Host gets honest on 'Good Morning Football'

When Good Morning Football returns on July 29, it’ll be hosted by Jamie Erdahl.

The current host, who replaced Kay Adams in 2022, delivered an emotional tribute to the NYC studio before going on maternity leave. But while others’ futures were uncertain then, Erdahl made no mistake about it. She announced she’d follow the show in its new iteration out west to California.

After giving birth to her daughter, Nora, over three months ago, Erdahl made her first public appearance since announcing the show’s return earlier this month. The announcement indicated that Peter Schrager and Kyle Brandt would remain with GMFB , though they’ll split time between LA and New York. In addition to the two mainstays, host Akbar Gbajabiamila and news reporter Sherree Burruss are joining the show.

Erdahl joined The Rich Eisen Show with fill-in host Tom Pelissero and discussed some of the upcoming changes to the new version of the show.

“I just want to say, a lot of those questions that were on the internet were probably from ghost accounts by me,” said Erdahl, who appears to have been just as entirely in the dark as the rest of us. “Like, I had questions too…That was a challenging couple of months. Let’s start the story this way: on March 8, we all found out that this was happening to Good Morning Football , that we were leaving New York, and that the show was moving to Los Angeles.

“I was like 36 weeks pregnant. So, I had just come off the [NFL Scouting] Combine in Indianapolis. I was lucky to just not give birth at the Combine. I come back…We pop up with our bosses one day in early March and they give us this news. And I was so surprised. You hear rumblings of just the nature of the industry and changes, and there is a studio at NFL Films in South Jersey, and Manhattan’s very expensive.

“You listen to things things, but mostly you just want to do the job. This was so not a direction — literally west — that I thought it could ever go. I can only speak for myself that I just love my chair and the show so much, and the position the show has within the NFL that I was going to do anything to stay a part of it. And that meant committing to the move before I had my third daughter, March 30. And my entire maternity leave has been spent moving my family from New Jersey to Los Angeles.

“We got here in the middle of June, and we’re gonna start rehearsing next, and we’ve got new teammates. But it’s been really hard. It’s been a challenge, because the show is so team-based, but these were all really personal decisions to make, I think for everyone involved in the show.

“…It affected a lot of people behind the scenes, which was hard to see happen. But, the health of the future of the show was kind of at risk, and you wanted to move forward together, and you wanted it to stay on the air. So, people made decisions that were important and impactful. And low and behold, here we are.”

Good Morning Football traditionally had been a 7-10 a.m. ET show aired exclusively on NFL Network. It’ll now be Monday-Friday 8-10 a.m. ET on NFL Network, and there’ll be a GMFB Overtime series that’ll stream 10 a.m. to noon ET on the Roku Channel.

Erdahl explained how the overtime show will differ from the traditional one.

“I think it’ll have the same avenues, but, in terms of football, I think the big thing is it’ll be on Roku, it’ll also be nationally syndicated from that 10-12 ET spot,” she said. “The big thing is, we want to speak to the broader audience. I think certain fans are gonna go to NFL Network to hear maybe a more intensified version of our football takes and our conversations and the news.

“Then, you flip over to Roku, and to be syndicated, you want to welcome a broader conversation at times. It’s the first-ever sports talk show put into national syndication, which is a really cool flex to be a part of. But, you want it to almost start to drip into the talk show feel, if you will, when it’s on Roku and syndication.

“And my new teammate, Akbar, who is classically trained now in the talk show world, that I’m so excited to sit next to him. Because Jason McCourty decided not to make the move with the show . So, Akbar’s gonna be next to me every day, and I’m just so excited to learn from him and work with him.

“I think it’s gonna almost be a little broader in the second two hours, where you’re gonna see Roku and in syndication.”

Erdahl couldn’t answer Pelissero’s question about how the dynamic will change with Brandt and Schrager being virtual. It’s a fair answer, considering they’ve yet to see how this new dynamic will work, and Erdahl was quite candid about not knowing how it will change.

“I’m trying to be an optimist about it,” she said. “What I am optimistic about, is I know Peter and Kyle very well. I’ve just done 20 months of shows with them, five days a week through two intense football seasons. I’ve seen the ins and outs of how they both operate. So, if anyone was going to be remote and away from me physically, it can be those two, because I can still read them well enough to, hopefully, push them places and get them to their entertaining capacities.

“Not knowing Akbar, that’s better that he’s next to me every day…But I’m glad he’s with me, and we can grow together the way Jason McCourty and I did when we started. I’m OK with those guys making that decision that they did because it was important to them to stay where they were in the capacity that their family life would’ve been affected. And I know that we’ll see them; they’ll keep the show alive.

“Those two, in my opinion, are the editorial North Star of GMFB — Peter Schrager and Kyle Brandt. The show can’t do much, I think, without their engine at times.”

[ The Rich Eisen ]

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