It’s been a wild week for Peter King.
The long-time NFL journalist made a big announcement on Monday, Feb. 26. After more than four decades as a professional sports journalist, King has decided to retire.
“I have no plans right now,” said King with a chuckle. “I have no idea what’s next. I’m 66 years old. I’ve had a couple of offers to teach locally in New York. But I just want to sit around for a while and think about what I want to do. Maybe it will be very little. But I have a feeling at some point I’m going to wake up wanting to do something.”
During his storied career, King worked at several of the top sports media outlets in the country, including Sports Illustrated, ABC Television as a halftime correspondent for Monday Night Football, CNN as an NFL reporter, HBO as managing editor and reporter of Inside the NFL and NBC Sports as NFL reporter for Football Night in America.
King is the author of five books and has been named National Sportswriter of the year three times (2010, 2012 and 2013) in a vote of his peers by the National Sports Media Association.
In an exclusive interview with Overtime Heroics Senior Editor Reggie Roberts, King discussed Kansas City’s quest to become the first team in NFL history to win three straight Super Bowl championships, his unprecedented media access of the 32 NFL franchises, the state of NFL Insiders who cover professional football and how he is going to try to stay out of his lovely wife Ann’s way as he figures out what’s next.
Overtime Heroics: Congratulations on what many would call a sparkling career filled with great stories, unprecedented access and a front row seat to the biggest and most popular game in America.
Peter King: “Luckily for me, I came around at a time when sports writing was really important. I worked at ‘The Bible’ (Sports Illustrated) from 1989-2018. I was doing an interview and someone asked me on one of these sports talk shows, ‘You really got some great stuff with Andy Reid…How do you build a relationship with a guy like Andy Reid and how do you get him to tell you the tremendous football stuff he tells you?”
“In 1995, I was Green Bay, Wisconsin doing a story on the Green Bay Packers and Andy Reid walked up to me and said, ‘Hey…I’m Andy Reid…I’m the tight ends coach here and I just want to tell you that you have the job that I always wanted. I went to college and I wanted to write football at Sports Illustrated…that is what I wanted to do with my life.’ When somebody comes up to you and says that to you, you’ve got a pretty good edge. And then, he wins three Super Bowls, so you are probably going to want to take advantage of that.”
OH: Give us your take on the current NFL Insider culture?
PK: “I think it all started with Will McDonough (former Boston Globe reporter). It all started with a lot of these pregame shows on TV that wanted information. I think it got ratchetted up when Adam Schefter left NFL Network and went to ESPN and then NFL Network has obviously tried to compete with Adam using Ian Rapoport and Tom Pelissero. It’s become this sub-business that I think has gotten more reliable with the top people. Where it becomes a problem is when it involves guys who are trying to be Adam (Schefter) or Ian (Rapoport) and yet don’t have the sources or the people. A lot of times, these guys are guessing and throwing stuff out there. There are not very many consequences because three hours later, there is some other story happening. That’s the issue. There seems to be very few consequences if people say something or write something and they are not right. I don’t find the problem at the very highest level; I find the problem is with some of the people who are trying to take shortcuts to be those kinds of insiders.”
OH: When did know it was time to call it a career?
PK: “We had a family vacation in Hawaii. We sat around and I talked to everybody about what I should do. Even though I still really loved the job, there were parts of the job that I really didn’t love as much anymore. I used to absolutely love going to the NFL Scouting Combine two and three years ago. But then, I stopped loving staying up until 1 a.m., and 2 a.m., in the morning five nights in a row and then having two or three appointments early the next morning. I am more of a 9:30 p.m., in bed type of guy right now at this point in my life. A lot of the news that happens in the NFL, I have no interest in covering right now. I really knew it this year when the coaching searches happened and I said, ‘I could care less who the next coach of the Washington Commanders is’ – so when that happens, you know it’s time. Forty years is a long time to do anything. It was long enough. I knew it was time.”
OH: Tell us why you think you got unprecedented access from all 32 NFL franchises during your career?
PK: “In 1989 when I got to Sports Illustrated and I walked into an NFL complex, it was a big deal. It was mostly SI when I first started. But as the job went on and as time went on, and SI became less significant, then you had to rely on yourself. The most important time of my year was training camp because I wanted to make absolutely sure that if I thought the Falcons had a chance to be good, I wanted to spend 20 minutes looking Matt Ryan in the eye and talking to then head coach Mike Smith and then General Manager Thomas Dimitroff. Every team that I thought had a chance to be really good, I wanted to touch that team in the summer. This year, when I visited Andy Reid and the Chiefs, I told Andy that when you win the Super Bowl, I want to spend five minutes with you alone in your office after the game – just like we did the previous year – and you can tell me how the winning touchdown got scored and tell me the genesis of the play that won the game. And Andy just laughed at me and said, OK.”
OH: Are the Kansas City Chiefs loaded enough to become the first team in NFL history to win three consecutive Super Bowls?
PK: “I think they are. They (Chiefs) are the ninth team in the 58 years of Super Bowls to win back-to-back championships. None of the previous eight have even made the Super Bowl in year nine and there is a reason for that. Look at the AFC West right now…Jim Harbaugh…I know him a lot through John (Baltimore Ravens head coach John Harbaugh), but I don’t know Jim all that well, but I do know his competitiveness. Later this summer on July 8th, the Harbaugh family will be on vacation somewhere. And at some point during that vacation, the Harbaugh children will say, ‘Where is Dad’? I’ll tell you where he will be. He will be in some room in the cabin looking at tape of Mahomes (Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes) to try to figure out a way the Chargers will try to stop this guy. Raiders coach Antonio Pierce is a new coach and understands that he has to beat Kansas City to win the AFC West; Sean Payton (Denver Broncos head coach) already totally understands this, facing it for years when he was in New Orleans. I can sit here and say that anybody who has Patrick Mahomes has a chance to win the Super Bowl. But, just remember, on Christmas Day last season, Kansas City looked like the 24th best team in the League. The Raiders killed them. On the surface, anybody who’s got all the talent that the Chiefs have of course has a really good chance to win their third straight Super Bowl, but there are 31 teams dying to knock them off their perch. They certainly can do it, but I kind of doubt they will.”
OH: I am sure your wife Ann and your daughters, Laura and Mary Beth are thrilled that you are going to be around more.
PK: “Ann is happy except…I can already see it…Man, what the hell are you gonna do? You better do something…I’m sitting there doing the dishes…and Ann goes…NO!!…We use the dishwasher!! In all seriousness, I have no plans. Right now, I don’t wanna do anything for a while…I just wanna walk my dog in Brooklyn where I live. We will see what happens.”
