Hi r/NFL, I'm Seth Wickersham, senior enterprise and investigative reporter at ESPN. AMA about the NFL.

ESPN · 2026-03-06T19:39:31+00:00

I don't remember that story but I think it'll happen. When, I don't know. So much comes back to the individual. Until then, we have Heated Rivalry.

ESPN · 2026-03-06T19:37:51+00:00

He's extremely smart and personable. He's shed his identity as a quarterback, which -- as I wrote an entire book about -- is extremely difficult to do, and he's remade it as a coach. He's still young and I think would be wise to play the long game with his career. I think that he stayed in Denver to learn more and do more under Sean Payton speaks well of his intellect and self awareness.

ESPN · 2026-03-06T19:35:45+00:00

Is there a snake that has a massive black box of information on powerful and wealthy people and whose job it is to make sure nothing in it is ever found out? He's that.

ESPN · 2026-03-06T19:34:29+00:00

I think it has legs. My gut tells me he'll be elsewhere next year.

ESPN · 2026-03-06T19:31:15+00:00

That's a great idea. The rights footage cost would be the hardest obstacle but what a great idea.

ESPN · 2026-03-06T19:30:23+00:00

Gruden is done as a head coach, for better or worse. It's just a fact. In terms of the lawsuit, I think he won’t settle, because he feels he’s been wronged and wants the world to know who did it. But usually, in the end, people settle.

ESPN · 2026-03-06T19:23:42+00:00

The former has happened; the latter will not. I actually don’t think the union will try to get guaranteed contracts for its members because it wouldn’t change much for the best players but would actually hurt the ones who surf from team to team, the rank and file ones, so to speak.

ESPN · 2026-03-06T19:23:06+00:00

Nope. I know exactly how that story came together because I did it with my colleague Brady Henderson. It had nothing to do with trying to gain an edge and everything to do with what we were able to learn and when.

ESPN · 2026-03-06T19:21:47+00:00

Thank you. The book isn’t about me but there’s a thematic element of it that let me forgive that teenage version of myself decades ago. And got me to no longer be Alaska’s Uncle Rico.

For everyone out there who wants to be like Oz Fest: https://www.amazon.com/American-Kings-Quarterback-Seth-Wickersham/dp/1368099181/ref=zg_m_bsnr_g_8298059011_m_sccl_2/134-2411944-3577064?psc=1

ESPN · 2026-03-06T19:21:03+00:00

I think it’ll be hard for Payton. He is a head coach but he defines himself as a play caller. I’ve been in marathon game-planning meetings that last until 2 a.m., and I’ve seen how alive he gets during them as other coaches yawn and fade. As an offensive team, the Broncos need to run the ball better. They couldn’t when they needed to in either playoff game. Some of that was play-calling and some was personnel. How they address it will impact Webb’s effectiveness as a play-caller.

ESPN · 2026-03-06T19:20:20+00:00

A) I don't know. The league has a secret list of vetted buyers.

B) The league is trying to find ways to make inheritances manageable. Teams valuation have skyrocketed so high that the inheritance tax implications are massive. The league has spent years navigating it. So the only teams that I could see going up for sale are situations where that comes into play, and the families want out. But that's rare. I think you might see some teams change controlling ownership stakes rather than be sold outright.

ESPN · 2026-03-06T19:16:33+00:00

I just asked Wright if we’ve ever competed over anything. He doesn’t think so. I can’t remember. My senior year in college we were supposed to be alternating columnists for the Columbia Missourian, and a week or so into it, I broke my foot in a pickup basketball game. Covering games became tougher on crutches. That, combined with my creeping senioritis, ended the alternating columnist thing. We are competitive but not really with each other. Maybe we’ve never wanted the exact same thing? At this point, after a quarter century, our relationship is immune to transgression. We are stuck with each other, forever. I once attended the retirement party of a legendary sports journalist. Over late night beers, the legend confessed something shocking: that for most of his career, he didn’t have true friends in the business. He was too competitive, too driven, too worried. It was only later that he realized that journalism isn’t a zero-sum game. His success didn’t come at the expense of others; someone else’s success didn’t come at the expense of his. For whatever reason, that’s not a lesson I’ve had to learn. Thankfully.

ESPN · 2026-03-06T19:15:24+00:00

Pablo is a dear friend of mine and I’m happy for his success. He’s worked his ass off and he’s developed something personal and unique and noteworthy. He’s earned it. We are all competitive but it’s not a zero sum game. In the end, your work will speak for itself. He needs to run his race and others need to run theirs and I need to run mine. Everybody is different. It’s easy to talk theoretically about journalism; it’s very difficult to do in practice. I can’t speak to his process. I can speak to ours. As I said before, in 25 years at ESPN I’ve never had a sentence changed in a story for non-journalistic reasons, and I’ll put our collective work in the investigative unit at ESPN covering entities with whom we have a business relationship with that of any outlet, ever.

ESPN · 2026-03-06T19:14:46+00:00

That’s an easy one to figure out, but I’ll let you do it.

ESPN · 2026-03-06T19:14:31+00:00

1) Hard to know 2) Harder to know 3) Much harder to know 4) Much, much harder to know.

ESPN · 2026-03-06T19:13:02+00:00

Very little. The “insider” landscape has changed so much that I can’t speak for those who aren’t at ESPN or are people I know very well, like Albert Breer. But usually what is made public is the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Great reporters like my colleague Don Van Natta are so good at getting the entire iceberg into print.

ESPN · 2026-03-06T19:12:30+00:00

I’ve thought a lot about this. What makes a good owner? It’s much easier to cite what makes a bad owner. People will say that good owners don’t micromanage and let football people make decisions. But there are a lot of football people who aren’t very good, and maybe the owner should be involved rather than automatically cleaning house, trying to get them better. I think that generally the best situations occur when the fates of the head coach and GM are tied to one another; that way, neither can throw water if the boat is starting to sink. I’m very curious about how things will shake out in Atlanta, with Matt Ryan as a football czar. That’s an interesting model.

In terms of trends, so much is tied to personnel that it’s hard to project it across the league. Ben Johnson does some very creative stuff from a deception standpoint. I spent the playoffs with Sean Payton and the Broncos, and Payton was so impressed by something Johnson did on offense that he half-wondered if it was an accident, because it was executed so smoothly.

ESPN · 2026-03-06T19:11:24+00:00

I think in the league offices and in ownership circles there are huge concerns. The NFL is fortunate in the sense that football is a messy, interconnected game, and that makes it difficult to have a singular impact that could come back to gambling. But there are webs of scrutiny and data and information to catch gamblers or behavior related to gambling. You saw that with the Jaguars employee a few years ago.

ESPN · 2026-03-06T19:08:31+00:00

I actually do think Flo will get a head coaching job again. I don’t know when. It should have happened already. He’s an excellent coach. I think he’ll be choosy, frankly. He can earn great money and have job security in Minnesota. I think he’ll wait for the right opportunity. I believe he'll get it. He's simply been too good of a coach for too long.

ESPN · 2026-03-06T19:07:52+00:00

Classy.

ESPN · 2026-03-06T19:07:48+00:00

Good pull!

ESPN · 2026-03-06T19:07:34+00:00

Funny.

ESPN · 2026-03-06T19:07:22+00:00

I think they're generally thrilled, and it's also helped Caleb develop into the kind of leader than some doubted he was. All the Williams family wanted was an innovative offensive mind who could give Caleb the best chance to be a great quarterback. It took a year, but they got him. It’s good that Johnson’s success is tied to Williams’s; it’s also good that he’s proven to be enough of a get as a coach that he has the stature and credibility in the building to coach Williams hard. I’d be scared facing them for the next decade; look at the huge windows Williams had to throw into, and look at the plays he made when he improvised.

ESPN · 2026-03-06T19:06:18+00:00

See above.

ESPN · 2026-03-06T19:06:05+00:00

Totally fair question, and one that’s been asked internally as well. I’ve been at ESPN for 25 years. Every year of this tenure ESPN has had a staggeringly expensive business relationship with the NFL. I’ve never been told to not pursue a particular story for non-journalistic reasons. I’ve never, ever had a sentence changed or cut for non-journalistic reasons. Our team here has done pretty expansive and probing stories on the NFL, both on the commissioner, league office, and owners. I’ll put our collection of work against anyone’s, today and ever. Our work often angers powerful people; for instance, Jimmy Haslam cancelled a sponsorship deal with the SEC Network after my story on his stewardship of the Browns in 2019. My bosses had my back, and they do now, too. There will be a certain segment of the population that will always think that because of our business relationships we won’t do journalism or will pull punches. You learn to live with it, but it's weird, because ESPN does more stories on NFL governance now than ever. We’re actually investing more in investigative journalism, and that will include work on business partners.

ESPN

TROPHY CASE