It was just another manic Monday on ESPN’s “NFL Live.”
As ESPN’s daily NFL studio show was on-air, insider Adam Schefter broke in live with the scoop that Aaron Rodgers had finally, mercifully been traded from the Packers to the Jets.
“Aaron Rodgers is going to the New York Jets,” Schefter said. “It’s happening. Finally. After all this time we’ve been waiting for this trade to happen, and now it is.”
As Schefter read a text message from his phone live on the program detailing the trade compensation between the two teams, the group of Laura Rutledge, Mina Kimes, Marcus Spears and Dan Orlovsky were visibly stunned.
The part where they were the most shocked was when Schefter said that the Packers were receiving the Jets’ no. 13 overall pick in the 2023 NFL Draft.
What they hadn’t realized as of yet was that the Packers were sending the Jets back no. 15 overall.
This trade has been largely expected since Rodgers went on “The Pat McAfee Show” last month and said that he “intends” to play for the Jets in 2023.
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Nonetheless, the fact that it took over five weeks from then to get to this point Monday where the trade got finalized made many Jets fans anxious that it could fall through.
However, a mystery team never really emerged for Rodgers.
During Super Bowl week this past February, the ESPN “NFL Live” crew explained to The Post how their chemistry grew so strong.
“I honestly don’t think you get what you get on TV without us being close to each other,” Marcus Spears said. “We ride together. We laugh together. We listen to each others’ music. We have tough conversations, culturally.
“When you work for a company, they often want to put together these lame-ass dinners where you hang out. But we just hung out on our own, on the road or in Bristol. We go to each others’ houses and invite each other over for dinner.”
ESPN executive Lee Fitting explained the tight-rope the show walks between being fun and informative.
“They’ve found the right balance of talking football and injecting fun,” Fitting said. “That is hard to do. It’s very easy to upset that balance in a hurry. It could get too ‘hardcore football,’ or too silly. To strike that balance is a really hard thing to do on live TV.”
