Given the never-ending nature of NFL news, it’s hard to imagine that insiders like Ian Rapoport ever get much time to just relax.
According to the NFL Network reporter, this week following the NFL Draft is probably the slowest of the calendar year for people like him. That’s saying something given how hectic things were leading up to the draft and everything that is about to follow.
Rapoport appeared on this week’s episode of SI Media with Jimmy Traina and talked about how the draft compares to the many other events that dot the NFL yearly calendar, not to mention how much more he appreciates a call than a text when it comes to his sources.
When asked when his favorite time of year for reporting on the NFL is, Rapoport was adamant that you can’t beat draft season.
“The draft is amazing. It really is a behemoth and a grind but my favorite thing that we do,” said Rapoport. “It’s so fun.
“Super Bowl coverage I love. But it’s also sort of a grind to get there. You go through the game, which is always fun. But so much of the offseason is still out there. You get through the Super Bowl and I go on a week vacation. And then you got the Combine. You got franchise tags. You got free agency. It’s still always in my mind. Free agency is wild and crazy and a lot of fun and we broke a lot of stories and it was great, but you also get things that you didn’t expect. There’s frustrations. It’s tense and you don’t sleep. You sleep like four hours a night. That’s brutal. Fun but brutal.
“The draft is the best though. You spend three weeks or a month putting together a puzzle. I will literally go through my phone and call every single person related to football on my phone. Agent who has a player in the draft, at least in the first three rounds. I’ll call every team person. Coach, coordinator, head coach, GM, personnel director, scouting director, everyone. And I will start the process of putting the puzzle together but you still don’t really know, right? But then you get to the draft and it’s fast and it’s wild and it all plays out in front of you and all your questions get answered. And the trades are so fun, especially if you can get one.
“And then when you get done, the offseason begins and that’s fun too.”
Traina asked what time of year means the least amount of sleep for the NFL insider. Rapoport said that the free agency period is when he knows he’s lucky to get even four hours of sleep every night.
“Free agency is the craziest,” said Rapoport. “You gear up for it and you get ready. You try to get prepared. I’ll go to bed Saturday night being like alright there’s a chance I’m gonna sleep four hours a night maybe for the next six nights, and that’s usually what happens. Because you wake up Sunday and there’s important things that you’re waiting on but then there’s also trades.
“My phone’s on loud. I’m on the Peleton by like 5:15 on Monday through Friday that week. You’re asleep at maybe midnight if you’re lucky but not always because stuff’s still going on the West Coast. And you don’t know if you’re gonna get woken up from a text in the middle of the night. Whereas during the season, I’m up for Good Morning Football three days a week and up early for gameday morning on Sunday, so four early wake-ups. I don’t sleep a lot during the regular season either, but at least it’s regular, so at least I can kinda plan for that.”
As for those late-night texts, Rapoport mentioned a few middle-of-the-night newsbreaks that stick with him, not to mention an important thing they taught him about sources who text.
“Marc Trestman got hired by the Bears at 2:30 in the morning cause I got a call that Bruce Arians had not gotten it and Trestman was the other candidate,” said Rapoport. “And that was at 2 in the morning.
“I got a call that I missed cause someone texted me instead of calling me, which I’m still annoyed about, about Trent Williams signing his huge contract extension two offseasons ago, which actually taught me a really important lesson. From that point, when I have someone I’m expecting a call from, I’ll change their text tone to ring, so even if they text me it rings like a phone call. Because that was a deal that I had been waiting on, I knew it was done. The person was ‘It’s probably not gonna get done tonight but keep your ringer on’ and I did but they texted and didn’t call.
“So I learned a good lesson during that one.”
Given how critical his phone is to what he does, it makes you wonder if Rapoport ever turns it off and just lets go of the breaking news world. The answer to that would be…no, not really.
“Way too stressful,” he said.
Love him or hate him, there’s a reason Ian Rapoport is considered pretty good at the whole insider thing.
