Cowboys Reporter Ed Werder Rehired by ESPN After Being Laid Off
By Ryan Giglio
Who says you can't go home?
On Monday, ESPN and Ed Werder took that old Bon Jovi song to heart.
Werder, an NFL reporter for ESPN from 1998 to 2017 who saw himself laid off in the Great ESPN Massacre of that year, has rejoined the network as a Dallas-based bureau reporter.
.@WerderEdESPN was a fixture on ESPN from 1998-2017. Very excited he's returning to the company as a Dallas-based reporter for SportsCenter and our studio programs. He will report this week from a familiar location - #Cowboys camp in Oxnard. https://t.co/ZwGWTi1Mpn pic.twitter.com/2nqYTBY9G7
— bill hofheimer (@bhofheimer_espn) August 12, 2019
The reporter was among the approximately 100 employees fired by ESPN in a 2017 cutback by the network, and is the first of that wave of dismissals to return. Werder is now expected to appear on various programs on the network, including SportsCenter, and cover more than just football.
ESPN is getting back a respected and established reporter with plenty of NFL knowledge just ahead of the 2019 season.
There are a ton of Dallas Cowboys storylines for Werder to report on this season, including the contract situations of quarterback Dak Prescott, wide receiver Amari Cooper, and the holdout of running back Ezekiel Elliott.
I’m so incredibly appreciative of this opportunity to rejoin this fantastic group of people and to provide news, info and analysis. I love representing @espn. Now, with that, I have liveshots to do. https://t.co/C87QFRn35z
— Ed Werder (@WerderEdESPN) August 12, 2019
This homecoming surely seems like a win for ESPN. The football coverage on the network has seen much turnover in recent years, and that has not necessarily been a good thing.