NFL insiders have reproduced at an alarming rate over the past few years, seemingly reproducing by budding like a sponge.  Major sports networks and media outlets have multiple people working for them whose sole job is to report every single drop of NFL news that is in existence.  Newspapers and blogs are trying to get in on the action.  Even people who have no business reporting on the NFL are trying to get their name out there.  (Did you hear about the college football recruiting guy who broke the news that the Saints were open to trading Drew Brees?  Didn’t think so.)

More demand from fans for information leads to more media resources dedicated to fulfilling said demand, which leads to a deluge of football news on a 24/7/365 basis, no matter how big or small, no matter the source.

But with all this increased competition and flooding of the marketplace, there’s still one NFL insider who reigns supreme above the rest – ESPN’s Adam Schefter.  The opening day of free agency is the annual Hunger Games for NFL insiders and Schefter is always the winner.  2015 was no different.

It started with Schefter’s announcement about an ESPN special at 3 PM ET when the green flag was dropped.

Schefter then produced a tour de force performance of insiderdom, even while he was simulatenously appearing on ESPN television.

Schefty personally broke signings or trades on the following players, including the massive Eagles-Rams deal involving starting QBs Sam Bradford and Nick Foles:

Sam Bradford
Nick Foles
Owen Daniels
Malcolm Smith
Brooks Reed
Justin Durant
Buster Skrine
Lee Smith
Torrey Smith

He also tweeted information about the following players, either sharing deals that were done or visits that were scheduled or forwarding reports from others.

Darrelle Revis
LaMarr Woodley
Virgil Green
Jimmy Graham
Haloti Ngata
Frank Gore
Andre Johnson
Mike Iupati
Mike Adams
Brandon Marshall
LeSean McCoy
Kiko Alonso
DeAngelo Williams
Percy Harvin
AJ Hawk
Case Keenum
JT Thomas
Jermaine Gresham
Antrel Rolle
Tramon Williams
Kendall Langford
Matt Cassel
Byron Maxwell
Jabaal Sheard
Shelley Smith

The total breakdown in numbers in just over 8 hours of reporting on the first day of free agency:

44 players reported on
9 free agent signings broken
4 trades reported on
0 times fooled by a parody account (sorry Peter King)

46 tweets
10 retweets

“Sources” – 7 tweets
“Source” – 2 tweets
“Me and @CaplanNFL” – 2 tweets
“NFL source” – 1 tweet
“League Sources” – 1 tweet

Most popular player: Darrelle Revis  – 7 tweets
Most popular tweet: Foles for Bradford – 13k retweets

The most amazing thing about Schefter is that this seems like a normal day for him whereas the other 6 billion people on planet earth would be floored over all the activity and breaking news on his Twitter page.  Amazingly enough, these numbers are down from the 62 players Schefter reported on for the first day of free agency last year, although the weird timing for the opening of free agency this year probably had something to do with that.

After all that, Schefter finally allowed himself to breathe in the late evening hours after a full day of reporting news.

Naturally, he’s already back at it this morning breaking news on DeAngelo Williams, Brandon Browner, and Clint Boling.  I just hope he has his phone charger with him in Bristol.

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