The phone call Adam Schefter always feared came on his first Sunday at home in five months. It was early March, and ESPN’s senior NFL reporter had recently flown back from Indianapolis after a week at the scouting combine. He was about to sit down for breakfast with his family when his cell buzzed.
It was his boss, Seth Markman.
“We lost him,” was all Markman could muster.
For years, Schefter had known the call might come — when your close friend and colleague is diagnosed with Stage 4 throat cancer at age 64, you prepare for the worst. There were a few times in 2020, and a few more in 2022, when Schefter thought to himself, This might be it. But Chris Mortensen always pulled though.
“A tough son of a bitch,” Markman said.
“He fought for every single day he got,” adds Daniel Jeremiah of NFL Network.
When Mort first revealed his diagnosis to Schefter, over email in 2016, he begged his pal to keep it quiet for a few days — Mort’s son, Alex, was about to coach in college football’s national championship game, and he didn’t want to spoil his moment. Mort was always more worried about what this would do to his wife, Micki, than the grueling treatment ahead. “Micki is really struggling,” he closed the email. “I’m still going to be a jackass.”
He never…
