Analyst furious after NFL Network cancels his appearance to promote military vets
Two years ago, former NFL official and Fox Sports analyst Mike Pereira launched an organization called Battlefields to Ballfields to help military veterans transition into new careers as sports officials.
“I was thinking about the shortage in officiating and how we could get veterans to become officials,” Pereira said via The Associated Press. “Could I start a foundation that could pay for vets to become sports officials?”
Pereira and his wife, Gail, used their own money to begin a pilot program in California, and the organization’s first scholarship recipient was Thomas Harris, a Navy veteran who became a high school football referee in Los Angeles.
The program began in earnest last year, with Pereira enlisting a board of directors that included former Green Beret and NFL long snapper Nate Boyer and former NFL coach Jeff Fisher.
Pereira was scheduled to appear on the NFL Network on Wednesday to talk about the veterans organization, but his appearance was canceled.
The former Fox analyst took to Twitter to express his disappointment over the snub and his confusion over why it happened.
Pereira said he was told it was because the network “was hesitant to talk about the rules of the game at this point.”
For those of you I told I was going to be on NFLN this morning, including you Veterans in Rochester, my appearance was cancelled because NFLN “was hesitant to talk about the rules of the game at this point.” Really? Thought I was going to talk about our Veteran’s Foundation.
— Mike Pereira (@MikePereira) June 13, 2018
“Really?” he tweeted. “Thought I was going to talk about our Veteran’s Foundation.”
It would be odd for the NFL Network to be “hesitant to talk about the rules” of the game — there were several key changes this offseason that are worthy of discussion, and Pereira, as a former NFL head of officiating, certainly is qualified to talk about them.
If the league just decided it didn’t want to run a segment on a group that helps veterans, that would be a very bad look, given all the controversy over anthem protests the past couple of years.
Many fans were not happy about the cancellation.
Guess the @NFL did not want to discuss #Veterans
— fatirishman (@fatirishman) June 13, 2018
What a joke @nflnetwork
— Nathan Freeman (@NateFreemanNFL) June 13, 2018
https://twitter.com/TracyLong24GR8/status/1006889427912810497
So far, the NFL Network hasn’t commented on the decision to nix Pereira’s appearance.
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