Chris Mortensen (Photo by Kevin C. Cox/AAF/Getty Images)
Chris Mortensen sadly passed away earlier this year, having stepped down from his post at ESPN in 2023.

Mortenson was a staple at The Worldwide Leader in Sports for over three decades before his unfortunate departure. But it’s been revealed that he nearly left the network to take a job with an NFL team early on in his career.

The Athletic’s Zak Keefer wrote a tribute to Mortensen this week, which features an anecdote detailing how he almost left ESPN for the Jacksonville Jaguars in 1994.

The Jags had just joined the league as an expansion team when they offered Mortensen the role of vice president of their player personnel department.

According to the piece, Mortensen accepted the offer but changed his mind shortly after because his wife, Micki, didn’t want to move to Jacksonville.

NFL insider Pete Prisco, who was a Jaguars reporter for The Florida Times-Union back then, said the team wanted Mortensen because of all the information they felt he could get.

“When you think about it on the surface, the job made no sense,” he said.

“They thought because Mort had access to all this information around the league, they could use that. But the reality was nobody was going to tell him anything now that he worked for a team.”

Chris Mortensen Helped ESPN Become A Major Player

Chris Mortensen ended up sticking with ESPN and helped it grow into a sports giant, especially where it pertains to football coverage.

He was diagnosed with Stage 4 throat cancer in 2016 and stepped down from his role at ESPN last year.

He died in March at the age of 72.