It’s not breaking news that NFL insider Ian Rapoport doesn’t turn his phone off, but it might be surprising to learn keeping his phone on can lessen his anxiety.
Rapoport joined the latest episode of The Mental Game Podcast and during the interview, host Brandon Saho asked the NFL Network insider about the importance of prioritizing mental health.
NFL insider Ian Rapoport’s phone never stops. @RapSheet talks NFL reporting, breaking stories, battling anxiety and therapy on @MentalGamePods.
Full episode: https://t.co/KawzMUx7wK pic.twitter.com/yFh2MDXBDw
— Brandon Saho (@BrandonSaho) July 18, 2023
“It’s how you cope, it’s how you deal, it’s how you function,” Rapoport explained. “It’s something I’m always cognizant of. I have a very stressful job, I work a lot, and it never stops. So to me, my mental health and mental health in general is how I deal with the stress of my job and the anxiety and everything that comes with it.”
And for Rapoport, one way he deals with the stress and anxiety of his job as an insider for the NFL Network is by adhering to his phone.
“People always ask me, ‘When do you turn your phone off?’ I never turn my phone off,” Rapoport said. “If someone sends me a message, I will always see it. And the reason is, it makes me much more anxious to not know. The thought of turning off my phone and being like, ‘Well, anything can be happening now.’ I don’t like that.”
Rapoport, Adam Schefter, Adrian Wojnarowski and Shams Charania are going to spend more time on their phone than the average person. While that’s the nature of being an insider, the addiction probably isn’t healthy. Earlier this month, Charania shared that he was on his phone for an average 19 hours a day for a full week. For those without a calculator, that leaves just five hours in the day where Charania was not looking at his phone and some of that time is presumably spent sleeping.
Rapoport did not reveal the average number of hours he spends on his phone in a given day, but during the “legal tampering period” in NFL free agency, he can probably rival Charania’s screen time. In the case of Rapoport, he does it for work, but also because it helps to ease his anxiety, which sounds like a slippery slope. And he’s probably not alone. The fear of missing a scoop is part of what drives these insiders to stay close to their phone and break stories.
During the interview, Saho asked Rapoport about the toughest moment of his career. “The Antonio Brown one was pretty bad,” Rapoport said.
Rapoport was referring to March 7, 2019, when he tweeted Antonio Brown was close to being traded to the Buffalo Bills. He reported the deal around 11:30pm, appeared on NFL Network at 12:30am, went to sleep, and the trade broke down around 3:30am. Rapoport woke up, after presumably spending some time away from his phone, and found out his report was already being reported as incorrect. It was an honest mistake that he quickly owned up to, but unfortunately, it probably didn’t do much to help the anxiety Rapoport feels when he’s away from his phone.
