Gary Myers on his upcoming John Harbaugh book and advice from Bob Costas

Long before Adam Schefter, Ian Rapoport, Jay Glazer, and Mike Florio, Gary Myers was among the NFL’s original insiders.

Myers, 71, broke stories and revealed the league’s inner workings, most notably for the New York Daily News and Inside the NFL. These days, he remains connected to the NFL. He hosts the Saturday Huddle with Gary Myers on ESPN New York 880 AM during the football season.

This fall, he will work on his latest book, Saving Big Blue: Inside John Harbaugh’s Fight to Revive a Sleeping Giant, which chronicles Harbaugh’s first season as the New York Giants’ head coach. Myers has also announced that one of his previous books, Once a Giant, will be adapted into a documentary about the Super Bowl champion 1986 New York Giants.

We caught up with Myers to discuss his career and how NFL reporting has changed over the years.

Note: This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.

Awful Announcing: How did the book idea about John Harbaugh come about?

Gary Myers: “A year ago, I spoke to Jim and John about doing a book about the family, the first family of coaching. We had gotten pretty far down the road, meeting with publishers. Then Jim wanted to put it on hold. At the time, I had no idea John was going to wind up in New York. Once that happened, I didn’t want to work on a collaborative book. It’s hard when you feel an obligation to whoever you’re writing about to run everything by them. I’ve had one of those experiences. And I really wanted to do this book on my own.”

What’s your plan?

“So the deal with John now is that he’s agreed to meet with me at various points during the season. I had a nice meeting with him at the league meetings in Phoenix a couple of weeks ago. I already have some chapters outlined in my head. I’m going to chronicle how one of the NFL’s more successful coaches over the last 20 years is now taking on a project with the Giants, who have been kind of down for most of the last 15 years.

“I’m going to try to get behind the scenes as much as possible. Some other people in the organization have pledged their cooperation. I’m off to a pretty good start, and we haven’t even reached minicamp yet. I’m confident that by the end of the season, I’ll have really good stuff. The idea is for the book to come out at the start of the 2027 season.”

When you collaborated on a project, what was the experience like?

“I was collaborating on a book with Robert Griffin III. At this point, he was still playing for Baltimore. We worked together on it for probably a year. I wrote about 85,000 words. Then, when (he was at) ESPN, he made the decision that it wasn’t the best thing for his career to come out with a book. There was nothing I could do about it.”

What can you tell us about the New York Giants documentary?

“I had a couple of friends with whom I’ve been kicking around documentary ideas for a few years. After the Giants book came out, these two guys, brothers Alec Sokolow, who wrote Toy Story and was nominated for an Academy Award, and Sam, who produced this series called Genius, they’re both huge Giants fans. Sam said, ‘What would you think if I try to find a buyer and we’ll do the Giants book as a documentary?’ I said, ‘I’m in.’ So he found an investor, and we’re actually starting to produce it this Friday.”

How did you become one of the first NFL insiders?

“When I did it in 1989, it was my first year. Will McDonough was doing it for CBS at the time. Gordon Forbes was doing it for Inside the NFL in 1988. And I have to share a quick backstory. So, I’m still working (at the Dallas Morning News) at that point. A producer for Inside the NFL calls me and says, ‘We’d like to have you in the studio.’

“The Cowboys were for sale at the time. What’s going to happen with the team? What’s going to happen with Tom Landry? I’m being interviewed by Nick Buoniconti and Len Dawson. They said to me, ‘If you just bought the Cowboys, what do you do as the new owner?'”

What did you say?

“I said, the first thing I do is call Tom Landry into my office. I say, ‘Tom, you’re forever the face of this franchise. But as I move forward, I’m going to make a change and let you go. I’ll let you announce it any way you want, whether you want to retire or say that I fired you. I’d rather you just say it was time to retire with a new owner.’

“So, I say this on the air, and about six weeks later, Jerry Jones buys the Cowboys, meets Tom Landry on a golf course, and basically says everything I just said. I guess the people at Inside the NFL thought I was pretty smart. For whatever reason that I had nothing to do with, they decided not to continue with Gordon, and they offered me the job.”

How has being an NFL insider changed over the years?

“There are so many different insiders now, and so many different networks, and everybody’s got their own website that they’re trying to break news on. Not that it wasn’t competitive back then. I would have to say that going up against Will McDonough and Chris Mortensen was harder than going up against any of these insiders, because both of them were great. But it is harder today just because there are so many.

“I think Adam Schefter is terrific, and the guys at NFL Network. They’re all really good. Some of these other people, I think, feel it’s more important to be first than to be right. And sometimes they throw away journalistic standards in their hurry to get something on X, Instagram, or whatever to try to break a story. And then if it turns out to be wrong, they figure people forget about it.”

Do you have an opinion on what happened to Dianna Russini?

“Even if you take her word that she was there with a group and (Mike Vrabel) was there with a group, you still open yourself up to all kinds of questions. When she said that people have relationships with their sources and can meet with them away from the field, that’s true. But being at a place two hours outside of Phoenix is different from having a drink at the pool with somebody at the league hotel. There are a lot of unanswered questions here.

“I’m not passing judgment on anybody. She was very, very good at what she did. I hate to see anybody lose their job. But she put herself in a precarious position and hasn’t provided the right answers to The Athletic, because that appears to be why she walked away.”

You went to college at Syracuse. Do you have a good Bob Costas story?

“He was a junior when I was a freshman, and he was the sports director of WAER, the campus-run FM station. So I go in, and Bob is conducting the audition, and I was terrible. I had no experience in radio. I had written for my high school paper. I thought it’d be really cool to be on the radio. It was three weeks into my college career at Syracuse. At the end of it, Bob says to me, ‘So what are your goals?’ I said, ‘Well, I’m kind of torn between trying to do something in radio or doing something with The Daily Orange.’ He goes, ‘Can I give you a bit of advice? I go, ‘Yeah, please.’ He said, ‘My advice to you is, after you leave here, you should walk over to The Daily Orange and see if they have any openings for you to start writing.”

And now you have your own radio show. How did it go for the 2025 football season?

“This was the first year I did it. I’ve always wanted to do my own radio show. I’ve co-hosted, but I always wanted to give it a shot. They offered me that opportunity, and I appreciated it. It went really well, and I know the station’s management was excited about it. They’ve asked me to do it again next year, and I’ll definitely do that.”