Chris Mortensen

Chris Mortensen award-winning journalist and one of the most respected and accomplished reporters covering the National Football League, joined ESPN in 1991 and appears on ESPN’s Sunday NFL Countdown, Monday Night Countdown, SportsCenter and annual NFL Draft coverage.  He has also contributed to Outside the Lines.

Previously, Mortensen served as the NFL columnist for The Sporting News and was a contributing writer for Sport magazine.  He covered the NFL for The National (1989-90), where he was one of the first writers hired by editor Frank Deford.  He also worked as a consultant with CBS Sports’ NFL Today in 1990.

From 1983-89 Mortensen filed investigative reports and covered the Braves (1983-85), Falcons (1985-86) and the NFL (1985-89) for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

In 1987 he was honored with the coveted George Polk Award for his reporting.  Since starting his career with the South Bay (Calif.) Daily Breeze in 1969, Mortensen has received 18 awards in journalism and been nominated for two Pulitzer Prizes.  In 1978 he won the National Headliner Award for Investigative Reporting in all categories.

The author of Playing for Keeps: How One Man Stopped the Mob from Sinking its Hooks into Pro Football, Mortensen attended El Camino College, and then served two years in the Army during the Vietnam era before he was honorably discharged.

Mortensen has been married to his wife Micki for 25 years.  The couple has one son, Alex, and one daughter, Shannan DiSanto, son-in-law Joe DiSanto, and three grandchildren: Chelsea, Ava and Vincent.