Peter Schrager spent most of his first year at ESPN proving he belonged.

He’s shown up on Get Up to break down film. He debated on First Take. He’s brought energy to The Pat McAfee Show. He’s worked on the Monday Night Football sidelines. He launched The Schrager Hour podcast with Omaha Productions and convinced NFL coaches to actually open up instead of recycling press conference talking points. When ESPN covered the 2025 draft, Schrager stole McAfee’s Draft Spectacular with insider details that made each pick feel like he’d been in the war room himself.

Burke Magnus, ESPN’s president of content, called him “a signature voice of our NFL coverage” when announcing the hire in April. The network has used him exactly that way. Schrager has proven he can handle any format ESPN throws at him, from debate shows to studio panels to sideline work.

Nearly a year in, though, Schrager is being candid about what the transition has actually felt like. On the SI Media with Jimmy Traina podcast, he talked about ESPN with genuine gratitude while also acknowledging that he’s still figuring out where certain parts of his personality fit within the network’s programming.

“ESPN is a juggernaut with the best of the best,” Schrager told Traina. “I’m talking to people that are like-minded and wanting to put together great content on a great network, and not saying, ‘Well, we can do this. We maybe can do that. We can’t do this, we can’t do that.’ It’s a night and day difference, and I thank my lucky stars for making the move from where I was on the day-to-day to ESPN.”

Schrager appreciates ESPN’s resources, the people he works with, and the platform the network provides. The move has given him everything NFL Network couldn’t — more visibility, better opportunities, access to the biggest games, and the biggest platform in sports media. But he also misses something specific about what he had at NFL Network, and perhaps it’s not something ESPN was built to provide.

“I miss Good Morning Football and that I had a three-hour daily runway,” Schrager explained. “It was like one morning, ‘You know what? I want to talk about Joe Klecko today, or the next day, I’d be like, ‘We should do a thing on the Seahawks uniforms.’ It was like, ‘Yes, Schrager take eight minutes.’ Now, I don’t have any say in any of that.”

NFL Network gave Schrager and Kyle Brandt three hours every morning and trusted them to fill it however they saw fit. Some days that meant breaking news and serious football analysis. Other days, it meant tangents that had almost nothing to do with football but everything to do with why people actually enjoyed watching. The show didn’t follow a rigid formula. It followed Schrager and Brandt’s instincts about what seemed interesting, fun, or worth talking about in that moment.

If Schrager woke up thinking about Joe Klecko’s Hall of Fame case, he could spend eight minutes building the argument. If they wanted to break down why the Seahawks’ uniform combinations worked or didn’t work, they could do that. If they felt like discussing Elton John’s greatest hits or recapping the latest Love Island drama, nobody stopped them.

That freedom produced something that felt different from the rest of sports television. But at ESPN, Schrager has something different. He’s contributing to multiple shows instead of owning one. He’s responding to what producers need from him rather than deciding the topics himself.

“It’s more just responding to the great producers, and here’s the prompt: Is Stafford the MVP or is Maye the MVP?” Schrager explained. “And I can do that stuff as well, and I can give you insights on that. But the off-the-radar, a little weird quirky stuff that I used to love specializing, that stuff I’ve got to find my lanes. And that stuff, I haven’t found a place for it, if I’m being candid.”

Schrager isn’t complaining. He’s excellent at responding to prompts, and he knows it. But when you’re appearing on shows that other people run, you don’t get to decide to spend eight minutes on Joe Klecko just because it seems interesting that morning. First Take has debate topics mapped out. Get Up has a rundown. McAfee has his format.

Schrager fits into all of those shows, but he’s not shaping them.

The Schrager Hour has helped fill some of what he’s missing. The podcast has become successful enough that NFL coaches and coordinators now pitch him to appear instead of Schrager having to ask. But a weekly podcast isn’t the same as three hours of daily television where you control the editorial direction. It’s an outlet, just not the same kind Schrager had at NFL Network.

In July, Schrager told Traina that ESPN didn’t hire him to become “a hot-take artist” or “a stiff.” He’s delivered on that. And perhaps the Worldwide Leader will eventually deliver on giving Schrager his own show, which is actually one of Awful Announcing’s bold sports media predictions for 2026.

For now, though, Schrager is playing the hand he’s been dealt. He’s got the platform, the visibility, and the institutional backing. What he doesn’t have — at least not yet — is the creative freedom to wake up one morning and decide the NFL world needs to hear about Joe Klecko.