Katherine Fitzgerald, a Buffalo Bills beat writer for the Buffalo News, and Daniel Oyefusi, the Cleveland Browns beat writer for ESPN.com, have been selected as the 2025 Terez A. Paylor Emerging Writer Award winners by the Professional Football Writers of America (PFWA).
Fitzgerald and Oyefusi, the fifth and sixth Paylor Award winners, are the first co-recipients of the award since it was introduced in 2021. Fitzgerald is the first person affiliated with the Buffalo News to receive the award, while Oyefusi is the first affiliated with ESPN.com to be honored.
The Paylor Award recognizes a young NFL writer 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.
Fitzgerald joined the Buffalo News as a Bills beat writer in 2021. She previously was a sports reporter for the Arizona Republic (2018-21) and USA Today (2017). While with the Republic, she covered the Arizona Cardinals, Phoenix Suns and other teams and events in the greater Phoenix area, and she reported on Washington, D.C. teams and athletes with an emphasis on coverage of Olympics, golf, soccer and tennis while at USA Today. She also worked with Arizona PBS during her graduate studies at Arizona State. A native of Timonium, Md., Fitzgerald is a graduate of the University of North Carolina’s School of Media and Journalism. She earned her master’s degree in sports journalism from Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication.
Oyefusi became the Browns beat reporter for ESPN’s NFL Nation in April 2024. Prior to his ESPN work, he was the Miami Dolphins beat reporter for the Miami Herald from 2021-24, where he received a top-10 finish in the 2022 APSE contest for coverage of Brian Flores’ lawsuit against the Dolphins and the NFL. Prior to that, he covered the Ravens and other breaking sports news for the Baltimore Sun. A native of Baltimore, Oyefusi is a graduate of the University of Maryland’s Philip Merrill College of Journalism. He received his Master of Legal Studies in sports law and business from Arizona State University.
The other 2025 finalists for the Paylor Award were Ben Arthur (Fox Sports) and Kris Rhim (ESPN.com).
TEREZ A. PAYLOR EMERGING WRITER AWARD WINNER (Young NFL writer 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); 2024 – Colton Pouncy (The Athletic); 2025 – Katherine Fitzgerald (Buffalo News) and Daniel Oyefusi (ESPN.com)
