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Tom Pelissero still had a year left on his NFL Network deal when ESPN let him go on Tuesday.
According to Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio, Pelissero had a year remaining on his NFL Network deal. He’ll be paid through the rest of it, but he won’t be back on the air for NFL Network — or ESPN, for that matter — in the meantime.
Pelissero joined NFL Network in 2017 after covering the league for USA Today, and became one of the network’s top insiders. His exit fits a pattern ESPN has followed with several names caught up in this week’s layoffs, including Ryan Clark and Cam Newton, both of whom also had time remaining on their deals. If you’re confused why ESPN would keep someone off the air while paying them anyway, the tactic is a common accounting method that writes off the remaining value of an unexpired contract to a specific quarter, lowering future tax burdens in the process. This is partially why ESPN’s cuts tend to arrive in clusters rather than spread out as individual deals expire.
Having a year left doesn’t guarantee Pelissero has to sit out that whole year. If another network wants to hire him, he’d first need to work out his exit with ESPN, either a release from the remaining money or some kind of settlement, since ESPN is still on the hook to pay him regardless. That’s the same situation Keyshawn Johnson was in after ESPN let him go in 2023 with five years and roughly $18 million left on his deal. Johnson wanted to move quickly and reached a settlement with ESPN that cleared him to join Fox Sports’ Undisputed within a couple of months. Max Kellerman, laid off the same day, took the opposite approach and simply collected his deal in full rather than negotiating an early exit.
Those who are laid off often find themselves trying to navigate a middle ground of posting content on social media specific to their beat, which a network may or may not find to be competitive or in violation of their contract. It’s a tricky situation, as those who want to move on to the next chapter of their career don’t exactly have an easy path to do so.
Pelissero should have real options if he wants to move quickly. ESPN has cornered much of the market on NFL insiders since taking over NFL Network, but Jonathan Jones already left CBS for The Athletic this year, and Dianna Russini’s exit from her insider role at The Athletic left another opening. Whether Pelissero pushes to get out of his deal the way Johnson did, or waits it out like Kellerman, remains to be seen.
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