The NFL is back in Mexico City for the first time since 2019 next week, which apparently means Adam Schefter is returning to the place where he once believed he was kidnapped.
During the latest episode of The Adam Schefter Podcast, ESPN’s premier NFL insider recalled his last visit to Mexico City for Monday Night Football, as he gets set to travel again for next week’s matchup between the San Francisco 49ers and Arizona Cardinals.
According to Schefter, “they” (presumably ESPN and the NFL) attempt to ensure everyone who is there for the game is going to the right places in Mexico City, which would make sense considering it’s a foreign country. But for a brief moment in 2019, Schefter panicked when he wasn’t sure he was going to the right place.
“We’re at the game, we’re at the stadium, and there were people shuttling us back to the hotel,” Schefter recalled around the 33-minute mark of the above podcast. “There are some people that walk you there. like ESPN security people, and somehow I lost them. There were these two guys that said to me ‘Let’s go, we’re going back to your hotel.’ And I’m like, ‘Okay, great!’
“I get in this car, and about two minutes in, and I’m like, ‘Oh my god. What did I just do? I just got into the car of strangers, men I don’t know. And I don’t know where they’re taking me right now.’ I’m thinking to myself, I can’t believe that I’m in Mexico City, I’ve been warned against this, not going near strangers and I just got kidnapped. I’m texting a couple people that are co-workers, ‘Am I in the right car? Did I go back with the right men to the hotel?’”
A diligent reporter might check to see if it was the right car and driver before getting in the car, but Schefter bypassed that step and waited until it may have been too late before questioning whether he was in the correct mode of transportation.
“And I’m not joking to tell you that I was panicked,” Schefter added. “My heart was racing. I really thought that I had gotten in the wrong car and I was off to who knows where. But, fortunately, it was the right car.”
There have certainly been instances of visitors encountering harrowing experiences while traveling to Mexico City. Luckily for Schefter, his story was not that. But it can still teach all of us a lesson: ask for some sort of confirmation before jumping in a stranger’s car, regardless of what city you’re in. Thank you, Adam Schefter.
“When I go back there this week, I might be holding Booger McFarland’s hand the entire time until we get into the right car,” Schefter concluded. “Booger is going to be my babysitter.”
[The Adam Schefter Podcast, via Barrett Sports Media]
