​(Photo Courtesy of Charles Robinson/ NFL Blue Book)Charles Robinson had been synonymous with NFL coverage at Yahoo Sports for more than two decades. After being let go in May, he will continue to write about the league—his way.Earlier this month, he announced the launch of NFL Blue Book on Substack. While the concept is still evolving, Robinson’s venture aims to explore, from a high-level perspective, how NFL front offices operate and build teams.We caught up with Robinson to discuss his new project and the 2026 NFL season.Note: This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity. Why decide to go into business for yourself? Charles Robinson: “It’s an idea I first had when I was at Yahoo. This was in 2020, and it was just one of those things I knew I couldn’t execute while I was working at Yahoo because the Yahoo job was all-encompassing. NFL Blue Book, tilting myself into covering the 32 front offices in the league, I just knew it would be a job that was probably busier than the Yahoo job. And so I put it on the back burner, and I thought to myself, maybe I’ll get an opportunity to do this; maybe I won’t. And then when I parted ways with Yahoo, a lot of people reached out to me. Quite a bit of the advice I got was: ‘Look, if there’s something you want to do, don’t necessarily jump into mainstream media again. Think about it. Just stop and think about what you really love to cover, what really fascinates you about journalism. It doesn’t even have to really be the NFL, and consider maybe taking a shot on that.’”Who did you talk to about this idea?“I reached out to a number of people across the league, some GMs and higher-level executives, and I said, ‘Hey, look, I have this idea. This is what I think it could be. Is this a stupid idea? Am I crazy to think about doing this?’ Instead of apprehension, it was the opposite. A lot of people were really into it, to the point that they were starting to, without being solicited, throw out ideas.”https://t.co/azlLUNQzse is live. As the Hall of Fame Game kicks off tonight between the @AZCardinals and @Panthers, I’ll be launching my training camp tour notebooks this afternoon, starting with my visit with the #Cardinals. I hope you’ll follow along this season and beyond!
— Charles Robinson (@CharlesRobinson) August 6, 2026Did you also contact other sports journalists?“Yeah, absolutely. In terms of the people I worked with, Adrian Wojnarowski was the first person I talked to early on. Pete Thamel, Dan Wetzel, Jeff Passan, and a lot of people I came up with through Yahoo. Pat Forde. And then I started to get outside that circle to other individuals, like Seth Wickersham at ESPN and Tyler Dunne, who has Go Long at Substack.”How much did speaking with Tyler Dunne help? “He was one of the first I talked to. I was thinking to myself, how and where do I start this? Because I wanted to start small and then grow it. … I was not really extremely up to da