Dean Blandino told a funny story Tuesday about everything going on behind the scenes at an NFL game and how something like a microwave could derail an entire operation.
Blandino, who appears in an episode of the Mike delivers a podcastrecalled how in the Thanksgiving 2016 game between the Lions and the Vikings, a microwave eliminated the NFL's rerun review system.
According to Blandino, who was working with the NFL at the time as vice-president of arbitration, someone took a microwave out of a pantry to warm food Thanksgiving that the NFL had supplied from local Whole Foods:
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"We took the microwave and plugged it in, but they plugged it into the same outlet, the same circuit as the playback system," Blandino said. "So when they turned on the (microwave), everything fell. So we fell for about two minutes while they fixed it while the game continued."
Fortunately, the replay system was restored without incident and Detroit defeated Minnesoa 16-13.
"Fortunately, we haven't had repeated criticism," said Blandino. "But somehow we shut down the system because we wanted to heat the Thanksgiving topping in the microwave."