Jesse Palmer has been at ESPN for 14 years and has both analyzed college football games in the broadcast booth or in the studio. Before he joined ESPN, Palmer was playing quarterback for the Montreal Alouettes in the CFL, wondering what his future would be.
Palmer was a guest on the Soup With Coop podcast and he said to Cooper Manning that he did reach out to other people about when he should take the next step from the playing field to the TV booth:
“My whole plan was to play 15 years in the NFL and just have that type of career. I talked to Troy Aikman, Jason Garrett, and some other guys that had started playing QB and had gone into TV a little bit about hey, when should you leave?”
“In 2007, when I signed with ESPN, I came to that fork in the road where I was offered a job. I called some NFL games for FOX at the end of the 2006 season, I got offered by FOX and ESPN, one for pro, one for college. I was playing in the CFL at the time and was having so much fun. I thought, do I really want to walk away from the game now?”
While Palmer got some good advice, he also knew that as a player, he had to take the opportunity to join TV whenever he could because it might not necessarily be there later on:
“The advice I was getting from everybody was just play as long as you can, TV will always be there. The reality for us as players I think is every year Brett Favre is going to retire, Drew Brees is soon going to retire. If Drew Brees says I want to do TV, I would kind of like a seat, guess who is going to get the seat? There’s a Heisman Trophy winner that’s going to retire every year.”
“There are a limited amount of seats and I just felt like hey, I should capitalize on this opportunity, give it a honest shot. Worked at ESPN, did that for a year, loved it. I still felt attached to the game that I love. Really, the rest is history. It’s crazy. It’s been 14 years at ESPN now. The time has flown.”
Manning did ask Palmer if he was a backup quarterback in a market other than for the New York Giants (drafted in the 4th Round in 2001), did he think he would have the chance at the many media opportunities he has now whether it’s been being on The Bachelor or hosting shows on Food Network:
I almost got drafted by the Kansas City Chiefs twice before the Giants picked me. Often times I wonder what would have happened. I got super lucky getting drafted to this media market where we had a huge media presence in our locker room at all times, tons of personalities in our locker room. Lot of guys that ended up being on TV from those Giants teams. In this city, I was able to tap into a lot of passions now with food…College is something we have control over, you can pick where you want to go. The NFL Draft, you have zero control over.”
