Chris Mortensen, who covered football for ESPN, died March 3 in Birmingham, Alabama. He was 72. ESPN did not cite a cause of death, but Mortensen had battled throat cancer.
“Mort was widely respected as an industry pioneer and universally beloved as a supportive, hard-working teammate,” Jimmy Pitaro, chairman of ESPN, said on ESPN.com. “He covered the NFL with extraordinary skill and passion, and was at the top of his field for decades. He will truly be missed by colleagues and fans, and our hearts and thoughts are with his loved ones.”
Mortensen was born in Torrance, California, in 1951 and attended El Camino College. He started as a sportswriter at The Daily Breeze in Torrance, in 1969, and stayed until 1983.
Mortensen then moved to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, covering baseball and football. He left the Journal-Constitution in 1989 to join The National Sports Daily, and worked on the CBS pregame show The NFL Today in 1990.
The National Sports Daily went out of business in 1991 and Mortensen joined ESPN, covering the NFL. He appeared on SportsCenter, Sunday NFL Countdown and Monday NFL Countdown.
Among the many major NFL stories Mortensen broke was the retirement of Peyton Manning in 2016.
In 2016, he received the Pro Football Writers of America’s Dick McCann Award and was honored during the Pro Football Hall of Fame's enshrinement ceremony.
Mortensen stepped down from ESPN in 2023 “to focus on my health, family and faith,” he said.
NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said on ESPN.com that Mortensen's death was a “sad day for everyone in the NFL.”
Mortensen wrote the book Playing for Keeps: How One Man Stopped the Mob from Sinking its Hooks into Pro Football.
