This is the football lost in 2026 translation. Social-media feeds and daytime television are both so over-flooded with self-appointed film junkies, arbitrary “Top 100” lists and the Rage of the Day that NFL consumers tend to hyperventilate over all the wrong stuff.

There’s so much more to winning and losing.

What we see for 60 minutes on gameday is only one piece of that puzzle.

Take the Miami Dolphins. For a half-decade, this organization seemed to be doing everything right. Their offense revolutionized those X’s and O’s. Mike McDaniel was a breath of fresh air. Tua Time was real. Once again, talent flocked to South Florida. (Hello, Jalen Ramsey.) Beneath the surface, however, the team’s foundation was cracking. Players on this team offered a scathing peek behind the curtain in our latest season-preview feature.

“We didn’t fight for each other on the field,” one ex-Dolphin told me. “We just didn’t give a fuck. Offense didn’t care about the defense. Defense didn’t care about the offense. That’s how it went. I stopped giving a fuck.”

The reason — this player explained — is that there’s a true “psychology” to the sport most people don’t understand.

Teammates didn’t hang out together. Teammates didn’t dine together. There was zero camaraderie.

Players strolled into meetings late, if at all.

True bonds were never formed. Accountability was nonexistent. When a few highly compensated vets started bringing their cell phones right to walkthroughs, rookies soon followed. Bad habits became contagious. The closer you look, the more you see why the new Dolphins regime is OK with 60 percent of this season’s payroll allotted to players who won’t play a snap. The problems ran deep.

These 22 players colliding into each other have heads and hearts. They’re not robots. If you’re not truly fighting for the player next to you? Expect problems. Expect that schism to manifest on the field. (Ex-Eagles running back Brian Westbrook made the same point looking back at the McNabb-TO controversy.) If you’re treating the profession like a job and not an obsession? Expect players to coast when the going gets tough.

The concurrent arcs of Jordyn Brooks and these Dolphins explain so much about any team trying to build a winning culture today.

This is a kid who grew up on NFL Films. He’s been obsessed with the sport forever.

The linebacker opened up on how he plans to change everything.

Subscribers can read our look at the psychology of a team trying to create something new:

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A few themes in the story.

Be sure to read in full for more.

Texas Tech Revelation.

Brooks is thankful he siphoned all hard partying out of his system in college. NFL teams don’t supply this level of grace to players. One conversation with new DC Keith Patterson changed everything.

“There was no more time. You had your fun. It’s now or never.”

A brother’s death and perspective.

His life could’ve spiraled a completely different direction. Phone calls from Texas are always chilling. When Brooks was in college, one brother called to say their other brother had been shot and killed. All of it gave him more clarity — stay on this path.

Without fail, each year, Brooks hears about another childhood friend who’s been killed. The decision at age 13 and 14 is simple.

“I’ve seen it — with my own eyes — people’s paths and life go totally left. And I played with plenty of guys who had great talent that should have been in the league. That humbles you if you look at it the right way and realize like, ‘Man, you know what? This is why I never take one day that I’m here for granted.’ I’ll never have the mindset like, ‘Oh no, I belong here. I deserve to be here.’ No, I’m lucky to be here. I’m lucky to be here and one day I’ll be gone. I’m going to appreciate every day that I am here because I’ve seen it for myself. Some people didn’t make it to the next day in life — literally.”

Torn ACL.

The timing could not have been any worse. In Seattle, Brooks wrecked his knee into the final year of his rookie contract.

He faced a choice.

“A horrible moment turned into a great moment.”

Candor.

As Miami’s 2024 season fell apart — and the Dolphins were embarrassed on Thanksgiving Night — Brooks called his team “soft.” He was correct.

“Be honest. Be honest. Call it for what it is, in hopes that we’ll change it. Not to stir up anger in people but to create a sense of urgency to get it better. That’s my leadership style. That’s how I try to lead. Whenever I need to speak, I’ll speak. But the main thing is live it out first. So whenever I do speak, nobody’s looking at me crazy for speaking. Live and embody whatever you’re preaching. Live that part out first. That’s the biggest thing I learned. Playing with other guys in my career is like, ‘Man, some dudes say they’re leaders, but they’re not really doing what they talk about.’ So it’s hard for me to listen to them. It’s hard for me to respect it. I never, ever want to be that guy.”

Leadership.

The “C” on the chest of captains didn’t mean much. Sources explain in detail how these Dolphins went completely off the rails, racking up $200K in fines by Week 6 of a football season.

By 2025, Brooks started taking charge. We spoke at length about how he plans to change the psychology of these Dolphins. It won’t be easy, but that’s the point.

“It came to a point where I realized, ‘OK, some of these guys aren’t serious about this, and we are suffering behind it. I can’t just sit here and just let it go by.’ Showing up late to meetings. Not buying into what we’re trying to do. We play football. If enough guys are not all the way locked in, we’re going to suffer. Basketball team, 15 guys, it’s a lot easier to get everybody to buy in. Whoever isn’t bought in is going to stick out like a sore thumb. But it’s easier to hide when it’s 50, 60 guys.”

“My true value is to be a leader of men. We’ve got a bunch of rookies. I’ve got a lot of knowledge that I can give them through my own experience that can help them be more successful. That’s my true value. … I went through all those lows for these moments.”

“It’s a challenge. It’s exhausting at times. But I always tell God I embrace the role because as men, period, that’s what God has called us to be. We all have different jobs and different roles. But every man is called to be a leader in some shape or form. If you have kids, your job, whatever role it is — you’re meant to lead something. That’s how God knitted us.”

What’s next

Lucrative deals to superstars didn’t pan out for Miami.

He sees no reason why the ‘26 Dolphins cannot take everyone by surprise.

Brooks is high on quarterback Malik Willis and new Texas Tech running mate Jacob Rodriguez.

“A lot of people on the outside are going to look at our team and be like, ‘Yeah, 0-17.’ But me? When you’re in it, it’s different. You never have that mindset. I understand why people would say the things they say. ‘How many stars do they have? Proven guys?’ We ain’t got a lot of them. But we tried that and it didn’t work. To me, this is exactly what we need. Whatever the vision is, I’m all-in. The best teams win. Not the best players.”

“We become a team? The sky’s the limit. We can do anything we want to do. I don’t care if we have no superstars.”

Go Long subscribers can access “Jordyn Brooks is the captain now” in full.

We also profiled another player central to the changes in Miami: Aaron Brewer.

Our season preview features will run right up to kickoff.

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Also: I joined over at Locked On Dolphins for a chat on our stories.

Here’s the replay if you’d like to check it out:

Five years later, their final conversation stays on his mind. Loved ones were all able to say goodbye to Alvin Jones Sr. inside the comfort of his home.

At one point, father told son to chase his dreams and “get everything we talked about.”

He passed away. The funeral commenced. It was soon Aaron Jones’ time to offer a few final words at the casket. As his eyes welled up, the NFL running back made a promise: “I’m going to go get that gold jacket.” He balled up a fist to beat his heart because Dad taught him to do everything with his heart, and then had no choice but to move on. Somehow.

The Minnesota Vikings vet relived the entire experience with Go Long last season.

On our most recent trip to Eagan, Minn., this offseason, we touched base again.

Frankly, last season did not go according to plan.

Up close, you can spy 1 ½ white strands in his beard. Jones is 31 years old with 2,059 career touches to his name. This is Year 10. By every metric, the former No. 182 overall pick out of Texas-El Paso has defied all expectations. The most diehard of Packer fans still revere this player in purple. Fans love him. Coaches and players, too. We talk to as many NFL people as we possibly can at Go Long — players, coaches, scouts, administrators. I’ve never heard NFL people universally rave about a player the way they do Jones. His character is universally worshiped.

The point: He easily could walk away with his head held high.

His NFL career has been an unequivocal success.

But he can’t. He’s still thinking about that promise to his father. Looking to feed his mind with confidence this offseason, Jones consciously imagined what it’d be like to make it to Canton and hear his Dad say: “Son, you did it.” He kept repeating those four words in his mind through OTAs and minicamp. Standing near the Vikings practice field, he pauses several moments.

“I don’t know what that feeling is going to feel like,” Jones says, “but I can’t wait to hear it. So, I close my eyes and try to picture it.”

This isn’t a fantasy to him. Jones “1,000 percent” believes he can speak this into existence.

Nobody ever expected him to last this long.

On his left knee is a “G” tattoo. Post-Packers, this one now stands for “Greatness.”

On his right knee, he says he’ll get the “V” finished up.

Then, Jones points to a spot on his right arm. That’s where he says he’ll get a new tattoo soon: I Did It.

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Injuries railroaded this vision in 2025. Two games in, he suffered a hamstring injury and missed a month. Upon returning, Jones sprained his AC joint against Detroit. He gritted through the pain to finish with 747 total yards and three scores before missing the final game with a torn labrum in his hip.

Heading into training camp, Jones is “100 percent” healthy. This is as good as he’s felt in a long time. He’s in line to be the No. 1 back again.

“It’s about how you respond,” Jones says. “Are you going to put your head down and work or are you going to make excuses? I put my head down and worked this offseason and hopefully it’ll show this upcoming season. I know the best ability is availability so if I’m able to be there for my team, I can do some good things.”

Like Frank Gore (16 seasons) and Emmitt Smith (15 seasons) before him, Jones wants to go down as a “unicorn” at the running back position.

The way he feels right now, Jones believes he has six seasons still in him.

Those random white hairs? “A little wisdom.”

What matters most is that his body still feels young at the most cutthroat position in the sport. All 32 teams churn through running backs because there’s always someone cheaper with more juice. In today’s NFL economy, it’s hard enough for a talented back to get to his second pro contract. Jones is still going.

“I think it shows dedication and selflessness,” Jones says. “Because at that position, it’s not just running the ball. It’s pass protection. It’s making that game-saving pickup so they can get the ball off. Or you’re running a play fake and getting hit by one or two dudes. Sacrificing. I feel young. I haven’t fully left my stamp on the game as well. If I can play for another five, six years, my numbers will go on up and be right there with the best of them. And then at the end of it, there’s no debate.”

As in enshrinement into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

If he’s somehow able to maintain his career pace for another six years, Jones would flirt with 14,000 career rushing yards. Only six players in league history have eclipsed this number. That’s obviously an exceptionally lofty goal. But there’s no reason he can’t bounce back in a big way this 2026 season. Jones is only two years removed from a career-high 1,138 rushing yards. The Vikings hired run-game guru Frank Smith from Miami as an assistant head coach, return to full strength on the offensive line and may start a quarterback capable of functioning in a modern passing attack this season. All of which should blow a gust of wind in Jones’ sails.

He’s still having fun. Jones hasn’t lost his zest for this sport at all. At the end of the 2025 season, he told running backs coach Curtis Modkins that after seeing fullback CJ Ham retire, he has no desire to hang ‘em up himself. (“There will have to be no team that wants me before I get out,” he added.) Still, it takes two.

The Vikings brass made it clear they wanted Jones.

Jones made it clear he didn’t want to play anywhere else.

Both parties agreed to restructure his contract to $5.6 million for this season.

In theory, he’ll share the workload with 5-foot-11, 230-pound bruiser Jordan Mason. Rookie Demond Claiborne, who ran a 4.37 in the 40 at the Combine, is also an intriguing prospect worth monitoring. The Vikings certainly value everything Jones brings off the field, too. He’s already been taking Claiborne under his wing. Nothing new there. He has always taken immense pride in helping all young players that he can. This day, Jones brings up Packers wide receiver Christian Watson. Back in Round 2 of the 2022 NFL Draft, he’s the one who announced that draft pick. Through the receiver’s injury issues, Jones offered words of encouragement. Told him the key is to never feel sorry for yourself.

When Watson got paid this offseason, Jones beamed with pride.

“I like to think I had a little effect on their life,” he says.

Football is always more than those 60 minutes on a Sunday.

No way does Jones last this long in the NFL without the influence of Aaron Rodgers and Davante Adams early in his own career. Both had a unique way of instilling confidence in him. Randomly, the Packers quarterback would tell Jones he needs to speak in front of the team. Spur of the moment. No warning. Jones didn’t have a choice. He cannot remember what he said to everyone, but the soft-spoken running back quickly became comfortable talking in front of the team. Big picture, the exercise helped prepare him for more uncomfortable moments in the sport.

Here in Minnesota, he believes this roster has all the ingredients required to shoot right back into title contention after backtracking to 9-8. Jones even thinks that edition of the Vikings could’ve done damage in the playoffs if they snuck in.

“We still have that hunger, that bitter taste in our mouth,” Jones says, “and you can tell there’s an urgency around here. Love the coaching staff. Love the support staff. Love everything about this building. They really make it about us — for us to get to Sunday and be at our best. They listen to the players. So, this is a great place to be. I didn’t want to go anywhere. I’m blessed that it worked out and get to be here another year and hopefully have a career year and get to stay.”

His greatest foe isn’t any linebacker in the NFC North. Rather, Father Time.

Mention the medieval torture device that safety Harrison Smith used to extend his career 14 seasons, and Jones jumps in. He’s been using that same exact device to stretch his limbs out. Smith gifted this “Pravilo” stretching device to Vikings linebacker Chaz Chambliss and Jones asked all about the funky method of stretching first developed by Slavic warriors in battle prep centuries ago. The machine, he explains, both stretches you out and rotates your joints. Anything to squeeze a little more out of this career.

His hip never required surgery. Doctors say it’s actually gotten more flexible through rehab.

“That doesn’t normally happen,” Jones says. “I’m staying on top of it — never being satisfied.”

Once more, he brings up a quote from Michael Beasley. The former NBA pro said once on a podcast that success does happen overnight — you just don’t know which night it’ll be. That keeps Jones pushing to find any edge possible. Today, he’s thinking back to what ran through his mind at 15 years old. Back when nobody knew anything about him, back when a genuine love for the sport motivated him.

He could be anywhere else this summer. Jones has a 6-year-old boy and a 2-year-old girl. (His boy is already a natural on the field.)

It’d be very easy for Dad to embrace a new life and leave scorching-hot practices in the past.

Yet as he speaks — hands on his knees, staring forward — Jones looks like he’ll instead sprint through the nearest wall at maximum velocity.

“I want to get better. It’s crazy to say. I’m 31, but I feel like I haven’t fully hit my prime,” Jones says. “I can get better every day. There’s something I can find and work on, whether it be my first step or whether it be a track or showing late hands. Did I show my hands too early? There’s a number of things that you can continue to work on. That’s what helps me.

“I don’t feel like I’ve fully arrived and that keeps me going, that keeps me hungry, that keeps me pushing out here.”

He’ll have another source of drive this season, too. When the Vikings get into the fourth quarter of games this season — when he’s hurting, wondering why he signed up for a 10th season, hunting for extra strength — all Aaron Jones needs to do is look down at his arm and see three words written in ink.

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ICYMI:

Our 2026 NFL Season Preview Features are underway:

Our 2026 NFL Season Preview Features continue. Go Long sits down with the man who plans on being the alpha these Miami Dolphins have been sorely missing for years. One Texas Tech awakening. One brother lost. Chilling phone calls from Texas. Tearing his ACL in Seattle. More issues in Miami than anyone knew. (We chat with players on what went wrong.)

All of it has led Brooks to the captain’s seat as the voice this organization needs.

He thinks these Dolphins are going to surprise people, too.

Miss our first piece? Here’s a profile of Dolphins All-Pro center Aaron Brewer.

Thanks, all.

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MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — He can still picture immortals from the 1960s clashing in slow motion, still hear the crescendo of trumpets, cymbals and clarinets blend into John Facenda’s dramatic narration and still remember the visceral feeling it gave him deep inside. It was art. It was addicting. He didn’t have cable. Following modern pro football was not an option. But his father did own a box of NFL Films tapes and Jordyn Brooks could not get enough.

Whenever he stayed at a friend’s house, he’d ask to watch NFL Network in hopes of catching flashbacks to yesteryear. Jim Brown, Walter Payton, Barry Sanders. His eyes were glued to the running backs most. YouTube went mainstream around the time he was 8 years old. Any access to the Internet meant chasing down every rabbit hole imaginable to learn everything he could about the NFL’s roots in the 60s. Then, the 70s. Then, the 80s. He learned about the sport in chronological order. His appreciation for the sport was pure.

At home, he’d steal all pillows from all bedrooms to set up an imaginary offense and run plays. Siblings were pissed he was blocking the TV. He’d bash into furniture. Something inevitably broke. He only knew one speed because — in his mind — these weren’t pillows. These were players. “And sometimes,” Brooks adds, “you’ve got to have an imagination if you really have a vision of where you want to go in life.” Into youth football, as a running back for the Pleasant Grove Falcons in Dallas, scintillating NFL Films tracks like “Round Up” and “Ramblin’ Man from Gramblin’” played in his head TD to TD to TD. Into high school, his coach believed the best players should play defense. Brooks was moved to linebacker. Brooks loathed the decision. And out of sheer anger, he teed off on everything that moved. Pop to pop to pulverizing pop, he grew to realize this was a calling.

He was always more Butkus and Nitschke and Lambert on those tapes.

Far back as he remembers, nothing mattered more to him.

“God put the desire in me,” Brooks says. “The love was implanted into me with how obsessed I was with football.”

So, imagine his anger. Imagine what’s running through his mind when he’s witnessing the exact opposite as a starting linebacker for the underachieving Miami Dolphins. He gets it. Anything you want, you can get in Miami. Beaches, nightclubs, girls. Temptation is ubiquitous. All who play football do not necessarily love football. Loss to loss, many peers appeared wholly unfazed.

Here inside an office at Dolphins HQ, his dark eyebrows scowl. Brooks is wearing a cutoff Jordan Brand hoodie with a hat that reads Greatness is a Process. He swivels in his chair as he speaks.

“Look, we play football,” Brooks says. “We are not going to be able to run and hit forever. You’ve got a short window and then your body’s going to fade out. It happens to everybody. Nobody’s supposed to be running full speed into each other. But we do that. So you can only do that for a number of years, and then you can’t. So the urgency should be: ‘I’ve got to maximize this while I can.’”

Go Long is fueled 100 percent by our readers. Subscribers can access today’s longform on Jordyn Brooks and the Miami Dolphins, a rare look into how an NFL team strives to replace a broken culture with a winning one.

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Football is the ultimate team sport. The player next to you quite literally must do his job for you to do yours. Tom Brady isn’t Tom Brady, he explains, if linemen don’t block and receivers can’t catch. All 11 players are intertwined. One imbecile, any given play, can lose a game. Apathy — in this profession — costs co-workers their jobs, their knee ligaments, their pride. Quit like so many of his teammates were quitting and you’re directly screwing with livelihoods. That’s where it became “personal” to Brooks the last two seasons. He confronted teammates. First, nicely. You’ve got it in you. I’ve seen you do it at this level. Sometimes, that’s all a player needs. Other times, sure, he’d get mean because he wants others to do the same to him.

Urgency. Accountability. Hunger. All of this must become contagious in a locker room.

“We haven’t been able to do that,” Brooks says, “because people don’t care.”

What’s old must be burnt to soot. A franchise that’s now gone 25 seasons without a playoff win cleaned house to historic proportions this offseason. The GM (Chris Grier), head coach (Mike McDaniel) and quarterback (Tua Tagovailoa) were all canned. Miami’s new regime will eat $179,214,254 in dead money this season. In other words, 60 percent of this team’s salary cap is allotted to players who won’t play a down. All of which is healthy addition by subtraction. Sources inside the mickey mouse operation tell Go Long exactly what this looked like, right down to highly-paid vets thumbing through their cell phone during walkthroughs. Reset button? The 2026 Dolphins, under new GM Jon-Eric Sullivan, are correctly spiking the nuclear football.

What’s new runs deeper than a flashy free agent signing, a jaw-dropping trade.

This organization needs a soul. It needs a 29-year-old with the wisdom, scars, talent and, above all, maniacal urgency sorely lacking at 347 Don Shula Drive: Jordyn Brooks.

His life is a guide. Long before asserting himself as one of the NFL’s best linebackers, he was lost. In college, drowning in alcohol, one wake-up call changed the trajectory of his life. In the pros, consumed with the self-pity, another awakening saved him. He’s a realist. Miami has the youngest roster in the NFL at an average age of 25 years old. There are no big names on the marquee.

Unsolicited, Brooks brings up exactly what readers are thinking.

“A lot of people on the outside are going to look at our team and be like, ‘Yeah, 0-17,’” Brooks says. “But me? When you’re in it, it’s different. You never have that mindset. I understand why people would say the things they say. ‘How many stars do they have? Proven guys?’ We ain’t got a lot of them. But we tried that and it didn’t work. To me, this is exactly what we need. Whatever the vision is, I’m all-in. The best teams win. Not the best players.”

He brings up Sullivan’s old team. The 2023 Green Bay Packers had the youngest team in the NFL and came within one drive of reaching the NFC Championship Game. There’s a fire in his eyes.

“Why couldn’t that be the same situation here?” Brooks asks.

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Good morning, all. A month ago, I chatted with veteran tight end Chris Manhertz. Video and audio of that conversation is right here if you missed it.

Prefer the words? The transcript below.

There’s a reason a basketball player from Canisius University in Western New York has now lasted 12 seasons as an NFL tight end. Long ago, Real Football co-host Jim Monos and Buffalo Bills GM Doug Whaley offered Manhertz a tryout to play football. He excelled, cracked the 53-man roster in New Orleans the next season and now has young players asking him every day how he’s managed to survive.

His timing is impeccable. Tight ends are now invaluable in today’s NFL.

How Manhertz manages to stick around — and thrive — is a lesson to everyone in the NFL as training camps start to open up around the country.

Expectations are rising again in New Jersey with the arrival of John Harbaugh. We get into these 2026 Giants.

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The year is 2047 and Chris Manhertz is playing tight end in the NFL. Our kids and our grandkids are going to regale future generations. You’re going strong into Year 12, I want to say.

Manhertz: 12th year, yep.

A pleasure to welcome you back on the Go Long Pod. For those who don’t remember, Chris Manhertz was one of our early conversations with Jim Monos at Go Long. You two go way back. First things first. How’s life, the family. This must be a nice little lull in the NFL calendar for you?

Manhertz: Life is busy to say the least. I’m just trying to juggle that all with the family and football. But to your point, we just wrapped up our last practice of OTAs before that big break before train camp begins. So get an opportunity to relax a little bit. It’s time away. It’s not really time off, but nonetheless, you got to take what you could get during this time, right?

I’ve got to think that you probably have learned to find those windows in the calendar to pace yourself, take a little break. I don’t know what your secret sauce is, but you’ve got to get away from it in June to an extent.

Manhertz: That getaway time I would probably say is maybe a week max and then you’ve got to hit it. At least at my stage. I can’t really afford to take too much time off because that might be a detriment to the momentum.

That’s why you’re here, right? Is that it? Going one hellbent speed in your training, your approach. How are we still talking about Chris Manhertz bullying people on the line of scrimmage week-in and week-out?

Manhertz: I think the secret sauce is, if anything, is priding yourself on being available. And that stems back to how you take care of your body. The things that my body needed when I was 22 years old vs. being 34 years old and my maintenance routine and everything like that, it obviously requires a lot more as you get older. So you have to do just as much to keep up with all this young, fresh talent that’s coming in and trying to compete. So that’s always the constant challenge, but it’s fun.

Mid-30s now and you see all the young whippersnappers coming in at 21, 22, 23 years old, it’s probably got to be motivating. There’s constantly these new waves of players that are drafted, signed, added to the 90-man roster trying to take your job. That’s going to light a fire.

Manhertz: You’re absolutely right. It’s literally a revolving door. Talent every year. You have to prove to the organization along with everybody else that you’re just as valuable and you don’t want to be replaced by somebody that’s younger and cheaper. That’s always going to be the challenge the older you get. So you have to pride yourself on providing as much value as you can as a player and it forces you not to become complacent.

Start at the start in Western New York with basketball, with a young Jim Monos, Doug Whaley seeing a little something special (with the Bills). In your words, how did this all begin in professional football?

Manhertz: It started with those guys giving me an opportunity. Never in a million years did I ever think that somebody — a football organization, football scouts — would take interest in a collegiate basketball player. So at that time, fish out of water. Didn’t really know much, if anything, about the sport. Just giving it a shot. At the time, I literally felt like I really had nothing to lose as far as taking that risk. But obviously in hindsight, it’s probably one of the best decisions I’ve made. So that’s a long skinny version, but a lot of it is just taking it year by year and like I said, just keep constantly trying to provide value and getting better.

What kind of basketball player were you at Canisius?

Manhertz: I was what I would call a “garbage man.” Somebody that did the dirty work, kind of synonymous with what I do on the football field. Defended, rebounded. I was that pillar defensively and embodied just a lot of grit and just that typical glue piece that holds and keeps everything together.

Did you have a favorite NBA player that you watched growing up?

Manhertz: Yeah, Kevin Garnett was by far legendary growing up. I mean, he’s legendary now, but growing up, that was probably one of my favorite basketball players. Kobe Bryant. LeBron, I mean, he’s been in the league for 20 years. So we looked up to LeBron when he first started and came in.

Who would be a legendary garbage man, though? I mean, obviously Dennis Rodman. But there’s got to be an under-the-radar, random 90’s NBA player that you loved.

Manhertz: In wake of the resurgence of the New York Knicks right now, I’d probably say Anthony Mason. That guy, if you know, you know.

To me, he’s a Charlotte Hornet. I grew up a Hornets fan. I remember crying as a kid when they traded Larry Johnson for Mason and my Dad had to sit me down and explain “Ty, this is how it works in sports. Sometimes your favorite players get traded.” … And he was just a junkyard dog, man. I loved Mase. God rest his soul. Absolute legend. I can see that in your game.

Manhertz: Oh yeah. Junkyard dog is probably the perfect word to use. Just scrappy.

At that time, yeah, teams are looking at college basketball players to play tight end. But they’re high-flying, above-the-rim, Jimmy Graham types. The Bills had a different vision for you back then in 2015 that is still going strong. Today, what skills that you had on the basketball court applied to football and how do you think you showed that in your workout and those early days?

Manhertz: From a raw athleticism standpoint, there’s always a ton of transferable things that I had from the basketball court to the football field, whether it was that spatial awareness, whether it was footwork, whether it was hand-eye coordination, catching, things like that. There’s certain things that translate. But there’s a lot that in my opinion and experience you just learn. The physical toughness part was something I had to learn. Although I was a bruiser on the basketball court, the rigors of how physical it is on a football field is unlike anything on the basketball court. So you have to re-program your mind and reprogram your body to get that.

What was that breakthrough moment for you? Was it a hitting drill in a training camp practice, a game? When did things kind of click: “OK, football’s a little different.”

Manhertz: Well, from that standpoint, mentally, things probably didn’t start to quick until maybe my third year, which is crazy to say. But there’s so many different moving pieces as far as what you’re able to cognitively process on the football field in conjunction with all the physical stuff that we just described. So putting those two things together was probably the hardest thing I had to do, but the physical part probably came a little bit easier for me because I could control that the most. A lot of that just comes down to want-to and a certain mentality.

Was there a block or a personal battle in a game where you took another human being and drove him backward and you told yourself, “OK, this could be my thing in the NFL, this could be my calling card.”

Manhertz: That was probably one of my first practices at the time with Buffalo blocking Mario Williams. Now, those who don’t know who Mario Williams is — defensive end, huge guy, athletic specimen, genetic lottery, the whole thing. Seeing somebody like him obviously can be intimidating initially. Especially for a basketball player that never played the sport. But I didn’t know what I didn’t know. And honestly, I didn’t even know who he was to the extent of what everybody else thought. So for me, I was just going up against somebody that was big. I didn’t care. But after the fact, I realized, “OK, I have the capability of doing this if I hone in on my technique.” So once you do things like that, you just feel like you slowly belong and obviously it builds confidence along the way.

So you took it to him in practice?

Manhertz: I did. I did. And you could ask Jim about that. We talk about that all the time. That was a moment where I was like, “OK, I could do this.”

He’s the $100 Million Dollar Man at that point off of one of, if not the best season of his career in ‘14. You don’t know what you don’t know. You can’t put these guys up on pedestals. Maybe not knowing a hell of a lot about the NFL and what you’re walking into helped as well. What do you have to lose?

Manhertz: Certainly. Certainly. I think that helped because, again, I’m going in it with very limited expectations as far as what I’m going to get across from the guy standing across from me. So I think that helped in a way.

The Bills run doesn’t last long. And then it’s New Orleans, it’s Carolina, it’s Jacksonville, it’s Denver, now the Giants. There’s got to be a mental stamina to constantly go into these training camps — one of 90 — not knowing what to expect. How do you mentally approach your profession that’s just different?

Manhertz: You have to embrace that uncertainty in a way that you have to truly focus on the things that you can control. And obviously the body of work that you’ve put in, you demonstrate that over time. It breeds confidence. So a lot of that for me, that’s where it helps me out in knowing and supplying the confidence that I have in my abilities. And year after year goes by, you might have a new coaching staff, might have a new system, you have new young players coming in. But at this stage in my career, guys are asking me the questions as far as what it takes to last so long and things like that. And it oftentimes gives you an opportunity to reflect and refine certain things that you might have about yourself that you could add to your toolbox or maybe just a constant reminder that you always have to be in a state of trying to improve. Because if you don’t, you’re probably going to get left behind. That’s what I’ve realized in my time in the league, especially with guys that are drafted first round, second round, undrafted. It’s really about what you do when you get there and what your mentality is on a day-to-day.

You should just tell them to play all the video games in the world, order pizza, pound wings. No, you’re helping these guys out. What were those specific areas of improvement you think that kept pumping oxygen into your NFL career along this decade plus?

Manhertz: It’s really every year reassessing who you are as a football player and figuring out what it is that is required of you on that given year or that given staff or that given role that they might have for you — for you to give yourself the best chance to really make it. And obviously my role has been pretty consistent for a majority of my career as far as being a blocker and things like that. But I have to constantly tell myself that there’s always something to improve on. There’s always something to improve on. Whether it’s little techniques here and there, whether it’s my preparation, whether it’s my routines, how I take care of my body, how I’m taking care of things mentally. Because it piles up after a while and it doesn’t get any easier. So that’s why I say you always have to constantly try to refine those things.

What are some of those things you’re doing to keep your body a well-oiled machine or things you picked up along the way. Is Chris Manhertz going full Rocky Balboa in the weight room blasting the music? What’s your day-to-day life?

Manhertz: I train five days a week. I eat very clean. I go to sleep every night at maybe 8, 8:15. I don’t drink. If I’m not doing those things and I’m not on the football field or in the film room, I’m doing something. Whether it’s a recovery tool, whether it’s hot tub, whether it’s cold tub, whether it’s oxygen chamber, there’s a boatload of modalities that kind of could help give you your edge. So I try to fill my time with doing those things because ultimately this body is ... I look at my body as my war machine and I have to really feed that machine good stuff so that I could have a very high output. There’s no guarantees in that, but I know not doing that will probably leave me more susceptible to all the bad stuff happening.

It’s got to be tough with three kids to find the time to do all that. How have you balanced life and football and maintaining that “war machine?”

Manhertz: That’s probably one of the hardest parts. Obviously after becoming a dad, you realize how much time you really have and how you want to prioritize that time. And I guess what works for me, at least nowadays, is I’m an extremely early riser. So my first alarm is at 4:30. I try to, whether it’s on a workday or even an off day, I try to maximize that time before they wake up so that I’m not eating into the day because once the day starts and kids and everything and dropoff and pickups and the whole nine, you kind of look up and you’re like, “Man, where’d the day go?” So if I have a hard stop at 8:00, 8:30 p.m. to go to sleep, I have to find something in-between to be efficient and maximize my time with the time I have. So I’ve learned to get up a lot earlier. It all comes at a cost, but it’s worth it.

A cost like missing the New York Knicks’ comeback? Or did you stay up for it?

Manhertz: I was at the game. That was amazing.

What was it like at MSG?

Manhertz: I’ve never seen an environment like that. I always say I’ve been to few NBA games, but there’s nothing like The Garden. There’s absolutely nothing like it, whether it’s the celebrities there, the music, the crowd, it was great. It was indescribable. And thankfully I was there on a night that was very historic in the NBA World as far as their comeback. So definitely wore my Meta glasses. I’ll review that from time to time.

Where are you sitting? Put us in the arena for those who might not have thousands of dollars for a ticket. I can’t imagine what it was like.

Manhertz: I was in a suite with a few of my teammates, so that was pretty cool sharing that experience. It’s electric. Even after the game, you’re trying to walk to get out the building. You’ve got people crowd-surfing.

It’s got to cross your mind: “If our New York Giants win, what’s it going to look like?” I get it. It’s a different sport. A lot of Knick fans are Giant fans. It’s been a while since the Giants were NFL royalty. What’s it going to take to get this team to that kind of place and what would it feel like?

Manhertz: That would be a dream come true. I’m a hometown guy. I’m playing in my hometown. That adds another element to it. But what is it going to take? I think a lot of it starts from the top — leadership from the top. Our head coach, our scouting department bringing in the right talent and ultimately the leadership on the team. The players. And I think that it’ll require a lot of buy-in from us as far as what the head coach is trying to build, what type of identity we want to be as a team. And the one silver lining is — and this might be football talk — the best teams are the most situationally aware teams in the NFL. When it comes to situational football, they have it down pat. So kind of training that because it’s going to happen, things are going to come up during the season and the margin for victory is really small. So you might take a look at maybe four or five plays that really dictate the outcome of games. A lot of that is situational awareness and ultimately executing. So just being sharp with that’ll help.

You just nailed it. It really is just a few plays that decide these games, whether you’re a good team, a bad team. Hell, you’ve lived it with these Giants. Two minutes to go, a fourth down. The ball is shaped funny for a reason. But now you bring in a coach who’s won almost 200 games. How does it manifest in practice? What does it look like? Is he stressing these situations day-in and day-out, harping on it.

Manhertz: No question. Most of that starts in practice. You have to create a certain level of stress in practice, so that once the game comes, you’ve seen it before. You’re not startled by it, you’re not disheveled by it. It’s something that you’re used to, you’re accustomed to and you’re built for. So stressing that in practice on both sides of the ball — offense and defense — and putting us in those situations, whether it’s long-drive drills, whether it’s 2-minute, whether it’s 4-minute, whatever situation it is, just feeding it to us and making sure that we’re primed to be in the best position to execute during those times.

It can’t be easy to simulate the real thing though. You don’t have 70,000 screaming fans and the pressure of knowing all of America’s watching. How does he do it? How does he make it as real as possible?

Manhertz: Well, the crowd and the pressure of America watching, I don’t want to burst your bubble, but most of us don’t even think about that while we’re playing. It’s not even there. I was telling one of my family members a few weeks ago, they’re like, “Man, you don’t get nervous playing in front of large crowds.” I’m like, “The crowds aren’t even there when I’m playing. They’re not there.” It’s like if you have a baby, you might throw on a white noise machine. It sounds like white noise, but it’s not there.

For you anyways. That’s why you’re still going strong.

Manhertz: You stress those situations in practice as much as you can, as close as you can to what reality might look like. Ultimately, it’s not going to be the same as all those environmental factors that you just said. But just making sure we’re as close to that as possible to give ourselves a chance.

The timing for you is perfect as well. Two or three times through the course of your career, people might think of an old school blocking tight end as a dinosaur, a relic of the past. And then you look up and all the good teams are using two tight ends, three tight ends. That NFC Championship game was Seattle and LA. There were tight ends all over the field. Jacksonville drafted a tight end 56th overall. Chicago drafted a tight end 69th overall. Nobody saw those picks coming. Teams realize to create that unpredictability and keep teams on their toes, you need another extra lineman in there who can also catch a pass. That’s going to open up your playbook. That must cross your mind: “All of a sudden, I’m built for the modern NFL when for so long people thought I’m not.”

Manhertz: Absolutely. And it helps in knowing the system and how Coach Harbaugh utilizes tight ends based on what he’s done in the past and having Greg Roman as our run game coordinator. Greg Roman was our OC in Buffalo when I was there. And now 12 years later, I’m circling back with him and we’re in meetings and we’re reminiscing on where I was vs. where I am now and what potential I still have as far as adding value to the offense. So it’s been good having that. I understand that it’s a unique skillset, but overall it’s good for tight ends around the league because it’s only getting better and teams kind of have to keep up with that.

That was a pretty athletic touchdown catch that you had a couple years ago against the Commanders. You’ve got to feel the urge once in a while: “Alright, just a couple targets maybe guys?” Do you ever just put that bug in the ear to a coach here or there?

Manhertz: Yeah, every now and now and again, they might feed a dog a bone. I used to harp on it much more at one point. But now you have to let it come to you. And that play in particular was something that was set up for weeks. Because every week teams are studying your tape as well. Defenses are studying our offensive tape and situations and what we do on the goal line and what type of player No. 85 Chris Manhertz is. Odds are, he’s probably going to block 90 percent of the time. What are the odds that we’re going to be on the goal line and he leaks out for a pass. And so that’s the art of it. You have to play that game as an offensive coordinator and fortunately it worked in my favor and I was able to make a play.

It’s not like you were wide open though. The guy was face-guarding you. It was a tough catch. You had to use some skill there.

Manhertz: I always tell my coaches, sometimes you’ve just got to remind them and put it on tape. I’m here if you need me.

So what is the dream scenario for you this year? If everything goes exactly how you want it to personally and for the team, what does it look like for Chris Manhertz and the 2026 New York Giants?

Manhertz: Competing in the playoffs because obviously the playoffs is a new season and what you’ve done, what any team has done over the course of the regular season once the playoffs start is, in my eyes, irrelevant. It’s a new season. So having the opportunity to compete that far into the season gives yourself a chance. Ultimately winning a Super Bowl would be awesome, but I also have to put certain micro goals in place before we get there.

You see playoff talent though on this roster?

Manhertz: Absolutely.

Jaxson Dart, what do you have to say about your quarterback?

Manhertz: Yeah, Jaxson is great. He’s learning every day. Obviously he’s a younger player, but he has the maturity of somebody that’s not in Year 2. So that’s always good. He could use his legs very well. He’s an accurate passer and obviously he has a lot of growth to do with the new offense and the coaching staff, but a good quarterback gives you a chance. Right? That’s all you need — a chance. So building on that holistically as a team — whether it’s on a defense, whether it’s on the offensive end, special teams — we just have to build that together and ultimately we’ve got to win games.

Chris, I’ve got to let you get back to chasing kids around, lifting weights, going into hyperbaric chambers, which I think Jeremy Shockey, former Giant great, he revolutionized that and took it to another level back in his day. So you’re keeping that tradition go. What is it about the chamber that helps you when you’re in there?

Manhertz: It’s pressurized oxygen. So you’re in that chamber, it’s a ton of pressure. Your ears are popping, but you’re getting fresh oxygen and you couple that oxygen with the amount of pressure that’s in that chamber. Your blood cells, your muscles are getting fresh oxygen. So in turn, your body has the ability to recover much fast than somebody that doesn’t use it. So that’s been my edge. I’ve spent nights in that machine, especially during training camp. So like I said, it’s a cumulative effect, but you just have to keep stacking it.

Spent the entire night?

Manhertz: Yeah, I’ve spent 7-hour stretches in the machine.

It’s no accident that Chris Manhertz is still going strong. Thanks so much, man.

Manhertz: No, I appreciate your time.

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Love welcoming back one of the most underrated players of the late 1990s/early 2000s.

Brown is always insightful and introspective.

On this episode, we get into plenty:

• Tom Brady’s mid-life crisis. This is getting weird and sad.

• Wide Receiver drama. There were no such divas back on his Steelers teams, but how would Brown navigate this matrix as a GM today?

• John Schneider’s mastery. He wrote the Seahawks GM a letter.

• His love for snakes. Brown didn’t sprint the other direction when a python sank its teeth into his arm. Be sure to catch Shannon Sharpe’s legendary trash talk. He knew Brown loved reptiles and didn’t hold back one Seattle-Denver game.

• Seahawks’ repeat efforts. What impressed Brown most about last year’s run?

• State of the Steelers. What is Omar Khan’s long-term plan?

• Why he loves the L.A. Rams’ title odds. He sees those multi-TE sets ruling again.

Video and audio of this week’s chat is above. Also be sure to hit subscribe, comment rate and review over on our channels over at Apple, Spotify and YouTube.

Brown, a three-time Pro Bowler, played 15 seasons in all with 1,091 career tackles, 79 sacks, 19 forced fumbles, 15 fumble recoveries and six interceptions. He was a key piece on the epic “Blitzburgh” defenses of the 90s, starred for the Seahawks and capped his career off with the 2007 Patriots team that nearly went undefeated.

Today, he’s one of the sharpest analysts going. You can catch him on ESPN Radio and calling college/pro games on the Compass Media Network. His X handle is @chadbrown94.

We’ve previously chatted with Brown for this story on the history/aura of the Pittsburgh Steelers Linebacker. And then again, for a (very) deep conversation on the state of football in 2023 — words and pod.

Thanks, all!

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ICYMI:

• Tampa Bay Buccaneers on the hunt for heart

• Our 2026 Quarterback Draft

• Dregs to Domination: The Aaron Brewer Blueprint

• The Wide Receiver Matrix

• Real Football: Brian Westbrook on defying the odds, McNabb-TO, Hurts-AJB & timeless Philadelphia Eagles memories

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Artificial intelligence is out of control. What’s real? What’s fake? Lines blur at supersonic speeds on social media. Horrifying to think about the simulated world we’re passing off to our kids. And their kids.

Until then, hey, let’s enjoy all preposterous “press conferences” that are obviously phony. You’ve seen ‘em on X, IG, Facebook. Players and coaches say things that are wildly out of character, and it’s all so damn realistic.

Like stone-cold-stoic Todd Bowles going ballistic after his Tampa Bay Buccaneers suffered a crushing loss to the Atlanta Falcons in December last season. Shortly after his team blew a 14-point fourth quarter lead with 10 minutes left, there was the head coach obviously edited to perfection.

Asked what he said to the team, a coach who says next to nothing dropped seven F-bombs in all.

“You don’t make excuses. You got to fucking care enough where the shit hurts. You’ve got to fucking care enough to where this shit hurts. It’s got to fucking mean something to you. It’s more than a job. It’s your fucking livelihood. How well do you know your job? How well can you do your job? You can’t sugarcoat that shit. It was in-fucking-excusable. There’s no fucking answer for it. There’s no excuse for it. That’s what you tell them in the locker room: Look in the fucking mirror.”

Did you, too, assume this clip was AI in real time?

It was not.

Bowles was, in fact, fuming. Fed up. Doing anything he possibly could to jolt his 2025 Bucs to life.

This summer, I asked one source with the Buccaneers about this moment. He assures Bowles was much, much, much more animated inside the locker room roughly 10 minutes before this interview.

“That was the toned-down media version,” this person says. “He’s so even-keeled, which is one of the reasons we love him. Whether it’s going great or going shitty, he’s able to keep it steady and not change too much. But we needed something. So he was trying everything he could at that point to get us out of that rut. … It’s like, ‘Why are we here? We shouldn’t be here right now. We should be winning these games.’”

That reaction inside the locker room? “Pretty quiet when your head man is fucking ripping asses everywhere.”

Nobody pushed back because there was nothing to defend. Bowles was correct.

The Buccaneers started 6-2 and deteriorated into an underachieving mess.

Baker Mayfield was patched together with Duct tape, glue and rusty nails by the end. The defense was a sieve. The No. 1 problem was this lack of heart. The Bucs were infested by too many players who treated football as a 9-to-5 nuisance. Not a livelihood. That’s how you lose games in such embarrassing fashion. One could argue that Bowles, a defensive coach, is part of that problem. Tampa Bay decided to stick with its coach and address this sore spot like a neck-rolled Mike Alstott in the A-gap.

Go Long is your home for longform.

Miss our 2026 Quarterback Draft? Watch here. Our Season Preview Features are underway? Here’s how Aaron Brewer went from UDFA to All-Pro.

Last year’s fall from 6-2 to 8-9 was cataclysmic. But the Buccaneers refused to tear it all down when Tom Brady finally retired for a life of Fox broadcasts, the Las Vegas Raiders and fake beefs with Logan Paul. No way they’ll tear it down now.

Which makes for an interesting case study when you consider two teams that defeated them through their swoon — Miami, Atlanta — chose rebuilds.

Tampa Bay attacked the offseason as if Bowles’ rant was blaring full blast over the speakers.

Is that enough to contend for a championship? Or is a reset overdue? From the top-down, this organization was hyper-motivated to find players who’ll “look in the fucking mirror.”

Read more

They’re populating the interwebs everywhere.

A perfect time to reprise the Quarterback Draft on Real Football. Subscribers may recall co-host Jim Monos and myself bringing in our pal Matthew Fairburn of The Athletic to draft QBs a few years back.

Let’s get the band back together.

Full video and audio is available above for paid subscribers.

There’s no perfect way to grade quarterback success, but we’ll use the QBR stat that takes multiple factors into account. Each of us select six quarterbacks via snake draft. At the end of the season, we’ll each take the five best scores of those six for a grand total. Winner gets a free dinner of their choosing from the other two.

Fairburn might’ve taken the crown in 2023. But for what it’s worth, I’m already booking my reservation at West Rose in Ellicottville, NY.

Monos of course scouted for the Philadelphia Eagles, New Orleans Saints and served as the director of personnel for the Buffalo Bills. Fairburn has covered both the NFL and NHL for The Athletic. Good chance you’ve read his excellent Sabres coverage this past season right through the Stanley Cup Playoffs. He’s still keeping a close eye on the NFL, too.

Let us know who you think assembled the best crew in the comments.

Prefer to listen on Apple or Overcast? Bang it here to sync your subscription. Instructions on syncing on Spotify are also here.

On our free list? Upgrade to a paid membership today for the full episode.

Our 2026 NFL Season Preview Features are underway. First up, a profile of Dolphins center Aaron Brewer. Much more on tap. We’d love to have you join our community today.

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MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — Fear cannot enter the equation. Anyone at any weight can execute a flawless back flip. But you’ve got to trust that you won’t land on your head, break your neck and spend the rest of your life in a wheelchair. That’s why 99 percent of people attempting a back flip, he explains, stick their arms out at the last split-second.

Aaron Brewer was never scared. Growing up in Dallas, he’d flip off trucks and houses and gates with his cousins.

Eventually, he learned how to run full speed and hurl his body backward.

“Busted my ass a couple times,” Brewer says. “I was a daredevil.”

Practice made perfect. Even as he beefed up to 272 pounds as a high school senior at Dallas Skyline.

The hidden talent gave him an idea.

When a recruiter from Texas State’s football team stopped by his school to chat — but exited without extending an offer — Brewer had a buddy record him executing a back flip during track practice. They posted the video online. The sight of a very large kid defying gravity spread. Texas State called back to extend an offer.

The first day Brewer visited campus, coaches asked him to do a back flip seven times to confirm the stunt and his life changed forever.

Soon, the best 2,880 football players in the world descend upon 32 training camps and exactly 1,184 of those participants will not make the 53-man roster. Camp is where droves of NFL dreams go to bake in the sun and die. Seated here at Dolphins HQ — orange tee cut at the sleeves, Jesus cross around his neck — is a man who transformed from undrafted nobody out of Texas State to All-Pro, to one of the sport’s most feared brawlers. The Miami Dolphins center asserted himself as one of the best offensive linemen in the sport last season and this new regime rewarded him with a three-year, $52.5 million contract extension. Naturally, he christened the occasion with a back flip.

His expedition explains how anyone buried on the depth chart takes charge.

From his roots in Dallas. One chilling close call could’ve swerved his life a very different, very dark direction.

To pushing his body to the point of collapse after earning that ticket to Texas State.

To one coach’s blunt challenge in college.

To NFL obliteration. All 11 defenders must train their eyes to keep No. 55 in their periphery, considering Brewer treats the field as more of a demolition derby at the county fair.

The key: He permits zero doubts — zero fear — into his subconscious.

Aaron Brewer has forever viewed himself as the baddest man on the planet.

No job in the sport demands brain and brawn quite like that of the NFL center. The man on the pivot must diagnose all pressure, snap the ball and then, a half-second later, stonewall a Sumo-sized nose tackle. Or pull. Or get to the second level to pick off a bottle-rocket nickel.

This 6-foot-2, 288-pounder credits the work first. His workouts are crucibles of pain because if you’re tired on Sundays, you’re toast. Once your cardio’s gone, you don’t think straight. Focus wanes. Technique malfunctions. “You forget everything,” Brewer explains. “You’re just trying to breathe!” Train like crazy and you think clearly. You’re the one dragging opponents into such waters where football, he assures, becomes “a game of inches.” As Brewer details how he owns those inches, he’s part Dennis Rodman explaining the art of rebounding on The Last Dance and part astrophysicist on the cosmos.

Pre-snap, he’s snapping pictures. Clues are everywhere. A safety tip-toes into a rotation to the other side. A linebacker’s leaning forward on his toes, itching to blitz. A defensive tackle’s weight is clearly swaying one direction. He’s done all the film work. Extremely large noses tend pop straight up out of his stance, which means getting paws on the chest immediately. Some prefer to shuffle with a “1-2” number sideways, which means beating them to the spot. Then, he stands up to illustrate how he shuts down Tackle-End (T-E) stunts that destroy unsuspecting lines. One look at the D-End’s feet and he knows if that end will take a 1-2 step or a longer 1-2-3-4 step inside, and he’s always able to catch ‘em.

Brewer wins before the ball is snapped.

Violence can now take over.

This day, he’s thinking of a screen pass to the running back vs. Atlanta. Dreads spilling from his helmet, he gets upfield to drill Jessie Bates and free Ollie Gordon III for a touchdown.

It’s fun de-cleating defensive backs, but he doesn’t discriminate.

“DBs, fucking D-Ends, those are the blocks you look for,” he says. “If I get like a sweet position on the nose where I know I’m finna dunk on them? A linebacker coming through, I get him on a perfect angle. I clean him up.”

He sees all moving parts. The game is now moving in “slow motion.”

There are Aaron Brewers scattered across camps this summer.

But, hell no. This did not happen overnight.

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He got the offer. He committed to Texas State. He looked into the mirror and was repulsed by the shape that stared back at him. That day forward, Aaron Brewer didn’t so much train as test the cardiovascular limits of the human body.

“I hit a different mode,” he says. “I hit a different switch. My grind went up to a different level.”

The best place to start was fourth period. Typically, this group of Skyline seniors sat around, BS’d, hit on girls, smoked. Brewer quit it all “like cold turkey,” and it helped that two of his friends were Texas Tech-bound. He joined them for their school’s workout program and ran an extra mile. After school, he’d eat quick — a bowl of cereal or a sandwich — before heading to 24-Hour Fitness to play basketball for 3+ hours straight. Then, he’d get to the workout provided by Texas State coaches, ran another bonus mile and headed home.

Monday through Friday. With a bonus workout on Saturday and with what became known as “Want-It Wednesday.” At 4 a.m., each hump day, trainer/mentor Lawrence Hatchett and Demarquis Brooks picked up Brewer and a few others to work out. Doors were left unlocked for them to walk inside and wake up the kids who didn’t answer their phones. It was drilled into his head: Miss A.M. workouts in college? You’re in the doghouse, blacklisted, toast. For six weeks, nobody was allowed to sleep through a Want-It Wednesday. Hatchett recalls it as a “mind challenge.”

They’d start by 5 a.m. and wrap up by 6 before the first school bell rang.

Usually, they trained on a hill right behind a school in Dallas that overlooked downtown. Hatchett appreciated the symbolism.

“You’re going to go through hell,” Hatchett recalls, “but once you get to the top of the mountain, you get to see the enjoyment in everything that you get from it. … I would put him through the most brutal workouts and he would come back the next day.”

Brewer’s goal? Ditch offensive line for tight end or defensive end.

Unveil a new body and blow their minds in San Marcos, Texas.

Each night, he’d return to his family’s two-bedroom apartment — one shared by his mother, brother, aunt, aunt’s boyfriend and aunt’s son — in a state of depletion. Brewer inched into the bathroom, turned on the shower and sat there as the water fell. And if he could sense any juice in the tank at all, he’d get into the plank position to do as many push-ups as he could. Or sit-ups. Until he collapsed and fell asleep on the bathroom floor. Brewer didn’t consider the day truly successful unless he knocked himself out. The best way he can articulate this feral stage of his life is through an Eric Thomas quote. In one of his most famous speeches, the motivational speaker said: “When you want to succeed as bad as you want to breathe,” Thomas states, “then you’ll be successful.”

Adds Brewer: “If somebody holds your head under water, how bad are you going to try to come up to breathe? I took that shit literal. Twenty-four hours, seven days a week, I’m pouring into it.

“That’s when you realize how far your body can go. It’s literally all mental.”

Nobody in his immediate family played sports. Two older cousins started playing football, and he tagged along. It’s not as if anyone was ordering him to do this all. Ask why on earth he’d torture himself to Goggins extremes and he cites those two Tech-bound friends. When they made varsity, he played JV. When they received offers, his mailbox collected dust. It was frustrating. Brewer thought he was working just as hard. (“I have to change something,” he told himself.) There was also his living situation. Growing up, he bounced around the Dallas area. His aunt’s apartment was in the particularly rough neighborhood of Oak Cliff (“Bro, once when I leave here. I’m not trying to come back.”)

In all, Brewer shed 50+ pounds. Officially a 220-pound block of granite, he could not wait to unveil his new look to Texas State coaches that May of 2016.

He expected applause.

He was greeted by the exact opposite. Coaches were incensed.

They wanted an offensive lineman. Not a damn tight end. Brewer was immediately ordered to eat. And eat. And EAT. Which sounds a lot more fun in theory than it is in practice. Think about Joey Chestnutt and the gang stuffing their mouths with hot dogs on July Fourth. It’s not a festive feast. Over the next 2 ½ months, Brewer ate 10 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches a day and drank glasses of chocolate milk nonstop. “A terrible program, bro,” he laments. “I did this shit all summer.” It worked. He put on 45 pounds. Of course, it was all bad weight. By July, he couldn’t even look at a PB&J. Further, Brewer could tell there was a stigma attached to his name. On his official visit as a senior, he wore a tank top with a palm tree on it and claims the team’s strength coach, Aaron Burkhart, interpreted this as a marijuana-themed shirt. When summer workouts commenced, he was unrelenting. “Military sergeant type shit,” Brewer says, “He’s telling everybody, ‘Oh yeah, we’ve got the pot smoker of the group.’”

Ribbings didn’t last. Brewer was soon lapping other linemen during the 300-yard conditioning test and dusting seniors. He even kept pace with skill-position guys.

Into the season, he earned playing time as a freshman.

“Then,” he says, “we had a coach come into Texas State. His name was Eric Mateos.”

One handshake and the subconscious immediately makes judgements. First impressions are powerful. Of course, Eric Mateos remembers the first time he was around Aaron Brewer the spring of 2017.

Thoughts filling his head weren’t pleasant.

“A degenerate,” Mateos says. “Super immature. He had a confidence about him that was like, ‘I’m the man.’ But he was just so naive and dumb to what he really needed to do to be a good football player. … Young and dumb. It’s really that simple.”

Where the kid grew up, he knew, was no cakewalk. (“You’ve got to be a little rough around the edges to come through that school system.”) Brewer kept showing up on the coach’s “list” for skipping classes, remained stubborn about his weight and did not seem to care much for Mateos’ ban on tank tops inside the dining hall. The coach told all his linemen to wear damn sleeves because nobody enjoys armpit hair in their food. Brewer continued to show off the guns. Mateos started to wonder if all Brewer owned in his closet were tank tops.

But Brewer wasn’t getting arrested, wasn’t doing anything unsavory or illegal.

To the core, he was a player who enjoyed smashing fools on the field. Mateos knew they shared the same passion for the sport. The coach was only 27 years old himself and jokes that he didn’t know what in the hell he was doing. Yet, as a GA with Arkansas, he was around center Frank Ragnow… a first-round pick and future three-time All Pro. Then, with LSU, he coached center Ethan Pocic… a second-round pick now entering Year 10. He knew what NFL talent looked like. Brewer had it. So, during their exit interview that spring, he laid out reality in the purist of terms.

The “list guys,” Mateos told him, do not go pro.

The choice was binary. Buy in, and you’ll be in the NFL. Mateos informed Brewer that he possessed more talent than Ragnow and Pocic.

“Getting him to believe that it was a real thing, not just some pipe dream,” says Mateos, who’s now the O-Line coach at Wisconsin. “Texas State was a losing program at the time. When I got there, it was Loserville and we had a guy who wasn’t a loser. He refused to lose.”

All offensive line coaches are black sheep in a society hyper-focused on emotional sensitivities. Nothing is sugarcoated because they understand football — especially in the trenches — remains one of the last remaining bastions of legalized violence. Mateos quotes Liam Neeson’s character in Taken. O-Line coaches, he says, require “a unique set of skills.” You’re managing egos. You’ve got to be tough without being “too much of a dick” or else guys won’t trust you. The balancing act is constant. Above all, you’ve got to demand perfection from your best players.

That’s where the two connected.

Brewer has a Grade-A bullshit meter. He’s always trying to figure out who’s real, who’s full of it. After one quizzical, Are you full of shit? Squint of the eyes, Brewer embraced Mateos’ message. Deep down, he harbored a desire to be the best player on the field. Mateos fed this wild side. Looking back, he chuckles. Most players chose Texas State to party first, play football second. And here was Brewer, a player whose expectations were “on a whole other planet.”

Brewer credits Mateos for teaching him everything about the sport. All X’s and O’s. How to read defenses. How to understand offensive personnel, motions, formations. Up to this point? “I’m just playing off just fucking grit,” he admits. “Fucking see somebody, go hit ‘em.” Mateos taught him the game and — most importantly — made him believe the NFL was real. Quickly, Brewer expanded his vision board. He didn’t compare himself to anyone in the Sun Belt Conference. Brewer stacked his game up vs. the best linemen across all of college football. To him, it wasn’t delusional. Mateos brings up a 40-31 win over Georgia State in 2018. One screen pass, he laid out two players at once. Brewer was the best player on the field.

Says Mateos: “I was like, ‘Holy shit, this dude is not normal.’”

Opportunities at facing top competition were scant. In a 35-7 loss to the Big Ten’s Rutgers, he maimed whatever was in front of him. (“We weren’t any good,” adds Mateos, “but I mean, he whooped everybody’s ass that they had.”)

The high-schooler passing out in the bathroom lived with zero contingency plans.

Make the NFL… or bust.

Become one of the most feared players in the NFL… or bust.

Mateos told Brewer to walk and talk and think like the greatest player who has ever lived. He took it to heart.

“He’s like The Terminator. He can’t be killed,” Mateos says. “He’s just going to keep moving forward and getting better and better and better. He fights complacency. At the end of the day, he likes to do pushups and wear tank tops and be the tough ass kid from South Dallas. The fact that he’s never changed who he is has helped him. Because once he believes, once he saw himself as an NFL player, there’s never been a Plan B. He refuses for it to go any other way.”

As the 2020 draft closed in, however, a strange thing happened.

NFL teams only saw “6 foot 2” and “Texas State.” They didn’t bother getting to know the man. The only phone call Mateos received from anyone in the pros was from Carmen Bricillo, an O-Line coach with the New England Patriots. Two-hundred and fifty-five selections came and went without Brewer’s name being called. Eight centers and 17 guards were selected in all.

The Tennessee Titans signed him as an undrafted free agent and back to the dregs he plummeted. From afar, Mateos knew that Brewer still viewed himself as the best lineman on the Titans roster. It’s how he’s wired. Not easy when your new offensive line coach is kicking your ass. The relationship between Player and Coach did a 180-degree turn in the pros. Brewer recalls Titans assistant Keith Carter threatening to ship him home, saying things like “You can go start selling insurance!” and “Go back to your hometown, go sell paint!”

Says Brewer: “My O-Line coach used to talk to me crazy every day.”

Into Year 2, he tore his pec. He was now the worst kind of damaged goods.

NFL teams are typically in no rush to stay patient with undrafted players who are injured. And undersized. And from a small school. Aaron Brewer could’ve — perhaps, should have — viewed himself as damaged goods. Yet, it’s in these defining moments, he instead thinks back to the roots of his mentality.

To growing up in Dallas, to all close calls.

One in particular.

Close your eyes to bring this imagery to life and, no doubt, it’s jarring. But in the moment, nothing about day-to-day life in South Dallas felt abnormal. That’s what strikes Aaron Brewer as an adult.

“You don’t know what you don’t know,” Brewer says. “Growing up in that atmosphere, it was different. I grew up around crackheads, trap houses, violence.”

Twelve to 15 family members sardined into his great grandmother’s house. Across the street, he explains, was a trap house. He’s seen SWAT team members knock on doors. He’s seen people shot in the street.

“I’ve seen,” he continues, “the motherfucking cartel cut peoples’ heads off. … Head sitting on the street.” (Thankfully, he did not know anyone involved.)

Like endless pros who rose from sketchy neighborhoods — Damar Hamlin, Azeez Al-Shaair, David Long Jr., Ray Davis, Javon Bullard — Brewer doesn’t want people getting the wrong impression. It’s a delicate balance. He dozed off to the soundtrack of gunshots killing people at night. Not an ocean breeze, not country crickets. But this childhood also hardened him in the best ways. He lived all over Dallas, primarily on Park Road, while his great grandmother resided in Oak Cliff. All men and all women in his life, he emphasizes, were tough. “My great-grandmother, bro?” Brewer says. “You talk to anyone in my family, she was a fucking gangster.” Understandably, she slept on the couch near the front door with a .38 tucked under her pillow. Great granny cussed like a sailor, too. Whoever walked into her home stumbled right into a Netflix-style roasting.

All in good fun. She was beloved, a neighborhood fixture right up to her death at age 94.

Meanwhile, with friends, Brewer got into more fights than he could count.

All of it — he’s certain — forged this zero-fear mindset.

“That chip, that grit, that aggressiveness I play with,” he says. “It comes from being in that environment.”

He also realizes how swiftly his life could’ve come crashing down at age 13.

One day in 2011, two of his 14-year-old cousins rode a train to the NorthPark Center Mall to shoplift at Dick’s Sporting Goods. They then rode it back and four boys in all, ages 12 to 14, decided to steal a stranger’s iPod. Nineteen-year-old Octavius Lanier was simply on his way to a medical appointment when he was harassed, attacked and shoved into a moving Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) train. Lanier’s body became lodged between the train and the platform and was fatally dragged for several yards.

He was 19. The entire scene was captured on surveillance footage.

Brewer still remembers police coming to his school to investigate. Instantly, his cousins were the top story in local and national news. The sentences for the four boys ranged from 7 to 30 years behind bars. Both cousins got out after only four years, before then violating their probation with a string of armed robberies through Dallas. They’re back behind bars.

A visible chill passes through Brewer’s body. That exact day in 2011, he wanted to join his cousins. He was living in the Lancaster area about 22 miles south.

Mom refused to take him to the train station. Son has no clue where he’d be in life otherwise.

No way he’s sitting here inside an NFL building.

“I was supposed to be there with them,” Brewer says, “but I wasn’t there that day. That was wake-up call.

“It should have been over with. Little incidents like that are in the back of my mind. I don’t really think about them, but once I really get the thinking about the path? This shit is not normal, bro.”

Mom’s intuition saved him that day. But it would’ve been remarkably easy for Brewer to descend into the streets with how much both parents worked. He avoided it entirely by staying active. Football, basketball, baseball, track, wrestling, chess club, even ballroom dancing. As a fifth-grader, Brewer mastered the Rumba, Waltz, Tango, Foxtrot and Swing. The key, he explains, is loose hips.

When Hatchett picked up Brewer for those Want-It Wednesdays, he saw family members scattered everywhere.

Throughout the week, the trainer would text motivational messages: You can change your environment. Brewer never made excuses. And on drop-offs, other kids would ask Hatchett to leave them a block or two down the street. Years later, he learned that known drug houses were raided nearby. Brewer, universally respected, was shielded from all pitfalls. Gang members didn’t mess with him. He was going places. Mateos, again, is blunt. Considering football is a violent endeavor, it doesn’t hurt to have a grown-ass man who grew up throwing hands like Brewer. “You can’t have any milk-drinkers on the O-Line,” he says. “They’ve got to be beer-drinkers.”

Mateos calls him a “quiet killer,” with the snarl of a character on the crime drama, Snowfall.

“He doesn’t take any shit from people and he’s really reliable, but he’s right on that edge,” the coach adds. “He could have gone down a different path and been the best gangster in America. That’s who he is because he’s just a winner.”

Brewer stayed on the straight and narrow. He realizes his case is rare.

At age 12, 13, 14, he explains, you see everyone working at Family Dollar, McDonald’s and don’t realize other jobs exist. Careers. “So a lot of my friends, everybody,” Brewer adds, “wants to be fucking gangsters, OGs. That wasn’t my path. I wanted to see more of the world.” A vision sharpened through those ghastly sights in the street, the incarceration of his cousins, right to Texas State and the NFL. That’s why he’s so determined to unleash the imagination of kids trapped in the cycle.

Brewer recently donated $25,000 to the Future Leaders Program, the organization that picked him up on Tuesdays and Thursdays and took him to a nicer part of Dallas. At charter schools and private schools, he was introduced to totally different classes that opened his eyes to a world beyond the hood. Brewer plans on bringing 5 to 10 students from South Dallas out to South Florida to tour Miami University, Florida International and attend a Dolphins training camp practice. He’ll get kids into a game, too. Brewer didn’t even attend his first NFL game until he was in the NFL. On IR as a rookie, in 2020, he used his allotted complimentary ticket to attend a Titans-Bills game in primetime. His mind was blown by the energy inside Nissan Stadium. Fireworks blared. Derrick Henry stiff-armed Josh Norman. Throughout the Titans’ 42-16 win, he felt “like a kid in a candy store.”

He knows what this ecstasy could do to a 13-year-old, back in South Dallas, who thinks his only choice is to sling drugs or flip burgers.

So why get discouraged? His NFL career crumbling, that belief — I’m the baddest MF’er on the field — never waned. Even as Carter ripped him. Even as he tore his pectoral the spring into his second season. Through rehab, he started to see why so many players retire after significant injuries. It’s taxing. It’s lonely. Doubt can creep in when everyone walks right by you each day. He missed a slew of practices, yet rallied in time to crack the 53 again.

“Only thing I can do is control my response,” Brewer says. “Everything else? If this team wants to let me go, I can’t do anything about that. I’m hurt. I can’t fast forward this injury to make it get better faster. All I can do is my PT, go home, eat how I supposed to, do little things I’m able to control to heal my injury faster. But thinking about the outcomes — ‘Am I going to be good when I do this?’ — that’s only going to drive you crazy. That’s anxiety.”

In Year 1, he played 152 snaps. In Year 2, that number jumped to 507.

He learned from veteran Ben Jones. Told himself, again, I’m going to be one of the best in league. The next year, Brewer started all year at left guard. Finally, in Year 4, he settled in as the starting center. Around this time, he called Mateos livid. He hated the state of pass pro and knew he needed his old coach’s magic touch. Mateos was coaching for Baylor at the time, so Brewer asked if he could hop in a car and travel 95 miles to Waco for a 1-on-1 session. Together, they solved his issues. Such tales are in high supply. Whenever he’s back in the Dallas area, Brewer texts Hatchett on Friday nights to get extra workouts in. “My wife is like, ‘You’re not going to no club or anything,’” Hatchett says. “I’m like, ‘No, I’m going to go work out with Aaron.’”

These days, the duo know to stick to 288 pounds.

When I suggest to Brewer that playing below 300 helps him get to the second level to take on linebackers, he cuts in. A sore spot has been identified.

“I dunked some of the biggest nose guards you’ve seen in the league,” Brewer says. “They don’t say shit about when fucking big ass Tristan Wirfs gets hump-moved by Khalil Mack. They ain’t saying, ‘Oh, he’s too little.’ He’s not too little. It just happened. It’s the league. It doesn’t matter how big you are or how small you are.”

There’s the spunk, the sharp edge.

The way Brewer has always felt about himself has become an on-field reality with the Miami Dolphins.

Each gameday, on three separate occasions, he takes the time to pray. Given his rise, it’s no surprise Aaron Brewer has simultaneously experienced a spiritual awakening. Avoiding that train in 2011. One backflip in 2015. One college coach’s challenge in 2017. This summer’s life-changing contract extension. All of it fills him with gratitude. He calls himself a Child of God. He cites Jesus Christ as his “ultimate why.” He views this relationship as the same as a husband shares with his wife.

“It’s a forever task,” Brewer says. “It doesn’t just stop. Once you get to a certain point and say, ‘I’m five years in, I’m good,’ that shit starts going south.”

This is no athlete defaulting into cliché autopilot. Brewer practices exactly what is preached.

He reads, journals, prays, engages Dolphins teammates in endless faith-based sauna conversation.

Then, to begin each week, he fasts.

At around 8 p.m. on Sunday night, he’ll polish off dinner and swear off food for the next 24 to 36 hours. Not one crumb is consumed. Only water. Some weeks, he’ll eat again on Monday night. Other weeks, he’ll wait until Tuesday morning. He isn’t doing this for any physical benefits. Brewer believes fasting builds up the “spiritual armor” he needs each week. He points to Jesus gaining full clarity after fasting for 40 days and 40 nights.

That’s how he feels. When his gut is clogged, his mind is clogged. When his gut is cleared, he thinks clearly and makes better decisions.

Each time, he essentially hits a refresh button on life.

A new perspective sets in. There’s no reason to bitch about anything.

“If Jesus was able to do this for 40 days, 40 nights, and he was able to carry a 300-pound cross on his back, me fasting for a day, I have no room to complain,” Brewer says. “There’s so many people that go through things so much worse, but it’s easy to get caught up in your own world. There are people across the country. So many people less fortunate than us who deal with everyday struggles. But we only focus on us, so we think our problems are the worst in the world.

“There’s someone always going through something 10 times, 20 times worse than what we’re going through. I keep that on the forefront of my mind and in my heart.”

Brewer thrives by staying honest with himself. Fall asleep in meetings. Refuse to put in extra hours. Slack off, at any point, and the league spits you out. He’s seen it. The line between making millions of dollars and unemployment is so visible. Too many players, he says, cannot verbally admit, This is why I’m in the UFL or This is why I’m in the CFL or This is why I’m out of football. They’re allergic to accountability and don’t see the light until they’re long gone.

A perfect segue into these Dolphins.

Ask if exactly that — accountability — was an issue for this team last season and Brewer starts chuckling. As if I asked if the sky is blue.

A teammate can only do so much.

At some point, you’ve got to man up for your own actions.

“You have to hold yourself accountable,” Brewer explains. “Anybody can push you to do anything. But if you’re not going to do it yourself? It’s not going to happen.

“That’s the piece we’re missing. When you’ve got a bunch of older guys on the team, it’s easy for them to be stuck in their own ways and not easy for them to buy into something new. Or get out of their own way. I’m not a believer of ‘Do as I say, not as I do.’ Walk how you talk. Show by actions. That’s the biggest thing we all need to do coming into this year if we want this to be a successful program. Not just a successful year. For a successful program for years long to come. You’ve got to be comfortable with being uncomfortable.’”

Nobody can force you to give a shit. Brewer will train like that 17-year-old back in South Dallas, and it’s on others to do the same. Oh, he’ll speak up. He knows from experience that all it takes is one inspirational message. Eric Thomas’ words “hit a trigger” inside of him.

He’s confident the Dolphins finally have the correct leaders in place. Go Long will have more on this transformation soon.

Once his fasting is complete, Brewer feasts on all 11 defenders. Amid Miami’s malaise, he was one one of six finalists for the NFL’s inaugural Protector of the Year award. Don’t ask how he emerged out of nowhere. He’s no one-hit wonder. Brewer studies centers of all ages — Jason Kelce, Creed Humphrey, Zach Frazier — and believes he’s only now hitting his stride. Hit play and he’s more 90s fullback in space, pancaking defenders at all three levels. One Colts nose tackle is drilled into the turf. Proud linebackers Zaire Franklin and Quincy Williams aren’t blocked. Rather, humiliated ass over teakettle. Safety Jaylinn Hawkins, that poor sap, never sees the destruction coming.

“Shit is dangerous,” he says. “You saw the tape. It’s crazy.”

Footage that everyone close to Brewer’s seen forever. Hatchett directs us to Brewer wiping out a cornerback 15 to 20 yards away from the play on his high school Hudl reel. “As a lineman,” he adds, “you’re not supposed to make that play.” He sees Kelce, only much more athletic.

Hatchett knows Brewer’s antennae is still up, scanning for doubters who claim he’s too light.

“He can go down,” Hatchett says, “as the best center that’s ever played the game.”

When vet Jordyn Brooks told him how linebackers must react to the linemen, it was music to Brewer’s ears. Everything’s slowing down for him. He knows if the call’s an outside zone, that linebacker must take an extra hop-hop. All he needs to blast through his face. Nobody’s expecting a thing out of Miami in 2026, but this offense does boast two electric weapons in Malik Willis and De’Von Achane. Get these two harmonizing RPOs and linebackers may need to take three… or four… or five extra hops to decrypt what’s going on in the backfield.

Brewer is bullish on his new QB1, a former teammate in Nashville. There’s the human who gave a homeless person his NFL Combine attire, oblivious to the fact that his act of kindness was being recorded. Brewer cites everything Willis endured, Auburn to Liberty to Nashville to Green Bay. “He’s been at it forever,” Brewer begins, “and he’s so strong-willed.” Then there’s the dual-threat weapon who’s been dying for the chance to lead a team. This is a moment the two have discussed for years.

“For him to finally get this opportunity to be full time? That shit’s scary,” Brewer says. “It’s scary for the league because bro is an athlete. He’s got an arm. He can run. He’s got the full package. I’m one of his biggest fans. I’m so excited to see him play this year and ball out.”

With that, he lays out his goals for the Dolphins.

He wants to win a Super Bowl.

He wants the defense to lead the NFL in takeaways and the offense to finish in the top 5 of most statistical categories. Personally, he expects to go All Pro again, make the Pro Bowl and earn another “Protector of the Year” nomination. But he wants company. His plan is for another O-Lineman to earn the same accolades. “Two of us, if not more. If all five of us can do it, fuck it, let’s do it.”

After football, he’ll get into public speaking in addition to all philanthropy and investing plans. He’ll share his story — “a piece of me” — to help anyone overcome adversity because he’s proof that one message, one backflip can change a life. Until then, he’s a testament to all NFL players on the fringes. There’s no secret sauce to this UDFA-to-All Pro metamorphosis. He never quit believing in himself, never quit working and will keep on displacing 300-pound men against their will. Brewer vows to be an open book inside this Miami locker room.

If anyone has a question, they know where to find him.

Granted, it’s not necessarily an orator teammates need.

Imagining the scene at a Dolphins practice, his old college coach pauses for a moment.

“It’s easy to follow the guy,” Eric Mateos says, “that you know would kick everybody’s ass.”

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Go Long subscribers can hang out with former players around the NFL. Miss our latest Happy Hour on Zoom? Here’s the Eric Wood Replay:

Football will be here soon. Very soon. Thank the heavens.

Thrilled to share our plans for the 2026 NFL Season as we close in.

The beauty of the football calendar and your amazing support is that Go Long has been able to travel the country to sit down with players all offseason long. Our aim is to bring you exclusive profiles and team deep dives you cannot get anywhere else.

Tomorrow, you’ll start seeing those stories.

Expect to see our first season preview feature in the AM. There will be many.

As always, paid subscribers can access everything we roll out.

There’s an NFL manicured for podiums and social media and then there’s the real league. Our mission stays laser-focused on bringing you the real with reporting rooted in talking to players, coaches and scouts around the league all of the time. We are only beholden to you — the genuinely curious reader who desires a story beyond the Twitter/X pigsty. Meanwhile, you won’t see one ad or hear about one sponsor. No gambling blood money will ever be accepted.

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ICYMI, Go Long took home some hardware in the Associated Press Sports Editors (APSE) annual writing contest. You can read those stories below.

Explanatory, 2nd place:

Long Feature, 5th place:

Columns, 2nd place:

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Eric Wood was the starting center the Buffalo Bills’ starting center for nine years. He helped end the 17-year playoff drought his final season.

Eric Wood has also now covered the team as a radio color commentator/podcaster/analyst the same amount of time. He’s the host of Centered On Buffalo and calls games on the radio broadcast.

This week’s Happy Hour podcast consists of a little bit of everything. Wood looks back to Drought memories and looks ahead to how these 2026 Bills get over the Super Bowl hump with new head coach Joe Brady. A ton of insight on all fronts.

As noted, we’re bringing back virtual Happy Hours this 2026 NFL season to give you the opportunity to ask players (and media members) anything you’d like. Is there someone you want to hang out with this year? Let me know at golongtd@substack.com.

Video and audio of our conversation with Wood is above.

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Topics this episode include…

• Life with Rex Ryan. There was so much hope and hype. Why did things turn south?

• Aaron Kromer. He wishes they had more time together.

• Rex’s defense was all about chaos and confusion. The sort of stuff Bills DC Jim Leonhard desires a decade later. Thing is, players hated Rex’s scheme in 2015 anf 2016. We explore the key differences between then and now, and how the Bills get the 3-4 right this time around.

• Alec Anderson. He’s the new guy starting full time on the line. Is he ready?

• The NFL went heavy in 2025 — the Bills, like the LA Rams, enjoyed 3-TE sets — but what is the next counterpunch for the NFL’s best offenses? More spread?

• WR screens drove locals batty. Wood offers thoughts on this play. Big picture, Wood points out something we did back when Brady was hired. The playcaller was often following orders in crafting conservative, keepaway gameplans vs. elite QBs. We’ll see what changes now.

• Joe Brady’s “they have to play us” mentality. The new coach detailed in full to Go Long.

• Was Wood shocked by Sean McDermott’s firing?

• As a young player, Wood suffered a compound fracture of his tibia and fibula. The injury set a tone for his entire career.

• What was Terrell Owens like as a teammate? They played together Wood’s rookie season.

• Why you’ve always got to be careful who you pay — he witnessed the effect with Marcell Dareus. Motivation matters.

• My “Real Football” co-host Jim Monos often points out that offensive line play is overrated. Let’s get Wood’s take.

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Thanks, all.

Keep an eye out for our first season preview feature this coming Friday.

In the meantime, here are a few recent links to pieces if you missed anything.

Be sure to share Go Long with a friend if you enjoy. We’re fueled 100 percent by you.

The Wide Receiver Matrix

‘I’m back:’ Jamal Lewis gets to the other side

July Mailbag, Part I: DJ Moore Effect, KOC’s future, Lions CB plan, our draft hits/misses, journalism

July Mailbag, Part II: Football’s future, Sam Darnold, Rex Ryan memories, criminal on-field acts, QB scheming, gambling

Real Football: Brian Westbrook on defying the odds, McNabb-TO, Hurts-AJB & timeless Philadelphia Eagles memories

Happy Hour Replay: Isaiah McKenzie, uncensored

‘I choose to be positive:’ Stedman Bailey on the night that could’ve ended his life, NFL what-ifs, finding joy, paying it forward

Related to the pod…

Joe Brady takes charge, Part I: ‘I’ll set my jaw’

Joe Brady takes charge, Part II: ‘They’ve got to play us’

Josh Allen, reborn

‘My chip is deeper:’ Our 1 on 1 with Bills GM Brandon Beane

‘He wants to win the whole damn thing:’ Inside the Buffalo Bills’ decision to hire Joe Brady as HC

Good afternoon! A quick note here while it’s on my mind…

One of my favorite stories to write last season was this profile of Buffalo Bills safety Jordan Poyer.

Our conversation was a psychedelic adventure that took more twists, more turns than I ever imagined. Poyer opened up — and then some — on how he managed to pull himself out of several extremely dark places.

Many readers could likely relate to his struggle.

Perhaps an ayahuasca retreat to Costa Rica is unrealistic for those looking to turn their own lives around, but Poyer also recommended breathwork as an ideal starting point. Buffalo’s own has revolutionized the industry of holotropic breathwork with Poyer.

This is no paid advertisement because you know we don’t take ads here at Go Long.

I seriously cannot recommend the app mentioned in our story enough: August’s “Beats and Breath.”

The combination of music, beats and guided narration is exceptionally calming. You can feel stress leave the body, while also tapping into innate, primal energies that you don’t even know exist. All the stuff Poyer details in our story. It’s becoming part of the daily routine here. Here’s a link to download the app if you want to give it a try.

And be sure to follow everything Jordan Poyer has going on at his company: Luminate. He travels the country for breathing sessions. We’ll be hearing from him for years, I’m sure.

Looking for a book companion? Read James Nestor’s “Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art.” You’ll also start taping your mouth at night in no time.

Thanks, all.

See you all soon for Eric Wood’s Happy Hour.

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Brandon Aiyuk has not caught a pass in a football game in 632 days. It was a hideous sight. Safety Chamarri Conner, with perfect timing, drills him and the San Francisco 49ers wide receiver’s knee bends. Both the ACL and MCL tear.

No way could anyone predict the madness to come.

One bizarre Instagram video to the next, it becomes increasingly more difficult to see Aiyuk catch his next pass.

This month, he’s been intent on alienating his greatest ally. After seeing a video of quarterback Jayden Daniels chuckling at a fan screaming “Fuck Brandon Aiyuk!” the receiver posted a video of his own and tagged Daniels to proclaim, “You’re on my team now. You follow my rules. Boy, I’m a grown ass man. You’re gonna have to start running behind your momma and I might believe what you’re talking about.”

Meanwhile, his only clear path back to the field is to petition with the NFL for reinstatement from the reserve/left squad list. Once reinstated, he could show up for 49ers training camp and then finally get the release he desires.

Aiyuk has repeated he will not do this.

The 49ers have no incentive to do a thing.

Aiyuk’s public relations team may consist of a pile of dirty laundry.

“I’ll tell you what,” Aiyuk promised, “If I get a job back in the NFL, I’ll still be on my bullshit on social media.”

Comforting.

Easy to forget that this wide receiver caught 75 balls for 1,342 yards and seven touchdowns in 2023. His acrobatic catch vs. Detroit propelled those 49ers into the Super Bowl. The ensuing contract battle was intense, but he eventually got paid: four years, $120 million. So, what happened? How did this situation deteriorate in such catastrophic fashion? That’s what I asked one former 49ers coach around for Aiyuk’s ascent. There must be valuable lessons for other teams to take at this volcanic position.

Because let’s face it. Teams that seek boy scouts at wide receiver won’t win anything.

An element of risk is required. Finding that line is the tricky part.

This coach cites a Maya Angelou quote: “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.”

Red flags were obvious.

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“When you’re in a contract year — especially at receiver — they are being taught, they are being trained, they are being groomed: ‘Hey, for one year, be on your best behavior. For eight months, dude, can you just not go to clubs? Can you just stay out of the limelight? Can you just be a model citizen for seven to eight months? If you’re a model citizen, you ball out, then you get your money, you get your contract and then, hey, you can kind of go back to being who you were.’”

Aiyuk began his 49ers career in Kyle Shanahan’s doghouse.

Professionalism issues were obvious. But so was Aiyuk’s talent, and that talent helped Shanahan look past red flags. Aiyuk worked his way into the starting lineup of a contender, earned 100+ targets in back-to-back years and put together that excellent ’23 season to command a top-of-market deal. Pro football players make their real money on the second contract. For eight months, Aiyuk was a good soldier and the 49ers came within overtime of hoisting the Lombardi Trophy.

Somebody was bound to pay him.

“But you’ve got to be careful who you pay,” this coach said.

Teams shouldn’t watch Aiyuk sabotage his own career and become forever petrified by any wide receiver with attitude. Their job is to intimidate, dominate, humiliate a cornerback. Attitude is expected. Some shit to him, is the official scouting term. Look at the same offseason Aiyuk got paid. In the ’24 draft, Malik Nabers was the player with such an edge. Marvin Harrison Jr. was the quieter, safer option. Their careers trended two very different directions immediately. If Shanahan knew it’d get this dark with Aiyuk, he would’ve traded him to Pittsburgh.

Most receivers keep a small circle. Aiyuk’s was particularly small. This coach didn’t think he was an oddball. Rather, he simply didn’t hang out with many teammates. Even back then, this coach recalls him as more of a loner.

Coaches, execs, players. Everyone in the NFL is flabbergasted Aiyuk would walk away from his $120 million contract. They know he wants to play for the Washington Commanders but ask this question: Why would the Commanders want him? Jayden Daniels enters a critical Year 3. Dan Quinn needs to win and cares deeply about culture. The math is tough to add up.

Aiyuk clearly isn’t playing for the money. In one of his IG videos, he literally throws wads of cash onto the ground. Say he’s on the vet’s minimum with the Commanders. This coach wonders what’d happen when he only gets three targets in a game. It’s not like Aiyuk would be a featured piece in the gameplan. (“Because you can’t trust him. You can’t count on it.”) All sad considering what could’ve been. At one point, Aiyuk successfully escaped Shanahan’s doghouse and was viewed internally as an untouchable asset right there with George Kittle, Christian McCaffrey. This West Coast offense didn’t flow through the wide receiver. Unlike other schemes, the 49ers don’t force the ball to an “X.” Still, he was valued by one of the sport’s best coaches.

Even through a contested negotiation — WR contracts leaguewide skyrocketing — I was told repeatedly that the 49ers weren’t going to let Aiyuk leave the building.

Now? Teams across the NFL likely view him as more of a toxic chemical that must be kept away from the facility. Niners great Steve Young has even expressed deep concern for the receiver’s wellbeing.

A mind-boggling fall, but Aiyuk isn’t the first and Aiyuk won’t be the last volatile receiver to get paid. GMs and coaches view themselves as uniquely qualified to fix receivers and, flatly, talent is too tantalizing. A dilemma that reminds me of the outlandish crazy-hot matrix viral video inspired by Barney on “How I Met Your Mother.” Obviously, all of our wives and all women reading today neatly fit into the unicorn category. That goes without saying. (Love ya, hun!) But the bespectacled middle-aged man in a shirt and tie might as well be drawing up a chart on the NFL Wide Receiver. A similar paradigm is at play. Rare is the insanely talented receiver devoid of baggage. It’s why all of us in sports media are guilty of glamorizing the receiver who punches in, kicks ass, punches out. This time last year, Drake London sat down with Go Long.

At the line of scrimmage, your mission is to reach inside the proverbial chest of a cornerback, grab his heart and spike it into the turf. Arrogance is required to excel. Selfishness is inevitable. And the most extreme example of the century — perhaps all-time — was a topic on our most recent episode of “Real Football:” Terrell Owens.

Eagles great Brian Westbrook relived all drama from TO’s two years with the team. A clear Hall of Fame talent in real time Owens bounced team, to team, to team, to team, to team. The peak of drama was ’04 and ’05 with quarterback Donovan McNabb.

No player is more qualified to objectively dissect this relationship in hindsight than Westbrook. He remains friends with both.

He still remembers the Saturday meeting before TO’s first game as an Eagle. In front of everyone, he said that if he doesn’t get the ball nine out of the first 15 plays, “we’ve got a problem.” Head coach Andy Reid and McNabb were much obliged. He got his touches all season long and backed it up. Owens ushered in what Westbrook calls a “Hall of Fame work ethic.” Through the Eagles’ previous three runs to the NFC Championship Game, receivers and backs would typically sprint an extra 10 to 15 yards after catching the ball. TO took every catch to the house.

“We’re all looking around like, ‘What is this dude doing? He’s about to make practice 20 minutes longer just doing this,’” Westbrook said. “But in his mind, he was scoring every single play. That’s a mindset change for us. And so now offensively, I started doing it. Everybody else started doing it. As an offense, we started thinking we can score every single play. That was directly from TO.”

Of course, Philadelphia reached the Super Bowl where Owens famously gritted through a broken fibula and a torn ligament in his ankle against New England. Westbrook recalled doctors telling TO, point blank, he cannot play and Owens vowed to sign any waiver required. He caught nine balls for 122 yards in the 24-21 loss.

Problems, however, were boiling.

Year 2, the ex-RB noted, is when things got “nasty.” Owens wanted more of his money guaranteed, president Joe Banner refused to budge and the wide receiver took his insubordination to the field. Reid threw him out of training camp at Lehigh University. That’s when the shirtless Owens held a press conference in his driveway while doing situps.

Westbrook still remembers catching the interview on TV. (“He’s ripped. It looks great. But the question for us is like, ‘How do we stay together as a team?’”)

This was McNabb’s team. That didn’t sit well with him.

McNabb was also stumping for Westbrook to be paid without saying a word about his receiver. That really didn’t sit well with him.

As a result, Owens vocalized his angst, gained followers and Westbrook watched the locker room fracture “little by little by little.”

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“So it changed very quickly to the point where they weren’t even talking,” Westbrook said. “The two best players on your team weren’t having conversations with each other. And as a third guy on offense, I felt like we could be special. We could be on a different level, but we’ve got to talk. One of my biggest regrets was that I never was able to bring TO, who’s a good friend, and Donovan, a good friend, together. Because I knew we could have been special as a team for a very long time.”

McNabb and Owens walked right by each other without speaking.

“It was tension. Just imagine a workplace with this tension. And not tension from your 52nd or 53rd player, but a tension between Player 1 and Player 2. That’s a problem. And anything that happens in the locker room, that continues to vibrate through that locker room every single day. And it did.”

The running back was only 25 years old. Too young to moonlight as a marriage counselor. He wishes the interpersonal skills he possesses now were in him back then.

He tried. One day, Westbrook made the two players sit with him for lunch.

“And those jokers sat there and didn’t say a word to each other the entire lunch.”

Westbrook later summarized the demise of this relationship with one word: “Sad.”

The 2025 Eagles sure brought memories back to his 2005 Eagles, too. The Jalen Hurts-AJ Brown hostility, to him, represented the same level of distraction.

Again, it’s different when the players squabbling are two of the best on the roster.

Teammates feel as if they’ve got to make a choice — Do I side with Brown? Do I side with Hurts? — and the offense splits into two camps.

Westbrook can see a scenario in which Brown vents to 5 to 10 people. Then, this group tells 5 to 10 more. Then, Hurts pushes back with his own thoughts.

Then, it’s gameday and the quarterback suddenly must work with his wide receiver in harmony. Not easy.

“Now, at the most important time,” Westbrook says, “that I need you the most — not that guys will not hustle because it’s their job. But there’s a little bit extra that you could do that it doesn’t look like you’re doing. Because you’re not in line. And for my boy, I would bend over backwards. But with somebody I don’t really like that well? Even if we work together? Maybe I won’t bend over backwards. I’ll bend a little bit, but not all the way over backwards. And so those little small things make a difference. And what I saw — and I truly believe this — I think that AJ wanted Jalen to throw the ball to him a lot more. I think that Jalen wanted AJ to be more open, quite honestly. I think there were times where he wasn’t very much open.

“And it sounds like they had some off-the-field things that were causing some issues. And when you combine that with us not seeing eye to eye on the football field, that can present some huge problems.”

A fantastic point. It’s easy to dismiss the idea of “drama” as nothing.

Football players, however, are not robots. If two of the best players can’t stand each other — on any team — it’ll manifest into something on Sunday. Westbrook lived this. It’s why he believes teams must be extremely careful in how they build a roster. GM Brandon Beane once described his job as the ultimate “chemistry experiment.” There are countless factors to consider. If one element’s off, the test tubes will combust. It’s no coincidence he used this term to us two months after trading Stefon Diggs.

Removing Brown from the lineup does not help the Eagles on paper.

Teams do not let top 10 to 15 receivers leave the building.

Unless that receiver is a “headache,” Westbrook added, or a “conflict.” A locker room consists of 53 players with 53 different personalities. Plenty are happy to be on the team and won’t say a peep. Stars have the ability to say anything they’d like. With the Patriots, a fresh start, Brown could be the WR1 who unlocks even more out of Drake Maye.

Talent is worth all headaches, all conflicts… to a point. Production equals tolerance.

“In both cases,” Westbrook said, “TO and AJ, as talented as these guys are — the best in the league — it just didn’t outweigh everything we’re trying to build as a football team.”

Which brings us to the next gigantic pull of the slot machine: George Pickens.

He was also traded away by a team, the Pittsburgh Steelers.

He’s now due a hefty contract extension of his own.

Give it up to Pickens. He’s doing everything right. Life inside of Jerry’s World has been remarkably calm with Pickens quietly signing his $27.3M franchise tag and showing up for mandatory minicamp. He’s even joining quarterback Dak Prescott at a skills retreat and plans on attending training camp despite not receiving a long-term extension. Eleven wide receivers now make north of $30M/year with both Ja’Marr Chase and Jaxon Smith-Njigba exceeding $40M/year. Two years ago, Dallas locked up CeeDee Lamb at four years, $136 million.

For stretches of last season, the 6-foot-3, 200-pound Pickens was unstoppable.

Like Aiyuk in ’23, Pickens had every financial reason to produce in ’25 after getting shipped away by the Pittsburgh Steelers. He responded with a 93-catch, 1,429-yard, nine-touchdown campaign. He’s only 25 years old. His best years may still be ahead of him.

Dallas must decide whether he’s built to last or if last season was fool’s gold.

The talent is unmistakable. In Pittsburgh, both the quarterback play and offensive playcalling was amongst the NFL’s worst. In Dallas — with Dak Prescott at the trigger and Lamb drawing attention — his ultra-rare athleticism was finally on full display last season. Pickens was a human highlight reel, from dusting and Moss’ing Cooper DeJean in a wild 24-21 comeback win over Philadelphia to a massive third-and-8 catch and sprint and leap vs. Kansas City on Turkey Day. This is alien stuff. Multiple times last season, it was fair to wonder if George Pickens was the best wideout in football.

But one thing the NFL’s official YouTube channel does not mash up is missed blocks.

Not everyone is sold.

One wide receivers coach who has worked with some of the best in the game the last decade acknowledges that Pickens is capable of taking over a game, but said he’d never want to coach Pickens from what he’s seen and what he’s heard. He labels him a “coach killer” who’ll get you fired.

“There’s a fine line,” this coach said. “You do need talented players, you need guys that have some shit that are going to toe the line, but there’s a lot of receivers that march to their own beat. George Pickens is one of them. Again, you don’t trade George Pickens or DK Metcalf. Those are Hall of Fame-type talents. You don’t just trade those guys unless you feel like you can’t get through to them or they’re just so stuck in their ways that they won’t change.”

This coach expects Pickens to ask for at least $38 million per year and cannot fathom committing that much money.

“Because I know what the tape has shown me,” this coach said. “He doesn’t block. He shows up late to functions. He’s somebody that you’ve got to constantly monitor. I wouldn’t want to put up with that headache.”

A lot of receivers don’t block. That’s not news.

This coach sees an extreme level of apathy. A 44-30 loss to Detroit put much of this on primetime display. Hall of Fame corner Richard Sherman called Pickens “uninterested” and “disengaged” in the loss.

“He will literally walk or won’t even do anything on a run play,” he said. “And then his player will end up making a tackle on the ball-carrier. His wild plays are going to be wild. But his bad plays literally can lose you a game. His field awareness is really good when he’s catching the ball, but any time he has the ball, I always think he’s going to fumble. That’s how bad it is. You fear for your coaching life when he’s out there.”

Dying for a ring, at 83 years old, it’s highly doubtful that Jerry Jones is psychoanalyzing his locker room. He was the man who welcomed Terrell Owens with open arms after the Philly fiasco. Time is a flat circle.

And, hey, let’s remember, Philly reached a Super Bowl and Dallas went 13-3 with Owens. In ‘07, TO was named a first-team All Pro for the fifth time. The risk was worth it.

Philly won it all with Brown.

Look at the Bills’ record books and you’ll see Diggs’ name everywhere.

The wacky case of Brandon Aiyuk more so magnifies the fact that even the sport’s greatest minds struggle with this matrix — where’s the line? At which point is the baggage too much? When do you cut bait? If anyone should’ve mastered it by now, it’s the man who grew up on the sideline of a Super Bowl champion. Shanahan has seen it all from his Dad’s back-to-back champs in Denver as an 18-year-old on the sideline to being a coach himself with the Buccaneers, Texans, Redskins, Browns, Falcons and Niners.

If Shanahan, certified football genius, can botch a character assessment in such epic fashion, anyone can.

The price tag for elite wide receivers only soars. It’s on the teams to know how players will react to that monstrous second contract because, to repeat, they are not androids. One man’s motivation is not the same as the next. This can be money well spent. Some receivers respond like Amon-Ra St. Brown. They continue to catch 606 balls at the JUGS machine each week. Some are like Justin Jefferson. They barely say a peep as another J.J. McCarthy pass quacks into the ninth row.

Others quiet-quit. They stop working as hard in the offseason. They half-ass blocking.

Others, like Aiyuk, leave $27,000,000 on the table in a single year.

The NFL is a human game. Money, one ex-49ers coach added, can be a “drug.”

“Because when you get so much of it, you do think you’re untouchable,” he said. “You think it’s always going to be there. I just can’t imagine him turning down all that money.”

He catches himself.

“I mean, he did. I don’t have to imagine it. He did it.”

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ICYMI:

July Mailbag…

Subscribe to our YouTube Channel to catch clips from all pods!

Part I of our latest mailbag is here.

Part II is below for subscribers. It’s a doozy. Thank you all for your exceptional questions — and story ideas! Never hesitate to send pitches our way at golongtd@substack.com.

Topics include…

• CTE and the future of football. What will things look like in 2076 and what can the NFL do about it now?

• The hunt of the next Sam Darnold. It’s complicated.

• Playing through pain — some do, some don’t.

• Bills Drought Memories. My goodness was 2015 Netflix-worthy.

• How much does “luck” factor into a player’s NFL success?

• Should players be criminally charged for particularly egregious on-field attacks?

• Thanksgiving Day.

• Sports gambling is worse than you think.

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Tyler,

Short, simple question this week:

What do you think is the biggest risk to the NFL’s seemingly unstoppable growth:

• International expansion? Playing games at all hours, travel, talent dilution.

• Fragmented game coverage? US government making noises about the sheer number of streaming services required.

• Gameday cost? Going to a game is becoming a once in a lifetime experience for most fans due to parking, concessions, ticket costs.

• Loyalty? Team relocations are certainly not new, but the Bears even potentially leaving Illinois risks a watershed moment.

• Talent? CTE is scaring a lot of parents away from encouraging their kids from playing which is a pipeline problem. NIL keeps mid-tier kids in college.

Are the owners concerned about these things? How are they strategically managing these risks?

Many of the risks come down to greed, and we know “the world is not enough” for the NFL. It simply seems like the NFL behaves like their power is limitless. I think of NASCAR 20 years ago and look how far it has fallen. It could happen to the NFL. Many things in life seem impossible and then become inevitable.

Paul Barth

Cross Plains, WI

Paul always delivers. All five factors threaten the NFL to some degree and I think these worlds will collide in ways big and small. Not overnight. Not even in five to 10 years. But eventually the freight train will run out of fuel. Something cannot grow at such absurd rates and at such breakneck speeds without a long-term consequence.

Read more

Our Happy Hours roll along with another special guest. Eric Wood will join Go Long subscribers this coming Tuesday at 4:30 p.m. (EST) at the link below.

We’ve had Wood on before. Always appreciate his sharp perspective. Wood will relive life in the trenches as a Buffalo Bills nine-year vet. Of course, he’s now the excellent color commentator on the team’s radio broadcast and hosts his own podcast: Centered on Buffalo.

Hope to see you on our Zoom Tuesday.

Our aim is to bring you as close as possible to this sport. (Isaiah McKenzie joined us last week, icymi.) Paid subscribers will have access all season long.

Ask Wood — and all future Happy Hour guests — anything you’d like.

All log-in information is right here:

• When: Tuesday July 14 at 4:30 p.m. (EST)

• Link: CLICK HERE

• Meeting ID: 814 0842 0533

• Passcode: 239709

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Happy Hour Replays:

• Isaiah McKenzie

• Allen Robinson

• Rob Johnson

• Preston Brown

• Alex Green

• Steve Calhoun

• John Hansen

• Andrew Brandt

• Peter King

• Warren Moon

• Isaiah McKenzie

• Bob McGinn

• Rob Johnson

• Jamal Lewis

• T.J. Lang

• Jamaal Williams

• Stevie Johnson

• Richie Incognito

• Wyatt Teller

• Doug Whaley

• Isaiah Likely

• Stevie Johnson

• Eric Wood

• LeRoy Butler

• Bob McGinn & Jim Monos

• Quincy Avery

• Erik Kramer

• Frank Winters

• Olin Kreutz

• Peter King

• Johnathan Franklin

• Steve Calhoun

• Jim Monos

• Jace Sternberger

• Doug Whaley

• Isaiah McKenzie

• Andy Janovich

• Vince Williams

• Ryan Leaf & Steve Tasker

• Joshua Harris

• D’Wayne Eskridge

• Allen Robinson

And the stuff Brian Westbrook was doing at running back? At his peak? Now, all teams seek this breed of playmaker.

This hour and a half was a fun ride.

On “Real Football” this week, we’re joined by an Eagles great.

He wasn’t big. He wasn’t 40-yard-dash fast. None it mattered, as Westbrook served as the engine and spirit of an Eagles offense perpetually in contention. He finished his career with more than 10,000 total yards and 71 touchdowns and came so, so close to hoisting a trophy of his own.

Come for the story of Westbrook’s rise — Villanova obscurity to his epic 2003 punt return vs. the Giants to changing the position. Stay for the stories of Donovan McNabb and T.O. refusing to speak to each other at lunch and the parallels Westbrook sees in Eagles drama today. He has pointed thoughts on Jalen Hurts and the current group into 2026. Westbrook also explains why McNabb is one of the most under-appreciated athletes of his era, what made Jeremiah Trotter and Derrick Burgess so damn mean and way back when he was breaking into the pros, my co-host Jim Monos participated in the running back’s Eagles workout as a young scout.

Andy Reid had a vision.

Westbrook brought that vision to life.

Now, he’s got endless tales to share.

Video and audio are accessible above and everywhere you pod — Apple, Spotify and YouTube.

The 2026 NFL season is closing in. Our season previews will be rolling out soon. Go Long paid subscribers can access all team deep dives, all player profiles and all podcasts all season long.

New here? It’s a perfect time to join our community.

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Good morning, readers! Thanks to everyone who submitted mailbag questions.

Excellent inquiries. I’ll break ‘em up into multiple parts again.

First up?

• 2026 revamped Bills roster… which change is the most significant?

• KOC on the hot seat in Minnesota?

• Re-jumbling the divisions. Fun with relegation.

• Lions cornerback plans after Terrion Arnold disaster.

• Two journalism questions.

• Personal draft hits/misses.

• NFL’s international future.

Also: Be sure to check out Isaiah McKenzie on the Happy Hour Replay if you’ve got a chance. He was remarkably candid, start to finish. More details coming soon, but our next guest will be longtime Bills center Eric Wood one week from today.

Welp, I guess we can turn down “Free Bird” on the dial. The USA’s World Cup run came to a screeching halt last night vs. Belgium. Bummer.

Back to our regular scheduled programming: American Football.

Do the Bills have the squad of players with the coaches on this roster to go all the way?

Jason Hoffman

Love a loaded question, J. Let’s cut to the chase for the 2026 Buffalo Bills because that’s clearly the expectation after the coaching change. The Super Bowl. Anyone who took this job certainly understood the stakes and I’d wager Brady grasps this reality better than anyone who interviewed for the gig because he’s been here since 2022. He’s accrued all playoff scars this side of 13 Seconds.

No. 1, as he detailed, Brady wants to sharpen the mentality of the team, 1 through 53, into more of an active, attacking, “they’ve got to play us” temperament than the passive, cautious, bend-don’t-break, “Kodak” timeout crew that too often snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. He brought up his first meeting with the offense as offensive coordinator in 2023. Ahead of that Jets game, Brady didn’t even mention stars like Sauce Gardner and Quinnen Williams to the players because he didn’t want them overthinking the opponent. I like it. Why make anyone out to be a boogeyman? Coaches obviously will still construct a gameplan to exploit weaknesses, etc. But the Bills should strut into playoff games with more bravado.

That being said, yes. Personnel changes were needed. Personnel changes were made. Let’s get to the meat of your inquiry.

Here’s how I’d power rank the three most significant changes to the starting lineup.

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Hey, is there a former player you’ve always wanted to meet? A question you’re dying to ask yourself?

Let me know and we’ll do everything we can to get that player on a virtual Happy Hour this 2026 season.

The mission here — always — is to bring you as close to the sport as we possibly can. So, paid subscribers can fully expect a steady stream of Zoom hangouts this season. Thrilled to bring ‘em back as this also gives us all a chance to get to know each other and build our community.

First up this season? Isaiah McKenzie.

We did a show together through the ‘21 and ‘22 seasons and, man, the former Buffalo Bills receiver always delivered.

Now that he’s out, you bet McKenzie has a lot to say.

Topics on this Happy Hour Replay include…

• Life today. He’s a Dad. He’s figuring it out one day at a time.

• How “Love Island” makes Baby No. 2 a possibility.

• His thoughts on new Highmark Stadium.

• Hell no, he doesn’t believe in bringing a wedding gift. (Sorry, Devin Singletary.)

• Remember when McKenzie was suspended by the Indianapolis Colts under mysterious circumstances? No, it did not involve a bald eagle. He explains what happened.

• Joe Brady. The two did cross paths when Brady was the QBs coach in Buffalo and McKenzie remains plugged into everything at One Bills Drive. He’s extremely high on the hire.

• McKenzie was a big Sean McDermott fan — and explains why. The two still stay in touch.

• McKenzie also understands why the Bills needed to fire McDermott — and explains why. He points to his experience with the Georgia Bulldogs as an example. For some teams, there’s a special something, a magic element, missing. (The “process” was needed. The “process” worked. But he also wishes the coach would’ve said “F the process” at a few specific moments.)

• And you will definitely need to stick around to the end. McKenzie opens up on his darker days post-NFL. When he suffered an injury with the Giants and his football career evaporated — with a baby on the way — my former co-host admits he slipped into a very dark, depressed state.

On our free list at Go Long? We’d love to welcome you on as a paid subscriber. You’ll be able to join all Happy Hours with players and media members.

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ICYMI this week:

‘I’m back:’ Jamal Lewis gets to the other side

Real Football: Chris Johnson, ALS and reconciling the dark side of football

Stedman Bailey, after the bullets

‘I choose to be positive:’ Stedman Bailey on the night that could’ve ended his life, NFL what-ifs, finding joy, paying it forward

Happy Friday.

Happy July Fourth Weekend.

Let’s ring it all in with some good news.

This 2026 NFL season, we’re bringing back subscriber Happy Hours on Zoom. We connect many ways here at Go Long but these were always a fan favorite. After a hiatus, I’m thrilled to share we’ll be dinging record on Happy Hours throughout this upcoming season.

This is your chance to hang out with past and present NFL player. I’ll also bring on colleagues in the media space so we can all analyze the game together.

First up is a familiar face, the self-appointed “face of the franchise:” Isaiah McKenzie.

Through the 2021 and 2022 seasons, I did a show with McKenzie at Mister’s Bar & Grill in East Aurora, NY. to give folks an inside look on the Bills. You can catch replays of those episodes at the bottom of this post.

Feel free to hang out and ask McKenzie anything you’d like. He’s an open book.

McKenzie’s personal story, straight out of Miami Gardens, is wild enough. He saw dead bodies at his doorstop. He was once grazed by a bullet. And then — as an NFL wide receiver — he was on-hand for the rise of Josh Allen and these Bills from Day 1. McKenzie lived through all heartbreak: 13 Seconds, etc. After Damar Hamlin’s heart stopped on the field, McKenzie gave everyone an inside look. After playing briefly for the Indianapolis Colts and spending a training camp with the New York Giants, “Lil Dirty” hung ‘em up.

Now, he’s raising a family in South Florida.

I can assure you he’s got a lot to say.

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Stedman Bailey is alive.

Stedman Bailey is now determined to change as many lives as he can.

This week, the former NFL wide receiver joined the Go Long Podcast to pick up where we left off eight years ago. Here is the 2018 story I did on Bailey during my Bleacher Report days. Back when he opened up on taking two bullets to the head in extremely graphic, harrowing detail.

Bailey will never forget the doctors telling him he’d be a “vegetable.”

He wasn’t able to play football again and, sure, he plays cruel games of “what if” on NFL Sundays. Bailey knows he could’ve lit up defenses to an AB-extreme. But this father of three also learned he’s a hell of a lot stronger than he ever knew. One centimeter the wrong direction and he would’ve died. Perspective, he explains, is everything. He found happiness. He knows karma will take care of whoever tried to take his life. He’ll enjoy Toy Story 5 with his kids and he’d really love to connect with another victim of gun violence: Florida State football player Ethan Pritchard.

Video and audio of our conversation is right here.

Words are transcribed below.

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On one hand, we could talk about this surreal experience that you had the night of Nov. 24, 2015, or we can just talk about raising three kids and watching Toy Story 5. We can go two very different directions with this conversation. We were just talking about Dad life before starting. I loved it. I thought the message in Toy Story 5 was phenomenal and everybody out there should watch it.

Bailey: Yeah, absolutely, man. Just in real time, what we’re dealing with our own children — technology vs. being able to be outside and play with toys and really be present. The technology is really taking over and not just with the kids, but even us as adults. We find ourselves just being so glued to our phones for many different reasons. But seeing a movie that had a concept like Toy Story 5, I thought it was really good. Me and my family really enjoyed it.

So do you guys absolutely devour multiple bowls of popcorn at the movie? What’s the experience like for the Bailey family? We went through pop, we went through popcorn, multiple trips to the bathroom. It’s like being at a sports game: “Sonny, we’re going to miss an important plot point!”

Bailey: First of all, it’s an expensive experience. I think you can attest to the fact that the prices of popcorn, the prices of pop, the prices of anything at the movie theaters is certainly inflated. However, my kids, they definitely look forward to those movie experiences where, “Dad, I want popcorn.” Whatever they want. And it could be candy. It could be chocolate. It could be a hot dog. It could be a slushie. I’m down to just making sure that they have a really good time. So I open my wallet.

Where are you living right now, Stedman?

Bailey: So now, I’m back in South Florida where I’m born and raised. Not too far from where I had my incident. But I’m actually in Miramar. So it’s a somewhat better community. It’s a nice community that I’m currently raising my family in, got some good schools around and it works out for me. I have a lot of family that’s still here. So for convenient reasons, it works out.

That’s pretty remarkable considering what you’ve been through, to return to that area in any capacity. Let’s just jump right into it. So for those who don’t know, I’ll have the link in the post. If you want to go back and read it, it was a longform story in my Bleacher Report days. That’s when I connected with Stedman. We were hanging out multiple times over the course of two, three days and you really opened up on this whole experience.

I’ll just read the first few paragraphs.

His finger traces the path of the bullet that should’ve killed him on site. Right here, he points. Right here, one bullet struck him near his right temple, traveled through his head and exited just above the eyebrow.

His skull shattered. Shards of bone fell into his lap, blood gushed, and a car screeched away. The shooters used hollow-point bullets, he explains, bullets designed to expand and destroy and kill on impact.

Thirty hit the SUV in all. Eleven struck his cousin. Two struck Stedman Bailey in the head.

“A barrage,” Bailey says, “of bullets.”

That night, Nov. 24, 2015, the then-St. Louis Rams receiver was going to eat dinner with his cousin Antwan Reeves, Antwan’s 10-year-old son and 6-year-old daughter, and one of Bailey’s best friends, Terrance Gourdine. They were in an SUV they’d rented to drive the nine hours from Miami Gardens to Atlanta the next day, to spend Thanksgiving at Bailey’s mother’s house, waiting in front of Gourdine’s house while he changed for dinner.

The back hatch of the SUV was left open, an unknown vehicle pulled up from behind, and around 8:45 p.m., the gunfire commenced.

“Like a war zone,” Bailey recalls. “Call of Duty, but you’re really there.”

Bailey, in the passenger seat, took those two bullets. Reeves, in the back, felt one bullet rip through his chest, another strike his lower back and another zip through his arm, then lost feeling in his legs and regained enough feeling to leap atop his kids in the back seat and absorb more bullets in the shoulder. Once the assailants sped away, Reeves handed a cellphone to his son and told him to call Mom, to tell her that he and Bailey were shot.

But his son was staring at Bailey. At the literal holes in Bailey’s head.

The 10-year-old screamed.

“Sted’s dead! Sted’s dead!”

Sted is not dead. He’s here. He’s a miracle.

All of that, does it feel like it was 11 years ago or does it feel like it was yesterday when you think back?

Bailey: Well, my recollection of it feels like it was yesterday. It’s something that is still very vivid within my mind. However, as I just listened to you read that off, it really just sounds like something that could only maybe happen in a movie that just turns out to be really bad. But that is my story. To be where I am today, as you mentioned, I am a miracle. I’m blessed to have all my functions, just everything about me just working and able to just be here for my family.

We should really backtrack because I forgot how insanely productive you were at West Virginia. That last season: 114 catches for 1,622 yards, 25 touchdowns. You’re drafted in the third round. You’re producing for some bad St. Louis Rams team. Your career is all in front of you: fame, fortune. That ends. Your life nearly ends. I can’t imagine what is possibly going on in your world at that point of time when you’re then in a hospital room. The pictures they showed you of your surgery sounded just insane. You saw a flap of your head open like a garage. You could see your entire brain. Your eye drooped out of the socket by three feet. You’re seeing this and the doctor’s telling you, “We don’t know if you’re going to walk again.” In the snap of a finger.

Bailey: Well, I remember just within the timeframe of being in the hospital, that little time was tough because of all the words that I was hearing from the doctors. The projections of what my future would look like after that. And they essentially explained that I would probably live the rest of my life as a vegetable. However within my mind — though I just went through such a traumatic incident — it was something that was embedded to say, “No, first and foremost, we’re a fighter. I’ve always been a man of faith.” So that’s something that I was really able to lean on within that time of just trying to understand it all really. I’ve always been a person to believe that everything happens for a reason. Now, it took me quite a while to just really sit back and really process everything. To this day, I’m still trying to figure out my true purpose.

However, I have found some lanes that have been truly beneficial for me and it brings me a lot of hope just being able to — in this very moment — connect with other survivors who have also been through gun violence. Some people have survived, some people have not. The people who have not, I get a chance to connect with their families. But it’s been something that has been able to bring me some joy. Being able to give other people hope and even people who have not been through gun violence. Just seeing that I’m a person that went through what I went through and came out just as I am today, being a man of faith. If I can help turn people in the world to knowing who Jesus is then I feel like I’m doing the right thing. To me, that’s purpose.

You can connect with victims of gun violence in a way no friend, no family member, no therapist ever could. You lived it. You were shot in the head twice and live to tell that story. When we were hanging out, it was your mission to play football again — with a plate in your head. That was a real goal for you. That desire to want to play the most violent team sport on earth — after this all — it’s not just physical. The physical part of it is minuscule compared to the mental. You shouldn’t have even been in South Florida at that point. You’re suspended for something that, even at the time, is legal in several states. Marijuana. You’re also not allowed to be around your team in a suspension. That’s why you were back home. You’re banished. So you could play all those what-if games and curse out loud to whoever. And even when we’re hanging out in the moment, when it was still fresh, I never got the sense from you that you were bitter, spiteful.

Bailey: Having a relationship with God is what gets me over the hurdle. I know that within my situation, things could have been much worse. But I was blessed to overcome something that was probably meant to destroy me. And it taught me something about myself — I’m a whole lot stronger than I probably initially ever thought I was.

How so? In what ways did you realize you’re a lot stronger than you even knew?

Bailey: For most people, you never really know how much courage you may have, how much strength you may have, how much perseverance until you face adversity in life. Adversity is something that’s going to knock on everyone’s doors. I don’t think no one is exempt from adversity, but I do know it looks different for everybody. And for me to go through something like that when gun violence or anything remotely close to that was far, far from a life that I lived, going through that helped me to see that I could make it through anything. There’s no adversity or little problems that I run into now that make me feel that I can be defeated.

I remember you telling me that you and Reeves, your cousin, both thought it was an initiation for a gang possibly. And the local detective back then, he never got back to me. There was like a federal investigation ongoing. Maybe it was mistaken identity. Did you ever get any answers?

Bailey: Nope. To this day, I can’t tell you anything in terms of who, what, why. That’s something that’s a really big question mark in my life. However, I think it’s kind of good that I don’t know in a sense because I wouldn’t want to be a person that — to the slightest degree — would think about revenge, retaliation. I lost a whole lot behind that. And there’s probably ways to easily go get revenge. But it’s a situation that I’ve been through and something that I turned over to God. Karma is real. So whoever those assailants were behind the guns, I believe in due time they’ll get whatever is coming to them. Whether it be doing something else that may cause them to lose their lives, I can care less. As long as I’ve got 100 percent health like I do, my brain is functioning, heart, everything. And I’ve got family, I can press forward.

Beautifully said. Back then, you said “whoever those dudes were, they’ll get theirs” and “revenge is killing them with success. You thought you had me. I’m coming back stronger. So hey, thank you. Here I am.”

Bailey: Honestly, just being here in South Florida as a very popular and notable figure, obviously, I’m sure there’s a lot of people that probably do know and could give me some answers. But I’ve never really had no one come to me. Some people just ask about my point of view. But again, I think it’s best that I don’t know and just continue to live life. … Everything in life is perspective.

It’d be easy to be negative about this all. The millions of dollars lost…

Bailey: I choose to be positive. I have a choice. We all do as humans. When it comes to my situation, my outlook and how I chose to go about it, I chose to be positive. For the simple fact that God blessed me to still be here.

One centimeter the other direction and we’re not sitting here talking.

Bailey: We’re not talking in 2018. I’m not talking no further after 8:28 that night. And the very location where it took place at, I pass by it almost every day because my mother-in-law, my wife’s parents, they live not too far in the area of Miami Gardens. And so I pass it all the time. Sometimes I’m with my son and we’ll just look over and obviously it takes me back. All I can do is just thank God.

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Even back then, if I recall, you didn’t have PTSD from any of this. I believe your cousin did for a while. He was sleeping with a gun, wondering: Are they coming back? Obviously his kids had to seek therapy, I’d imagine, with what they saw out of you. You were always pretty good.

Bailey: His son is now 21. Actually just celebrated his 21st birthday in April and his daughter I think might be approaching being a senior in high school. So they now live in Georgia. After that situation, they moved up to Georgia and that’s where they’ve been ever since. But just seeing them now, his oldest son AJ is 21 and knowing what we had to endure 10, 11 years ago — and seeing where they are now — gives me a lot of joy because, again, their life could have been totally different, cut short, if their Dad didn’t play a heroic role in laying on top of them.

And before any of this, you and I got a chance to speak and I told you about another kid named Ethan Pritchard who is currently a football player for Florida State University. He’s also a Florida kid. He too like myself, is a survivor of gun violence. He too was shot in the head and he’s still right now actively recovering and his situation happened sometime last year in 2025. Now he just went viral about a week ago by the words of the doctors defying the odds and being able to walk on his own. Now I found that to be just incredible because it definitely brought me back to my time, my situation of hearing a doctor say that I probably won’t be able to walk. I’m sure this kid heard the same things. And here he is, another miracle on his feet and walking and just slowly but surely progressing.

I, after being shot, was still able to walk. Actually was able to walk into the emergency room and explain what was going on with myself. So I’m really a miracle. So is this kid, Ethan. But yeah, I’m trying to reach out to Ethan to just essentially see if I could be a part of his journey and his recovery. Being a person that has gone through what he’s currently facing. I believe that I can give him so much hope that his life can get back to normal and maybe he can return back to football. I’m not sure what his mindset is or where he may be with the whole situation of even wanting to play again. But if he’s anything like me, I’m sure that he’ll still just try to push as hard as he can to get back to everything that the devil tried to take from him. I’ll just dress it up that way: taking his life, taking his joy away from him, the game of football and everything else.

So that’s something that I’m trying to do right now and pretty sure it’ll happen sometime soon. So we could look forward to that and maybe in the situation that I get ahold of him, maybe we can all jump on the pod and make it real special.

If he was here right now, what would you want to say to Ethan? What would be your message?

Bailey: Well, I would first harp on him about how much of a blessing he is to be able to overcome what he has been through. I would really try to talk to him about faith and hope that he understands there’s a higher power that is looking after him and that clearly — with him still being here on earth — he has purpose to fulfill and that I would want to help him try to go discover that as I continue to discover mine. Being two people that have been through something that’s so similar, I feel like we can do some really positive things together. But I would also tell him that he could use his story to impact a lot of people in the world. I think that essentially when we’re put here on earth, he’s a football player, but if we can impact people in a way to bring positive and help people understand that it’s a higher power, I think that that’s the job well done. So I would just try to help him understand those things and tell him to continue to push forward that if he just looks at how I am today, he can, too, get back to being a regular person and living a regular life.

It was just in the news last week out of Tallahassee: “Less than a year after being critically injured in a shooting, Florida State football player, Ethan Pritchard has taken another step forward in a 16-second video. Pritchard was seen smiling and walking without a walker, taking small steps while occasionally using chairs for support.” That’s from WCTV down in Florida. I would think there’s so much mental anguish and mental hurdles to overcome in that moment where you do have to zoom out and realize, “OK, yes, maybe the NFL, maybe millions of dollars, celebrity,” this path I was on 100 miles an hour, that’s taken from me, but I’m alive. I’ve got a larger purpose.” And that’s a transition that you made so seamlessly, so much better than former players that played for a decade and had success and won a lot of games and made Pro Bowls. You see it repeatedly — and it’s so sad — how tough it is for players to transition to everyday life. Life after football is unbelievably difficult and sadly we see players take their own life. My God, the last three, four years there’s been several.

Bailey: It’s been rough. It’s been rough. I’m human, so I do have my days. I still watch the game very closely and sometimes I’m still looking at certain players. At my age right now, I’m 35. I feel like I could still go out there and be better than some of the players that I get a chance to watch on Sundays. However, football is far behind me. So I channel the energy that I have to want to get out and still be a part of the game to, now, passing that all down to the youth. So that’s something else that I’m currently doing now. I wouldn’t really call it the coaching world, but more so like training at wide receiver. There’s a slew of talented young men down here in South Florida that just with a little bit of molding here and there and some good guidance, good leadership, mentorship, and essentially the trainer, these kids can go a very long way. So I live through some of those guys by trying to push them to be the very best version of themselves as little young kids here in South Florida.

In 2018, when we were hanging out, you were throwing around 80-pound dumbbells, you’re playing pickup hoops. I think Todd Gurley was out there at the time. You’re texting “Bones” Fassell…

Bailey: So life is still pretty much like that. I’m still in touch with Todd. Todd still lives in California. When I get a chance to go over that way, I connect with all of my former teammates and I’m thankful for the brotherhood that you get a chance to build when you are on those teams, on those rosters, in those locker rooms, the camaraderie. It goes a long way. People like Coach Bones, I genuinely love that guy to death. He’s a people person. So the love that he has for people extends much further than the game. To this day, he checks up on me, his wife, everybody.

And I want to say you were engaged with one child at that point.

Bailey: So now it’s married with three.

Everybody has come back from torn ACLs and hip surgeries and Achilles. You were serious about an NFL return at that point working out like you were with a titanium plate in your head that the doctor said is stronger than bone.

Bailey: I still have that plate. It’s still hanging on inside of my head. And that plate was added to give me an additional layer of protection over the area where I had a lot of bone destruction right here over my right eyebrow. Being able to have that in my head, I thought certainly that it should give me just the amount of protection that I need to be able to return to the game. However, I had to find out that it was too much of a risk. But from a physical standpoint, two, three years later, I was in really good shape. I was running really fast and I was ready for the game.

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You went to a Marshall Pro Day?

Bailey: I went to Marshall and West Virginia. I got a chance to partake in both of those pro days and I killed them. Honestly. I did really well. Got a chance to talk to a number of teams who probably at this point, they might’ve sold me a dream. They were saying some really good things to me about just being impressed with my story and seeing where I was in that time of being present at the pro days. But being able to go back and showcase that and show the world that I did have doctors saying that I would be a vegetable, but God is the person that I feel is the author of my life. Doctors, OK. You don’t know everything. I’m proof of that.

At that point, you’re thinking of return as possible. When did you come to grips with, “OK, this isn’t a risk that a team wants to take or one I should even take here and find your next purpose in life from 2018 and 2019 on? When did you refocus?

Bailey: I got a chance to go to a neurologist out at the University of Michigan. I think they happened to be one of the top neurology practitioners in the United States. So around that time, I was trying to find the best neurologist that can scan my brain and make sure everything looks somewhat normal so that I can potentially go and play again. And when I did go to this neurologist, the tests were coming back really well. They actually took me as far as taking me on the University of Michigan’s indoor facility on the football field to run some drills for them just to see with me bouncing around, how would that essentially affect me? And they had one of their doctors — as I was trying to run around and catch passes — stand with pretty much like a pad that you could put here on your forearm. And after I caught a pass, they tried to run into me as hard as they could to see what would impact look like for me. And the impact that they had with the little bag is definitely not the same as what it would be as an NFL athlete running into me full speed. So that wasn’t necessarily realistic and that, too, was like a piece of cake. I’m just catching the balls and throwing a little flipper and moving these little guys around.

And they initially said that they were going to sign off for me to return. And then when I got a chance to leave, they sent me an email and I’m not sure if maybe they started talking to some other people and it kind of boiled down to the fact that — if they were to sign off for me and then I actually do go back and have some type of serious injury — I got lawsuits everywhere. I could go after a lot of people. So again, initially they signed: “Okay, yeah, we’re going to sign off for you to return.” And I was ecstatic about that because it’s like, “OK, it’s really about to happen.” But within a day of me going from up there at Michigan, I got an email and it was extensive of them thoroughly breaking down that there’s still, within my brain, supposedly a gray area that’s dead, that just doesn’t function.

So I’m no neurologist. That was beyond me in terms of actually understanding what does that mean for me. But at that point it’s like, “OK, well, if I can’t get them to sign off for me, then I guess I’ve got to accept the fact that it would essentially just be too dangerous for me to go.” So then I turned to look at my family and then you get to weighing those things: “Would you want to go risk?” Which at the time it’s like, “Yeah, absolutely.” But then I’ve got my family, too, who I know needs me at the end of the day. So that decision wasn’t that hard. Like, OK, I guess I can find something else to do in which I turned to go finish my degree up at West Virginia and I did that and I started to dabble into coaching for a little while. But then I was like, “Yeah, I don’t think this is for me because coaching is very time-consuming.” I thought I used to be busy as a player, but their time extends a little further for the overall preparation that goes into making sure that your players are ready. So I was like, “Yeah, I don’t think that’s the right move for me neither.”

So then I kind of jumped into the CBD world, cannabis, but just by way of trying to find myself some natural remedies that can help with things that can just be brain food for making my brain better. So I found out that CBD was pretty good and kind of got into that for a little while and just been moving along.

Like you said, you’ve got three young kids. That’s such a great decision to know right then early on in the coaching world, OK, maybe I don’t want to just stay all night at the facility and take my kids to Toy Story 5.

Bailey: Yeah, I might miss something as precious as going to see Toy Story 5. That just didn’t really make sense for me, but I know that that’s a door that I can easily step into when I’m ready. I might have to start at a lower level and work my way up, but having the name that I have within the game, it’ll help me get into some places.

I feel like that West Virginia team still has a cult following. It doesn’t matter who you talk to in the sport. Hell, here in Buffalo, Joe Brady just got the job and he remembers going to early coaching clinics and Shannon Dawson is talking there about this crazy offense that you guys had and he’s learning as much as he can about that. And then William & Mary played them the next year after you guys had left. You were doing just some pyrotechnic shit that other teams weren’t in putting up 40, 50 points a game.

Bailey: It was a whole lot of fun back then. I knew once Coach Dana Holgorsen got to Morgantown, things were about to get crazy. I checked his track record, his offensive mindset. For myself being a wide receiver, I went to go check the wide receivers and what the production was like within the offense. Justin Blackmon, a College Football Hall of Famer who played at Oklahoma State. He was amazing and he was in Coach Holgorsen’s offense that threw the ball around a whole lot. Now before Coach Holgorsen got there, we ran the offense that was ... eh. It wasn’t as fun. It was whatever. But again, I got a chance to look at the numbers of Blackmon and saw that he won the Biletnikoff trophy for best wide receiver in college football two years in a row. And then he also had two years of going for 20 touchdowns.

In my mind, seeing that come to Morgantown, I just thought to myself, “Well, 20 is a lot. But if I can get maybe a fraction of what Justin Blackmon was able to do, I should be sitting somewhere around maybe 15 touchdowns and well over 1,000 yards. And within that first year, sure enough, I went for 1,200 yards and 12 touchdowns as a redshirt sophomore and then followed up with doubling the touchdown count with 25 and 1,600 yards. Yeah, sky’s the limit. It was the limit within that offense and being able to play alongside Tavon Austin, defenses had to be honest when playing us. And therefore there were not too many double teams on me, not too many double teams on him. But if we did have those situations, we were beating that, too. So a whole lot of fun. And Coach Dawson, he’s now down here at University of Miami (Fla.) calling the plays. So I had a chance to run into him this past spring and he gave me a really big hug, very happy to see me. And I’m happy for the success he’s having too. He branched off from Coach Holgorsen and he’s looking real good and has some exciting players. Malachi Toney is a person that he says reminds him of myself just in terms of having grit being a past catcher.

Even in the pros, that second year you were starting to come on.

Bailey: My trajectory was looking really good, man. To this day, sometimes I battle with the what-if’s because I was seeing how my trajectory was going and I’m not sure what would’ve been next, but I know as far as how I see success in the NFL, it’s always about being in the right situation. Guys like Antonio Brown who was phenomenal had one of the greatest stretches ever at wide receiver. He’s a person I grew up with and a person in the offseason I got a chance to work out with all the time. From a physicality standpoint — talent of how we run around cones and work — I didn’t really see a whole lot of differences. And he’s also somewhere around my height. So I used to remind myself to be patient when the opportunities come, obviously to capitalize on it. But moving down the line, nothing is ever concrete as a player. You can be traded, you can be moved. I just imagine that maybe if I would’ve led it with any kind of quarterback, someone like Matthew Stafford, the what-ifs eat me up. He keeps a receiver that’s over 1,000, leading the NFL. So again, the what-ifs just eat at me sometimes, but I’m just thankful that I actually even had the opportunity to go to the NFL at all. Perspective.

So what’s your day-to-day life really like, Stedman? I know you want to fight gun violence and you want to be a voice that can prevent something like this happening to somebody else in the future.

Bailey: So I work with a couple different anti-gun violence organizations where it’s essentially all about trying to dig a little deeper and go to the congresspeople of different states to try to enact laws that will ... I mean, it’s a long road. But essentially enact laws that can try to keep guns out of the hands of people who should never have them in the first place. And then you turn over to a person like myself. Victim Recovery Services. So maybe having the resources that a person like myself could turn to after going through such a tragic event, whether you need a little financial help, you need to see a therapist. It’s a wide range of things, but it’s something that I’ve been pretty passionate about because I’ve been able to meet a lot of survivors along the way and give those people hope. So it’s something that I’ve been hands-on with and then ramping up with my training stuff. So after we get off, I have to go look at my schedule to see what kids I have to interact with this week as far as that goes. And then with my son, he’s on summer break right now from school. So I spend a lot of time with him. He’s playing basketball right now, so we’ve got to go get shots up today. I’m just very, very, very present, man. Very present with the family.

And you’re a hell of a player from what I remember watching those pickup games out there in LA. A lot of football players say they can play, but you can ball.

Bailey: That’s something that I tie into when I’m working out on a regular basis, but that’s a real good form of cardio. I’m a very competitive person and it works out. Getting with some friends, a lot of guys that are my age and seeing who still has it. A good amount of us are slowing down, but I’m still rolling around.

Better than me, man. I retired about five, six years ago. I was like, “I’m worried about this Achilles popping or an ankle ligament getting damaged beyond repair.” I conceded defeat.

Bailey: I feel that. I mean, I actually had a friend on the court who, not too long ago, tore his Achilles, but he’s a guy who was never really an athlete ever. So he probably shouldn’t have been out there in the first place, but it’s a reminder that things do happen.

Really, I have no excuses. You were shot in the head and you survived and you’re playing. So I need to get off my ass and get play basketball.

Bailey: It doesn’t have to be basketball, but obviously just taking the health part of our lives is something that as we get older, we want to make sure we’re doing something because the calendar days go by. We’re all busy with day-to-day life, but we could find an hour, two hours to get the heart pumping a little bit.

You’re in the right part of the country to start a wide receiving training service.

Bailey: I’m about to get some things going, man. With the kids that I’ve been able to train so far, I can just really see myself pretty much just raising them on up as they go through high school and even when they get to the point where, OK, we’re getting scholarship offers now. Now, we’re talking NIL. Being a person who can help advise and point them in the right direction because I mean, when we talk at NIL, it’s really wild, wild west. Such a slippery slope. You want to be able to maximize everything that they can when it comes to NIL. And for the kids that I got my hands on right now, I can see them being able to have a whole lot in the future if they just stay on the right path. And that’s something that I want to help direct.

Everything that you’ve been through, how did it really make you in mind, body, and soul? Who is Stedman Bailey today in 2026? You look in the mirror and you’re proud of what you see.

Bailey: I’m Stedman Bailey, survivor of gun violence. Man of faith. I’m a husband. I’m a father. I’m a person that pushes just positive energy. Perspective. Perspective is everything. So being a person that can exude such energy that is infectious to everybody that I come in contact with and then they get a chance to learn my story, who I am and it’s like, “Wow.” They see a light and I hope that I’m living in a way that they can see Christ through me.

It’s such an important message that anybody — not just former players — should listen to. To see somebody like yourself mid- 30s, late 30s, happy with all of that behind you. Forget losing football. You lost so much more than that. Just to smile and love life is a perspective that all of us should take.

Bailey: We all need, right? A little reinforcement. I plan to do a few more podcasts where I can share my story a little bit. I’m not sure if you may be familiar with one of my former teammates. He’s running a podcast called “Raw Room.” Have you ever heard of that one on YouTube? Daren Bates, he’s one of the hosts on that show and one of my former teammates and it’s like locker room talk. So they touch on a variety of topics and really just kick it. It can be off the chain a little bit, but it’s something that I look forward to just being able to speak about it a little bit more. You mentioned the suspension for something that now everybody uses. I’ll be able to kind of touch on that and give a little bit more of my story. But I plan to join a few more podcasts and continue to let my light shine, man.

You’ve always said, too. There’s a reason that that even happened — you’re getting suspended and you can’t be around your team and you’re back home. You got to look at it that way. There is a reason for this happening and then that happening. OK, now you’re ejected from the sport. What do I do now?

Bailey: Things never really make sense when you look forward. But when you look back, it’s like, “OK, yeah.” Chronological line of events, “OK, OK, OK.” So everything is a lesson learned. I’ve definitely learned some lessons and I hold myself accountable in terms of even just the whole suspension thing, that part starts with me. But I trust God and that’s why I’m able to be content with where I am today.

Thank you so much, Stedman. You are welcome back, man. Any day, any time you want to BS, Go Long is here. Next one will be a Dad podcast to help the fellow Dads out there.

Bailey: Yeah, that’s cool. Whatever you want to touch bases on, man, I’m here for you, man. I appreciate you always. You started this off by just reflecting on the wonderful article that you put together in 2018. That’s still something that’s really a highlight for me. The way you were just able to make that thing come to life. Obviously, we sat down and I’m pretty sure I painted a really good picture, but that piece by you was awesome. I still have copies of that here at the house.

Really it was all you and your willingness. Because I think before I flew out there, we talked on the phone a few times and I wasn’t really sure if that night was something you wanted to get into. It’s so traumatizing beyond belief that I would’ve completely understood if you want to keep those details at surface level. And hell, we sat down for dinner I think the first night out there in Thousand Oaks and you dove right in. You were willing to share. And I think to this day it’s going to help people — you being so open.

Bailey: But you know what, Ty, you too, man. You’re a great person so it’s very easy to talk to you. You get a chance to rub shoulders with certain people and you might not get a great feel where you may want to go into something like that. But I appreciate you for just who you are, man. I appreciate you.

We just wish you nothing but the best. Thanks so much, Stedman.

Bailey: Alright, Ty. Catch up with you, man.

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He was shot in the head twice. His skull shattered. Blood gushed. The grisly play by play remains forever fresh in his mind.

“Like a war zone,” Bailey told me once. “Call of Duty, but you’re really there.”

Miraculously, the NFL wide receiver survived. In 2018, I spent a few days with Bailey out in California for a story and he opened up on everything. At the time, he was hoping to make an NFL comeback. “I have a divine purpose to be here,” Bailey said back then. “You don’t just survive those shots and walk around normal. I feel like we as people all have specific plans on Earth.”

Years later, his purpose is becoming clear.

Bailey is a father of three, trains wide receivers and is determined to help anyone who experienced the same trauma as himself — including Florida State football player Ethan Pritchard. He can relate to everything Pritchard’s going through right now.

Bailey has even chosen to live right back in South Florida. He’s driven past the scene of the crime.

No, he never did find out who tried to kill them that night, though he’s sure people in the neighborhood know. Watching NFL games, he also cannot help but play endless games of “what if.” At West Virginia, he was a Big 12 star. With the St. Louis Rams, his future was bright. Then, poof. Gone.

As he explains here on the Go Long Podcast, life is all about perspective.

His life changed forever that night in Miami Gardens… but at least he’s got a life.

Each morning, he can smile.

Video and audio of our conversation is above. If words are preferable, here’s the transcript. As always, Go Long is powered by you. Thank you for supporting independent journalism.

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It’s been a reunion week of sorts. Miss my conversation with Jamal Lewis?

Here’s that Q&A. After suffering from crippling suicidal thoughts, he’s back.