Whether she’s hosting NFL Live or interviewing players and coaches on the sidelines during Monday Night Football, Laura Rutledge makes it look easy.
Internally, she’s feeling anything but.
Rutledge recently talked about the anxiety she deals with as part of her job, especially in her full-time role as a sideline reporter with MNF.
“I deal with that every day, I really do,” Rutledge said on Shannon Spake’s Sons and Daughters podcast on Wednesday. “I think there’s probably some people out there in the world that go to their TV job and feel great about it everyday, that has never happened to me. I can know inside of me I’m capable of doing these things, and yet be my own worst enemy the whole time. Beating myself down or telling myself I can’t do it or I’m gonna fail.”
The 37-year-old, who re-signed a multi-year deal with ESPN in 2025, spoke specifically about her Monday Night Football role and how hard it was to move past a defeatist attitude. However, once the game got underway, she would realize just how capable she is.
“I had a lot of trouble with that this past season,” she said. “Before the day would start, psyching myself out and being like ‘You’re not gonna be able to do this, you’re gonna have a big mess up today,’ beating myself down so bad.
“By the time I would get to the game, I’d be like ‘Oh, I’m fine.’ I had to prove to myself every single one of those Mondays that I could actually do it again, which is wild because I couldn’t convince myself that I had done it last week.”
She certainly has had her work cut out for her over the last year and a half. Rutledge became the face of ESPN and ABC’s coverage of the New Year’s terror attack in New Orleans before the Sugar Bowl. Her MNF interview with Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert got weird, and she had to set the record straight over a perceived snub by Seahawks quarterback Sam Darnold. Through it all, Rutledge has been sprinting from one opportunity to the next, quite literally.
Chris Berman has called highlights of plays featuring the NFL’s all-time greats… Jerry Rice, Barry Sanders and so many more.
Love that he did this for @LauraRutledge. Just now on ESPN’s NFL Live. pic.twitter.com/5mDCs1fWQx
— bill hofheimer (@bhofheimer_espn) January 5, 2026
Rutledge is keeping plenty busy, even as she stops hosting SEC Nation after nearly a decade. Along with her usual work, she’ll continue roaming the sidelines for prominent college football games and will be part of ESPN’s first Super Bowl coverage in February 2027.
About Sean Keeley
Along with writing for Awful Announcing and The Comeback, Sean is the Managing Editor for Comeback Media. Previously, he created the Syracuse blog Troy Nunes Is An Absolute Magician and wrote 'How To Grow An Orange: The Right Way to Brainwash Your Child Into Rooting for Syracuse.' He has also written non-Syracuse-related things for SB Nation, Curbed, and other outlets. He currently lives in Seattle where he is complaining about bagels. Send tips/comments/complaints to sean@thecomeback.com.