Daniel Jeremiah just finished up his 11th year working the NFL Draft for NFL Network. He had an eventful week whether it was predicting the first round trade between the Arizona Cardinals and Houston Texans or getting peed on while holding a dog on set. If there’s one thing for the audience to know, Jeremiah is talking to everyone to get any information he can for the viewer.
Jeremiah was a guest on the Sports Media with Richard Deitsch podcast this week and he said that people in other NFL organizations still talk to him about players because he would never give away any information he is given.
“I’ve never ever burned anybody. If anybody has ever told me anything, I would never burn them. I think people don’t understand the savvy that goes along with being a general manager, head coach, coordinator, director of college scouting, or player personnel executive. They are not dumb. These guys are not going to be like we are taking this guy.
“We talk about players all the time. It’s helpful for me because I can bounce things off them and there’s times they will say you need to watch this guy, there’s a lot of people that really like this guy. That’s a good piece of information…We are really just talking about players and talking about football and they are never going to tell me this is the guy we are going to take and I’m never going to put them in a compromising position to give me that information.”
When Jeremiah isn’t on NFL Draft coverage, he works the Los Angeles Chargers games on radio alongside Matt “Money” Smith. Coincidentally, he has never predicted a Chargers 1st Round pick.
“I’m with them half the year and have a good relationship with just about everybody in their building. We talk all the time. It’s not like we avoid football. They would never tell me who they are going to take and I’m not going to ask them.”
Before Jeremiah went to NFL Network, he was a college area scout for the Eagles, a national scout for the Browns, and then a west coast area scout for the Ravens. As for whether or not he would go back to scouting in the future, he said that the work-life balance and being part of a team both at NFL Network and with the Chargers makes it a move he doesn’t see happening.
“I’ve had some opportunities over the years and it wasn’t the right time. The more I’ve done this, I’ve got 2 kids still in high school. I’ve struck a nice balance here. The one thing I missed with the team was being affiliated with a team and that camaraderie you kind of miss amongst the group no matter what level you are at with an organization, there’s something about being a part of that. For the last 5 years, being able to do these Chargers games and travel on the road with them, that’s kind of given me a little bit of that fix that I’ve missed from a team side of things.”
