Q&A: Mike Sando of The Athletic

The Athletic's senior NFL writer talks about his process and career.

Sando has been at The Athletic for six years. / Screenshot via the Dan Patrick Show

Mike Sando is a senior NFL writer at The Athletic and someone who covers America's most popular sport in a unique and thought-provoking way. He joined the company six years ago after 12 years with ESPN and is an officer for the Pro Football Writers of America. Sando spoke to Sports Illustrated about his career path, the way he approaches his coverage, and what to make of quarterback play around the league to this point.

SI: The Athletic did a survey that revealed 70 percent of football fans believe their game day rituals actually impact their team's performance. We understand there's an ongoing campaign, the Fall Football Superstition Swap, celebrating that. What can you tell us?

MS: Super fun. The superstition component has been good for me because even though I'm in this world now, I've been going to games professionally for so long that I don't really go to games as a fan anymore. But I was a season ticker holder to the Raiders. This is 30 years ago. I've been a fan.

One of the fun things about this campaign is ... I had ridiculous superstitions. I can remember watching the Raiders, if they were going left-to-right on my screen I felt like my feet had to be pointing the direction they were going in order to undercut the defense. If I forgot to switch them back on the possession change, I felt responsible for whatever was going wrong. It's a reminder for us. I've been to 20-some Super Bowls, we work this as a job, but what got us into this was being a fan. Being involved in all the ridiculous things that fans are involved with because you're powerless. You're watching this game, you have no control. Coach is going to go for 2, he's not going to go for 2. The players are not going to see what you can see on TV. I think for me these silly superstitions gave some control back. It's been fun to reconnect with the fan identity.

SI: I'm impressed with the way you do your job because it seems like you've been malleable and adaptive. How have you approached that and how has it served you?

MS: I guess I've always kind of been up for anything. When I was working at the Tacoma News Tribune, I believe it was 2005, I was a beat reporter covering the Seahawks and one of our editors asked if I would do something called a blog, which we'd barely heard of back then. I think some people might have said I don't want to do that extra, I'll just stay with what I'm doing or yeah, what are you going to pay me? I was probably foolish enough to say yeah, let's do it. It turned into doing one every day and that was where I had an outlet that was more than just the news cycle. That really gave me my own forum where I could do whatever I wanted. Stuff that couldn't even make it into a newspaper. I was charting rosters or I would chart the personnel teams were using during games. I was learning from other people how to use the data. I think that because I have a passion and really love to do this stuff, it grew into other things.

That blog was kind of how I got noticed outside of Tacoma and was how I was able to go to ESPN and eventually The Athletic. I think when you have a passion for something and you're really into it, you're looking for new ways to do things.

SI: What was your original plan to get from Tacoma to a place like ESPN? It probably didn't involve a blog.

MS: There was no plan. That's the crazy thing. I never had a strategy for my next job. That's probably why I spent 7 years in Spokane and 9 years in Tacoma and 12 years at ESPN and six years here. That's a lot of years. But I was never that person who was looking up and around at where this was going to take me. I had this kind of old-school foolish belief that hey, just be the best at what you're doing and things will take care of themselves. That obviously doesn't always happen. You probably need to be more proactive than that but it's worked out for me in a way that I wouldn't change anything.

I think it's part of my ethos. Part of that is I've been places that I really liked and done things that I really enjoyed. Along the way I've been able to do the things I wanted to do at that time. This job now is exactly how I would have drawn it up but I never would have drawn it up that way 20 years ago, I would have no idea what it would look like. Things have changed too much. When I came out of college there wasn't even an internet. I thought I probably wanted to be a sports columnist at a newspaper. So if you're trying to think ahead 20 years to what you're going to be doing, you don't even know what it's going to be like. Just be the best you can be at what you're doing.

SI: That's interesting. I'd say it's probably equally hard to see even 3-5 years in the future. You can try to chart it out and come up with a plan but those opportunities might not exist. Or maybe you find some that you're great at by happenstance and it propels you.

MS: That's exactly right. But I do think the passion part, you can't fake that. You're either really into it or you're not and if you are it's a great advantage in whatever you're doing. You almost never find somebody that accidentally got to be great at something unless they're just amazingly talented. I think for most of us you really have to put in the time with something.

SI: With analytical thinking, there's an idea that you're in one camp or another. Something you do effectively is translate somewhat complicated ideas to someone who doesn't realize they are even interested in that idea. How do you go about taking a lot of information and distilling it down so someone can use it?

MS: I think my job is to try to explain something clearly. That's the essence of it. If you are going to give a presentation to somebody, whether it's the head coach of a football team or the general manager of a fantasy team, you have about three seconds before you lose them. So you'd better have something that's really distilled down and clear. The camps you mentioned, I get that, but if you're really humble about trying to learn why would you have to pick a camp? You're open to all of it and you know you can learn from all of it. You're just going to limit your ability for learning and really annoy a lot of people if you think you've got all the answers. I think that is part of the secret sauce—what is your orientation towards learning? When you go to speak to people, are you trying to tell them what you know or trying to learn? That can really open the door for you to always be in a state of learning.

Heck, you should love it when you're proven wrong because you learn something. I want to keep those doors open in all of those camps and kind of fuse it together. It is something I think about. There's a lot of people who have a lot of expertise and if you can combine that all together you're a lot better off than picking one of the lanes.

SI: Your annual QB Tiers piece has become appointment reading. What the heck is going on with the quarterbacks this year?

MS: Well, last year had the youngest Week 1 starters since 1957, I believe. And this year is one of the four or five youngest as well. I think there's been a big change in the number of experienced, proven quarterbacks. I think there's been real efforts by the coaches to meet these young quarterbacks on the quarterbacks' terms, which can help you get better play from them but also things are simplified. When you hear Tom Brady talk about the dumbing-down of the game, he's onto something there.

There's less time to practice. I think the players in the league are younger. I think the defenses have gotten smarter in the last few years. There had been forever an orientation, a prioritizing of playing run defense. I think that's still important but if you're going pass a lot more, then the defenses are going to figure out that and not just play the run. That's definitely been a part of it. Maybe the offenses need another variation in what they can do. We've seen some of that fast motion, some of those things have helped a little bit but the offenses do feel a little stuck right now.

SI: It's only three weeks but do you think there's been any significant change at the top of the position in terms of how the elite guys are viewed?

MS: One of the things I've learned in talking to people in the league—and I've adopted this mindset a bit myself through osmosis—is not to overreact. You don't really come off of your evaluation in a month. Now, you would if something fundamentally changed but there's a reason we don't do QB Tiers every month because it doesn't quite change like that. We'll see how the season plays out. I think those three guys who were in Tier 1—Patrick Mahomes, Joe Burrow and Josh Allen—I don't think people would necessarily be knocking them out. But when people say that the downtick in offense is exclusively because there's so many young quarterbacks I think we have to remind them that even the top guys aren't having these amazing seasons so it's affecting them too.

SI: Can you walk us through a typical Sunday for you?

MS: Starts about 6 a.m. and probably done about 1 a.m. That's 6 a.m. PST so that gives me four hours before the 10 a.m. games to make phone calls, catch coaches or front office people as they're going to the stadium and talk about some of the topics that I am interested in that week. That may or may not make it in on Monday or ever at all. That's where it starts for me. We start watching the games—I have three computer screens and a TV so I can put multiple games on. Dave DeChant edits my pieces and is a super-smart analyst who is also Seattle-based, so he has eyes on the games too. When you start writing, you can't listen to every broadcast. You can miss certain things. That's great to have a set of eyes on that. Usually, I'll have the RedZone audio on and then different games that I'm focusing on.

By the time we get into mid-afternoon I really want to know what my lead's going to be. It could change but it's a stressful feeling. The clock is ticking and by the time you get to that Sunday night game, now I'm kind of feeling it. Sometimes the best-laid plans don't come together and you're a little bit nervous about what you've got. The more of those items in the Pick Six column that I can have done before the Sunday night game starts, the much easier night it's going to be for me. We always push it to the end and I sweat it. Most of the time we feel decently about it. Like I said, Dave is an amazing editor so he doesn't just copy-edit it, he fact-checks it. He comes with ideas, he makes it 20 percent better by just saying what about this? That sort of support is a critical component of feeling good when you go to bed at night.

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