Jeff Howe
Jeff Howe is a national NFL insider at The Athletic whose coverage is built on league-wide reporting, front-office insight and detailed features on the people shaping the sport. He works at the scale of the entire league rather than a single team, connecting on-field trends with decisions in meeting rooms, draft rooms and the schedule office. His reporting background on the New England Patriots underpins a style that combines breaking news, analytical columns and deeply sourced storytelling.
League-wide NFL intel
Howe’s core work focuses on broad surveys of the league that pull together information from coaches, executives and players across all 32 teams. In pieces such as “Intel on all 32 NFL teams: Ashton Jeanty breakout, Kyler Murray buzz and more,” he organizes camp observations and conversations into a structured rundown of emerging storylines, future moves and internal concerns. The emphasis is on what decision-makers are thinking rather than on recapping games, so the coverage reads like a briefing document on the state of the league.
He extends that approach into reaction formats like the Week 2 “panic meter” column on Caleb Williams’ injury and another Chargers no-show, framing Sunday results around long-term trajectories instead of box-score narratives.
These league-wide columns distinguish him from a typical beat writer because they rely on a web of relationships across front offices and coaching staffs. He translates that access into clear, direct language about which teams are poised to break through, which rosters are quietly unstable and where internal patience is beginning to erode. The tone remains measured, but he does not shy away from calling out structural issues in schemes, roster building or organizational direction when his reporting supports it.
Quarterbacks, trades and the draft market
Howe devotes significant attention to quarterbacks and the transactions around them, treating the position as the central lever in team-building.
His “J.J. McCarthy trade grades: Did Vikings capitalize on …” piece breaks down the quarterback’s move to the New York Giants for a 2027 fifth-round pick in terms of value, timing and fit, using a grading framework to spell out winners and risks.
In the “NFL Week 2 panic meter” column, he ties Caleb Williams’ early injury and the Chargers’ offensive struggles to deeper concerns about organizational planning and coaching, showing how single events feed into broader evaluations of a team’s direction.
In draft-focused reporting on Shedeur Sanders’ fall from the first round, Howe examines why an evaluation that once pointed toward the top of the class shifted as the process unfolded.
He writes about the gap between public perception and league consensus, explaining the specific traits and contextual factors that moved him down boards rather than relying on vague notions of “stock rising” or “falling.” Across these pieces, he blends scouting language, contract and asset context, and feedback from evaluators to explain how teams decide when to buy in, move on or wait.
Rules, scheduling and the future of the league
Beyond personnel, Howe covers the structural decisions that shape how the NFL operates. His article on the league expanding its international schedule in 2027 examines not just where games will be played but why the league is pushing deeper abroad and how that affects competitive balance, travel and fan engagement.
He looks at the calendar, the business logic and the football implications, connecting expansion plans to the realities teams and players will face.
In the piece on pass interference titled “The NFL has a pass interference problem. Here’s how our experts would solve it,” Howe contributes to a broader examination of officiating and rule design. The work lays out specific proposals, trade-offs and potential unintended consequences, treating rules as policy rather than mere annoyances. This strand of his coverage marks him out as someone who reports on the league as an institution: he tracks how competition committee debates, scheduling decisions and officiating standards intersect with on-field strategy and fan experience.
Longform features on coaches and personal journeys
Howe’s longform features bring the same attention to detail to individual figures, particularly coaches. His story on Jaguars head coach Liam Coen centers on Coen’s personal journey, including the death of his mother and the role of his father, and how those experiences shape his approach to leading a team. The piece relies on a long-standing relationship, allowing him to capture private history, emotional weight and coaching philosophy in a single narrative.
Earlier in his career he spent more than a decade covering the New England Patriots, an experience that informs his ability to write deeply about football people over time rather than in snapshots. He has authored “If These Walls Could Talk: New England Patriots,” drawing on that beat work to document the franchise’s internal dynamics. Across profiles, features and books, the through-line is trust and access: subjects speak candidly, and Howe uses that candor to connect personal stories to on-field decisions and team culture.
For communications around coaches, front-office figures or players with meaningful backstories, his longform work shows he gravitates to narratives where biography and football are tightly linked.
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Adair Reid
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Albert Burneko
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