Jim Trotter: what happened when an NFL insider sued the league

The veteran reporter has long worried about a lack of diversity in the league. Now he is hoping to help the next generation of Black football journalists

In the contact sport that is the NFL news beat, Jim Trotter breaks away from the huddle. At Sports Illustrated he hooked readers with his revealing profiles of reticent stars and his insider's perspective on the league's inner workings. At ESPN and NFL Media he was an even more marked outlier, the TV watchdog who insisted on holding league power brokers to account without giving a moment's thought to lost access or favor. At The Athletic, the expectation was that Trotter would keep up the good work after joining the company in May 2023 - the same month he became the second Black journalist to ever be recognized with the equivalent of the pro football writers' lifetime achievement award.

But then, four months later, a bombshell hit the sports ticker: Trotter had filed a lawsuit against the NFL. I told them before I ever took the job that there was a very real possibility I was going to sue the NFL," Trotter says. I was told that it wouldn't be a problem. But once I told them I was going to file, I was given the option of delaying the suit and continuing to cover the NFL or being taken off the beat while the case was pending. I told them the case was too important for what I was fighting for to not go forward." Ultimately, The Athletic's splashy new NFL hire was dispatched farther afield.