Inside an NFL Sunday with Fox rules analyst Mike Pereira

LOS ANGELES — The ball has just settled into the hands of Steelers cornerback James Pierre in London, and half a world away, Mike Pereira’s team at Fox has already burst into action, realizing it might be showtime.

Pereira’s producer, Travis Hanson, is rewinding the play with the modified X-box controller in his hands as Pereira says “Let’s get both feet,” noting that it looks like one foot is on the ground inbounds at the point of the catch, an instant before NCAA Football rules analyst Steve Strimling asks if there’s a bobble on the play, prompting a rapid-fire exchange of observations on Pierre’s control of the ball.

All the Fox Sports crew has at this point is the live shot beaming on NFL Network, and it’s initially hard to tell from the angles shown, time ticking down as the on-site producer asks to get Pereira on camera for this ruling. The play could be huge; the Minnesota Vikings are down by three, trying to mount a drive to stave off defeat, and a Pierre pick ends the game.

Pereira keeps watching the screens in front of him, hoping for a clear replay.

Then gets it all of a sudden. Pierre was bobbling the ball on the way out of the end zone.

One minute, 56 seconds after Pierre makes the pick, Pereira is on the air, explaining the ruling to the watching NFL world.  

How rules analyst Mike Pereira does his job for FOX

Pereira has been a fixture on FOX football broadcasts since 2010, beaming into the nation’s TV screens to explain complex calls for college football Saturdays and NFL Sundays.

The part he plays is crucial, instantly offering expert analysis of the controversial, complex calls that often decide games and become national news after a big game.

“We are here to educate our talent and make them be right,” Pereira says. “Guys like (Strimling) and me have been studying rulebooks for decades and decades, and you have to be really in-depth studying the rules, and if you’re an ex-quarterback or ex-coach, or just a play-by-play guy, you can’t be expected to know all that.”

How he does his job every Saturday and Sunday is fascinating.

Pereira, 75, arrived at Fox Studios at 6 a.m. PT on Sunday, his normal Sunday extended by the international game. Pereira served as the rules analyst for Steelers-Vikings, then handled Fox broadcasts of Lions-Browns and Panthers-Patriots in the early window, followed by Rams-Colts and Jaguars-49ers in the afternoon slate. Week 4 in the NFL was a lighter load for Pereira; Fox had five games in the early window in Week 3, requiring Pereira to watch all five at once.

College football Saturdays are even longer. Fox’s first game of the day begins at 9 a.m. PT and it ends at 11:30 p.m., putting Pereira and his team through a 15-hour day of watching football, sometimes watching five games at once.  

All of that action requires a remarkable setup.

Pereira and his team have the Fox Command Center.

The Command Center sits high above studio A at Fox Sports; Pereira’s analysis of Pierre’s interception Sunday was filmed from a camera inside the Command Center while “FOX NFL Sunday” finished broadcasting in the larger studio below.

Four people – Pereira, Hanson, Strimling and associate producer Scott Tammel — sit in the Command Center, surrounded by screens. One main screen across from Pereira’s chair is flanked by two more screens divided into four boxes apiece, all playing games. Four smaller screens sit in front of Pereira, screens that allow Hanson and Strimling to rewind, slow down and rewatch plays to analyze them, all controlled by modified X-box controllers.

The Command Center is kept cold because of the heat coming off all the equipment in the room. Because of the temperature, Pereira has a heater under the desk for his feet, plus heavy, warm shoes and a heated vest under the impeccable plaid, blue, three-piece suit he wore on Sunday.

The controllers, first used by the NFL office, are remarkable.

Hanson’s a magician with his; Strimling’s was sticking on Sunday.

“It reminded me of the games of mine that I played as a kid,” Hanson says. “It’s so intuitive.”

Another bay of screens plays to Hanson’s left, showing every NFL game, including the ones being played by CBS.

“Travis likes to confuse me,” Pereira jokes. “He’ll put a game up that’s not our game, and I’m like, what am I looking at?”

Hanson’s brief glances at CBS have purpose.

“If there is something interesting, I will try to bring it up to show Mike,” Travis said. “Scott will see stuff on social media, people buzzing about something. … I like to have it available for Mike to look at, so he has eyes on it.”

Pereira's job is far more than what's shown on TV

Pereira’s on-camera appearances are important.

If a call is big enough, Pereira has to be ready to appear on camera at a moment’s notice, and if there’s a controversial call the entire NFL is talking about, he might head downstairs to the “FOX NFL Sunday” set for an appearance on that show.

But he’s doing much more than waiting for a chance to step in front of the camera.  

“I think the least understood part of our role is the amount of times I will say — just like happened earlier today — I’ll jump on to the producer and I’ll say, ‘It’s not a horse collar if it’s on the quarterback in the pocket,’” Pereira said. “And then all of a sudden, you’ll hear (the broadcasters) say the same while calling the game.”

Pereira has buttons in front of him that take him directly to the producers of every game, allowing him to talk to them with a simple push, and Fox’s producers are good at relaying the information into the broadcast booth almost instantly.

He also takes notes of key calls around both college football and the NFL, then works with Strimling and Dean Blandino, who travels with Fox’s No. 1 team, Kevin Burkhardt and Tom Brady, to create a weekly tape for Fox’s producers and on-air talent to watch, going over tough calls from the previous week.

Pereira sees everything.

“The hardest call, for me, if you were to include the college, would be the targeting call, because to me, the needle has moved,” Pereira said. “When we started with targeting, they called everything. Every head or neck contact, and now it’s more into the force, was it just the six-inch radius on the top of the helmet, that to me is the most difficult.”

The addition of Strimling has helped.

“He’s a great resource, because, No. 1, he’s a master of the college rules,” Pereira said. “I did 24 years of college before I got into the NFL, so I knew the rules, and I was great at the rules, but then I spent 15 years, between on the field and in the office, in the NFL.”

The hard part in the NFL is the lack of camera angles.

Pereira has to analyze calls in real-time while looking mostly at the live broadcast shot, relying on the rest of his team to break down that footage into something that allows him a chance to form an opinion.

“The NFL game, it’s the fact that most of the games, we’re dealing with one camera, one shot,” Pereira said. “All we see is the live shot. In New York (at the NFL’s replay review center), they’re looking at 16, they have all these different camera angles.”

Pereira and the the Command Center see everything

Pereira joked a couple of times on Sunday that he spends a lot of his day waiting for something to happen.

“We sit here a lot of the time and don’t do (anything),” Pereira said.

That couldn’t be further from the truth.

Pereira and the rest of the Command Center see everything. In every game. Even with only two games on FOX’s slate in Sunday’s early window, the Command Center was a whirling tornado of information, observations ping-ponging around the room so fast it can be hard for a newcomer to follow.

But they see every play, every flag, anticipating possible calls to be ready for the controversial call, the big replay that requires a broadcast to bring in Pereira’s expert analysis.

“When I first started, they came to me for everything,” Pereira said. “Everybody’d go, Pereira’s got 38 in a row! But they gave me every no-brainer, and now I only get the tough ones.”

Everything from a false start to a runner trying to stay inbounds gets dissected, disseminated and thoroughly analyzed while moving seamlessly to the next play.

Pereira has a knack for seeing a referee’s individual flourishes.

“Oh, he flopped his flag into his waist really nicely,” Pereira says with a sense of amusement after a flag is thrown in the Steelers-Vikings game.

A little bit later, a referee throws a flag for offsides in the Patriots-Panthers game, and Pereira immediately notices that this throw came with a little extra on it.

“It was a rocket of a flag,” Pereira says to the room. “That was a SpaceX flag throw.”

Pereira’s team watches every play, hunting breaks in the action to find time to either order lunch or do some calisthenics. Pereira had surgery to fuse seven levels of his vertebrae two years ago, forcing him to miss the 2023 season, and at times he’ll stand up raise his leg to his hand repeatedly for at least a full minute to keep his back and hip flexors loose.

Then he’s right back to the games at hand, watching every call and analyzing it in real time, getting ready to help viewers understand the game better.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Mike Pereira, Fox rules analyst, on an NFL Sunday