Jordan Schultz missed the biggest story of his career because he wanted a good night’s sleep.
On the latest episode of the Awful Announcing Podcast with host Brandon Contes, Schultz walked through what might be the most painful miss any NFL insider could experience, which coincidentally happened just one week into his new gig at Bleacher Report.
After spending several years at The Score, Schultz joined B/R in 2023. He has since worked at Fox Sports and now operates as an independent NFL insider with multiple podcast forums, including one with Draymond Green, that recently caused a stir.
But it wasn’t Draymond referring to Dak Prescott as a “bum” that haunted Schultz on this particular night. In fact, it was the one night he decided nothing would happen that ended up costing him one of the biggest scoops of his career.
It was Halloween night 2023, and the circumstances seemed perfectly safe for an early bedtime. The NFL trade deadline had passed earlier that day at 4 p.m. ET, which typically marks the end of the chaos for NFL insiders during the season.
Schultz figured he was in the clear and could finally get some rest after what had likely been an exhausting deadline day.
He went to bed around 11 p.m. and did something he said he rarely, if ever, does — he turned his phone off completely, or at least put it on silent mode where he wouldn’t hear the constant buzz of notifications. For one night, he would prioritize his own well-being and get a full night’s sleep without interruption.
Then he woke up in the middle of the night to a flood of missed calls and texts.
“What they were saying was, ‘Hey, Josh McDaniels is about to get fired,'” Schultz said. “You know, they got embarrassed on a [Monday] night to Detroit, I think it was. Then, the deadline was the next day, and they fired him in the middle of the night. It’s probably the best time to fire a coach if you don’t want coverage. And they fired McDaniels, the Raiders did. And so, I had it. I HAD IT. CONFIRMED.”
The firing came one day after an embarrassing 26-14 loss to the Lions on Monday Night Football, a game in which the Raiders’ offense managed just 157 total yards. It was the kind of performance that signals the end is near, but most people expected the Raiders to wait at least until the end of the season, given that both head coach and GM were able to operate that day’s trading deadline.
Instead, the Raiders fired them in the middle of the night on Halloween. And Schultz had it confirmed with a 30-minute head start.
Or at least he thought he did.
“It was like a 30-minute buffer, which might’ve been a full day,” Schultz said. “I mean, 30 minutes in our business is like a week. It’s unheard of. I couldn’t believe it. I was like, ‘I turned my phone off the one night?’ And I usually would’ve never done that, but I was like, ‘Nothing’s going to happen tonight; it’s very safe.’ And it didn’t work out too well for me.”
Has Schultz turned his phone off since that night? He has, but not because he learned his lesson. He’s just not built for the relentless phone-checking grind that defines some insiders. He takes breaks. He has two young kids. That’s how he operates, and he’s not changing.
“I don’t do the constant check-ins,” Schultz said. “I try to be respectful of space and what I would want.”
“The ones that I’m much more accepting of is if I’m at a hockey game for my son, or if I’m at a cheer event for my daughter,” Schultz continued. “I will consistently put the phone away in those situations. But, in this one, I just like, ‘I need to have a good sleep,’ and I missed a monster story.”