Tashan Reed, the Las Vegas Raiders beat reporter for The Athletic, has been selected as the 2023 Terez A. Paylor Emerging Writer Award winner by the Professional Football Writers of America (PFWA).
Reed, the third Paylor Award winner, has covered the Raiders for The Athletic since 2020. Reed was also a finalist for last year’s award.
The Paylor Award recognizes an NFL writer under the age of 30 who carries on the legacy of Paylor through his or her work ethic, professionalism, and dedication to the craft and commitment to improving diversity in NFL media. Paylor, the former Yahoo! Sports and Kansas City Star football writer, passed away in February 2021 at the age of 37. He joined the Star after graduating from Howard University in 2006 and took over the Kansas City Chiefs beat in 2013. Paylor spent the next seven-plus years covering the NFL and joined Yahoo! Sports in 2018 as a senior writer to cover the league on a national level.
A graduate of Missouri, Reed has covered the Las Vegas Raiders since 2020, after previously covering Florida State for The Athletic. Reed has quickly established himself as one of the leading voices on the Raiders beat, and this year delivered an impressive narrative podcast, “Between the Lines”, which focused on the Black experience in the NFL.
Prior to joining The Athletic, Reed covered high school and NAIA college sports for the Columbia Missourian, Mizzou football, men’s basketball and women’s basketball for the SBNation blog Rock M Nation, wrote stories focused on the African American community for The St. Louis American and was a sports intern at the Commercial Appeal in Memphis through the Sports Journalism Institute.
The other finalists for the 2023 award were Ben Arthur (Fox Sports), Emmanuel Morgan (New York Times), Daniel Oyefusi (Miami Herald) and Josh Tolentino (Philadelphia Inquirer).
“I have known Tashan since he was a college freshman,” said Leon H. Carter, editor at large at The Athletic. “He later became a member of the Sports Journalism Institute. It’s been amazing to see his growth as a journalist, and it’s good that the football writers have voted for him to receive this honor. He is definitely carrying on the legacy of Terez Paylor.”
ABOUT THE PFWA: In its 60th season in 2023, the Professional Football Writers of America (PFWA) is the official voice of pro football writers, promoting and fighting for access to NFL personnel to best serve the public. The PFWA is made up of accredited writers who cover the NFL and the 32 teams daily. Calvin Watkins of the Dallas Morning News is the PFWA president for the 2023-24 seasons and the organization’s 31st president. Nicki Jhabvala of the Washington Post is the PFWA’s first vice-president, Michael-Shawn Dugar of The Athletic is the second vice-president, Lindsay Jones of The Ringer is the advisor to the president and Mike Sando of The Athletic is the secretary-treasurer. At-large board members include Mike Jones of The Athletic, ESPN.com’s Jeff Legwold, Joe Reedy of the Associated Press and ProFootballTalk.com’s Charean Williams. Follow the PFWA at ProFootballWriters.org and on Twitter at @PFWAwriters.
TEREZ A. PAYLOR EMERGING WRITER AWARD WINNER (NFL writer under the age of 30 who carries on the legacy of Paylor through his or her work ethic, professionalism, and dedication to the craft and commitment to improving diversity in NFL media): 2021 – Jourdan Rodrigue (The Athletic); 2022 – Jori Epstein (USA Today); 2023 – Tashan Reed (The Athletic)
