Award-winning journalist Chris Mortensen is in his 16th year as ESPN's lead NFL Insider, reporter and analyst. Mort can be seen and heard over the entire family of ESPN outlets, including "Sunday NFL Countdown" and "Monday NFL Countdown." Mortensen also notes that among his most valuable contributions to ESPN was recruiting John Clayton and Len Pasquarelli to join ESPN.com.

Prior to joining ESPN in 1991, Mortensen was the lead NFL reporter and columnist for The National Sports Daily and The Sporting News and was a contributor to CBS Sports. He also worked at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution after beginning his career with The Daily Breeze in his hometown of Torrance, Calif. Mort says his journalism career began once he realized that he no longer could compete in football, basketball and baseball beyond high school. He forsook his goal of being a teacher and coach when he realized how competitive sports journalism could be -- this path taken after he was a "first-round draft pick" by the U.S. Army, which he served honorably during the Vietnam conflict.