He succeeded Mike Pereira as the NFL’s vice president of officiating in 2013 and now he’s expected to follow Pereira to TV by becoming a rules analyst. ESPN’s Adam Schefter reports that Blandino is ready to leave the National Football League and go to a network. He’ll leave his position on May 31.
And as Schefter tweeted, Blandino seemed likely headed for CBS after the Mike Carey Experience ended following Super Bowl 50. But for its part, CBS says the reports of it hiring Blandino are not true:
CBS Sports: "We are not looking to fill the rules analyst position, and we are not having discussions with Dean Blandino."
— John Ourand (@Ourand_Puck) April 14, 2017
Football Zebras said ESPN is the network where Blandino is likely to land:
But Pro Football Talk now says Blandino will apparently go to Fox where he will tag-team with his predecessor, Pereira:
Crazy morning: PFT has now learned that @DeanBlandino likely will be hired by FOX — and that FOX would team him up with @MikePereira.
— ProFootballTalk (@ProFootballTalk) April 14, 2017
The latest
Mike Pereira became the original rules analyst when Fox hired him away from the NFL and he became quite successful. CBS was hoping to get lightning in a bottle with Carey, but the exact opposite occurred.
With Blandino leaving, it leaves the NFL with a hole to fill and it will have to hire someone else to do the replay reviews. His departure certainly was unexpected, but apparently the opportunity to stay in the game and be on television was too big to ignore.
And by analyzing college football rather than the NFL, Blandino won’t step on the toes of the officials who he had supervised since 2013.
It’s going to interesting for Fox to have two former NFL heads of officiating on one network.