Laura Rutledge is set to return as a full-time sideline reporter for Monday Night Football in 2026, working alongside Lisa Salters. She took on this role permanently in 2025, joining Joe Buck and Troy Aikman for the full 20-game slate.
Despite this heavy travel schedule, she still hosts NFL Live daily, often anchoring the show from whichever city is hosting the Monday night game. To manage this workload and spend more time with her family, she recently stepped down from her long-standing role as the host of SEC Nation.
Her recent appearance on The Pivot Podcast over Mother’s Day weekend added a lot of perspective to her success. However, nobody expected her to break into tears in front ofRyan Clark, which made everyone in the room emotional.
Laura Rutledge gets emotional about motherhood ahead of Mother’s Day
When Clark asked Rutledge what Mother’s Day means to her, she didn’t give a rehearsed answer. Instead, she struggled to get the words out as she looked back at how she used to feel.
Aug 31, 2025; Atlanta, Georgia, USA; ESPN reporter Laura Rutledge shown on the set on the field before the game between the South Carolina Gamecocks against the Virginia Tech Hokies at Mercedes-Benz Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Dale Zanine-Imagn Images
Aug 31, 2025; Atlanta, Georgia, USA; ESPN reporter Laura Rutledge shown on the set on the field before the game between the South Carolina Gamecocks against the Virginia Tech Hokies at Mercedes-Benz Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Dale Zanine-Imagn Images
Rutledge told Clark that for years, she didn’t believe she could have both a family and a high-level career in sports media. She and her husband, Josh, tried to conceive for nearly two years.
During that time, she dealt with the monthly disappointment of not being pregnant while watching her friends announce their own news online. By the time she finally got pregnant with her daughter, Reese, she had already started convincing herself it was never going to happen.
“I thought my body’s not going to be capable of this because it wasn’t working out, and I had accepted it,” shetold Clark. “We were married for seven years almost before we even had kids. I’m chasing this career dream. I can’t even visualize how it would be possible to have a child while doing what I was doing.”
The 37-year-old added, “And I’ll never forget finding out that I was pregnant and being so disappointed — because I thought this was going to end my career. I’m building all this momentum. I can’t be on TV pregnant. Even going through the pregnancy, I was like, okay, this is it for me. I better do every single event I can possibly do before I have this child because my career’s over after that.”
ESPN reporter Laura Rutledge gets emotional and breaks down in tears while explaining that she thought having kids would ruin her career, but after having them, she couldn’t be happier ❤️👀
“I was disappointed because I thought this was going to end my career. I can’t be on TV… pic.twitter.com/Rh2XSbMLoE
— Killa 🌺 (@KillaKreww) May 9, 2026
Then she said the quiet part out loud: “How could I ever think that career was more important than what this is.”
She couldn’t finish the sentence without breaking down. “I cannot talk about this without losing it,” she said.
Her life ended up proving those early fears wrong. Rutledge covered the 2023 NFL Draft while nine months pregnant with her son, Jack. She explained to Clark that her children were born during the most successful years of her professional life.
“It is the greatest joy of my life to celebrate Mother’s Day,” she said. “To hear their little voices saying Happy Mother’s Day—there is nothing more special than that.”
It was an emotional moment that lasted over three and a half minutes. Hosts Ryan Clark, Fred Taylor, and Channing Crowder remained quiet as Laura Rutledge shared her journey, creating one of the most powerful highlights of the Mother’s Day episode.