Adam Schefter’s fantasy football league is none too happy with him.
The ESPN NFL insider had picked up Antonio Brown last week before he reported that the Seattle Seahawks were interested in signing the suspended receiver and two days before he actually signed with the Tampa Bay Bucs.
On his podcast Wednesday, Schefter explained that his move led to an “investigation” within his league after his boss, ESPN vice president of production Seth Markman, tweeted a screenshot that led to the public also accusing him of “insider trading.”
Schefter, who said he began getting calls about a potential Brown signing last Wednesday, issued a full-hearted defense of his actions on his podcast.
“Antonio Brown clearly was going to be signing with a team. I could tell in the way people were talking,” Schefter said. “I went into my ESPN fantasy roto league and I decided I was going to pick up Antonio Brown. Now…I didn’t have it confirmed at that point in time that he was signing with anybody, but I could read the tea leaves enough to know that it was building momentum, building steam and it was only a certain amount of time that he would end up on a certain team.”
Schefter maintained that this does not qualify as “insider trading,” and also added that he was tired of getting beat by others on his own reporting.
“It was me sensing it was going a certain way,” he said. “Before I reported there were conversations, yes, I picked up Antonio Brown because I’ve seen Matthew Berry snake somebody as soon as I reported a trade was done. I remember specifically reporting Trent Richardson was being traded from Cleveland to Indianapolis and as soon as I filed the story, I went to pick up Willis McGahee from Cleveland and Matthew Berry, literally 30 seconds after I posted the story, already had him. So, I wasn’t going to wait this year. I’m going to go pick up Antonio Brown and see where he signs. Sure enough, he signs on Friday night.”
Whether it was fair game or not, Schefter certainly took advantage of his connections, which prompted some others in the league to stir the pot a bit with some moves of their own.
“When we began to look at the wire in our league on Thursday, Tim Hasselbeck and Matthew Hasselbeck…[They] dropped Jacksonville running back Chris Thompson and picked up Andrew Luck,” Schefter said. “This generated a lot of conversation. All of a sudden I’m getting a text from Matthew Berry, ‘do you see what’s going on in the roto league? The Hasselbecks – Matthew Hasselbeck, (whose good friends with Andrew Luck) picked up Andrew Luck. Is something going on?’
“Obviously, the Hasselbecks were responding to me picking up Antonio Brown in advance by picking up Andrew Luck in advance. Needless to say, they dropped him a couple days later. They were playing around and having fun.”
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