It’s a very unique perspective, because his performance on Sunday, can easily turn the show around on Tuesday. How to examine what we saw, with his team, with the team he played, I think it will be fun and it’s a perspective that you don’t often get.”
Marshall and Gumbell will join Phil Simms, Boomer Esiason and Ed Reed in studio. The current and past roster of “Inside the NFL” has always been an All-Star cast.
“To be a part of such a legendary show, it’s hard to pass up. When you think of all the legendary people that have done it,” said Gumbel.
NBC has done something similar with Tim Howard in their coverage of the English Premier League. And the peacock even takes it a step further as Howard sometimes actually calls games during this season; with a quick 48 hour turnaround sometimes.
Boomer Esiason was on conference call yesterday, where he discussed with the media his surprise when he found out Marshall was joining him on the show.
“My first thought was, ‘What is Marc Trestman going to think about that?'” Esiason said.
“I’m not sure every coach would go for this, but there’s a sense in the league, more so than ever, that you can do what you want in your free time. It’s an interesting perspective having a current player in there, especially when we talk about teams he’s going to face. He’s going to be really good at it.”
Norman Julius Esiason has high hopes for Brandon Marshall. I do as well.
Paul M. Banks owns and operates The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with Fox Sports, Yahoo! and the Chicago Tribune RedEye edition. He’s been a guest on news talk shows all across the world and been featured in hundreds of media outlets including NFL Network, Fox Sports 1 and ESPN2. Follow him on Twitter (@paulmbanks)