{"id":562496,"date":"2026-04-03T16:44:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T16:44:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/562496\/"},"modified":"2026-04-03T16:44:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T16:44:13","slug":"laura-rutledge-opens-up-on-monday-night-football-anxiety-after-big-espn-promotion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/562496\/","title":{"rendered":"Laura Rutledge opens up on \u2018Monday Night Football\u2019 anxiety after big ESPN promotion"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"An<\/p>\n

An image collage containing 2 images, Image 1 shows A blonde reporter with a microphone interviewing a football player on the field, Image 2 shows A woman with blonde wavy hair, wearing a black top with red and white trim, smiles at the camera while sitting at a desk with a microphone attached to her ear<\/p>\n

Laura Rutledge has been battling inner demons during her time with ESPN.<\/p>\n

Rutledge, a host for ESPN, ABC and the SEC Network, opened up about facing anxiety, especially after switching into a full-time role<\/a> as a sideline reporter with \u201cMonday Night Football\u201d last season.<\/p>\n

\"Laura<\/p>\n

Laura Rutledge took over full-time ESPN sideline duties in 2025.<\/p>\n

\u201cI deal with that every day, I really do,\u201d Rutledge said on Shannon Spake\u2019s \u201cSons and Daughters\u201d podcast<\/a> Wednesday. \u201cI think there\u2019s probably some people out there in the world that go to their TV job and feel great about it everyday, that has never happened to me.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can know inside of me I\u2019m capable of doing these things and yet be my own worst enemy the whole time. Beating myself down or telling myself I can\u2019t do it or I\u2019m gonna fail.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rutledge also talked specifically about her time on \u201cMonday Night Football.\u201d It was her first year working on the broadcast full-time after a few \u201cspot starts\u201d in the past. She mentioned that her days were long during gamedays, including \u201cSportsCenter\u201d and \u201cMonday Night Countdown\u201d appearances.<\/p>\n

Through all the chaos, and even before the day began, Rutledge said that she got on herself constantly.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had a lot of trouble with that this past season,\u201d she said. \u201cBefore the day would start, psyching myself out and being like \u2018You\u2019re not gonna be able to do this, you\u2019re gonna have a big mess up today,\u2019 beating myself down so bad.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, she added that most of those negative thoughts would go away come game time.<\/p>\n

\"Laura<\/p>\n

Laura Rutledge will pair with Lisa Salters as sideline reporters on ESPN\u2019s Monday Night Football coverage in 2026. IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect<\/p>\n

\u201cBy the time I would get to the game, I\u2019d be like \u2018Oh, I\u2019m fine,\u2019\u201d Rutledge said. \u201cI had to prove to myself every single one of those Mondays that I could actually do it again, which is wild because I couldn\u2019t convince myself that I had done it last week.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rutledge\u2019s first full season included her interaction with Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert, when he brushed off a postgame interview<\/a> with her following a win.<\/p>\n

She eventually got the interview, but Herbert gave notably short answers during the exchange.<\/p>\n

Rutledge originally started her career with Fox Sports as a sideline reporter before moving to ESPN in 2014. In 2020, she became the host of ESPN\u2019s \u201cNFL Live\u201d before her promotion to a full-time sideline reporter in 2025 alongside Lisa Salters.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s set to continue in the position for the 2026 season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An image collage containing 2 images, Image 1 shows A blonde reporter with a microphone interviewing a football…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":562497,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[352,399,14388,170603,249112,50687,398,396,397,79336,56576,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-562496","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-espn","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-justin-herbert","11":"tag-laura-rutledge","12":"tag-lisa-salters","13":"tag-monday-night-football","14":"tag-ncaa","15":"tag-ncaa-football","16":"tag-ncaafootball","17":"tag-sideline-reporter","18":"tag-sideline-reporters","19":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=562496"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562496\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/562497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=562496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=562496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=562496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}