Adam Schefter

ESPN NFL insider Adam Schefter made his weekly appearance on the Dennis & Callahan show Friday morning to talk about ESPN colleague Tom Jackson and his controversial comments this week, as well as Sunday’s conference championship games. To hear the interview, go to the Dennis & Callahan audio on demand page.

Schefter said he had not heard the clip of Jackson saying he picked the Patriots in a blowout to motivate the Jets and later backtracking on that claim, but he said Jackson puts a lot of thought into his picks.

“The one thing about Tom, he is the most thoughtful analyst and one of the most thoughtful people I’ve ever met in my life,” Schefter said. “I listen to him come up with some of the viewpoints that he does and I’m blown away by it, because they’re deep. He really gives a lot of thought. I did notice on Saturday, the things he was saying about the Jets were very interesting to me, very interesting.”

After the guys played the clip for him, Schefter said it was probably a situation where saying anything at all just made things worse. “I can’t speak to this instance, but sometimes, anybody when they’re in a bad situation, sometimes they say something and it makes the situation look or sound worse. Sometimes you just say, ‘I said what I said, and that’s it.’

“I have not spoken to Tom about this. I haven’t seen him since the show last Sunday. I have not seen him since Bart Scott’s postgame rant. I’ll see him this weekend. The one thing I come back to is there’s nobody I know who’s smarter about these things, more insightful, and why he said some of those things, I just can’t answer that. I don’t know.”

When asked to pick a player who might stand out this weekend, Schefter turned his attention to Green Bay. “I’m big on the Packers. I think they’re the best team left in the postseason and I think they have the best quarterback left in the postseason. I think they’ve got the best defensive players left in the postseason in Clay Matthews and Tramon Williams, Charles Woodson. I just think they’re loaded.”

Schefter said he’s taking the Jets in another upset in the AFC. “I think that Pittsburgh is a little beat up after playing a physical game against Baltimore. I think they have some question marks at some key spots, at offensive tackle, at cornerback. I think the Jets are rolling, beating the Colts and Peyton [Manning] in Indy, Tom Brady and the Patriots in New England, and I think that they’re so confidently cocky that they believe, they’re convinced, they’re going to Pittsburgh and going to beat the Steelers.”

He said he isn’t buying the theory that the Jets could have a letdown after all the emotion that went into their matchup with the Patriots. “I think at this stage of the season, that sort of thing builds on itself. When you’re 60 minutes from Dallas and Super Bowl XLV, I cannot even imagine a letdown. I just cannot imagine it.”

Schefter also provided some insight on what Sundays are like at ESPN headquarters. “On Sunday, after the pregame show ends at one o’clock, we all, all the people that are doing the pregame show, we wander into this dungeon at ESPN where there’s a bank of about 12 different TVs on the wall, and we watch all the games at once. It’s sensory overload.”

He said the food’s always the same. “In fact, it’s a running joke. Every Sunday, they bring up the chicken parm and the pizza from the cafeteria. It’s every Sunday night, and Chris Berman says, ‘Wait, let me guess, chicken parm and pizza. I am 15-for-15 this year on guessing the dinner.’ ”