Sean Salisbury

Richard Sean Salisbury (born March 9, 1963) is an American football analyst, former NFL and CFL quarterback, and actor.

Early life

Salisbury attended Orange Glen High School in Escondido, California. During Sean's senior year at Orange Glen High School, he was a highly recruited quarterback,^[1] choosing USC over UCLA, BYU, Stanford, Notre Dame, Cal, Arizona, and Arizona State.

Salisbury averaged 26.5 points per game his senior year and was a high school All-American basketball player. UCLA and USC both offered Salisbury basketball scholarships. Sean has three children, Dylan, Dodge, and Shea.^[2]

Sean's younger brother is Brett Salisbury

Professional career

During his ten-year career, Salisbury was a member of the Seattle Seahawks, Indianapolis Colts, Minnesota Vikings, San Diego Chargers and Houston Oilers as well as the Winnipeg Blue Bombers of the Canadian Football League. In 1988, Salisbury led the Winnipeg Blue Bombers to a Grey Cup championship over Matt Dunigan and the BC Lions.

Broadcaster

After getting his start on the Comedy Central show BattleBots, Salisbury went on to become an NFL analyst on ESPN, appearing on SportsCenter and NFL Live. He was well known for his dislike of fellow analyst John Clayton. Clayton once famously got back at Salisbury, when, during an argument, Salisbury attempted to prove his point by telling Clayton, "You never played in the NFL." Clayton, noting that Salisbury spent most of his career as a backup quarterback on the sidelines (he received about a year's worth of NFL snaps in an eight-year career), fired back, "Neither did you!"

In 2004, Salisbury was offered a job with the Arizona Cardinals by his former coach and fellow co-worker at ESPN, Dennis Green, to become their new quarterbacks coach. Salisbury pondered for weeks, but eventually declined and stayed on with ESPN.

Salisbury was hired as a consultant for the 2005 remake of The Longest Yard. On the set, Sean taught Adam Sandler proper quarterback mechanics, cadences, and footwork. Sandler later offered Salisbury a role in the 2006 film, The Benchwarmers.

On May 9, 2006, Salisbury began broadcasting on ESPN Radio 1000, Chicago with Steve Rosenbloom. He also did guest spots on the ESPN Classic comedy program Cheap Seats, where he provided his signature breakdowns of the action in a more comedic manner. He has covered for Mike Golic on Mike and Mike in the Morning.

In 2007, Salisbury's No. 12 football jersey was retired at his alma mater, Orange Glen High School, an honor no other person in school history has ever received.^[3] "I can't believe I'm having my number retired like John Elway, Marcus Allen, Larry Bird or Magic Johnson," Salisbury said. "In my own little world, I will always cherish being the first at my high school to be honored like this."

On February 26, 2008, Salisbury's contract was not renewed by ESPN. Salisbury suggested, according to Profootballtalk.com, that he was unhappy with his salary and status compared to those analysts who were more prominent players in their NFL careers. Salisbury explained, saying that “I’d grown tired of being punished for not being an NFL superstar,” He also complained that “analysts who don’t work as hard as me, don’t prepare as hard as me, and don’t have my resume were making more than me just because of their ability to throw or catch a football.”^[4]

After ESPN, Salisbury worked briefly for OPENSports.com and KRLD-FM 105.3 The Fan, the CBS Radio affiliate in Dallas. The website Deadspin, amongst others, had reported numerous times that Salisbury had been fired in part for an incident where he photographed his genitals in a Connecticut bar.^[5] On September 23, 2009, Deadspin published emails in which Salisbury promised to sue the site for defamation and to "get his reputation back."^[6] Salisbury later admitted that the incident was true.^[7]

On September 25, 2009, Salisbury provided the color commentary for the Lingerie Football League (LFL) presentation of Friday Night Football. Broadcast on WBFS-TV and KDOC-TV; and streamed online at lflus.com. The Dallas Desire defeated the Denver Dream 20-6. On January 29, 2011, it was confirmed that Salisbury became a play-by-play announcer for the LFL. Salisbury's announcing duties and relationship with the league came to an end in January 2012 when the LFL released him from his contract, saying "Our expectations were not met in terms of broadcast protocol and we were not pleased with the overall lack of respect toward our producers, which primarily drove the decision" in a league statement.^[8]

On October 20, 2010, it was announced Salisbury would host a pilot for a sports comedy talk show called Inside Sports: News You Can Almost Trust. The show aired on Versus in January. Producer Mark McClure called the show "ESPN meets Comedy Central's Daily Show with some SNL skits, too. Sean will be our Jon Stewart." ^[9] After the pilot aired the show was retooled as a more serious Inside Sports Unleashed, which began taping on May 12, 2011.^[10]

On September 9, 2013, Salisbury became part of the Yahoo! Sports Radio network lineup as co-host of “The War Room” with John Granato airing from 3:00 pm to 7:00 pm ET daily.^[11]

References

External links

• Career statistics and player information from NFL.com • ESPN • Pro-Football-Reference