If/when the “non-binding agreement” between ESPN and the NFL becomes final and binding, the NFL will own 10 percent of ESPN. As recently explained, that will inevitably impact the manner in which ESPN covers the NFL.

For now, ESPN is telling its NFL reporters that it won’t.

“Of course I’m concerned, but I’ve had assurances from everyone who I work with that nothing will change,” ESPN’s Don Van Natta Jr. told John Ourand for the latest issue of his indispensable newsletter, The Varsity . “I am deep into an investigative project about the National Football League, and I believe it will be published just as it would’ve been published before the NFL became a part owner of ours.”

Maybe it will. Maybe it won’t.

Regardless, things have changed. The NFL and ESPN have gone from becoming a

See Full Page