With the regular season approachint, multiple NFL broadcast partners are finalizing an eleventh-hour game of insider roulette.
Tom Pelissero is in at Netflix, for its five-game regular-season slate. At Prime Video, James Palmer has announced that he'll be filling the role most recently occupied by Ian Rapoport.
Palmer, a former NFL Network reporter, becomes the fourth NFL Insider that Prime Video has used since assuming the Thursday night package in 2022. Michael Smith handled the assignment for two seasons, with a revolving door of Albert Breer, Rapoport, and now Palmer over the past three seasons.
Rapoport, we're told, is now exclusive to ESPNFL under the contract he signed earlier this year, when his NFLN deal expired. He had to bow out of the Prime Video gig.
This season, only CBS won't have an insider, for reasons that have not been revealed. (We have a theory.)
The turnover in the insider industry started in April, when Dianna Russini resigned from The Athletic one week after photos of her with Patriots coach Mike Vrabel at a resort in Arizona first emerged. The situation provided a stark example of the complications of a unique role that often requires journalistic standards to be blurred, if not ignored, in the name of access. (Which explains why The Athletic hasn't hired another one, and apparently won't be.)
There are plenty of conflicts when it comes to establishing and maintaining the relationships required to get information, especially when teams, agents, and/or the league office have very broad discretion when it comes to spoon feeding transactions and other news that will inevitably be announced.
The best stuff comes from finding out things the powers-that-be would prefer to keep quiet. And, frankly, that kind of information tends to stand out because it so rarely emerges amid the flood of nuggets that usually are chased — often within minutes — by the official statement confirming the accuracy of a tweet.