SANTA CLARA, Calif. — On the fourth level of Levi’s Stadium, Dean Blandino sets up in a television booth a few feet from the day’s color analyst, Daryl Johnston, who later would be joined by play-by-play announcer Joe Davis. The NFC Divisional Playoff between San Francisco and Seattle is a couple of hours from kickoff. On the wall, there’s a strip of white tape with “DEAN’S WORLD” written above a monitor with more than 20 different camera angles.
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Blandino has the option of using a touch screen to choose what angles he’d like to view. The remote he uses to fast forward, rewind, etc., isn’t a traditional remote. It’s an Xbox controller that’s programmed to work with a computer. Additionally, Blandino has the NFL rulebook in front of him where he can easily access it.
As he stands while watching the game, Blandino’s pre-snap reads include observing the line of scrimmage and the line to gain. He checks the clock. Did it stop after the last play, or is it still running?
Blandino’s extensive football knowledge is one reason well-known NFL rules analyst/former official Mike Pereira thought he’d be a great addition as a rules analyst for Fox Sports’ NFL coverage. The 51-year-old Blandino is very good at his profession, educating viewers about the nuances of league rules.
“Our guys, the announcers, know the rules,” producer Pete Macheska said. “But it’s nothing like the insurance of the official saying it, and that gives them more confidence to say what they thought.”
And then there’s another side of Blandino, one that many NFL fans worldwide don’t know about.
Blandino used to tell jokes. On stage.
Before Blandino became the person Fox relied on for football rule explanations, he was an under-the-radar entertainer, a stand-up comic in clubs during the 1990s offering his own takes on life for laughs.
When asked about Blandino’s past, Pereira said he totally understood — because he sees Blandino’s personality and charisma all the time.
“He’s one of those when you meet him, you’d think he’s really shy, really quiet,” Pereira said. “But the man loosens up, and he is one funny dude.”
Yes, the NFL, mockingly called the “No Fun League” for cracking down on celebrations, had a comedian as its vice president of officiating from 2013-16. Blandino followed Pereira to Fox in 2017, and his rules expertise and experience have proved a plus to the network’s coverage.
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But who knew Blandino’s joke about his grandmother and Monopoly would resonate, too?
“That was one of my comedy bits, about growing up and the family would get together and play Monopoly,” Blandino said. “Five-hour-long games. Monopoly controversy. (My grandmother) was charging too much rent, trying to steal money from the bank.”
“It was hilarious,” Pereira added. “I must say I had a different opinion of his grandmother after I watched his routine.”
In his telling, the easygoing Blandino envisions himself losing it over the game that tests patience.
“We’d play from the beginning where you’d have to buy the properties, and after about an hour, I was just done,” he said. “Most of my family loved it, and I’d just be sitting there. I had this vision of just losing and, at some point, freaking out, knocking the board off the table, screaming at my grandmother that I didn’t want to play anymore.”
Comedy wasn’t the plan when the Bellmore, N.Y., native graduated from Hofstra in 1994. He applied for several jobs with sports leagues in New York and accepted an internship with the NFL in the fall of 1994. Blandino became a full-time NFL employee after the 1994 season.
Then-NFL senior director of officiating Jerry Seeman put Blandino in charge of instant replay when it was introduced in 1999. Blandino was a replay official in two Super Bowls before leaving the NFL in 2009 to start a business evaluating and training replay officials. He returned to the NFL in 2013, becoming vice president of officiating.
Blandino was introduced to comedy in his first stint with the NFL by Val Gamble, an actress, rapper and comedian. The two were colleagues at the NFL offices when he started as an intern. Gamble knew Blandino to be a fun guy. Blandino was known to randomly perform Vanilla Ice’s “Ice, Ice Baby” dance routine from the music video.
She later found that Blandino had been writing comedy in his free time. At Gamble’s urging, he gave it a try for the first time in 1997 — at Stand Up NY on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.
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“It’s like he was doing it forever,” Gamble said. “He didn’t look nervous. He was real laid back, just talked to the audience and everything. … Even my manager was like, ‘Yes, Dean is really good.’ So then, I was like, ‘You know we gotta keep doing it. Let’s keep doing it!’ So, he did it.”
Until 2004, Gamble and Blandino made the rounds in New York, practicing their craft at spots like Carolines on Broadway, Gotham Comedy Club and New York Comedy Club whenever they had time.
Blandino’s comedic influences were Richard Pryor, George Carlin, Eddie Murphy and Redd Foxx. They’re some of the funniest people in history, but they also aren’t known for clean comedy.
“There are comics that can go out and not curse and be really entertaining. That wasn’t me necessarily,” Blandino said. “But it wasn’t like, ‘F this, F that.’ Obviously with some of the influences that I have, they were more of the adult-style humor. I don’t know what kind of style that is, but those were just some of the people that influenced me.”
Johnston had heard of Blandino’s comedy background. He didn’t know, however, who some of Blandino’s influences were.
“Can you imagine Dean dropping a little of George Carlin and Redd Foxx at the same time, a combo during a rules description?” Johnston said. “That would be tremendous.”
Pereira knew Blandino’s stand-up work in New York meant he would have an established microphone presence. And while Blandino couldn’t use the NSFW verbiage, his natural ability to discuss the rules of football to a television audience was something Pereira immediately identified.
Blandino’s rise up the NFL ranks took him away from the comedy circuit, and he never integrated his NFL work into his comedy.
“I never thought I wanted to do stand-up comedy as a career,” Blandino said. “As my career in the NFL continued to progress, I felt like I was in a good place, and I felt like I could grow at the league and make a career at the league. Comedy was just something I really enjoyed.
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“It really did help me as I look back now. It helped me in dealing with different people, especially within officiating.”
What was it that Blandino loved about comedy? Holding the microphone with the goal of entertaining strangers was an adrenaline rush.
It also prepared him for dealing with people who weren’t always happy to hear what he had to say.
“I’ve had every coach — whether it’s Tom Coughlin or Mike Tomlin or Bruce Arians, whoever — chew me out and call me every name under the sun,” Blandino said, “but I’ll take that over standing up in a comedy club and telling a joke and just hearing silence as it bombs. That’s, like, the worst feeling in the world.”
Blandino hasn’t completely abandoned entertainment. He was the executive producer for “Her Turf,” an independent documentary released in 2018 that followed three female referees as they found their way in football. But he’s not performing at open mic nights anymore.
“If he didn’t become the person that he is today, I really think he would’ve been a huge comedian,” Gamble said. “I really think he would’ve if he put his time and energy into it.”
Blandino now is one of the top television faces in football. Comics make their money pushing the envelope and crossing lines. Blandino is adept at learning the rules of college and NFL football and explaining them. The work is tedious, but he loves it. He believes fans understanding the rules makes for a better viewing experience.
Blandino and Pereira have put together videos and explainers for Fox’s television talents to help them prepare for games, as well. Blandino will take the same tests officials are given during the week to keep himself sharp. He’s based in a studio in Los Angeles during the regular season keeping tabs on multiple games. He communicates with producers who then relay messages to the announce team. With fewer games in the postseason, Blandino can actually be on location and Pereira can do the same.
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“He’s a security blanket for us every week with us, because the rules have gotten more complicated and (because of) the little things we don’t see,” Macheska said. “He puts it in my ear so I can put it in their ears.”
Johnston likes having Blandino within earshot on game days in the postseason. He can look up from his monitor, and Blandino can simply give him a thumbs up on a call.
“I was telling (Blandino) from the time I played to the beginning of my broadcast career to now, the rules have gone back and forth,” said Johnston, the former Dallas Cowboys fullback who won three Super Bowls in the 1990s before transitioning to broadcasting in 2001.
The security Blandino provides isn’t limited to on-air talent. Director Artie Kempner texts Blandino regularly during the week for rules clarifications.
On game days, the operation can be seamless as Blandino relays what’s happening with the officials to the television truck where Kempner directs the cameras.
“He’ll say, ‘They’re gonna call this, they’re gonna call that,’” Kempner said. “It’s amazing how much he sees.”
Johnston said Blandino’s strength is his ability to bring “clarity where there’s so much gray area” in the rules while doing it with brevity and levity. Johnston said he would like for Blandino to have more time to break down the elements that can lead to pass interference or at what point an offensive lineman is illegally downfield on a pass.
“It’s almost like every decade has its own set of rules,” Blandino said.
Weekly background videos from Blandino and Pereira help analysts help understand the language officials use so Johnston and his colleagues can explain them. But there’s nothing better than hearing from Blandino himself.
Johnston remains impressed with Blandino’s preparation and knowledge. Blandino knows he has to be ready for anything, so he’s always reviewing the rule book.
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“I don’t know what rule is going to be the point of contention,” Blandino said. “I just have to be prepared for all of it and then react in the moment.”
How did Blandino cultivate his mastery of NFL rules? Blandino was never an on-field official, which he believes became an advantage.
“I didn’t have to unlearn anything, because it’s different watching the game at full speed and then watching it on replay and slow motion and (with) different angles,” Blandino said. “I was able to kind of just develop my own process and my own routine and what I needed to do. … I could explain the rules to other people that don’t have the background that, say, somebody that officiated for 25 years has.”
“He may have said to you that he’s not officiated before, but he always claims to me that he made the biggest call in the history of football when he called an incomplete pass on the sideline in the beach football game in the Pro Bowl,” Pereira added. “That’s his total experience of being on the field.”
As Blandino became more prominent with the league and officiating, he didn’t ditch all he learned from comedy. Conversation about officiating with a coach or general manager is usually negative. Someone is probably mad about a call. That’s where a sense of humor helped.
It wasn’t about pandering to coaches, but he made it a priority to relate to people.
“I always felt like that if you build those relationships with those coaches and those club people, they’re gonna be more willing to listen to you,” he said. “We might not always agree, but they’re willing to listen to you. If you don’t have that relationship, then they’re just gonna tune you out.”
Pereira said Blandino is “self-taught” when it comes to the rules.
“He’s kind of gotten to the point now that he has loosened up, and he’s able to be loose with the talent, and I think that’s important,” Pereira said. “What we need to do as rules analysts, we need to present something that’s very important, and that’s how a game is officiated and how a play is looked at. But we don’t need to do it so seriously that we seem drab and dull.”
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Rules can be bland. Blandino can’t afford to be that when he speaks to viewers.
He doesn’t have a lot of time when on air, and there’s no set time for how long a replay will last. He understands he has to be quick on his feet – much like stand-up.
“Especially if you get interaction with the crowd. Maybe it’s a heckler,” Blandino said. “You’ve gotta be quick thinking. But also, it’s the delivery, the timing. With TV, it’s the same thing. You’ve gotta be in and out. You have to deliver it well. You’ve gotta be able to articulate.
“A lot of that leads to success in stand-up; it also leads to success on TV.”
Rules can be an emotional deal for fans. Raiders fans still haven’t forgotten the Tuck Rule game in 2001 at New England. Dallas fans will still say it was a catch by Dez Bryant in the Cowboys’ playoff game in January 2015 at Green Bay. Blandino said the Bryant catch/no catch call is one he’s still asked about.
“It’s the one profession where you could be really good at what you do and the majority of people think you’re a moron,” Blandino said. “There are times when I’ll come on and I’ll explain something, and I’ll feel really good about it, and then I’ll go on Twitter and I don’t feel good about it anymore because there’s ‘You’re an idiot.’ But that’s social media, right?”
It’s social media. It’s also life in comedy. Much like officiating, comedians deal with onlookers telling them how bad they are at their job and how they can do it better.
Either way, Blandino is going to deal with hecklers.
“There are people that say, ‘Oh, I could do Dean Blandino’s job,’ and that’s fine,” he said. “Like, OK, you know, do it. Get out there and do it. I’m all for it. I have no problem with that.”
That would be a sure way for Blandino to get a laugh.
— Rhiannon Walker contributed to this report.
(Illustration: Eamonn Dalton / The Athletic; photo: Rob Carr / Getty Images)
