Adam Schefter Admits He Waited for Draft Day to Drop the Aaron Rodgers Bomb and Twitter is Not Happy About It

OK. So Adam Schefter admitted he didn't get some pressing insider tip about Aaron Rodgers trying to shoot his way out of Green Bay and had to break the story on the morning of the NFL's biggest day of the offseason. It was an "accumulation of information." He could've dropped that Schefter Bomb weeks earlier or days later. But the date and time was going to be one of his choosing. 

Like Truman deciding when to unleash Little Boy and Fat Man, he was going to pick the moment that would have the greatest impact. And that was Draft Day. And if the replies to this Dan Patrick Show are any indication, a LOT of people are unhappy about it. 

There are dozens more, but you get the picture. Not to mention, the people who found a contradiction in what Schefty told Patrick and how he initially reported it:

Look, doubt Schefter's reporting if you wish. Question the truth of it if you want. Though I'll point out that it's been a week and there hasn't been a single denial from either Rodgers or the Packers. All the team has said is that they have no intention of trading him. Which is both what you say when you have no intention of trading someone and what you say when you have every intention of trading him.  

But what you can't do is complain about the timing of the report. Honest to God, what do people think Schefty's job is? To avoid saying what you don't want to hear? Break things to you gently? Minimize the exposure his reports will get? His employers pay him to drive content. Clicks on the dot com, eyeballs on the screen. ESPN has been drowning in a tsunami of red ink for the last decade. The very air around them is filled with the deafening sound of millions of cables being cut. When he's carrying a nuke around in his pocket like the league MVP wanting out of his multimillion dollar contract with the team that drafted him, Schefter has a fiduciary duty to unleash the fury of that bomb where it will do the maximum damage. And picking a time when it would dominate the news on a night millions set aside specifically to think about pro football is the only appropriate moment. 

I mean, this isn't MLB, who get to order teams not to announce manager hirings around the World Series. This is America. This is the press exercising the freedom spelled out for them in the Bill of Rights. The one that comes even before your right to not have British troops stay in your house and to buy hollow-point bullets.

And as far as how "Draft Day is supposed to be all about the young men getting to live their dream" or whatever, that's not Schefter's concern. His duty on a day like that is to a young man by the name of Adam Schefter. If those prospects are talking about his report while they wait to hear their names called, that's good for the brand. It means they're coming into the league understanding who the Alpha is going to be. Throughout their careers and long after their gone. It's him welcoming them in to the league by swinging the biggest dong and putting them on notice there is nothing about them he will not find out. No story about them he will not be breaking. Any damned time it fits his purposes. And thus endeth the lesson.