ESPN’s Adam Schefter: ‘I love to feel the energy of something that is not familiar’

Let’s be clear: ESPN NFL insider extraordinaire Adam Schefter loves his job. The moves, the exchanging of information and, maybe most of all, the relationships.

That doesn’t mean he never feels like he’s in a “cage,” a prisoner to the pressure of being first and right on every incessant NFL move.

He’s been covering the NFL for more than three decades and is paid handsomely at around $9 million per year. A few years ago, he did some sideline work on NBA games and loved it. He has some other dreams.

“I like being let out of the cage, and ESPN doesn’t let me out of the cage very often,” Schefter said during a 50-minute interview on my podcast. “I would love to do sideline for golf. They haven’t asked me. I’m just telling you, things like that, that get your juices going a little bit — I love what I do, and I’ll do it for a long time, but I love to feel the energy of something that is not familiar to you, that you haven’t done for 35 years, where it is new faces in a new place. And that, to me, is a little bit stimulating.”

Schefter, 58, is not going the way of his buddy Adrian Wojnarowski, the NBA insider whose shock retirement last summer revealed that being the news breaker of record for a major league might be worth millions, but it comes with a price.

“I’ve done this for 35 years,” Schefter said. “How many more NFL stories do you want to keep covering? I love it. I love it, and I’m blessed and fortunate. I love the people that I interact with and have relationships with and that I’m fortunate to have relationships with. It’s a privilege. But the few times that ESPN has sent me out to cover an NBA game and do a sideline reporting gig, I love that.

“I remember the night that my son got into Michigan. I was doing a Cleveland Cavaliers game on a Friday night in late March, and LeBron walks past me, and he goes, ‘What are you doing here? You get lost?’ You interact with people outside of your normal world. To see the coaches walk into these production meetings and they want to know, ‘Hey, what’s going on with the Cowboys? What’s going on with the Broncos?’ It’s refreshing. I love stepping out of this zone on the rare occasions that I can.”

Schefter, though, is in the zone most of the time. He’s at his best when you closely listen to him talk about what might happen — when he very much knows it likely will — for hints. So the idea that he is just an old newspaper agate section in human form taking dictation eats at him.

“Yes, there are certain things that we can put out that have teams ruling out a player and five minutes later, the injury comes and, ‘Yes, he’s ruled out,’” Schefter said. “OK, that’s a part of the job. There are a lot of elements to the job. A lot.”

His role is all-encompassing, and you wonder if Schefter is happy. He says he is, but when Wojnarowski left $20 million in his rearview mirror to make $75,000 to be the general manager at his alma mater, St. Bonaventure, Schefter was receiving texts from around the NFL. Are you next?

“When Woj did that, that day, I must’ve gotten 15 texts about becoming the GM of Michigan,” Schefter said. “Now, Michigan has a great GM: Sean Magee. Love him. Great respect for him. I don’t want his job right now. I don’t know how my wife would feel about living in Ann Arbor.

“Your mind always wonders: What do I want to do? I love what I do. I’ve been blessed to do this for 35 years. You know what the business has become and what it is like. Is it something I want to do another 35 years? No, no. Is it going to be five, 10? I don’t know.”

Editor’s note: Listen to the entire conversation between Marchand and Schefter here.

(Photo: Jeff Schear / Getty Images)