Mike Florio is preparing for another NFL season serving as an analyst for NBC’s Sunday Night Football pregame show, Football Night in America, and his more rigorous duties heading up the ProFootballTalk website and his daily show, PFT Live, which airs on Peacock.
“Once football season starts, it’s seven days a week, nonstop, no break,” Florio tells Front Office Sports. “I have a little bit of time on Friday nights where the world is normal, but otherwise, it’s nonstop.”
Florio’s schedule this fall will look a little different as, for the first time, FNIA will be on the road every week, broadcasting live from the site of each SNF matchup. Florio, however, won’t be making all 18 road trips. “They’re going to let me decide which trips to make, and which games I should just stay home,” he says.
Meanwhile, PFT Live will have a more regular dose of former NFL quarterback Chris Simms, who will co-host the show four days per week (he’ll be off Wednesdays), up from two to three days last season. Simms is not returning to FNIA this season, which previously impacted when he could co-host PFT Live.
With training camp underway and the start of the league’s preseason schedule just days away, Florio spoke to FOS about the upcoming NFL season, his media duties, and his recent criticism of how the 49ers handled the news surrounding coach Kyle Shanahan’s car accident.
Some quotes have been lightly edited for clarity and brevity.
Front Office Sports: How will you decide your schedule for FNIA this season?
Mike Florio: The travel disruption impacts PFT Live, and impacts my productivity for ProFootballTalk. So, the farther the trip, the less likely I’m going to go. And I’ve got the studio in my house. In 2020 and 2021, I was home every weekend, and it’s fairly seamles—to the point where when I’m in studio in Connecticut and I run into people back home in West Virginia, they think that I’m home even when I’m in the studio.
So, they’ve got the technology in place where I can be home every weekend, but I want to get to as many as I can that are reasonably distanced so it’s not a major disruption. Travel is just a challenge when it comes to being as productive as I’d like to be.
FOS: How much will Chris Simms be contributing to PFT Live this season?
MF: Chris will be co-hosting PFT Live four days per week this season. It’s an increase from his two to three weekly appearances on the show during the 2024 and 2025 NFL seasons. For the vast majority of his appearances, we will be in separate locations.
FOS: You were hard on the 49ers on how they handled the Shanahan situation. Have you spoken to the team?
MF: I haven’t heard anything from the 49ers. I only reach out to a team when I am preparing to report something that I believe, in all fairness to the team, it requires a comment from them. In this case, I didn’t see any reason to get a comment from the team as to why they waited 11 days to announce something that should have been, in my opinion, announced immediately.
FOS: Have you spoken to any 49ers beat reporters or plan to have one on PFT Live to discuss the situation?
MF: I haven’t interacted with any of them. If they want to interact with me, that’s their business. Anything I need to say I say on PFT Live and ProFootballTalk.com. We don’t have many guests on PFT Live. I’d rather it be a conversation with me and my co-hosts. And I haven’t given any thought to bringing on a reporter to talk about it.
In my mind, it’s pretty clear. And any energy that any of the 49ers beat writers would devote to criticizing those who would point out that this is a very strange situation, they should spend that time instead continuing to explore some of the lingering questions that haven’t fully been answered.
