Jim Trotter: What Happened When an NFL Insider Sued the League | NFL

IIn the contact sport that’s currently in NFL news, Jim Trotter breaks away from the huddle. At Sports Illustrated, he captivated readers with his insightful profiles of understated stars and his insider’s perspective on the league’s inner workings. At ESPN and NFL Media, he was an even more conspicuous outsider, the television watchdog who insisted on holding the league’s power brokers accountable without a moment’s thought about whether he had lost access or favor. At The Athletic, Trotter was expected to continue his good work after joining the company in May 2023 – the same month he became the second Black journalist ever to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award from Pro Football Writers.

But then, four months later, there was a big bang in the sports ticker: Trotter had filed a lawsuit against the NFL. “Before I took the job, I told them there was a very real possibility that I would sue the NFL,” Trotter says. “I was told it wouldn’t be a problem. But after I told them I was filing a lawsuit, I was given the option of delaying the lawsuit and continuing to work for the NFL, or being taken off the field while the case was pending. I told them the case was too important to what I was fighting for to continue.” Ultimately, the shiny new NFL recruit was sent further away by The Athletic.

The original 53-page proposal was well received in US sports. In the lawsuit, Trotter alleged that the league and its broadcast division did not renew his contract after he raised concerns about a lack of diversity among the NFL’s executives, coaches and journalists. He further claimed that when confronted directly, two team owners dismissed these concerns with explicitly bigoted rhetoric.

Additionally, this news landed in connection with three other race-related lawsuits against the NFL: Colin Kaepernick’s collusion lawsuit, the discrimination lawsuit filed by former Miami Dolphins head coach Brian Flores, and the wrongful termination case filed by former Raiders coach Jon Gruden – accused NFL commissioner Roger Goodell and others of forcing his resignation by leaking select racist, sexist and homophobic emails he sent years earlier while working for ESPN. To defend them in the Trotter lawsuit, the NFL hired Loretta Lynch, the first Black woman to serve as U.S. attorney general.

On Wednesday, Trotter announced a settlement in his legal dispute with the league. The NFL has agreed to donate to a scholarship fund for journalism students at historically black colleges, a cause long close to the Howard University alumnus’ heart. The new initiative — called the “Work, Plan, Pray Foundation” — is inspired by a maxim from Junior Seau, the San Diego Chargers star with whom Trotter became close while covering the team. After Seau committed suicide at age 43, likely due to repetitive brain trauma discovered in a postmortem CTE diagnosis, Trotter wrote the definitive biography of the Hall of Fame linebacker.

The settlement closes a year-long chapter in which Trotter was removed from NFL coverage by The Athletic to protect himself from conflict-of-interest claims. “I intentionally didn’t call any NFL sources during the year because I wanted to be fair to them,” says Trotter, who can’t divulge specifics about the details of the agreement. “And it would have made it harder for me emotionally if I had done that but not been able to write about the things that I know.”

Instead, he slipped into a role as a general sports reporter – a role he admits was too narrow a fit for him. “I’m not going to lie to you: It was hard to be taken off the NFL beat,” he says. “That’s what people know me best for. That’s where my expertise and my contacts lie. I have three decades of institutional knowledge that I can apply to what I write about. So when you get into these other sports where you basically have no institutional knowledge, you’re not an expert, people don’t know your name and you can’t just pick up the phone and convince the people in charge was difficult. There were times when I thought, “Man, I’m just not doing that.” knowledge enough.'”

As someone who has known Trotter for nearly two decades, starting as his Sports Illustrated fact-checker, I can attest that his humility does indeed shine through here; it couldn’t be more sincere. Trotter is old-fashioned to the core, forced by the orthodoxy of journalism to defend himself against all forces that would place him at the center of a news story. But without becoming a central figure in one of the most consequential sports media stories in recent memory, Trotter may never take advantage of the opportunity to develop at the end of his career. In the end, it proved to be just as essential reading at The Athletic for its fresh perspective on other sports. While the NFL beast trudged on, he was at Jackson State University contemplating the long shadow of Deion Sanders, then surveyed the overly loud scene at the WM Phoenix Open, then took a step back to look at sports in perspective , while the gambling industry increased its influence. Most excitingly, he covered Caitlin Clark’s transition from the blockbuster attraction of college basketball to the hot topic of the WNBA.

That Trotter continued to influence the news cycle while engaging in these tactics just shows how easily he could have distinguished himself as a writer or general features columnist if the San Diego Union-Tribune hadn’t hit him recently the Chargers would have set 90s. While Trotter let curiosity guide his sports tour, his various colleagues and mentees in the NFL press corps took turns filling his position as the league’s unofficial diversity ombudsman.

When Goodell met the press at a Super Bowl press conference in February, Kansas City radio host Darren Smith raised concerns about NFL Media’s lack of diversity, a question Trotter asked Goodell a year ago in the same situation during his employment with the company had to pay the same old lip service just to get it. “I give Darren a lot of respect for that,” says Trotter. “I didn’t know he was going to do it until he called me the night or two before – and it was such an individual and personal decision. The thing is, and people miss this point: it’s not about me. The fact is, our job as journalists is to ensure that people’s actions reflect their words. So if the NFL continues to publicly proclaim that diversity, equity and inclusion are core principles of the league, and their actions do not reflect that, isn’t it our job as journalists to point that out?”

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At this early stage, it is difficult to say whether the lawsuit will impact normal business operations in the NFL. But at least it leaves the door open for beat reporters to continue pestering the league with further updates on diversity. With the lawsuit now behind him, “I have the opportunity to get back to writing about what I do best,” said Trotter, who still hopes to continue writing about other sports. Meanwhile, he’s trying to run a foundation – and he’s already tormented by decisions about where and how the funds should be used to achieve the greatest possible impact. “I don’t want to just throw money at the kids,” he says. “I really want to empower them to be successful in the future – especially in non-traditional ways. If a college student is offered an internship in Washington and it’s an unpaid position, I want to be in a position where we can help.”

“Work, plan, pray” is both a personal mantra for him and a call to journalists to hold the powerful accountable. That it also honors Seau, one of Trotter’s most influential journalism teachers, is just his way of thanking the player who did most to strengthen the courage of his convictions. “So many people thought he was feeding me stories and news,” Trotter says. “But Junior was so protective of his locker room. I will forever be indebted to him for teaching me the culture of a locker room and the mindset of an elite athlete. I don’t think I would have had the success I had without the lessons I learned from him.”