Adam Schefter did as he was told.
Last month, in an appearance on “The Pat McAfee Show,” Aaron Rodgers revealed that he told the ESPN NFL insider to “lose my number” while Schefter was digging into trade rumors.
Schefter later shared a screengrab of the text message exchange, revealing that what Rodgers said was indeed accurate.
As Rodgers was introduced as the new quarterback of the Jets on Wednesday, Newsday reporter Tom Rock jokingly asked the quarterback for his number for future communications.
“Ask Adam Schefter,” Rodgers responded.
Schefter, seeing the exchange, replied, “Lost that number….”
After the initial publicity from the phone number brouhaha, Schefter elaborated on the full details of what had happened.
“I’ve had his number for a while,” Schefter told NBC’s Peter King. “I never once used it. Trey Wingo reported [last Monday] he was ‘hearing’ that Rodgers to the Jets was done.
“The day he did it, ESPN was going live from 3 to 5 on free agency. Everyone was saying Aaron Rodgers to the Jets is done. We’re on the air for two hours. I call the Jets, I call the Pack, I call Rodgers’ advisers. No one’s saying anything.
“So, I’m sitting there on the set with Dianna Russini. ‘Should I text Rodgers?’ She said, ‘Yeah, text him.’ At 3:35, I texted him. I say, basically: ‘Have you informed the Jets that you’d like to play there? I wanted to open it up to you.’ He didn’t respond for maybe 10 minutes. So then I called the number, got sent to voice mail. Then he texts me, ‘Lose my number. Good try tho.’ That’s all.
“He’s the one who says the media’s getting it wrong. I wanted to go to the source and get it right. That’s all. I was just trying to do my job.”