Fans of FOX’s NFL coverage probably noticed that rules analyst Mike Pereira was absent from the network’s Week 1 coverage. There’s a good reason for that.
Pereira has been a mainstay as a rules analyst since retiring from being the NFL’s Director of Officiating. The network has used him for college football as well as the NFL. He told KNBR that at one point, the network even considered using him as a rule analyst for Major League Baseball too.
He revealed over the weekend that a bad back and upcoming surgery is why he wasn’t on TV for Week 1. Pereira thinks he could be gone the entire 2023 season.
The hiring of Pereira as a rules analyst was considered groundbreaking at the time. FOX became the first network to have a dedicated rules analyst before CBS, NBC, ESPN and Amazon all hired analysts of their own.
