NFL Insider Tom Pelissero Talks Rams, Raiders, Lamar, Baker & More with Rich

Tom Pelissero checked in with the show from the corner of a truck stop parking lot near Spring Valley, Wisconsin, still 276 miles from a lake house and an annual college buddies weekend that represents, by his own math, 48 more hours of life before he shuts everything down for the next nine months. He had the air conditioning going and a webcam working, an upgrade from last year, when he pulled into a Starbucks lot and watched his phone overheat on the dash.

Then he got to Aaron Donald, and the tone changed.

"I told you last week that this was really all in Aaron Donald's hands at this point," Pelissero told Rich. "The Rams aren't recruiting him. There's no recruiting to be done."

Donald has been training at the Rams facility, but Pelissero was careful to separate that from the viral weight room content. This is a 35-year-old trying to find out whether his body can get back into football shape. History is not encouraging. Pelissero had NFL Network's research staff look it up, and only one member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame has sat out multiple seasons and come back to play again: Deion Sanders, who returned with the Ravens and was still productive, though as a part-time player. Reggie White and Randy Moss each sat out a year and came back to diminished production.

So the vision is not a 70-snap workload. It is third downs, two-minute, high-leverage situations, and then daring offensive coordinators to solve an unsolvable problem.

"How are you going to handle both Myles Garrett and Aaron Donald?" Pelissero asked, before adding that Kobe Turner, Byron Young and Braden Fiske are already good players in that rotation.

His comparison was the one everyone in sports is watching right now. LeBron James is not what he was five to ten years ago, Pelissero said, but when LeBron picks an organization, it sends a signal that he believes that team can win it all. Donald walking back through the door in Los Angeles would say the same thing to that locker room.

On the Raiders, Pelissero was blunt about the quarterback question. He would be very surprised if Fernando Mendoza starts out of the gate. Clint Kubiak said in the spring that he believes in letting a young quarterback sit, and the transition from Indiana's RPO-heavy offense is real. Kirk Cousins has history with Kubiak. Kubiak, Pelissero noted, is not on social media, is not watching the debate shows, and is not going to be moved by one good preseason drive.

"My full anticipation sitting here right now in mid-July is Kirk Cousins will be the starting quarterback of the Raiders," Pelissero said, calling it as much a reflection of where the Raiders are programmatically as anything about Mendoza. There is talent around him, with Ashton Jeanty at running back and Brock Bowers at tight end, but the offensive line is a work in progress.

The most consequential thing Pelissero said had nothing to do with 2026. The NFL is moving free agency up to the day after the combine ends, which he believes is March 8th, with the negotiating window opening the next day at noon Eastern. That eliminates the week of buffer that has existed since the 2011 collective bargaining agreement, roughly 15 years of teams refusing to float real numbers because agents would shop them around town.

One general manager texted Pelissero when the calendar went out: "Wow, deals are actually going to get done."

Trades in Indianapolis. Extensions in Indianapolis. All of it at once. As Pelissero put it, for the people covering it, that week is going to be drinking from an absolute fire hose.