Our final 2026 NFL Season Preview feature is an extensive look at the player under the most pressure this season: Houston Texans quarterback C.J. Stroud.

Our two-parter on this team’s defense — OUTLAWS — is right here as well, icymi.

How will Joe Brady attack this defense? Here’s our 1 on 1 with the Bills’ head coach.

Links to all summer features are also below.

Subscribe now

In an alternative universe, one within the realm of reality, the scene inside Levi’s Stadium looks quite different at the conclusion of Super Bowl LX. The Houston Texans outlast the Seattle Seahawks in a 12-round bareknuckle brawl for the ages. Bodies stagger. Wounds hemorrhage. Butkus and Nitschke and Deacon Jones smile from above as two defenses straight out of our grandfather’s NFL preserve the violence of football in all its forgotten glory.

The Texans are victorious and there is no debate.

They’re universally crowned one of the greatest defenses in league history.

Azeez Al-Shaair takes the microphone. He’s choked up. Not too long ago, Park Avenue suits cast him a villain unfit for its league. Now, look at him. A champion. The kid who saved his brothers and niece from a burning house, whose family of 11 then crammed into an extended-stay motel at $370 per week, who rode the city bus 2 ½ hours to school because he needed to drop those two little bros off at elementary school is now immortalized as one the generation’s most feared linebackers.

Will Anderson Jr. is announced as the Super Bowl MVP. This monster of a man was once the runt of the family, tortured by his five older sisters. It’s their fault he’s afraid of the dark. Back in Hampton, Ga., they’d shove him into a closet and lean against the door so he wouldn’t escape. Or lock him into their dungeon of a basement. Or dress him up in a giraffe costume and push him into the backyard with the family’s three pit bulls. After screaming, “I’m going to Disneyland!” into a camera lens, Anderson is surrounded by those sisters on the field. He hugs them, kisses them, thanks them for all the tough love.

The party rages on inside the locker room. At the vortex of a champagne whirlpool, IG Live catches one player spouting off a viral one-liner that perfectly encapsulates this curb-stomping. Naturally, it’s Kamari Lassiter. The kid who started playing tackle football at 4 years old and has been suplexing fools ever since. He once told us he’d give his “life” to this sport.

Finally, a nickname sticks. Maybe they’re the savages, as coined by safety Calen Bullock. Maybe the ‘25 Texans is enough.

We should be able to remember this defense in such fashion.

This would’ve been justice in American Football.

Because — when history books are written? — this may go down as the defense that broke the generation’s greatest talent: Patrick Mahomes.

I know, I know. He’s a deity. Doubting the Kansas City Chiefs quarterback is heresy that warrants a thorough burning at the stake. There’s always been unparalleled wizardry to his dominance. He may go down as the greatest player of all-time. But en route to his fifth Super Bowl appearance the season prior, in 2024, this Houston defense made him look… ordinary. Specific principles — call ‘em the “Mahomes Rules” — utilized by head coach DeMeco Ryans, defensive coordinator Matt Burke and this ransacking Texans defense in those games were implemented by the Philadelphia Eagles in Super Bowl LIX, sources from both teams confirm. Vic Fangio is a mastermind in his own right, obviously, but there are a few acute fundamentals to follow. The result was carnage. At halftime, Philly had more points (24) than KC had yards (23). Mahomes’ passer rating was 10.7. Mahomes didn’t even cross the 50-yard line until his team trailed, 34-zip.

This was Michael Jordan going 3 for 28 in a Game 7. This was Tiger Woods quadruple-bogeying the 16^th hole at Augusta. (We’ll get to those specific rules later.)

Philadelphia, not Houston, was worshipped for authorizing a defensive masterpiece.

The next season, the Texans treated Josh Allen like a piñata, put a dagger in Mahomes’ Chiefs season, body-bagged Aaron Rodgers in the wild card round and then headed to Foxborough with their own eyes set on immortality. Three more wins and they’d unquestionably join the ’85 Bears, 2000 Ravens and 2013 Seahawks as an all-time defense. We told the story of this Texans defense with this two-part series.

Instead, they lost.

Instead, the defense in Seattle is lionized. Seattle wins the Super Bowl. From his home, one offensive coach on this Houston staff watched Seattle thump New England 29-13 and the room went silent. His wife finally spoke up. “You guys really fucked it up,” she told him.

Into the offseason, rent was due. Anderson received the richest non-QB contract in NFL history. Danielle Hunter was re-signed. Al-Shaair inked a new deal, too. The franchise operated with maximum urgency on this side of the ball.

Over on offense, however, one player did not receive a new contract.

It’s no coincidence that this same player cost the team its season.

Nobody in the NFL faces more pressure to perform than the quarterback in Houston.

All 32 starters carry a burden on their shoulders. It’s the nature of the profession.

Nobody, period, has more at stake than C.J. Stroud.

Inside today’s story:

• Where have things gone wrong for the 2023 offensive rookie of the year? And what’s the key to Stroud becoming everything we thought he’d be?

• Insight from Hall of Famers Kurt Warner and Warren Moon.

• How has this Texans D made Mahomes look human? The rest of the NFL watched closely.

• Driver vs. Irons dilemma for OC Nick Caley.

• Why nobody should expect regression from this rabid Houston defense.

• The hidden trait inside Stroud the Texans must unlock in 2026.

GM Nick Caserio did not slide a blank check across the negotiating table. Instead, the Texans eliminated all possible excuses around the quarterback position with another round of signings, trades and firings. This is Year 4. If Stroud excels, he could earn himself a contract worth $60 million per year. Not too long ago, Hall of Famers like Kurt Warner were in awe. This flame-throwing rookie appeared destined for greatness. If he falters, he won’t get a new contract and, odds are, the Texans will have no choice but to scramble for a new QB1 while they can with this defense.

Both outcomes are possible.

This summer, Go Long canvassed the league — including sources who’ve been around the QB up close — to see which path he takes.

A team can only do so much around the quarterback position.

Stroud must make his move in 2026. This is the most consequential season of his football life.

First, the bad news. On the field, he isn’t seeing the field like he did as a rookie. Something’s off and it’s baffling Warner. Inside the building, Stroud butted heads with one OC (Bobby Slowik) and is onto another. Last season was littered with growing pains with Nick Caley. Explosive plays were down. Some wish the QB brought more of an alpha personality to the office.

The good news? There is an edge to this quarterback. A spunk that could — in theory — complement this defense. Don’t mistake public reticence for private indifference.

Flash back to the spring of 2023. Back to when he left a magnetic first impression with NFL teams. Those who interviewed him — coaches, execs, scouts — sure didn’t question whether he possessed the requisite amount of alpha then.

He had attitude.

Teams saw a face of the franchise.

“We were blown away by him,” says one source inside the Atlanta Falcons room then.

“Blown away.”

Go Long is your home for independent journalism.

Thank you for growing our community.

Give a gift subscription

Jekyll and Hyde

Yes, the Falcons were interested in C.J. Stroud ahead of the 2023 draft. The only problem was that they were out of range at the eighth overall pick.

When the Ohio State quarterback sat down with the team, he was blunt. He declared that he’d be taken No. 1 overall by the Carolina Panthers.

Which is when the team’s head coach, Arthur Smith, served as the bearer of bad news.

He told Stroud, point blank, that Alabama’s Bryce Young would be Carolina’s pick. Stroud was perplexed considering those same Panthers were bringing him into town on a visit. “I’m going to tell you the truth,” Smith responded. “It’s not going to happen.” The Falcons coach knew the truth because he shared the same agent as Young and Nick Saban: heavy-hitter Jimmy Sexton.

Stroud sat in silence. “Stunned,” one source recalls.

Then, Smith explained that they’d do everything in their power to trade up for him. Everyone was in on Stroud. QBs coach Dave Ragone loved his character, his swagger, and, of course, that smooth-as-silk throwing motion. Draft night in Kansas City, Mo., arrived, Carolina took Young and the Houston Texans sniped Stroud at No. 2, killing any dream of any team trading up.

Stroud embraced his family, fit a Texans flat brim atop his braids, glided toward the main stage and shouted “Let’s gooo!” at full throat before embracing commissioner Roger Goodell.

In his mind? No. 2 was too low.

“There was a chip on the shoulder,” says one former coach on the Texans staff. “When Bryce Young went first, that fueled him because he felt that he should have been the first pick in the draft, and he wasn’t.”

Stroud wasted no time torching pro defenses with one of the finest rookie seasons in NFL history, throwing for 4,108 yards with 23 touchdowns and only five interceptions in 15 starts. “He was such an aggressive downfield thrower,” one ex-Texan coach recalls. “He was standing in there. He wasn’t bailing in the pocket.” The HOF’er Warner — one of the toughest graders of the position — was “blown away” by his complete game. When we were chatting about Jordan Love one day, he pivoted to Stroud. Dubbed him a Top 5 quarterback.

Midseason, Go Long sat down with the team’s coordinator for a piece on all three rookie quarterbacks.

Slowik was effusive in his praise. The future, for both, appeared limitless.

“We could not do all we want,” Slowik said, “unless he walks out and has a great command of every play and what’s going on and where things are going to be. I mean, he lets balls go when they need to be thrown. A lot of times it’s happening when someone’s sticking their foot in the ground to indicate where they’re breaking.

“That’s more than coaching. That’s a massive credit to him.”

Slowik later added: “He’s a special kid.”

Our final exchange is quite telling in retrospect. After Slowik told me that he sincerely did not know Carolina was selecting Young until the card was turned in, I asked if Stroud was his preference all along. A softball for any coach who would’ve loved his game — especially in real time with the getting good. Instead, Slowik said his pre-draft evaluations “will remain locked in my drawer.”

Good vibes in ’23 swiftly faded into ’24.

QB and OC worked on their relationship for a while. One source recalls Stroud entering Slowik’s office unannounced to talk ball for 30+ minutes at a time. But when Houston’s offense slipped into a malaise, those 1-on-1 sessions abruptly stopped. The two became strictly co-workers. Little more. “They hardly talked unless they had to,” one coach on staff recalls. Houston made the playoffs at 10-7 and the two tried to rekindle the meetings to piece together a run. But it was too late.

One assistant believes Slowik grew frustrated in Stroud not “mentally exhausting” himself after the banner rookie season. In that, he’d watch a ton of NFL games but not necessarily study installs the night before.

“He had that year and it was kind of like, ‘Alright, well, I made it,’” this source recalls. “And that’s not the case. You have to do it for an extended period of time. I think he lost a bit of his edge.”

When I bring up Stroud’s low score on the pre-draft S2 Cognition test (18%), as reported here by our Bob McGinn, one ex-Texans coach says the quarterback can digest and comprehend everything. To him, it’s not a matter of ability.

Slowik was fired and ex-Patriots, ex-Rams assistant Nick Caley was hired as OC.

Stroud was a mixed bag in 2025. He produced the eighth-best EPA per dropback in the NFL and the fifth-lowest turnover rate. Gritty moments like this third-and-3 stiff-arm of Chris Jones endeared him to teammates. When everything was going wrong that night at Arrowhead, wideout Christian Kirk said Stroud rallied the offense together at the end of the third quarter to say: “We’ve got to go take this thing. These are the defending world champs. They’re not just going to sit back and hand it to us.”

One source who’s familiar with each coordinator puts the philosophical difference between Slowik and Caley in golf terms. With Slowik, the Texans were using their driver off the tee. Which led to birdies and bogies. With Caley, the offense preferred to use their irons and keep the ball in the fairway to make par.

“With Bobby, we were trying to hunt explosives in the run and the pass game,” this source says. “And with Nick, we were trying to avoid negative plays. And sure, it looked OK. But we weren’t built to win games offensively. We didn’t call games to win offensively. The defense would do their job. And if the defense had a bad day, we weren’t going to be able to bail them out for a multitude of reasons.”

“And when it got to the playoffs and the kid started turning the ball over, we had no shot.”

If Ryans chooses keepaway over gunslingin,’ can we blame him? This Texan defense is an anaconda constricting its adversary into bone-crushing submission. Then again, one coach on the current staff counters that a defense this freakin’ good could actually compel the offense to take more chances deep. Because if you fail, it’s not a big deal. You’re getting the ball right back. Each opponent requires its own unique gameplan. But considering one of Stroud’s greatest gifts is the deep ball and considering Nico Collins (profiled here) possesses a gear most 6-foot-4, 222-pound receivers do not, more big-play hunting makes sense in 2026.

The decline in dynamic plays might’ve been rooted more in the Swiss cheese offensive line, too.

Bring up “confidence” to one coach and he pushes back. Draws a distinction.

This coach doesn’t believe Stroud lost confidence in himself last season. Rather, in his offensive line. Rather, in a front five that ranked 32^nd of 32 teams in run-block win rate (68.4 percent) and 30^th in pass-block win rate (55.5). Ineptitude fed a skittishness. So even when the pocket was clean, he’d get nervous. Bail. Panic into a bad decision. To the layman, such helter-skelter moments probably looked bizarre. Stroud thought his clock was speeding up when he actually had ample time to stand firm in the pocket.

“He’s got to be confident in that everybody else around him is going to be doing their job for him,” this coach adds, “and then he can just go fucking operate and be who he is. Because he is a confident kid. He’s got to feel the O-Line. He’s got to feel like, ‘Oh man, we’re running the ball better. I can pair with this play-action. I can take these shots. I can hold the ball, take longer.’”

Given the personnel changes on offense, perhaps Caley dials up more bombs and Stroud is less antsy.

No assistant coach faces more pressure than the man who scored the most coveted coordinator gig in the ‘25 offseason. Caley was victorious over six other candidates and let’s not forget Houston didn’t interview eventual Super Bowl champ Klint Kubiak.

His tact is different. Sources say Caley is not as hard on Stroud as Slowik.

Whether that’s good or bad is up for debate. Examples for both theories are all over the league. In Chicago, from Day 1, Ben Johnson made it clear he would not cater everything to the quarterback like the previous staff did through a turbulent rookie season. Caleb Williams needed to get in line or get out, and the QB bought in. One coach on the Texans’ 2025 staff wishes Caley took a similar approach to Stroud. Instead, he was more apt to cater to what his quarterback preferred, such as zapping plays from under center at the expense of unpredictability. If Stroud executed a play wrong but still completed a pass, the mistake wasn’t always corrected.

Making any offense QB-friendly can lend itself to a sugar high. In the long run, this source believes, you’re not doing the QB any favors. This is a cruel league. Forcing your starter to do the hard stuff prepares him for January when the weather worsens, the stakes heighten and all defensive minds dust off their best calls. Indeed, chickens came home to roost for the Texans offense against Pittsburgh and New England in the playoffs. Stroud completed only 51 percent of his passes for 462 yards with two scores and seven turnovers (five interceptions, two lost fumbles). His four first-half picks vs. the Patriots doomed. Season over.

Into the offseason, Caserio dismissed chatter of trading Stroud as “moronic” and picked up his fifth-year option.

Houston’s bet is that the lights come on.

Warner, a stickler, was a staunch believer. And Warner doesn’t give a damn about those sparkling rookie statistics. His eyes. His feet. How “effortless” he threw the ball. Everything about Stroud suggested he was progressing at warp speed. The question that stays on Warner’s mind when he studies all QBs is Do you see it? Those incapable of processing will eventually be swallowed whole. It’s impossible to make a living freestylin’ out of structure.

So, that’s what concerns him. All of a sudden, the picture in front of Stroud became more of a 90s magic-eye poster.

“I know they’ve changed coordinators,” Warner says. “But there’s been things in front of him that should be easy based on what I saw as a rookie.”

He believes in a three-year sample size. By then, your true game is revealed.

Warner uses himself as an example. When he won MVP in 1999, everything was much easier. Defenders didn’t understand him or the Greatest Show on Turf. The degree of difficulty ratcheted up in Year 2 and Year 3. Defenses forced Warner to cycle deeper into his reads. He continued to make a ton of plays — and even won a second MVP — but the St. Louis Rams’ quarterback also threw 40 interceptions his next 27 games.

“You can have a really good year, especially in the early stages, that isn’t fully indicative of who you are as a player,” Warner says. “You come in the league, nobody expects it, it’s brand new and all of a sudden, boom, it gets harder. We get to see who you really are.

“I thought CJ was great as a rookie and was excited to see where he was going to go. And then it’s been step back, step back. Where it makes me start to wonder if we just got a ballooned look, if it was something that was elevated in his first year but wasn’t indicative of necessarily the level that he’s at.”

All of it’s a mystery to Warner because a.) he also doesn’t believe quarterbacks outright forget how to read the field and b.) while it’s true a new scheme can blur the picture, Caley’s offense seems perfectly fine to him. He sees routes fitting together. Everything correlates. Stroud’s worst sin, to him, was what the current Texans assistant noted: the blitz. Happy feet ruined too many plays. Overall, he’s seen good. He’s seen bad. Warner won’t make a bold proclamation on Stroud either way. The fact that he wasn’t asked to decipher coverages at a complex level in college doesn’t give him comfort. It’s impossible to learn how to read NFL defenses at an NFL speed, Warner adds, because these are “the best athletes in the world.”

It’s why he also has no clue what’s next for Jayden Daniels in Washington.

Year 1, Daniels saw it all. He’d work from the frontside to the backside of a play lickity-split.

Now he wonders if the young quarterback was simply working through a pure progression.

“So those are guys,” Warner adds, “that give me pause to go, ‘OK, were we just fooled a little bit in their first year because everything happened to fall into place? And that’s not who they are? Or the second year, were there other things that factored in: a new OC, injuries that created some of these negatives and now they’re going to settle back in and become that guy we saw their first year?’ When I watch a guy play game after game after game and he’s looking in a certain direction and he can’t see what’s in that direction, that gives me room for concern. He’s even looking in the right direction! When you start in the right direction and your eyes are lined up there and you can’t see something that to me should be pretty easy to see, that gives me a lot of concern that they don’t know what they’re looking at and they’re just trying to find an open guy, which is always very concerning at the NFL level.”

That being said, Warner is still holding out hope.

He’s not forgetting the 2023 edition of this quarterback.

Moon is more optimistic. This wait-and-see approach — to him — is wise in the wake of the Tua Tagovailoa disaster. Miami ate $99.2 million this spring to send him packing. Moon, plugged in, hears that Stroud has “rededicated” himself to the profession. And he’s all, all, all in on Caserio’s offseason maneuvers. A mashing back like David Montgomery alleviates stress. The O-Line will only improve. If the Texans start strong, Moon predicts the front office ponies up. Nobody threw a prettier spiral than Moon through the 1990s. As he revealed on one Happy Hour appearance, nail clippers were to thank. Moon, the Run-and-Shoot cannon, is a huge fan of Stroud’s fluid throwing motion. The ball also snaps off his wrist.

“He can get back to who he was his first year,” Moon says. “He’s got to have his weapons healthy. He’s got to have all the bullets in his gun to be able to use. And then it’s rededicating himself and just getting himself in better overall physical shape. It’ll help him to have more confidence in who he is to go out there and do what he needs to get done.”

There’s no telling how a quarterback will respond to receiving a life-changing contract. The problems in Miami were ingrained but Tagovailoa shouting “Show me the money!” into a mic at training camp set an awful tone. To Moon, it’s a matter of pride. He was the highest-paid player in the NFL multiple times through his career and sincerely relished the expectations to deliver as the best of the best. That’s why he wore No. 1. At his Oilers peak, the words Bring It On might as well have been stitched across his chest.

He sees Stroud getting mocked all offseason.

Public reaction to the QB cutting his braids was borderline insane.

From what he knows? Stroud is ultra-motivated.

“He has a lot of pride and he wants to be one of the best,” Moon says. “You could tell he was visibly hurt after the playoff loss. He was in tears and really felt like he let down his team and his organization and the city and he took a lot of personal blame for it. So I think he’s doing everything to get himself back to where he was.”

Multiple sources told us through the offseason that the Texans planned to challenge Stroud. They needed to see more before investing premium dollar. There is no middle tier after Baker Mayfield’s extension in Tampa Bay. Soon, Sam Darnold will also get the bag. Either the Texans pay Stroud money on par with the richest quarterbacks in the sport, or not.

The offense and defense, one coach notes, had two different cultures last season. He diagnoses the lack of a true alpha on offense as a problem on par with anything else — injuries, personnel, decoding coverages. Crisis is inevitable… who speaks up? Running back Joe Mixon would take charge in ‘24, but he missed the entire ’25 season with a foot injury. Young players looked up to tackle Laremy Tunsil but he wasn’t exactly the best example to follow.

Both Stroud and Collins are described as introverted.

Maybe the ex-Lion Montgomery fills this void. He’s $2 steak tough.

There’s certainly no concern over the lack of voices on defense. They’re overflowing with alphas who take names, kick ass. More than anything, this is why Stroud’s seat is molten-lava hot. This Houston Texans defense is fully equipped to win a Super Bowl. Or two.

So, about those Mahomes Rules…

Subscribe now

Reloaded

The sport’s designated grim reaper doesn’t scare anyone down here. Oh, Patrick Mahomes is a peerless competitor. Greater the stakes, the calmer his nerves. Simply look at the science. His WHOOP band showed his heart rate slow to its flow state at the crescendo of his “13 Seconds” epic vs. Buffalo Bills in the 2021 postseason.

But he does bleed. These Houston Texans supplied the league a handbook.

After conversations with one coach on staff, here’s how they do it.

No. 1, it’s crucial to remember that Mahomes kills you by stepping through your inside rushers and taking inside gaps. You’ve got to close off those interior escape lanes. Give him a sliver of a vertical A or B gap, and… you’re toast. The smart plan is to flush him horizontal. Traditionally, this is a poison pill. Traditionally, it’s always been best to quarantine such magical improvisers inside the pocket. Think Aaron Rodgers. At his peak, the Packers’ four-time MVP feasted on the move. And, true, Mahomes also owned the broken play for a while. Travis Kelce may be the best ever at uncovering and finding dead zones. Their rapport was damn near telepathic. But now, Kelce is a skeletal 37-year-old shell of himself and people around the NFL are whispering about Mahomes’ declining mobility. Multiple execs have brought it up to me unsolicited. He’s also returning from a torn ACL.

Mahomes thrives on defenders flying wide out of the play, shimmying up into those vacated lanes to deliver rockets. Or run. These Texans proved — and Philly followed — that if you stay in your lanes, refuse to rush behind Mahomes and force him to “go back and out,” as this coach put it, you’ve got a chance. Especially with 11 maniacs who can close.

Forge a disciplined wall. Flush him outside.

Then, hunt. Chase. Close.

The decline in talent at wide receiver doesn’t help Mahomes. Houston was fully confident in its corners locking down KC’s receivers throughout a 20-10 win last season. They played three coverages in all and blitzed three times on 64 snaps as Mahomes staggered through the worst night of his NFL life: 14 of 33 for 160 yards, zero touchdowns, three interceptions and two sacks. Both his yards per attempt (0.8) and passer rating (19.8) were less than half of his previous career lows. Reid essentially admitted these Chiefs must evolve in paying running back Kenneth Walker Jr. $43 million over three years.

Marry disciplined fundamentals with cannibalistic personnel and you’ve got the recipe for a special defense.

Speaking to this Texans coach about his formula dusted off one memory.

We’ve seen this all before.

Andy Reid had the conviction to select Mahomes 10th overall in 2017 because he saw shades of his quarterback 20 years prior: Brett Favre.

Seven years and three MVPs into his Packers career, this Hall of Famer faced a Waterloo of his own.

Favre — like Mahomes — was an unorthodox star with no precedent before him. He didn’t know what a nickel defense was through the early 90s and his fundamentals were so wonky into the late 90s that both Reid and Mike Holmgren told backup Matt Hasselbeck not to emulate anything he does. In Super Bowl XXXII, the Denver Broncos harassed Favre throughout a 31-24 thriller. In “Gunslinger,” author Jeff Pearlman pinpoints John Teerlinck as the mastermind behind an aggressive gameplan that rendered Favre mortal. “If Favre was the NFL’s Moby Dick,” Pearlman wrote, “Teerlinck was Captain Ahab.” The D-Line coach studied 523 Favre passes ahead of the title game in San Diego and crafted a full menu of rules. A few included tackling him low (because he relied on the stiff-arm), consciously finishing sacks/hits (because he didn’t have as quick of a release as people think), timing up the snap count (“Dick!” meant the snap was one, “Balls!” meant two, “Muff!” meant three), steering Favre into “Zone No. 3” if the pocket was divided into quadrants (that’s where he tended to force passes) and utterly ignoring the Packers running game.

Then, the NFL did its thing: the rest of the league copied this plan. Favre regressed.

It took a half-decade, and the emergence of running back Ahman Green, for Favre to evolve. Even then, he never made it back to the Super Bowl.

A select few quarterbacks force you to think about defense in a completely different way. Defensive masterminds no doubt spent the last two offseasons studying what Ryans, Burke and the Texans built. For the first time in his career, Mahomes had a losing record in 2025, failed to make the Pro Bowl and had career lows in TDs (22), passer rating (89.6), completion percentage (62.7) and game-winning drives (one).

The Texans, meanwhile, are getting the band back together.

Sustaining an elite defense, year to year, is often a game of Jenga. Not too long ago, the 2017 “Sacksonville” Jaguars dreamt big. This trash-talking bunch was one inexplicable Foxborough whistle on Myles Jack’s fumble recovery away from reaching the Super Bowl. Then, the tower collapsed. I spent as much time around those Jags in my Bleacher Report days as these Texans at Go Long and — in hindsight? — there is no comparing the psychological makeup of these two units. One took its swaggering cue from a cornerback (Jalen Ramsey) who once showed up to training camp in an armored Brinks truck. One follows a “Terminator,” Will Anderson Jr., who needs to be pulled off the practice field. Literally. The day after inking his whopping three-year, $150 million contract — “fucking easiest decision we could make,” one coach says — Anderson was in the building to train. This coach sees a man “on a mission.” In OTAs and minicamp, Anderson was so nonstop that, yes, coaches ordered him to take plays off.

The idea of tempo’ing down to 75 or 50 percent does not compute. Williams only knows one speed.

Nor do coaches ever want to dull this motor. The 6-foot-4, 243-pounder is propped up as the example for all players to follow.

At the other edge is 31-year-old Danielle Hunter off a 15-sack season. Signing him to a one-year, $40 million was also money well spent. The Texans see his play improving vs. the run, too. Al-Shaair is the defense’s heartbeat. As chronicled, everyone stood by the polarizing linebacker as the NFL tarred and feathered him. He isn’t slowing down. Cornerback Derek Stingley Jr. was voted the second-best cornerback in the NFL by execs/coaches/scouts across the league. No corner in the league has more picks (14) since ’23. Quarterbacks completed only 46.9 percent of their passes targeting him 64 times last season. Good luck throwing to the other side where Lassiter is a rising star. He’ll soon be a rich man. Safety Jalen Pitre is the secondary’s enforcer. Ask Rashee Rice.

And, somehow, Houston managed to upgrade this offseason. Into free agency, the Texans expected Reed Blankenship to be out of their price range in free agency. At three years, $24.7 million, the real-life “Rocky” was targeted as a missing piece. With his addition, the Texans view the spine of their defense as stronger than ever. Into the summer, the Texans also reeled in a familiar face at $5.5 million. Former No. 1 overall pick Jadeveon Clowney has been playing some of his best ball this side of 30 years old with 23.5 sacks and 40 QB hits the last three seasons. On his seventh team in 12 years, desire should not be a problem.

They’ve got the players — clearly — but these Houston Texans have cultivated something more valuable in today’s NFL. The hint of dread you hear in voices of defensive players and coaches discussing the crème de la crème is wholly nonexistent here. Quarterbacks are not put on pedestals because the Texans fear no one. Defenders are not exactly peeing down their leg ahead of games vs. Josh Allen. In a ’24 loss, the Bills’ superstar went 9 of 30. In a ’25 loss, he was sacked eight times, hit 12 times and threw two picks. We’ll see what Allen and new Bills coach Joe Brady cook up this time around. Something must change because, philosophically, it’s different in Houston. When the Texans watch film, they don’t obsess over play design. They crawl inside an opposing quarterback’s brain.

Even the greats like Mahomes and Allen have specific, Favre’ian tendencies.

“At some point you’re playing the man,” one coach on staff says. “It’s poker. You’re playing the man, not the hand.”

Regression is an impossibility. Akin to Anderson playing hooky, Al-Shaair reverting to two-hand touch or Hunter’s biceps deflating.

So, no. Stroud won’t need to put up 30+ points each week. Montgomery can eat up the clock in ways last year’s collection of backs could not. Tank Dell will eventually return from his torn ACL, MCL, LCL and dislocated kneecap — a catastrophic injury that had Stroud in tears. Up front, Braden Smith also starts this season on IR but he’ll be a major upgrade at right tackle whenever he returns from a partially torn plantar fascia. Guard Keylan Rutledge is affectionately labeled a “prick” by one coach. He ignited endless scuffles all camp. Veteran Wyatt Teller supplies depth.

Hold up in protection — get Stroud comfortable — and perhaps that quarterback who once torched the No. 1 defense in the NFL in a playoff win goes full Undertaker.

“It’s all mental with him,” says one Texans coach. “He is super talented. If he’s comfortable, dude, he’s fucking fine.”

Expect wrinkles to Caley’s offense. Perhaps more shots deep. It’s also noteworthy that Stroud has not lost the support of the locker room. On our visit, they were extremely complimentary. Off the record, those inside Texans HQ insist players love their quarterback. This isn’t Legion of Boom 2.0. Teammates haven’t revolted. Not yet anyway.

This defense’s way of life is established. Players follow Anderson’s lead. This offseason, for example, coaches needed to tell defensive tackle Tommy Togiai more than once to go home. He wouldn’t stop training. Everyone knows these are the players who get paid in Houston. Guys like Anderson, “Sting,” Togiai, everyone who trains relentlessly.

Meanwhile, Stroud waits. The Texans must see more.

Honestly, it behooves both parties to wait. Why would Stroud and agent David Mulugheta want to negotiate off of the worst game of his life? Everyone can still win here.

Urgency is high.

A moment of truth for this quarterback nears.

An edge

Confidence is a fickle thing at this position. Discover it, harness it, weaponize it and anything feels possible. The last quarterback to get paid, America’s Quarterback, doesn’t wow anybody with a singular physical gift. What separates Baker Mayfield is pure belief. It oozes from every throw, every curse word lobbed at opposing fans.

C.J. Stroud had it. Those inside NFL draft rooms were convinced this was a quarterback fully capable of throwing a team on his back for 10 to 15 years. One GM heard whispers of “entitlement” and “arrogance” around Stroud and became obsessed with him two minutes into conversation. To him, this was a man “you want to go battle with.”

That edge is still in there… somewhere.

When I ask one critical ex-coach for his odds that Stroud electrifies the Texans and resembles a rising star again, his answer surprises me: “40 percent.” It’s very possible. After seven months of scorn and ridicule, he wouldn’t be surprised if Stroud was motivated to stick it to doubters.

But he’ll need help on the sideline. More abrasive coaching may be good for Stroud. “Someone who will push him,” says one former coach in Houston. “I don’t think he’s ever had that in the NFL.” This is the same refrain we heard from coaches in Arizona on Kyler Murray. The Vikings’ new QB1 is at his best when a coach is barking vulgarities in his ear.

Either way, the playcalling itself can tap into this wild side. Dinking and dunking and staying on the fairway only takes a team so far.

Even a team with this defense.

Stroud’s reputation around the league hasn’t fallen off a cliff. One QBs coach in the NFC believes there are plenty of brilliant offensive minds that’d love to coach the Texans QB because they’ve seen the ability. It’s on film. Defensively, the first man prepping to face Stroud — Buffalo Bills defensive coordinator Jim Leonhard — summed up his game perfectly.

“I think when he’s on — at times I think he’s a little bit streaky — when he’s on, it’s pretty,” Leonhard said. “There’s a reason he was drafted two overall. Rookie of the year. If it’s clean and he’s playing on rhythm and on timing, he’s a damn good quarterback. … So he’s going to have some confidence coming into this game. He knows he’s a talented player and he’s got some really good weapons around him and the way that they use the run game, play action, the boots, getting him on the edge, it can be set up for it to snowball on you as a defense if you let it.”

If Stroud was pissed about going No. 2 instead of No. 1, he most certainly is eager to prove the last time America saw him was an aberration.

DeMeco Ryans never put the governor on Stroud. He wasn’t a micromanager demanding Caley run the ball in the middle of a game. But the buck ultimately stops with him. He sets the tone. As one former Texans assistant posits: “How do you want to play football?” During Leonhard’s presser on Thursday — discussing why complementary football is a real thing, not a cliché — the Bills DC also described Houston as a team that is not overly aggressive because they prefer a “slug fest” that keeps the score low.

That’s likely how most around the NFL view these Texans.

What an opportunity for Ryans to zag. There’s still time. There’s a path for all parties involved to work their way to Los Angeles on Valentine’s Day and create a scene of their own underneath torrential confetti.

Those on offense should close their eyes and picture a championship scene of their own.

There’s Montgomery cherishing the moment with his sister, Kiki, who’s paralyzed from the neck down and his nephew, Yhzrah, who has battled leukemia. There’s Collins thinking of the athlete from this city he idolized as a kid: the late Kobe Bryant. He pins a picture of the Black Mamba’s menacing stare in his locker. He celebrates with his family and reminisces back to surviving without hot water for weeks.

At some point, Stroud gets his chance to splatter his fingerprints all over the trophy and see his reflection in the silver.

Tears trickle down his face.

Only this time, they mean something different.

Share Go Long

Give a gift subscription

2026 NFL Season Preview Features:

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Madness awaits Tony Pollard. Whenever he wraps up work here as the starting running back for the Tennessee Titans, he returns home to his wife and kids.

Four children to be exact.

Four, that is, under the age of four: 4, 3, 1 and 2 ½ months.

“Chaos,” Pollard assures. “A lot of diapers, a lot of bottles.”

No nannies, no in-laws, no close friends at all assist with a single changing or feeding. Mom and Dad handle 100 percent of the parenting. And as Baby No. 4 closed in this offseason, so did the No. 4 overall pick. Pollard had a feeling who his employer coveted, too. Jeremiyah Love, a thoroughbred from Notre Dame, was mocked to Tennessee so relentlessly it’s a shock he didn’t open up a honky tonk on Broadway between Garth Brooks’ “Friends in Low Places” and Blake Shelton’s “Ole Red.”

Pollard isn’t naive.

He acknowledges all the telltale signs of an expiration date nearing.

He turned 29 in April. He has 1,568 total touches on the odometer. This is the final year of his contract. Nothing about the man’s physical stature — 6-foot-nothing, 209 pounds — suggests Pollard is an anomaly who’ll ward off the sharp regression we see from all 30-something backs. He’s a former 128^th overall pick, a hybrid weapon out of Memphis who needed to prove himself on special teams before he ever received meaningful carries on offense.

Everyone’s on notice. This organization is also run by a new head coach with a new direction.

Oh, he fully immerses himself into Dad Life. The second Pollard steps through the front door, it’s on. They ask him to make pancakes on a stick. Or SpaghettiOs. His oldest loves gymnastics. She’s flipping nonstop. He’s a very, very busy father.

Even then… yeah. Pollard cannot lie.

“I heard the noise,” he admits.

A flame was relit. He found himself back in the role he prefers.

“It all put me back into the prime spot to feel like I’m the underdog,” Pollard says. “I’m easily overlooked. So it’s easy for me to get up and get going. It’s easy for me to grind and give my all every day because I know they might not be expecting that from me or they may be surprised by the things that I’m doing. I look at it as motivation.”

Right around 8 p.m. the night of April 23, diapers were put on hold. Pollard nestled into a seat and watched those first few draft picks: Fernando Mendoza to the Raiders, David Bailey to the Jets and then, at No. 3, the Arizona Cardinals selected Love. Tennessee drafted Ohio State pass catcher Carnell Tate. Good news, true, but he didn’t deeply exhale and throw himself a party. Even if the Titans did land Love, he insists the same thoughts would’ve been running through his mind: Earn your spot every day. Earn your respect every day. Earn your position.

An offseason that could’ve re-routed his career was instead reinvigorating.

One bonkers statistic served as the impetus for this trip. Look up the current running backs who’ve strung together four consecutive 1,000-yard seasons and No. 1 is obvious. Derrick Henry is a bionic man who should be studied by our nation’s top health experts ASAP. Then, there’s Pollard. That’s it. That’s the end of the list. Mainly because no athlete in sports is battered quite like the NFL Running Back. Injuries are a guarantee, you’re always deemed replaceable, nor is this Grandpa’s three-yards-cloud-of-dirt NFL.

So… how?

Go Long is completely independent. Thank you for growing our community.

Subscribe now

Share Go Long

From afar, No. 20 in powder blue appears remarkably unremarkable. Up close, he’s soft-spoken. The Memphis native who hails from a family of barbecuing extraordinaries speaks in a slow southern drawl. When he repeats the word “consistency,” however, it’s no platitude. It’s a lifestyle. Dive into a four-year streak he fully plans on extending to five and Pollard’s edge crystallizes.

Quickly, it’s clear to see Pollard is part of the solution in Tennessee.

He enjoys being overlooked. He labels himself an underdog multiple times.

Pollard is also a believer that “the cream will always rise.”

“Being confident in yourself,” Pollard adds, “knowing that you’re the best at what you do and even if you may be overlooked, your time will come. Keep chipping wood.”

A state of mind that sure seemed impossible to adopt when his leg literally snapped in half.

This is the best place to start. Back when the streak stood at one 1,000-yard season.

Four years later, he puts himself right back into the Dallas Cowboys huddle.

2022 NFC divisional playoffs. Tied game. First down from the Niners’ 26-yard line with 1 minute and 36 seconds left in the first half. As the crowd roared, Pollard leaned toward Dak Prescott and told his quarterback that if the first and second reads are covered, he’ll be wide open on a checkdown. On cue, Prescott dumped the ball off to Pollard, the back turned upfield and that’s when safety Jimmie Ward grabbed him around the waist and pulled him down.

All of Ward’s weight crashed on top of his left leg.

“I felt my ankle get collapsed underneath him,” Pollard says, “and then I felt something pop.”

He balled up his fists, army-crawled across the Bermuda grass for seven paces and tried to get up. He could not. Utter “shock” overwhelmed all pain. Hell, he barely felt anything. A drop of bad blood still lingers. When I ask Pollard if Ward really needed to drop his weight on top of him that, he’s quick to say “no.” The NFL itself would later cite this play as justification for banning hip-drop tackles. Still, Pollard admits the defender is in a lose-lose predicament because they’ve got to do everything in their power to get backs to the ground. There’s a reason officials rarely enforce Rule 12, Section 2, Article 18.

Either way, the damage was done.

Pollard broke his fibula and tore ligaments in his ankle.

Even as he hobbled into the blue tent and eventually the locker room, the only pain he felt was helplessness. That season, he usurped Ezekiel Elliott as the team’s best running back and made the Pro Bowl. That previous week, his Cowboys sent Tom Brady into retirement. He believes his presence could’ve gotten Dallas to the NFC Championship, then the Super Bowl.

Instead, Dallas lost 19-12. Pollard was a spectator.

“I felt like I let the team down,” he says. “That’s what ate me up the most.”

One moment, Pollard’s dreaming of a playoff run for America’s Team. The next, his leg literally snaps in half and he faces a grueling, monotonous rehab to an audience of one. Such is the shadow war you’ll never see plastered across NFL Network and ESPN. When all hopes and dreams abruptly die, a pro football player’s mental health can suffer. Sometimes, to catastrophic extremes. AJ Green helped drive this conversation into the mainstream after Rondale Moore committed suicide this offseason.

Moore is an extreme, tragic case of a darkness all players fear.

Into the ‘23 offseason, Pollard attacked each day, embraced small wins in treatment and rushed for 1,005 yards. Physically, he was cleared. He told himself, “This shouldn’t be bothering me.” But he was not the same player — not even close — because he couldn’t cleanse his mind and trust that leg. He hesitated. He didn’t fight through tackles like before.

“Once you get injured,” Pollard says, “it can be very mentally, physically, spiritually tough in all aspects of life.

“Some days, I would go out there and run and I’m like, ‘I can’t do it.’ And that’s scary. Because people don’t realize injuries in this league? They can really mess with you mentally. When you know what you can do and what you’re capable of — and then to get on the field and have to tell yourself, ‘I can’t do this right now. I can’t run. I can’t sprint. I can’t cut.’ It hurts to even digest it and accept that.”

The key, he adds, is to maintain a tight circle. Listen to your body.

Not until he got to Nashville, in ’24, did Tony Pollard feel like Tony Pollard again.

A rare threshold for pain fuels his career. He refuses to tap out.

In 2024, Pollard suffered a high-ankle sprain against the Detroit Lions in late October and this hurt far, far more than his leg splitting in half.

“One of the worst pains ever,” Pollard says. “A constant pain that you learn to tolerate.”

Players often think they can simply numb up an ankle, but quickly realize it doesn’t help much at all. Toradol doesn’t do a damn thing, he explains. Not for this. He describes more of a vicious cycle. On gameday, adrenaline powered him through. The morning after? The rehab clock set. It was back to ground zero. He couldn’t put any pressure on his foot at all. Monday to Tuesday to (eventually) kickoff, Pollard lived in the training room to rehab.

Each week, he felt good enough to play. If his ankle was on fire, Pollard headed to the sideline to focus on his breathing, let the pain subside and then sprinted right back into action. His first game off the injury, Pollard plowed ahead for 128 yards on 28 carries in an overtime win over New England.

He finished with 1,079 yards on a career-high 260 carries with five touchdowns.

All for a Titans team on a 150 MPH path toward irrelevancy. They finished 3-14.

“That’s just me,” Pollard says. “I felt like I was good enough to play. I wanted to be there for the team and I wanted to finish the year off strong.”

When he looks around the NFL, he sees peers making very different business decisions.

Pollard never thinks twice and cites DNA as the reason why.

He watched his father, Tarrance, bust his ass 24/7 to grow Pollard’s Bar-B-Q on Elvis Presley Boulevard in Memphis. To this day, it’s hard to get Dad to travel 212 miles east to visit because he genuinely loves working.

Growing up, Tarrance told Tony that if you don’t believe in yourself, nobody will. That wasn’t easy when he broke an ankle into his crucial 11^th grade year and missed four games. He was forced to play a manic game of catch-up. As all of Pollard’s friends raked in SEC offers, he generated minimal interest from small schools.

“Always having that mindset,” Pollard adds, “feeling like I’m the underdog and feeling like I always have a chip on my shoulder. I’ve got something to prove.”

His best offer came from the hometown Memphis Tigers and Pollard did everything. Ran the ball, played receiver, returned kicks. Onto Dallas, backing up a player fresh off inking a six-year, $90 million deal, Pollard hit rewind on Dad’s childhood message. He knew a few dynamic kick returns was all it’d take for the Cowboys to realize he needs the ball on offense. Life always felt a bit odd in Jerry’s World with stadium tours passing by and the owner holding his own press conferences after each game. “It’s definitely different,” he says. Yet, Pollard forced his way into an NFL backfield with a slew of jaw-dropping plays — “put the league on notice” — and hasn’t looked back.

We see what makes Henry special. With these Titans, he’d stiff-arm defenders into Wednesday.

We see Saquon Barkley backward-hurdle fools.

We see Jahmyr Gibbs, dust DBs who seemingly have perfect 45-degree tackling angles.

Pollard’s gifts aren’t so visible to the naked eye. He’s no Adonis. Pollard could blend into any crowd around Nashville. Suggest that he also isn’t a track star with blazing 4.2 speed and he’s compelled to interrupt. Even this self-described “mild-mannered” gentleman must set the record straight.

“I’ve run a 4.2 before,” he says. “I have.”

Fair enough. He’s got better afterburners than we’d think.

The skill that separates Pollard, however, is more nuanced.

We’ve got to look deeper.

Longtime NFL running backs coach Randy Jordan has been with Pollard all three seasons in Nashville. Look up the word “pro” in a dictionary, he begins, and we’ll find a picture of this player. Attitude, effort, intelligence, leadership, how he treats his body. Jordan rattles off all the reasons and then knocks on wood because he doesn’t believe Pollard is close to finished.

In meetings, he asks for the “why” behind every play. Pollard doesn’t want to operate as some sort of robot moving from Point A to Point B. He must zoom out and study the greater picture to see, for example, how the Titans are leveraging defenders out of a 3-by-1 formation.

The more he knows, the more he subconsciously filters that intel into his rushing style.

“He’s seen it all, he’s done it all,” Jordan says. “So he can operate efficiently. And that’s what I think makes him so good. He’s a guy that you watch him run — he runs fucking hard — but you don’t usually get a big shot on him. He knows how to get skinny where he takes his body and torques and squeezes and then he just leaves about this much body surface. Whereas a rookie comes in and he’s fucking running in there and gets blasted.”

Pollard masters the full intent of a play, throttling down to Le’Veon Bell-level patience behind the line of scrimmage when required.

On trap plays, Jordan loves to tell his guys: “Hit it and get it so you say you did it.” It’s fast.

On tight zone plays, the goal is set up defenders on the first level to cut back. One or two extra seconds can feel like an eternity. It’s more of a feel.

“He knows there’s different speeds and tempos when you’re running the ball,” Jordan says. “He can put all that together. And when you look at his body of work, it goes unappreciated because he’s not 6-3, 230 pounds. He’s a guy that just goes about his business.”

The Titans’ No. 2 back, Tyjae Spears, views this ability to shift gears as a superpower because it allows Pollard to strategically place defenders on blocks. He can stay on a track and make everything look the same on a specific play through the course of a game to bait defensive linemen and linebackers into blockers.

One crevice of daylight and he slams his foot into the ground. Gets vertical.

“He attacks it,” Spears continues. “And what’s special about him, he gets skinny. He jumps through holes, he sheds tackles. One of the hardest things to do with Tony is tackle him. The first guy rarely tackles him. So he’s going to squeeze through at least two, three after contact each and every time.”

Take one handoff vs. Cleveland. Pollard stretches a run wide — waits for those dark-brown jerseys to wash down — and turns upfield 65 yards to the house. Defenders are in a bind. You’ve got to respect his speed to the corner, but how much respect is too much? Try to beat him to the sideline and he’s liable to crank the steering wheel.

Pollard never dances, either. His decisions are quick and he can easily rip right through the massive 34-inch arm of a 6-foot-5, 261-pounder like Carl Granderson.

Nobody in team history — perhaps NFL history — accelerated 0-to-60 in such fashion like the player Pollard grew up watching. Chris Johnson is forever immortalized in Titans lore for his ability to effortlessly glide past defenders as if moving at 2x speed. In his second season, “CJ2K” set an NFL record with 2,509 scrimmage yards.

So, Pollard’s reaction to the news that rocked the football world this offseason was the same as your reaction.

On the morning of June 29, he was scrolling on YouTube, saw Johnson’s name, clicked the video and outright refused to believe his eyes. Right there, on Good Morning America, was an athlete with superhero strengths now completely immobile and reduced to communicating through an eye-tracking device. Johnson, of course, is now battling amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

“It’s hard to even grasp what’s happening in such a short amount of time,” Pollard says. “I know it’s hard on him and his family. But all we can do now is just pray for them, send our condolences and just try to spread awareness for it.”

At halftime of Tennessee’s Week 1 game vs. the New York Jets at Nissan Stadium, Johnson will be inducted into the team’s Ring of Honor. The man who once treated this same field as his personal NASCAR track will be in wheelchair surrounded by loved ones.

There will be tears. Many tears. Everyone will again see how life can change to the most cruel extremes imaginable in an instant.

Perspective Pollard keeps at the forefront of his mind. Earlier this day, he and Spears were lamenting the dog days of training camp. Some mornings, they’re not exactly in the mood for 90+ degree practices. Some people work at a desk in a climate-controlled office. They crash into other humans.

But then, Pollard took a step back. He remembered it’s a blessing to feel so exhausted. Johnson’s ALS isn’t his only dose of reality. His wife’s brother was born with a deformity that renders his arms and legs useless. To this day, this brother-in-law relies on help to function on a day-to-day basis. And he’s smiling. Always. His spirits never waver.

“A lot of people would die to even be able to work out ‘til they get tired,” Pollard says. “So it helps keep things in perspective and not take things for granted. I’m really blessed that I’m able to walk. I’m able to get up on my own, move around, all of this.”

No way could the draft selection of any player any spring throw him for a loop.

Ahead of April’s draft, Pollard told his coach he was ready to compete if Love joined their backfield.

To Jordan, this player gunning for a fifth consecutive 1,000-yard season works like he’s still on special teams. “He had to fight for everything,” Jordan adds. “He knows the value of, ‘Hey, listen, every day I’ve got to fucking fight to keep my job.’”

A day in his life? If meetings start at 8:30 a.m., Pollard gets into the building by 7 to eat and slip into both the cold and hot tubs to get his mind right. He’ll review all play installs for the day, then head into Meeting No. 1 ready to ask questions. Next, it’s time for a full team meeting. Next, he makes time for Red Light Therapy. The red wavelengths of light help repair skin cells and tissue. Then, it’s time for practice… a lift… more meetings… more walkthroughs… and a return to the chaos at home.

Baby No. 4 needs a bottle ‘round the clock. Babies No. 1 through 3 want to play ‘round the clock.

A difficult combination.

“It’s, ‘Daddy, daddy, daddy, can we do this?! Can we do that? Can we do this? I want this. Can you make me this? Can you make me that?’ So, it’s nonstop.”

Not that he’s complaining. Pollard makes a conscious effort to prioritize his family.

Jordan notices. He sees a young father who doesn’t make football out to be any bigger than it should. (“If the mind’s right and the heart’s right,” the coach adds, “football will follow.”) That’s certainly been the case. With each child, Pollard felt himself leveling up at his day job. It’s no coincidence he’s getting better age 26… to 27… to 28… to 29. A large family demands optimal “efficiency,” Pollard says. Be it those 2’ish hours before bedtime at home or those 2’ish seconds in the middle of wide-zone play, he wastes zero time.

Expectations are low outside of this Titans building and Pollard’s name still generates minimal national buzz. Even locally, he’s overlooked. Fans no doubt miss the days of King Henry stampeding through defenders. Tennessee bid adieu too soon. These cleats would’ve been impossible for anyone to fill.

Pollard doesn’t care. He promises to prove people wrong this 2026 season and, yes, he’s got very detailed statistical goals.

Not that he’ll be disclosing them. He won’t go full Aaron Jones with talk of Canton. Nor will Pollard hint that a three-year rebuild can be three months like Jordyn Brooks with those Miami Dolphins.

We’ll need to see for ourselves, starting next Sunday.

“I’m going to hold it in,” says Pollard, with a brief pause.

“I’m just going to do it.”

Share

Subscribe now

Download the Substack app and turn notifications on to make sure you don’t miss a story or podcast:

Get more from Tyler Dunne in the Substack app

Available for iOS and Android

Get the app

2026 NFL Season Preview Features to date…

Tony Pollard is the NFL’s hidden warrior

The “Big John” Simpson Creed

Tate Ratledge feels no pain

The Kyler Murray Project, Part I: Liberated

The Kyler Murray Project, Part II: The Great Unknown

‘We will be the best offensive line in football:’ Q&A with Alec Anderson, Buffalo Bills enforcer

‘Who’s going to take this yard?’ The Arrival of Eric Wilson

Jordyn Brooks is the captain now

Dregs to Domination: The Aaron Brewer Blueprint

OWINGS MILLS, Md. — Long before he was the 6-foot-4, 330-pound colossus handpicked to make the Baltimore Ravens malevolent again, John Simpson was a kid from North Charleston, S.C., whose father was in prison and whose grandfather had just gotten out. The generational curse was real. Drugs were everywhere. Guns, too.

Something inside him stirred.

He cannot pinpoint the biological mutation, but one vivid image comes to mind.

Hanging out with his younger cousins, something inspired him to be “different.” They were into drugs. They knew exactly where this life led: prison or six feet under. Everyone in the Simpson family tree — for years — could clearly see the consequences of living the fast life with their own damn eyes. Nobody needed to theorize. His grandfather was a testimony.

“How can you see this and then still want to be in it?” he’d wonder. “Some people just don’t get it. It’s hard. I feel the same way about my little brother. It’s like, ‘Bro, we all grew up in the same thing. How can you just follow that shit?’ It doesn’t make any sense to me.”

We’re seated on an outdoor bench outside the Ravens’ castle of a practice field. “Big John” — seven-year vet, husband, gregarious father of two — is a gentle giant. Throughout this conversation, he laughs. And smiles. And exudes optimism. This topic, however, summons irritation. He doesn’t claim to author an elaborate “blueprint,” and that’s the problem with lemmings who line up to sell drugs like everyone before them in his old neighborhood.

Too often, people make it seem as if they’re sentenced to this grim lifestyle in perpetuity.

Stuck, with no way out.

What a horrible way to think.

“Bro, it’s not impossible,” Simpson says. “A lot of people think that it’s impossible. Life is hard and they make it hard on themselves because they choose the fast way. Everything doesn’t need to be fast. For me, I keep my head on straight and try to be the best version of me every day. Putting one foot in front of the other and take — not the easy way — but the most effective way.”

The mental calculation is strikingly basic. Every dream, to him, is attainable through hard mothereffin’ work.

All anyone must do is embrace this reality. OK, so you were dealt a terrible hand. Does that mean you outright concede defeat? Quit on life? It’s easy to bitch and moan and claim that guy had connections or this guy had the right genes. Alert: Life itself is not fair and — guess what? — life will never be fair. A word like this (“fair”) makes a hyper-driven individual like this (“Big John”) cringe and shake his head because he knows it’s a cop-out excuse people in all walks of life use to loaf.

All hours spent overanalyzing alleged “fairness” is time wasted incinerating your own prospects of success. You atrophy. Bring up sermons from Andy Frisella and David Goggins on the subject, and he nods. That’s his life personified.

Simpson had every conceivable reason to cast himself a victim — a helpless, hapless casualty of a broken world. The two most important men in his life spent time behind bars. Friends have been murdered. He didn’t have a mentor holding his hand every step of the way. Instead, he outright refused to accept preordained destitution. All pioneers in all industries cite insomnia, relentlessness, buckets of perspiration as the foundation for their success.

An alarm blares and they’re overwhelmed with the urge to kick the collective asses of anyone standing in their way.

John Simpson can hear that noise. He’s back in Baltimore.

Go Long is your home for real, raw football.

Support independent journalism today.

I want longform.

These Ravens have been loitering at the championship doorstep for most of the last decade. Lamar Jackson and Derrick Henry are unicorns who’ll don gold jackets one day. John Harbaugh is out, Jesse Minter is in. To go the distance, this organization knows it must re-embrace its belligerence. What’s needed is a player unafraid to speak and play in blunt terms. Originally drafted by the Las Vegas Raiders in the fourth round of the 2020 draft, Simpson spent the 2023 season in Baltimore and lived through a gutting home AFC title loss to Kansas City before spending two seasons with the terminally ill New York Jets.

He was brought back here to displace other 300-pounders in the trenches and mold minds in the locker room. Everyone should listen.

“I talk to a lot of the younger guys,” Simpson says, “and just tell them to keep going, man. Keep your head up. Shit’s hard. Shit’s going to be hard. That’s life. And it’s a part of it. Every day you wake up, you’re going to have that like… ‘Fuuuuck.’ But fuck that! How are you going to approach today? You can either approach it like that or you can come in with a great attitude every day and give your best.”

One message plays on repeat. Simpson tells everyone to embrace “every moment.”

Don’t stress over the bigger picture. Don’t obsess over the Super Bowl.

Do focus on the one specific task in front of you. Do embrace the suck because, over time, all of those moments will add up and you’ll love where it leads.

That’s exactly how he chose to grow up.

He didn’t watch peers sell drugs, get a nice car and view this as an attractive option.

To him, there’s no such thing as pushing a button and getting rich in life.

He relished the long game.

“My Dad showed me what not to do, what not to be like,” Simpson says. “Obviously selling drugs and all that stuff — where I was at? — it was easily and readily available if you wanted to go that route. But bro, I want to be great outside of the shit that’s the normal everyday life.”

First, explore his old neighborhood — Dorchester-Waylyn — in North Charleston. Crime was rampant. The sound of gunfire blended with horns blaring and birds singing.

There was rampant poverty, theft, depressing sights everywhere.

“You’ve got junkies — crackheads — and shit like that all over,” Simpson says. “You see it all the time. It was everyday life for me. Not really knowing too much different. It was definitely shitty. Shitty. And it’s eye-opening now to be where I’m at. Like, OK, that’s not how life is supposed to be.”

Take one trip on the city bus, Simpson’s mode of transportation in high school. One day, an elementary-aged kid bounded onto the bus in glee. He was overjoyed with a new toy he had found in the woods. “Look what I found!” he yelled. It was a gun. Simpson stepped in to safely put the gun away.

He didn’t see cartel members behead people in the street — like Dolphins center Aaron Brewer — but police often needed to block off his street to examine dead bodies. Many days, Simpson was told to stay inside his home in the name of safety. “I’ve seen some shit dog,” he says, pausing. “For me, it was more hearing it than seeing it.” Top of his head, he can count five times gunfire spontaneously broke out and he dove behind a vehicle to take cover.

Simpson kept a small circle of friends growing up. Calls himself a “popular loner” those days. Everyone wanted to be around him, everyone knew he was going somewhere. But he turned down so many invitations to parties that Simpson is positive peers at Fort Dorchester High School thought he was “weird as hell.” Simply, he never wanted to jeopardize football. He heard his coach say that whoever got into a fight wouldn’t play and decided, right then, to mind his own damn business 24/7.

People could try him if they wanted. No way would he retaliate.

One party he did attend scared the bejesus out of him, too. A fight broke out inside the house, spilled outside and… you guessed it. Guns were drawn. Bullets, sprayed. Simpson bolted home.

“Shit got real,” Simpson says. “I was like, ‘Yeah, I’m not going to no more parties, dog.’”

One comprehensive 2017 series in The Post and Courier illustrated why the Waylyn and Terrace neighborhoods in North Charleston are teeming with gun violence and the problem has only exacerbated over time. In 2021, the city’s police department reported 36 homicides. Numbers alone fail to tell the tale. Simpson can point to specific childhood friends who could’ve made it with a different frame of mind. Kids like Kharee Whitley. They played little league football together, then basketball in eighth grade. “That was my dog,” Simpson adds. “My dog.” Their paths gradually diverged — Simpson toward sports, Whitley the streets — and the news rocked his world.

One Sunday afternoon in July 2019, on the 5300 block of Albert Street in North Charleston, Whitley was shot dead. This shooting marked the 15^th homicide investigation for North Charleston police that year.

“Somebody robbed him,” Simpson adds, “and they killed him in the process.”

Simpson’s home life wasn’t any better than anyone else in his neighborhood.

He, too, should’ve been ensnared.

His grandfather, John Simpson Sr., got out of prison in 2000. John III was three. And when he got out, John Sr. was determined to be a better man for his 11 grandchildren. He started his own lawn care business and relayed valuable lessons, impressing on his grandson the need to work hard and excel in school. In the summer, he’d then take him to North Carolina to see his father behind bars: John Simpson Jr.

Always a sobering trip. Dad was in and out of prison for selling drugs most of his childhood.

When John Jr. finally got out for good, his son was 13 or 14 years old. A relationship between the two technically exists but Simpson admits that he keeps his Dad at “a respectful distance.” Scars remain. He wanted a father as a kid and a father was nowhere to be found. Instead, Simpson was mostly raised by his mother and his Dad’s Dad. “Weird at first,” he adds. “My Dad was a little salty about my granddad being there more than he was.”

His mother, Keyonna Snipe, worked the third shift on the assembly line at Cummins Turbo Technology. Only recently did she retire from this job, and she still cannot stop moving. Snipe cooks food, sells food. “A beast,” Simpson adds. She refused to ask for any help raising her two boys.

Seeing her sacrifice every available second to give them a decent life instilled the same instinct in him.

“She was a dog,” Simpson says. “Obviously it was hard on her. She did everything she could to give us what we had.”

Into his teen years, Simpson became the man of the house. At 15, he started working at Halls Chophouse through an outreach program, “Teach the Need,” to bring home extra dough. He’d even get in hours after his Friday night football games. Simpson bandaged up his bruised and bloodied hands, never complained, and got to work.

Football, of course, was his sanctuary. Football was where he could unleash all anger bottled up inside. But mostly? Football is where he learned life’s greatest lessons. Simpson loved zeroing in on the smallest, most nuanced details to execute a play, working with others toward a common goal and testing the limits of body and mind.

“I was never the type to give up on myself,” Simpson says. “Whatever it was going to be, I was going to be successful at it. If it was going to be the military, this football shit, whatever. If I was working at a damn car dealership, I would have been the best car seller. So it was having that mentality.”

Simpson seriously considered joining the military, too. He was all about Army ROTC. Once those Division I college offers started to pour in, he switched gears. But the structure of military life appealed to him. That’s who he is to his core, and that’s why he got married at 23 years old. Simpson knew Aliyah — a biochemistry student, a future M.D. — was the headstrong woman he needed in life. From Clemson to the NFL, Simpson was out to change everything the name on his jersey represented.

“Flip the script,” Simpson adds, “and not be anything like the people that I grew up around.”

Take a moment to revisit the infancy of these Baltimore Ravens and you realize Simpson is exactly where he should be. Five years ago, I chatted with Hall of Famer Ozzie Newsome at length for “Blood and Guts.” When Art Modell left Cleveland for Baltimore (in November 1995) and named Newsome de facto GM (in February 1996), the former tight end essentially started from scratch. Calling the franchise “bare bones,” as he did, is a remarkably kind assessment.

Baltimore didn’t have a team name, team colors or a functional team headquarters.

Twelve years had passed since the Baltimore Colts departed in Mayflower Transit moving trucks overnight.

Since then, the Colts’ old facility had been transformed into police barracks.

When the Ravens moved into town — and the building was flipped back into football shape — Newsome’s crew found old bullet casings on the field where the police academy had done pistol training. On March 29, the team finally had a name. The “Ravens” won via city vote. One week later, a small group that included Newsome, Phil Savage and Kirk Ferentz got to work inside this rectangular-shaped bunker of a facility. They told themselves “it’s not the walls, it’s the people within them.” But then they looked at those walls, and… damn. It was humbling With no shelving available, the men building the Ravens stacked up about 3,500 VHS tapes around the perimeter.

“We had a mountain to climb trying to get this franchise moved,” Newsome recalled. “It was a monumental task, but when you have a good team of people working with you — and everybody working toward the same goals — you can accomplish things, and that’s what we did. We started from scratch and we built it. And we built the way we wanted it to be built.

“Guys rolled up their sleeves and we went to work.”

With the No. 4 pick, Newsome selected UCLA tackle Jonathan Ogden over the player Modell coveted: troubled running back Lawrence Phillips. Simply, he stuck to the board. Ogden was their No. 1-rated prospect and he knew he’d lose the confidence of all scouts on staff if their first pick defied their hard work.

With the 26th pick, Newsome then selected Miami (Fla.) linebacker Ray Lewis.

The two combined for 23 Pro Bowls and were first-ballot Hall of Famers.

The Ravens took on Newsome’s personality in Year 1, Draft 1 and never looked back.

Life is different in 2026. The Under Armour Performance Center is affectionately known as “The Castle,” and Go Long can confirm the nickname is justified. There’s not a bullet casing to be found at this majestic 33-acre complex. One sight, however, has not changed. Newsome, who stepped down as GM eight years ago, remains a strong presence. He watches each practice. He consults with GM Eric DeCosta. He’s a 70-year-old sage on daily patrol. The soul of this organization endures.

These Ravens are at their best balling up a proverbial fist and cold-cocking the opposition in the mouth. Each collision must inflict maximum damage. That’s Simpson’s game. “Nasty,” the left guard adds, “on each and every play.” He talks shit. He says things that invite literal punches to the face. Unprompted, Simpson brings up the name Trysten Hill. Back in his Raiders days — after a 36-33 win — he strutted past Hill at midfield and said something obscene enough to warrant a haymaker to the head. His silver helmet went flying. A scrum broke out. This was the culmination of the two jawing all game.

“It definitely got personal,” Simpson says. “I don’t know if I can go into details.”

These Ravens are also talented enough to vault themselves right back into high-stress playoff games.

When the margins are razor thin, when nerves can spike uncontrollably, Simpson’s perspective is needed most.

“There’s always going to be times where you’re uncomfortable,” he says. “But how are you going to operate to get yourself out of those situations? How are you going to perform on this football field in front of all these people that are watching you? Be calm. Be in the moment. Be present in the moment. It’s not focusing on the big picture and not trying to do too much at once.

“Make every moment matter.”

He’s most passionate on this topic because this is the formula to win in football, in life.

“You might not win every rep, but you come back and you try your hardest and do the same shit over and over and over again and you’re going to get great results. Nowadays, we try to rush to the Super Bowl. But that’s not how this shit works. It’s a journey. Everything’s a journey. So you’ve got to embrace everything. Today was a great day. Embrace every day you come out here and step a foot on the field. Find joy in everything you do.”

Not easy. One bad bounce tends to decide the fate of this team. The last three season-enders have been particularly disturbing. 2023. If Zay Flowers doesn’t fumble at the goal line against the Kansas City Chiefs in the AFC Championship Game, perhaps Baltimore is in the Super Bowl. 2024. If Mark Andrews doesn’t have a fourth quarter from hell in the AFC divisional round — one fumble, one drop — the Ravens get their shot at Chiefs redemption the next week. 2025. If Tyler Loop connects from 44 yards in Week 18 against Pittsburgh and the Ravens win the AFC North, is John Harbaugh fired? Baltimore might’ve won a playoff game. Or two.

All players who lived through such misery certainly wished they could slam a fast forward button back to January.

After the ‘23 loss, Simpson buried his head in his hands on the bench.

Yet, Simpson knows the worst thing any pro can do is obsess over the next do-or-die playoff moment.

“Everything,” Simpson says, “leads up to something.”

This contrasts the latest evolution of our species. Err, devolution. Homo sapiens have taken a lazy turn the last 10 to 15 years. Anyone can press a button for anything they need. Hungry? Place an order on DoorDash and keep your ass fixated on the recliner. Going somewhere? No need to drive and carefully follow directions. Call an Uber. Seeking a mate? No need to court a woman on a date and seek a meaningful relationship. Young men are hooked on porn and old billionaires can’t stop soliciting prostitutes.

Delayed gratification — patience — is becoming a lost art.

Those who grasp this concept have a striking advantage over their peers.

Simpson never envisioned an NFL pot of gold on the other side of a rainbow. He lived an honest life, made daily deposits and earned this dream life.

Off the field, Dad life is beyond rewarding. The Simpsons have 2-year-old and 10-month-old boys. Both are albino. Both parents shared the same gene, so there was a 25 percent chance of albinism during the first pregnancy and a 6 percent chance on the second. “It’s got to be something in the water,” Simpson says. “God knew what he was doing.” Simpson dubs himself an overbearing father. He’ll be the father he never had.

The way he sees it, this stage of life is fleeting. He needs to be with them every free second.

“For me growing up,” Simpson adds, “I know what a kid would want.”

So, one day, he’ll also talk to young kids who lack a father figure in their life. His major in college was sociology. If Simpson never made it to the NFL, the plan was to get into social work. Simpson doesn’t view himself as “mentor.” Rather, a voice. He’ll share his story, offer wisdom and leave the rest up to whoever chooses to listen. Kids will naturally take heed or think he’s full of it. He wants to speak to the kids that want to be spoken to.

Until then, Big John is the missing piece on a contender.

“They brought me here for a reason,” Simpson says. “And that’s to improve the trenches and bring nastiness back and instill into the younger guys behind me or beside me: ‘Yo, we’ve got one goal and that is to impose our will on the person in front of us.’ I truly believe every moment matters. Every little thing matters to get you to where you ultimately want to be.”

Which is obviously Super Bowl XLI in Inglewood, Calif.

A quarterback this talented shouldn’t go a decade without reaching the sport’s grandest stage. X’s and O’s are secondary. Lamar Jackson has won two MVPs in two different offenses. Personnel is no problem. Baltimore is loaded. Please, go ahead and doubt 32-year-old Derrick Henry. Up close, he still resembles a genetic freak.

The missing ingredient is something more difficult to quantify. Both owners in Buffalo and Baltimore hired young coaches to usher in a fresh vision.

Eleven-year vet Ronnie Stanley has only known Harbaugh. He, too, cites the “little things” as the difference between being great and elite. He believes the coaching change should help.

“For it to be like a culture-wide thing,” the left tackle says, “it takes a lot of conscious effort, conscious awareness of what is the focus, what are we trying to value here. Our mentality. The whole thing. I think trying to separate yourself amongst the best — there are very few things that can be differentiators and that is one of those things that can make a difference.”

Ultimately, it’s up to the players. These aren’t pixelated figures on a telestrator.

Simpson understands human beings are the most complex organisms on the planet. You have good days. You have bad days. He’s a prime example himself. At the start of training camp this summer, he got into his own head overanalyzing everything. Again. This has been a problem since Simpson thought he was going to be a starter for the Raiders and got benched. He acknowledges that it gets to the point of anxiety and borderline panic attacks.

“Every camp, I go to this place of trauma,” Simpson admits. “I’m like: ‘Fuck, let’s lock in, let’s lock in!’”

Then, Simpson takes a deep breath and realizes such hyper-, hyper- intensity is not his game.

He keeps it light, has fun, brings people together.

“I can get to that point of super seriousness,” he adds. “But that’s not who I am. So I’ve got to come out here and show the guys that surround me: ‘Yo, he’s got my back no matter what. We’re going to have fun with this shit and whoop some ass while we doing it!’”

That’s the objective this season. The man who refuses to think too far ahead — briefly — allows himself to dream. He can’t help it. When he’s finished with football, his family will live on a lake somewhere with 10 acres of land and five horses. John Simpson is taking the family name a bold new direction. That’s exciting.

As for this 2026 season? Yeah, he can only contain his excitement for so long.

“This year,” Simpson assures, “is going to be fun as hell.”

Share

Go Long is your forever home for longform.

Thank you for growing our community.

Subscribe now

Give a gift subscription

2026 NFL Season Preview Features to date…

The “Big John” Simpson Creed

Tate Ratledge feels no pain

The Kyler Murray Project, Part I: Liberated

The Kyler Murray Project, Part II: The Great Unknown

‘We will be the best offensive line in football:’ Q&A with Alec Anderson, Buffalo Bills enforcer

‘Who’s going to take this yard?’ The Arrival of Eric Wilson

Jordyn Brooks is the captain now

Dregs to Domination: The Aaron Brewer Blueprint

Subscribe now

ALLEN PARK, Mich. — Clouds darken overhead when it’s time to discuss the worst moment of his life. A storm’s coming. Fitting. Tate Ratledge lifts himself off a chair near the practice field, we stride toward the door and, by the time he ducks into the Detroit Lions’ facility, a light drizzle has strengthened into a torrential downpour.

Walking through the hallway, as country music blares, the 25-year-old guard mentions a honeymoon on tap. This minicamp will wrap up and it’s off to St. Lucia. In typical newlywed fashion, this new husband hasn’t packed a single item yet.

Ratledge takes a right turn, onto the Lions’ indoor field, plops atop a massive plyo box, tears off the tape around each finger and picks up exactly where he left off. Good times were had in Athens, Ga. The best times. This is where a boy became a man and he won two national championships. It’s also where he suffered the greatest loss of his young life.

He exhales deeply and starts the only place he can.

With the parade.

The Georgia Bulldogs were fresh off a 65-7 College Football Playoff National Championship win over Texas Christian. A thrashing that capped a perfect 15-0 season and catapulted this program to a new realm — back-to-back champs. They were on top of the football world. Five days later, it was time to celebrate. “The whole city of Athens,” Ratledge details, “is flooded with people.” Roughly 50,000 in all. Ratledge was perched on the back of a fire truck with three teammates. Sirens blared. Horns honked. Locals screamed and pumped fists and pointed toward the most unlikely best friends. Ratledge, from the deep country of Tennessee, sifted fingers through his signature mullet. Devin Willock, from New Jersey, in dreads, hoisted his cell phone high into the sky to capture the scenes himself.

All both linemen could see was mass humanity on both sides of the street.

“Unbelievable,” Ratledge says. “What you dream of. There’s no telling how many people were there. You can’t ask for anything better. An ocean of people from all over the state there just to see you drive by on a car. Which is insane.”

That evening, Willock posed for pictures with a young fan at Texas Roadhouse and let the boy try on his enormous championship ring.

That night, college kids then did what college kids do — drank, partied, reveled in championship glory. Ratledge remembers saying bye around 1:30 a.m. He told Willock that both he and Annabelle, his then-girlfriend, now-wife, were heading home. Ratledge dapped him up, said “I love you” and called an Uber. The school’s recruiting coordinator, Chandler LeCroy, was also hanging out with them all.

Memories replay. He pauses.

Ratledge’s exterior is an impenetrable fortress, a barricade that prevents all emotions, all sensitivities from ever seeing the light of day. The man never cries. Even then — briefly — he gets choked up, and takes a sip of water to collect himself. There’s sadness in his eyes with a tint of anger.

“They obviously get in the car,” Ratledge says, “and go somewhere. I’m going to say something I shouldn’t.”

Then, he continues.

Go Long is your home for independent journalism.

Subscribe now

Ratledge returned to his place, slipped into bed and his phone rang. It was Amarius Mims, another hulking offensive lineman on the squad. He hit mute. Didn’t answer. “Mims being Mims,” he told himself. Ratledge thought nothing of such a random call in the middle of the night because this was common. The boys always swapped outlandish party stories in real time. Ratledge fell asleep and — as the sun began to rise — was awakened by Annabelle’s sobbing. Standing over the bed, she was bawling. Her eyes were red. She was barely able to articulate the crushing news.

“Dev’s gone.”

Huh? “Where did he go?” Ratledge wondered.

“He died last night.”

Ratledge entered a state of shock. He didn’t say one word and didn’t show one blip of emotion, period, until finally crying with teammates at the Bulldogs facility later that night.

It was true. Willock, 20, was dead. So was LeCroy. Operating a university SUV not authorized for use, the latter was driving 104 mph at around 2:30 a.m. and careened into two power poles and several trees. Toxicology results revealed her blood alcohol concentration to be .197, more than twice the legal limit in Georgia. An investigation would find that LeCroy, in a 2021 Ford Expedition, was street-racing Jalen Carter’s 2021 Jeep Trackhawk through Athens.

Both Willock and LeCroy were killed. Two other passengers survived.

Immediately, Ratledge felt paralyzed by guilt, by anger. Once in college, he physically ripped the car keys out of a close friend’s hands to prevent him from driving drunk. He’s never been afraid to step in.

This time, he did not.

“I knew she was hammered. I knew it,” Ratledge says. “I just didn’t know she was driving.”

He kept replaying that final goodbye in his mind and blamed himself. It took days, weeks, months for Ratledge to accept the reality that he didn’t give LeCroy the keys. Anyone could’ve stepped in. Not that he’s ever gotten over losing Dev. “It still sticks with me,” Ratledge says. “It’s on my body.” With that, he shows a black and red “DW” tattoo on his wrist. There’s the number 77. And along one forearm — in massive all caps — is “LLDW,” short for Live Like Devin Willock.

He refuses to forget what happened the night of Jan. 14, 2023. It’s part of him.

A kid hardened beyond his years was now stone freakin’ cold.

“It numbs you,” he says.

For better. For worse.

Ratledge admits he doesn’t have much sympathy for other people. Whenever a friend or loved one goes through a hard time, he brushes it off with a “whatever.” Even inside his own home, it’s difficult for Ratledge to shower his wife with compassion when Annabelle is upset. Unnatural. He half-jokes that he tells the dog to cuddle with her. (“I’m out. I don’t know what to do.”) That’s what happens when you’ve lived through the darkest of dark times at such an impressionable age. There were tears, no doubt. But when I ask if he’s ever had the opportunity to let all emotions pour out of him or if he’s been holding it all in, there’s no hesitation.

He holds it all in. He knows this isn’t healthy and Ratledge also knows what he’s about to say next is not popular in 2026.

“This is going to sound really fucked up,” he begins. “I’m not a huge believer in mental health.”

As a human being, that may not be ideal.

As a professional football player, it can be a superpower.

Football never stops. Football has progressed from owning Sundays to now owning Christmas. Nothing stands in the shield’s way. No holiday’s too important, no injury’s too severe. Players break bones, tear ligaments, suffer brain trauma, are quite literally scooped off the turf, stuffed into an ambulance and the sport just… keeps… moving. Let’s not forget the NFL played games six days after one player nearly died on the field. All 32 teams essentially high-stepped over Damar Hamlin’s body and played on.

Weak minds do not last. Compartmentalizing is often an impossible fantasy.

Callousness is endemic to the sport.

The participant impervious to all pain, all emotion thrives. Tate Ratledge is a window into the psychology of the profession. He lost “Dev,” got those tattoos and had zero choice but to charge on for two more seasons in Athens. Along the way, he inked an enormous picture of a lion to his arm above those initials because this species is the king of the jungle. And then, Ratledge was identified by Dan Campbell and Brad Holmes as a man worthy of their offensive line. This is where the two first morphed a perennial loser into a winner. Selected 57^th overall in the 2025 NFL Draft, Ratledge started all 17 games at guard as a rookie.

Titanium tough, his ascent may now be the key to the Lions reaching their first Super Bowl in franchise history.

All pain bottled up inside of Ratledge isn’t going anywhere.

His guess is as good as yours on the long-term effects.

In the short term, life outside of football sure can feel weird. Ratledge believes society today is far too sensitive. (More on that later.)

“But that goes back to how I was raised.”

So, that’s the logical place to start — with Football Practice No. 1.

“Fun fact,” Ratledge begins. “I actually cried.”

The hitting drill is called “Sharks and Minnows,” and it tends to boomerang herds of kids to more benign sports.

One player is the shark and placed in the middle of the football field. Everyone else serves as minnows sprinting from one sideline to the other. It’s not complicated. The shark simply chooses one victim to devour.

Large for his age, Ratledge played up a level with much older kids.

He was the chosen minnow. He was sent airborne.

“I got laid out,” he recalls.

Ironic considering this same exact drill was a baptism to this sport for the All-Pro on this Lions offensive line. From the village of Malaeimi in America Samoa to the state of Utah, one of Penei Sewell’s earliest football memories also happens to be Sharks and Minnows. Only, he was designated the “shark” as a 6-foot-3, 325-pound eighth-grader. Sewell gave one hapless “minnow” a concussion, a sprained ankle and never saw him again. His victim quit the team on the spot and changed schools. Share this tale with Ratledge and his eyes bug out. (“Jesus! I had the opposite experience.”) Ratledge, conversely, saw stars, his lip quivered and… uh, no. Dad was not having it. Dean Ratledge played college ball himself at Tennessee Tech before coaching high school football for 40+ years.

He’s old school. Very old school.

Son would rather not relay Dad’s message in that moment.

“That’s how I’ve been raised,” Ratledge says. “He’s hardnosed and I take after him.”

With those curse words, the sport was officially injected into his bloodstream.

There’s growing up in the middle of nowhere, and then there’s Athens, Tenn., an hour north of Chattanooga. Both parents drove 45 minutes to work each day. Ratledge recalls the nearest gas station being a half-hour away.

If he acted up, he was dealt with swiftly. Ratledge received many, many whoopings. Down here? The parents of other kids had the permission to whoop you, too. One of Ratledge’s best friends growing up was future Bulldog teammate Cade Brock. He remembers Brock’s Dad issuing corporal punishment on him and he’s sure his own Dad did the same to Brock. It was status quo.

We’ve heard this often. Calvin Austin III and Will Campbell both looked back at their belt beatings fondly.

Ratledge became familiar with the belt himself.

Spoons, too.

“Whatever she could get ahold of,” he says.

Come again? She?

“Yeah, Mom was mean,” Ratledge adds “You did not want to piss off Mom.”

Even as a junior in college, he got whacked with a belt by Mary Stuart Ratledge for talking back. (“She’s feisty. My Mom’s got a little shit to her.”)

By no means is he complaining. All of it — Tate insists — was well-deserved.

Ratledge dubs himself “hell on wheels” as a kid. Growing up, he was booted out of four daycares — once for kicking the owner’s daughter down the slide because, dammit, she was taking too long. He was bigger than everyone else. If Ratledge wanted something, he took it. Dad loves to tell Tate he hopes he gets a child just like him. Whenever that day comes, he doesn’t think he’ll be able to spank a little girl. “But,” Ratledge adds, “I could probably strike my son.” That’s because he’s eternally grateful for his own upbringing. He wouldn’t change a thing. His parents sacrificed a ton to give him endless opportunities, right to getting him into a private school 120 miles south in Rome, Ga.

“I got disciplined when I needed to be disciplined,” Ratledge says, “and loved on when I needed to be loved on. I couldn’t ask for more. It’s why I turned out the way I am today.”

Hell yeah, he’s into country music. Everything from Waylon Jennings and George Strait to Cody Johnson and Jason Aldean. Obviously, he’s been hunting for years. Turkey reigns supreme in his neck of the woods. The deer hunting stinks, but he was usually able to fill his tags to fill up the freezer with meat. Overall? Nothing extreme ever rocked his world growing up. No tragedies, no trauma.

On the contrary, he hit the jackpot. He started dating his future wife in 10^th grade.

In due time, Ratledge was the apex predator driving kids into the dirt on the football field. By seventh grade, he was bigger than everyone. Tate only grew… and grew… and, soon, dominated every drill. Every opponent. A four-star recruit, Ratledge was coveted by schools throughout the SEC and chose Georgia over the hometown Tennessee Volunteers — news akin to an earthquake beneath the feet of some family members. Oh, Dad had no problem ditching his lifelong Vols fandom. One video of Dean peeling the orange “T” off his truck window went viral. Other family members, however, were not pleased. To this day, several refuse to speak to Ratledge. One aunt and uncle he was incredibly close to through his childhood cut him out of their lives completely. Cold turkey.

Six years later, he still hasn’t heard from either individual.

Meanwhile, diehard fans flooded his Instagram inbox with death threats.

“It’s deep,” Ratledge says. “Vol fans are crazy.”

His reasoning was straightforward. Ratledge wanted to win and believed in head coach Kirby Smart.

After barely playing as a freshman, he ruptured his Lisfranc the third play of his sophomore year in 2021. An excruciating injury. ESPN cameras captured a rare sight: Ratledge grimacing in agony. (“It felt like my foot was cut in half.”) The foot still didn’t feel right through Georgia’s undefeated 2022 season. For good measure, Ratledge also gritted through a high ankle sprain his final ’24 season — an injury that’d later require surgery. Georgia didn’t have many able bodies on the O-Line, so he played through the pain. Worth noting, Toradol only accomplishes so much. You can numb up your entire foot, but it’s still difficult to move. Ratledge didn’t feel nearly as powerful. By the time he healed up, his leg was so skinny that his knee brace wouldn’t fit.

Two championship rings made all tears, all bruises, all sprains worth it.

“Couldn’t have asked for anything better,” Ratledge says. “That’s why I decided to go to Georgia. I wanted to win.”

What he didn’t bargain for was a much different type of pain.

Subscribe now

He remembers the first time they met. All 380 pounds this kid was carrying miraculously balanced atop a knee scooter —Devin Willock was motoring all around the UGA campus. Even to massive human beings, like Ratledge, this was a monster of a man. Ratledge dapped him up for the first time and felt Willock’s hand swallow his. “What the fuck?” he asked himself, astonished.

This was the largest person Ratledge ever met in his life.

They had nothing in common. Zilch. But Willock was hilarious. This was the happiest person he had ever met in his life. All Ratledge knew was that he needed to be around a personality this infectious.

“He would literally brighten up a room,” Ratledge says. “He was the biggest teddy bear I’ve ever met in my life. Loved everybody. Always had a smile on his face, no matter what was going on. He was the one to lift you up, bring the room together.”

Such is the beauty of football. It brings people together from all conceivable backgrounds.

Such is the beauty of Athens, Ga. It was the perfect extension of his upbringing in Athens, Tenn. The new man in charge, Smart, simply wielded a microphone instead of a belt or wooden spoon. Playing for Georgia is something like dipping into a time machine to the 70s or 80s. This coach’s voice boomed over the loudspeakers each practice. Screw up and everyone hears about it. Those ill-equipped to handle embarrassment were welcome to leave.

Ratledge was berated — ruthlessly — and better for it.

“When I first got into college?” Ratledge recalls. “Him on that microphone, he used to eat me alive. It got a little wild. I’m pretty sure he told me I was sorry and soft and I sucked with a few choice words in-between there. He can flip a switch.”

The best memories with Willock, hands down, were “the sucky ones.” All brutal team runs they thought would kill ‘em. To build a base of mental stamina, Smart famously has players run the entire stadium stairs 15 times. Once for each game on the schedule. “Those,” Ratledge adds, “aren’t made for fat people.” Run to run to run, bonds strengthen during this state of delusion. They’d often trudge into the locker room, sprawl on the locker room floor and ask aloud: What the hell are we doing? One specific practice comes to mind. It must’ve been 120 degrees on the practice field when players looked up to see a staffer accidentally spill all of the team’s water supply down a hill.

There wasn’t one drop of H2O left.

Smart didn’t care. He instructed all players to complete the team run.

“We were dying,” Ratledge says. “You look back at that and it’s like, ‘That’s part of the reason I am where I am. Because we were put through that sucky situation. So when we got in the game, the games were easier than what we did all year long in college. … We’ve been through so much shit together.

“No other sport are you going through hell with however many other people.”

Nothing players faced in games compared to practice, the same point made by Green Bay Packers safety Javon Bullard. Smart’s cutthroat culture engrained a mental toughness that feeds the physical toughness. Ratledge firmly believes in this order of operations because it never works the other way around. It’s impossible to play through pain and/or deliver a blow if you’re unwilling, if you’re soft. “You can’t just be physically tough,” he explains. “Something bad happens and then you shut down.”

Ratledge is forever grateful for the Nick Saban disciple in a visor. Smart is a rare relic in these NIL times.

“He changed me as a person for the better,” Ratledge says. “I owe everything to Coach Smart. He built me to who I am. He believed in us and he was hard on us. That’s how I was raised. Dad was always hard on me for certain things and I wouldn’t want it any other way from my coach. So Coach Smart obviously pushed us in ways we hadn’t been pushed before. And then aside from being a tremendous coach? He’s a player’s coach. You just love him.”

All of it led to wins. So many wins.

Then came the night that changed everyone’s lives.

Ratledge had no clue what to feel when he learned Willock was killed in a car accident.

Suddenly, that national title victory over TCU meant absolutely nothing.

The only thing teammates could do was stick together. After Willock’s death, each night, they congregated. They’d eat. They’d share stories. Simply because nobody wanted to be alone. It was a down time in the football calendar. So during the day, players tried to play golf and work out together at the facility as much as possible.

Somehow, drunk driving remains a gigantic problem in America. There’s Uber. There’s Lyft. There’s no reason anyone should get behind the wheel of a car intoxicated. Still, approximately 11,000 to 13,000 people die each year due to drunk driving. About 1,000 of those deaths occur on college campuses.

Making matters worse, State Route 10 Loop completely circles around the college town of Athens. It’s easy to pick up a head of steam and treat this highway like Daytona 500. At one point in our conversation, Ratledge gets visibly pissed off all over again. After Willock’s death, too many players refused to change. Since January 2023, the team has experienced 25+ incidents of reckless driving.

“We just lost a fucking teammate and we got guys doing all this?” Ratledge says. “That eats at me. How many does it take?”

It’s been addressed. Repeatedly. He’s seen Smart cry in front of the entire team, begging and pleading his players to slow the hell down. Ratledge recalls the head coach bringing in police, the state patrol and instituting defensive driving classes to drill home the same points.

Nothing seems to stop players from feeling invincible.

“He’s doing what he needs to do,” Ratledge adds. “You give a bunch of young kids that much money, stupid shit’s going to happen.

“Slow the fuck down.”

Because here’s what this epidemic destroyed.

Green Bay’s Bullard was close to LeCroy. To this day, his pinned tweet is a picture with her.

Ratledge lost one of his best friends, too. Willock was just starting to truly figure out his life. Everything on and off the field was starting to click.

This is how Ratledge copes. He knows Willock could be in his cleats.

“I don’t take football for granted,” he explains. “I don’t take life for granted. To understand how blessed I am and lucky I am to be in the position I am — and what he would have done to be able to be in this position — it puts it in a different perspective. It’s like, ‘Oh, I’m going to practice today, this sucks. I don’t want to do that.’ Well, fuck, I got a buddy that’s dead that would do anything to be here right now. Kind of puts it in perspective for you.”

The Bulldogs pinned a picture of Willock up in their offensive line room. And throughout the 2023 season, they took turns wearing No. 77. Upon graduating, this group asked the school not to issue the number to anyone else. As long as O-Line coach Stacy Searels is in charge, Ratledge is confident that will be the case. He does little things himself, too, like keeping a picture of Willock on the visor of his truck. (“A little reminder: Slow your ass down.”)

Ratledge doesn’t try to bury this tragedy deep into his subconscious. He admits his friend’s death completely changed his life. He’ll LLDW best he can.

“I can’t come in here and be pissed off,” he adds. “You’ve got to be in a good mood. I’m playing football for a living. What do I have to complain about?”

Yet, he also knows the aftershock is more complicated because it’s his nature to numb all emotional pain, and blast ahead at one speed. It’s who he is. It’s what gives him an edge in this sport. Ratledge doesn’t believe in mental health, a stark departure from the last ass-kicking lineman featured in our pages.

Ratledge understands his approach is not the norm.

“I hear somebody say they’re depressed? Stop being fucking sad. That’s my mindset,” Ratledge says. “I’m never too high. I’m never too low. I’m just even-keeled. I’m not going to have something happen that fucking explodes my life and ruins my whole week. I might let it affect me for a day.”

One twist of a knee ligament on FieldTurf. One horrendous call by an official. One teammate botching an assignment, thus leaving you high and dry and humiliated in front of millions. Hell, one bad bounce of this funny-shaped ball.

So much is out of your control in this sport. A complete lack of emotional sensitivities is a gift.

Attacking day-to-day life with 10 onion layers around his feelings has been a blessing. Ratledge stayed at Georgia for five years. In no universe did he ever imagine walking into Smart’s office and threatening to transfer if he didn’t receive a raise — common practice today. He spurned the hometown Vols (and lost family members) in the interest of winning, and that’s precisely what Smart delivered. He doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to repay the coach.

Football’s Darwinism naturally led The Mullet to his next coach: Dan Campbell.

He never saw it coming. Ratledge only met with the Lions once. But playing next to Sewell? And a veteran center in Graham Glasgow? Quickly, Ratledge realized this was home. Both players helped him in countless ways as a rookie. Glasgow had answers for every question he threw his way. And then, there’s the head coach who recently decreased his caffeine intake from a gallon of coffee per day to a half gallon.

“The way football’s supposed to be played, how he wants it played,” Ratledge says, “I fit into that mold. Fast. Physical. Nobody’s going to mentally out-do us, physically outdo us. He’s a smashmouth football kind of guy and that’s my best football.”

Granted, this means re-entering a familiar crucible. The ecosystem inside this building is not for everyone. When we chat a second time, via phone, Ratledge insinuates that he’s fresh off getting his ass chewed out by coaches. Battles with Alim McNeill, another titan on this line of scrimmage, have been intense. If you have a rough practice here, the urgency to respond the next day is high.

Campbell and Lions O-Line coach Hank Fraley have no time for repeated errors.

Mistakes must be corrected, or you’re out.

Before, he took life for granted. He thought that nothing bad could ever happen to him. Tate Ratledge viewed himself as “invincible.”

A loved one died and he quit thinking this way entirely. So, in his mind, it’s simple: There’s zero time to hyper-analyze emotions. Life moves too fast.

“It’s not waiting up on you,” Ratledge says. “You must come to a point where you can accept what happened — whatever that is — and move on. Don’t get me wrong, it still hurts. It still sucks. That day rolls around every year around that time, and it sucks. But life goes on. You’ve got to keep going.”

Exactly as pro football keeps going.

Campbell has described the nature of the sport as a freight train, a nod to Metallica’s No Leaf Clover. Each Monday, players can see a glint of light at the end of the tunnel. Come Sunday, the train is in your face — whether you’re ready or not. There are pros mentally equipped for the head-on collision and pros who are not. The latter do not last long. Watching peers get cut in the pros was strange at first. But then Ratledge remembered Smart’s boot camp. He credits Dad for opening his eyes to the sport’s reality ages ago.

Dean Ratledge always told his son: Hear the message, not the tone.

Listen to what correction is being taught, instead of being consumed by emotions and thinking someone’s being a big meanie.

“You’ve got to be able to be coached,” Ratledge says. “You can’t take things to heart.

“Bad shit’s going to happen. It’s all about getting back up off the mat. Keep going.”

Unfortunately, this mentality comes with unintended consequences. Ratledge is not a cozy shoulder in times of need, no. If anyone’s crying around him — if anyone’s sad, period — he has no clue what to do. He’s basically Ricky Bobby saying, “I’m not sure what to do with my hands.” That’s been true since high school.

So, yeah. Sorry if this hug feels a little forced, Annabelle. He’s trying. He’s slowly figuring out what to say whenever you’re stressed.

“It’s gotten better,” Ratledge says, “but it’s still an awkward thing for me.”

Let’s give this 6-foot-6, 322-pounder some grace. His day job isn’t easy.

After all, there are Bulldogs scattered across the league.

To reach a Super Bowl, he’ll need to slay former teammates. Bullard is trying to give the Packers a killer instinct. Carter, the player racing LeCroy, inked a four-year, $152 million deal with the Philadelphia Eagles this offseason. After falling to ninth overall, amid character concerns, he’s been a treacherous assignment for all NFL guards and centers. Bring up his role in the fatal accident, and Ratledge cuts in. He harbors no resentment. (“I love Jalen. Jalen is one of my favorite people I played with. Great teammate, great guy. I love Jalen.”) Carter also got the best of him in a 16-9 Eagles win last season. Carter enjoys talking shit on the field. Six seconds into the 2025 season, he spit on Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott and was ejected.

That’s what makes these meetings between ex-Bulldogs special. Expletives are never exchanged, let alone saliva. There’s a mutual respect.

Says Ratledge: “We went through so much shit together.”

After seeing their win total improve from three to nine to 12 to 15 in Campbell’s first four years, the Lions backtracked to 9-8 last season and missed the playoffs. Hence, the healthy tension in Allen Park this summer.

Take it from Campbell. Here’s how the face of the franchise summarized the tone of training camp in a recent press conference.

“We don’t have time to waste, and we can’t wait for anybody,” Campbell said. “We’re out to get this job done and we can’t mess around. So, we have to be able to trust you, you’ve got to be dependable, you’ve got to be coachable, and you’ve got to be a competitor, man. You’ve got to be able to line up and go back for the next play no matter what happened in the last one. It is competitive. We love that. Because that’s where the cream always rises to the top. You’re going to find those guys and then you’ll find the ones that it’s just too much, it’s hard. Doesn’t make them bad people. It’s probably not for you, at least not here.”

Urgency, once again, is ratcheted up most on the offensive line. That was the case when Campbell and Holmes first built this roster and that’s the case in Season No. 6. Especially considering Jared Goff, surgical yet immobile, is still the quarterback. And especially after seeing Jahmyr Gibbs average less than four yards per carry in five of his last six games. It’s clear the Lions intend to feed their No. 1 back the ball a lot this season. To achieve this mission, Campbell wants his five best linemen starting regardless of position. That’s why Ratledge has also gotten reps at center.

He improved as Year 1 wore on. Ratledge allowed only one sack and four QB hits his last 12 starts.

Like his team, he’s all business. Gone is the mullet that made him a cult hero in the SEC. Nor does he have any imminent facial hair plans.

Last season’s letdown up front still “stings” players and coaches, Ratledge says. There’s no need for signs or speeches or daily affirmations. Everyone realizes the time to reach the Super Bowl is now. The Lions aren’t a lovable underdog anymore. They’ve got to win.

“What’s known,” Ratledge says, “doesn’t have to be talked about. Why are you playing if that’s not your goal? It’s definitely serious around here. Not that it gets brought up 24/7, but it’s a very known thing around the building.”

With that, it’s time to head off to another meeting.

Mistakes will be magnified. F-bombs will fly.

Tate Ratledge doesn’t want it any other way.

All the perspective he needs is inscribed right there on his arms.

Share

2026 NFL Season Preview Features to date:

Tate Ratledge feels no pain

The Kyler Murray Project, Part I: Liberated

The Kyler Murray Project, Part II: The Great Unknown

‘We will be the best offensive line in football:’ Q&A with Alec Anderson, Buffalo Bills enforcer

‘Who’s going to take this yard?’ The Arrival of Eric Wilson

Jordyn Brooks is the captain now

Dregs to Domination: The Aaron Brewer Blueprint

Don’t miss a story, a podcast, a chat, anything at Go Long by downloading the Substack app.

Get more from Tyler Dunne in the Substack app

Available for iOS and Android

Get the app

PITTSFORD, NY — Shaking the hand of Alec Anderson feels more like grabbing ahold of a deadly weapon. There’s so much tape wrapped around his palms, that they’re more like a pair of clubs… if those clubs were composed of concrete.

Yes, this is legal in the actual games.

“That shit will hurt,” he assures all future combatants.

The man looking to lock down the left guard spot on this Buffalo Bills offensive line has zero filter. It’s all he knows. Ask him any question and he’s ruthlessly honest — always.

When Joe Brady was officially announced as the new head coach of this team, Anderson assured all assholes wouldn’t be so tight inside the building. Back when we chatted into the ‘24 playoffs, Anderson didn’t care that nobody was talking about this O-Line. “We just do our fucking job,” he said then. “That’s what’s wrong with today’s society. Everybody wants a fucking pat on the back for doing their job. It’s bullshit. Man up and just do your job.”

Here the Bills are again, knocking on that championship door.

Undrafted out of UCLA in 2022, the 6-foot-5, 305-pounder has patiently waited for this opportunity in 2026. With David Edwards off to New Orleans, he’s been competing with Austin Corbett for the spot and appears close to locking it down and earning a coveted starting spot.

He fully expects the Bills to boast the best O-Line in the league, too.

On our trip to Bills camp, Go Long chatted with Anderson about his total mental transformation. He’s always been transparent on his battle with anxiety and depression.

He’s loud. He’s confident. He vows to kick copious amounts of ass this season for a Bills team trying to find any new edge it can. Maybe it’s him.

Go Long is your home for longform.

We are fueled by you.

I want longform.

This is a huge opportunity for you. What’s your mindset this summer?

Anderson: It’s great. It’s honestly full of excitement and anticipation. Today we got to throw on the pads for indy and some 1 on 1’s, so that was really fun to do. Kind of get back out there, get the hands shooting again, feel my hands on some pads and be able to hit something. So it’s nice. I think for this year I’m honestly excited more than anything to finally be able to have a shot and find myself in that left guard role as I’ve always seen. And so I’m excited for it more than anything.

Where does your story begin? Your roots, where you come from?

Anderson: So my wife and I, we both come from Southern California — San Bernardino County. Both grew up in Fontana, California and went to Etiwanda High School. And then I went to UCLA and she went to UCSD. And then I played there for four years. Left after my redshirt junior year and I was an undrafted free agent in 2022. I was on practice squad my first year and then got elevated for two games in a playoff game. And then my second year I was elevated the entire time I was active/inactive. And then my third year is when I was able to dip my toes in the water as a jumbo tight end. Most jumbo tight-end plays ever in an NFL year that year. And then my fourth year was the same thing. Still learning from the guys in front of me. Going from my rookie year — having Roger Saffold and Mitch Morse. And then my last three years having David Edwards and Connor (McGovern) there was very much of a treat because David being David, he sees the offense through a quarterback lens because that’s where he started. And so, it was fun to learn his point of view of football and then also take the stuff that I learned from Mitch and Roger as well. It’s helped me develop into the player that I am right now.

It’s got to feel like you’ve been building to this opportunity, right? You’re not just getting thrown into the fire. You’ve done it. You’ve been out there. Thinking back to that Pittsburgh game. What do you bring this offensive line? Every time we’ve talked, there’s a violence to your tone.

Anderson: You just said it with that. I think with offensive line, you need some people that are going to be violent and not give a fuck. I’m one of those people every now and then. It’s where if we need a tone-set or somebody to go out there and be the enforcer, I’ll do that job. I’ll get my hands dirty for the boys. I’m ready to do all that.

I’m thinking back to the way you put it — on the offensive line, nobody gives a fuck. Nobody cares what you’ve been through. Good day. Bad day.

Anderson: No one cares. We’re all suffering together and it’s the best part because you’ve got five guys that are willing to suffer with each other and then you add six other people onto that and you’ve got the No. 1 offense going. And so I’m excited to add myself into that equation and fire up the boys and get it going.

You’ve gotten through some hard times to get to this point — mentally. How has that made you tough for this opportunity?

Anderson: I think that it makes you realize what is important and what’s not. And I think when you’re in-between the lines, your mental health is important. When you have a job to do, you’ve got to silence that button and go out there and just know, “Yeah, I may not be in the most mentally right space. I may not want to be doing a certain thing right now or feeling a certain way.” But you’ve got to put that on hold and push through that adversity because you’ve got 10 other brothers on the offense that need you to do your job. And if you don’t do it, it’s not like defense where you could loaf on the backside and somebody’s going to be like, “All right, I made the tackle.” If you’re fucking around with the offense, man, and you’re not doing your 1/11th, it’s going to show on tape. And I think going through years of therapy, you learn different tools to fight and combat the anxiety and the different type of feelings that you get throughout season entirely, but also during the games. Because it’s up, it’s down. We just scored a touchdown, and then now we’ve got to punt. You go three and out. And so it’s in a microcosm of itself. You learn how to deal with the ups and downs of football just like you do with the ups and downs of life.

You could play 60 snaps and be perfect on 59 of them.

Anderson: That 60^th one might bite you in the ass, man, and you’re no good.

How do you process that mentally? It can’t be easy.

Anderson: No, it’s not. But it’s part of the game and you’ve got to play the game within the game. And part of that game within the game is your mental. And if you let that beat you, then you might as well not even go out there and play because you’ve got to be coming in mentally sharp on every single play. We have 60 to 75 snaps a game and you could be perfect on 74 of them. And then that 75th one, you think you’re better than you are. You think, “Oh, I just got almost beat this next play.” And you let one turn into two. That’s what I learned a lot in college. Don’t let one play turn into two, and turn into three, because then you just start letting shit slide downhill and that’s not good.

I remember George Kittle told me once that back in college, he went through all that and he put a big red dot on his wrist tape so he would hit it for a mental reset.

Anderson: A mental reset button. A lot of guys in college, we’d “wipe it off.” We’d wipe it off — the top of our helmet. Now, I just start box-breathing. I go six seconds in, four seconds out and let that do its thing. Relax that way. All right, it was one play. You’re fine. Reset because every play is its own. No matter what happened the last play, this is a new play and the last play can’t affect too much. You don’t want it to.

They say that’s the best way for everyone to breathe, too.

Anderson: Count to four or five and let it out. Exhale. It takes a minute because you don’t want to be breathing into your chest when you’re breathing into your stomach. So it’s an exercise of itself, but it works. I’ll say it works a lot.

You’ve had some battles with Ed Oliver out here. It was close to a fight. I could see it simmering.

Anderson: They were getting up there, man. But it’s always fun going against Ed. He’s quick, he’s strong, he’s fast off the ball. So you’ve got to be really be quick with your hands and precise with how you’re striking him. I like going against Ed.

You strike me as the most interesting man in Buffalo. How would Alec Anderson describe Alec Anderson?

Anderson: Funny, hardworking, sarcastic, and don’t fuck around.

Take it way back. You got into football as a way to deal with some processing stuff going on? And ADHD? Is that where it really began with the sport?

Anderson: Playing sports was an outlet for us. My parents, they played sports. So therefore we all played sports and you grow up doing that. But it really helped me out in school, especially having to focus on one thing while do multiple things at the same time. It was really beneficial for me to be able to go out there and let my energy out and be able to understand, “OK, I can look at some stuff, but hear other things and diagnose both things simultaneously. And so I liked doing that, which that’s why I stuck with the sport. But at the same time, learning how to have a learning disorder, but also apply that in school and not just in sports. That was the battle for me. Trying to stay active in the classroom, but sitting still was a hard part. So my Dad would get green elastic bands and different types of rubber bands and put them underneath my chair and I’d be kicking on them all fucking day. Whatever class I was in, I had a vibrating watch to get me back on track. And so there were a lot of different things. But very, very fun.

What was the condition that you had with the processing?

Anderson: Man, I couldn’t even tell you. All I know is I had major ADHD and ADD and they wanted to put me on pharmaceutical-grade meth and I wasn’t about that. And so yeah, I said no. Screw big pharma. They just want to make millions and billions off of us as they use us as experimental rats.

So when did you turn that corner then playing football as a young kid? When did you realize, “I can unleash all of this energy onto other human beings?”

Anderson: Probably in middle school is when I really started having fun hitting people and wanting to do it. And I got into wrestling as well. Started out as like a punishment. I got in trouble in school. My dad was like, “All right, you want to fight? I’m going to take you to wrestling practice.” So he took me to wrestling practice and we had to do a bunch of shit and it was very hard. But at the same time, it was a lot of fun. And so I was like, “You know what? I might want to do this for a long period of time.”

You’ve been open about your anxiety in football. When was that? High school, college?

Anderson: Yeah, it started for me in high school, probably my sophomore year, having to gain a lot of weight in a short amount of time. It’s always been hard for me to maintain and keep the heavy weight on. And so you gain 10, 15 pounds and then you go to practice for two days and you lose 30 pounds. It was very hard. And wanting to get better, but you’re like, “Man, I’m lifting weights. I’m doing what I’m supposed to. I’m just not getting bigger. Am I staying stronger?” That started to weigh on me. And then also the internal pressure. Sometimes you think you have a lot of pressure on your shoulders, but majority of it can be coming from yourself. Not knowing. And that was part of my issue — not knowing how to process what I’m feeling at the time. Is it nerves? Is it excitement? Or is it me not being ready for the game because I’m underweight or is it because of another thing? And so that’s when it started. Self-processing was always a main thing for me. Having to self-diagnose and self-soothe.

Once I got in the league, I had a big panic attack, an anxiety attack that didn’t end up so good. And that’s when I knew I had to start actually getting some mental help and figure out what’s actually wrong and how to diagnose different issues and separate the two.

When was that panic attack?

Anderson: Can’t tell you about that.

Hey, it’s just my job.

Anderson: It’s part of your job to ask. It’s all right.

But it was something you really had to work through.

Anderson: Yeah, I’m still working through it. My wife helps me out a lot with that. Being able to talk exactly how I want. Some people take me that… I get hyped up or I get amped up when I start talking and my voice will go up and I’ll start cussing a lot. And some people take it as me getting angry or kind of aggressive, but that’s just me trying to process what the fuck’s going on. And my wife allows me to do that and she’s like, “All right, are you done?” I’m like, “Yeah.” Now I actually start diagnosing the main issues and how she can help me or if I do need to go to therapy for something, she will encourage me to go and talk about it. So it’s a lot of things.

When did it happen?

Anderson: 2022. My rookie year.

So it’s been a while. You’ve figured out coping mechanisms.

Anderson: I’ve figured out ways. You always have some type of coping mechanism to get you back on track, whether it’s something small and quick or a whole routine some dudes have to do. So it’s kind of based by person, I’d say.

Meditation?

Anderson: Meditation. Breathwork. Even visualization training — that’s a big one for me as well the nights before games. So I have my little processes.

When you visualize, are you sitting, closing your eyes, imagining?

Anderson: Yeah, it’s sitting there. I’ve got a mask on my eyes. I have noise-canceling headphones and I just let it all go through. And if I’m not doing that, then our sports psychologist, “Dr. Dez” (Dr. Desaree Festa), she’ll be walking us through a guided meditation and telling us exactly like, “Okay, it’s third down. There’s two minutes left on the clock. It’s third and 8 and you guys have an under front. This is what’s going on. This is the play.” And then she goes, “I want to hear you guys’ communication.” She gets us to the line and we talk through communication. And then she goes “set hut,” and then we talk about what we’re going to do post-snap. And it helps out a lot.

And I’ve gotten to know Jordan Poyer well. We talked a lot about breathwork. Have you done his breathwork?

Anderson: Oh yeah. “Po” and I, we’re close on the breathwork. He and I, we bounced ideas off each other when he was here. And I would take a lot of his ideas, especially with the guided meditations and things like that.

Beats and Breath. It works.

Anderson: I was big on that. And WimHof breathing.

What’s that?

Anderson: So it’s all breathwork through your mouth and through your mouth, out your mouth.

Whoa now. Isn’t breathing in through your mouth terrible for you?

Anderson: It’s bad, but it’s rapid breathing and it’s meant to be like a stress meditation. And so you do about 30 exhales, 30 inhales, and it’s quick. You fully exhale and inhale completely. And then you hold your breath for about two and a half, three minutes or as long as you can go. And you hold it and then you let it out. And then your body kind of goes into this shock’ish state — like “What the fuck’s going on?” Because you think you’re about to suffocate. But no, it’s different. It’s fun. I like it.

Is that different than the holotropic breathwork?

Anderson: Yes. A little bit different, but not drastically.

Because that kind of gets you into other dimensions.

Anderson: Yeah, it’s meant for some people who go on little micro doses of some shrooms. But me and Tommy Doyle, actually, he and I would do it in my apartment and his apartment in our living rooms and we’d go back and forth going through that. Doing two of them a night and it’s about 10 minutes each and then we just go to sleep.

The breathwork or the shrooms?

Anderson: (laughs) The breathwork. C’mon now. Yeah, that’s kind of it.

All of this helps you get to a place where you can kick ass. When that switch happens, how violent are you out there? What takes over?

Anderson: It goes back to what drove me to want to play, man. It’s the excitement, the wanting to get better and the slight anxiety feel of wanting to not lose. I like that feeling. Right before the snap, you get that weird kind of heartbeat in your chest and you get that weird feeling in your stomach of like, “All right, what the fuck’s this guy going to do? I know what I’m going to do. Let’s see what happens.” And then the ball’s snapped and you do it.

How confident are you that you can win this job and be a part of one of the best lines in football and dominate?

Anderson: I’m very confident. I’m confident in my abilities to push through adversity and really strive to get better. And I think I’m doing that every day.

Can this be one of the best lines in football?

Anderson: I think this will. I think we will be the best offensive line in football this year. I think the proof’s in the pudding and we’re out here working every day and showing it.

It helps when the assholes aren’t tight, too.

Anderson: Exactly right. It’s nice.

How is it different?

Anderson: It’s not too much different. Joe wants us to go at it every day and get better and that’s what McDermott wanted, but I think it’s just a different viewpoint from the same family member.

Share

Subscribe now

Give a gift subscription

More from Bills Camp…

‘I’m still a top receiver in this league:’ Is DJ Moore the missing piece in Buffalo?

Bills T-Camp: How new HC Joe Brady is challenging Josh Allen

It’s a Joe Brady World

2026 Season Preview Features to date:

The Kyler Murray Project, Part I: Liberated

The Kyler Murray Project, Part II: The Great Unknown

‘Who’s going to take this yard?’ The Arrival of Eric Wilson

Jordyn Brooks is the captain now

Dregs to Domination: The Aaron Brewer Blueprint

Read Part I here.

Our 2026 NFL Season Preview Features continue with a comprehensive, two-part series on Kyler Murray and the Minnesota Vikings.

Part II is below for paid subscribers.

I want NFL longform.

Share

EAGAN, Minn. — There’s an NFL nobody sees. This NFL is scrubbed from those generously sanitized episodes of Hard Knocks and ignored entirely from cheery docuseries produced by the teams themselves. Millions are fed a manicured script, ripe with poll-tested press conferences and mic’d up segments because, frankly, there’s a growing legion of fans who demand the Disneyification of their favorite team. If reporting suggests there is not a Santa Claus, mobs assemble. Feelings trump truth.

Reality — protected behind virtual barbed-wired fences, moats and cannons — is far more cruel, cutthroat.

This is what Kyler Murray wants.

This is what Kyler Murray needs.

Each quarterback dynamic is different. In Buffalo, Josh Allen and Sean McDermott were never as close as snow angels on ESPN suggested. The two have polar opposite personalities. Change was desperately needed. In Chicago, Ben Johnson made it clear on Day 1 that Caleb Williams needed to align with his vision and his offense fresh off a nightmare rookie season. After our series published, one source close to the coach told us Johnson was fully aware of all issues before accepting the job. So far, so good. In New England, Mike Vrabel, Josh McDaniels and Drake Maye wasted no time.

Here in Minnesota? The worst mistake any coach can make is to be gentle, to tiptoe around the new QB1’s surly exterior in a kindergarten teacher’s tone. Coddle him, past coaches say, and he’ll get bored. He knows when someone isn’t operating on his Mamba frequency. Autry Denson, the ex-Arizona Cardinals assistant who grew close to the QB, repeats that Murray must be challenged.

“And I think he didn’t get challenged enough because when you challenge a competitor, they only have one response: to compete,” Denson says. “Hold a really good player to the standard that he should have been held to anyway because all he’s going to do is respond.”

The last quarterback any team should want is a mute who mopes at the sound of one coach’s piercing vulgarity. That’s never been Murray. He craves hard coaching, thus craves all pressure coming his way this season. Murray relishes the sort of debate that’d never make its way to public consumption.

When he barks, you must bark.

When he bites, you must bite.

“You ever see a dog just take it and lay over it? No!” Denson says. “Show me a great player that doesn’t have an edge and he is not a great player. People haven’t necessarily been on the same level as him. He’s not told what he needs to hear all the time because people are fanboy’ing him. They don’t understand the edge God blessed him with.”

When I ask a different member of that Cardinals coaching staff how this 2026 season will go for Murray, he echoes the anonymous Viking player who sees no middle ground. This experiment could lead to a championship podium or unravel. He begins with sharp criticism. This coach declares, point blank, that Murray’s personality is not conducive to winning. Calls him passive-aggressive. Prickly. But then something strange happens in our conversation.

This coach says he had a good relationship with the quarterback and offers the secret to unlocking Kyler Murray in full.

If the Minnesota Vikings do exactly this, he explains, they can win in 2026. And win big.

Read more

Our 2026 NFL Season Preview Features continue with a comprehensive, two-part series on Kyler Murray and the Minnesota Vikings. Part I is below.

I want longform this NFL season.

Share

EAGAN, Minn. — Failure was a foreign concept to Kyler Murray. Shame. Regret. Anguish. The stench of losing is an aroma he never experienced. No chip was implanted into his shoulder by a debilitating high school injury or a Division I coach who told him to buzz off. The football field was his personal arcade game with the difficulty level set on easy.

Ball in his hands, Murray mesmerized all witnesses.

The best way to understand the league’s most enigmatic quarterback is by first zooming out.

Ex-Arizona Cardinals running back Chase Edmonds, asks us to examine the case of “K1” through this context. When he declares Murray the greatest high school football player from the greatest football state in America, it’s no exaggeration. Murray went 42-0 with three state titles in Allen, Texas. Won the Heisman Trophy. Went No. 1 overall in the NFL Draft and No. 9 in the MLB Draft, Edmonds adds, “for shits and giggles.”

Adversity, Edmonds admits, is a word that’s never been part of Murray’s vocabulary.

Until now.

“He knows what it feels like to be on his ass for once,” Edmonds says. “And I think that’s the best thing for him. That’s my brother, that’s my friend. I say that from a true friend standpoint, as someone who cares about him and wants to see him be his absolute best. This is very necessary for what he is to become.”

Never before has this 5-foot-10 joystick of an athlete been humbled to this extreme. After seven seasons, the Arizona Cardinals ate $54.7 million in dead money to cut him loose. He signed the vet minimum to play in Minnesota and was then forced to fight for a starting job against one of the worst starting quarterbacks in the NFL last season. On Tuesday, the Vikings finally named Murray QB1.

Crawling inside his mind is no easy task. Murray shows zero emotion in front of the cameras, hasn’t conducted 1-on-1’s this offseason and keeps his inner circle microscopic. You hear Kyler Murray and, chances are, you think Homework Clause. You think, Video Games. It’s been 1,482 days since Murray signed a contract with the infamous “independent study” addendum mandating he study film on his own four hours a week. Backlash was so swift, so deafening that the Cardinals removed the clause which, of course, was akin to taking a watering can to a wildfire.

Those close to the QB believe the Real Kyler has been bastardized in the court of public opinion.

Not that he cares.

He took mental notes of everything said about him all offseason long.

“He’s the ultimate competitor,” Edmonds says. “This is going to be the hungriest version of Kyler that people have ever seen.”

Venture down this rabbit hole — hunt for the ultimate competitor — and one ex-Cardinals coach brings a vivid practice scene to life. How will Murray handle this unchartered terrain? Autry Denson points to what gets lost in the plot. Publicly, Murray appears apathetic. Privately, he’s more werewolf. Denson, a South Florida native, was a high school phenom who starred at Notre Dame in the 90s. He could relate to this hyper-competitiveness. One subtle, “I can lower the standard if you’d like” or “You can make that throw in your sleep” was all it’d take.

From ’23 to ‘25, the Cardinals running backs coach grew close to Murray and knew precisely which buttons to push.

Others on staff were more pointed.

Abrasive coaching is a must to tap into this quarterback’s wild side.

“When you challenge him, he’s going to bite,” Denson says. “He’s going to bark back because that’s what competitors do. That’s what alpha dogs do! They are alphas for a reason. It’s not going to be kumbaya. No, when I challenge him, he feels like his way is right. You have to intellectually duke it out until it’s like, ‘Alright, in this situation you win.’ That is how you become great. You need tension, conflict. People think that’s negative, but that’s how you grow. It’s not going to sound or look normal because what you’re trying to do is not normal.”

This spring, while coaching his daughter’s travel flag football team, other parents asked Denson where he thought Murray would sign. It hit him. He knows people in the building. He thought back to their joint practices. The Minnesota Vikings had the perfect blend of “structure” and “organizational competence” and “talent” to unleash Murray onto the NFL.

“Man, if K-1 went there,” Denson said aloud, “he would take off.”

Two days later, Murray became a Viking.

Take this clue. Talk to more people about this dichotomy and… oh my.

Walking through the TCO Performance Center for the first time likely felt something like landing on a new planet. That owner to this owner? Michael Bidwill is intent on triumphing over Woody Johnson for the sport’s Worst Owner crown. Marvin Harrison Jr. to Justin Jefferson? The Ohio State University Biletnikoff winner is more broken than anyone realizes. And as Murray soaks in all refreshing sights ‘n sounds, he’ll find a picture that perfectly encapsulates what’s expected of him this season. Through a main hallway, just outside the indoor field, the Vikings commemorate special moments in team history with a series of photographs. One stands out. Right there is Sam Darnold, in purple, being hoisted atop the shoulders of teammates after a victory over Green Bay in ‘24.

A year later, that same quarterback hoisted the Lombardi Trophy for the Seattle Seahawks. The Vikings had a 4,319-yard, 35-TD quarterback in their building and let him slip away. After decades of recycling veterans, the Vikings opted to draft and develop one of their own. It backfired. The Michigan Man known as “Nine,” J.J. McCarthy, was such an abject disaster that this franchise revved up the hamster wheel once more.

The Vikings are unable to travel back in time, but there’s hope in Kyler Murray. A high-voltage quarterback who warps the 160-foot-wide field into his personal playground on gameday while serving as an expletive-laced shock this organization needs the other six days of the week. A 29-year-old knows damn well his football life is on the line. A mystery.

No team in the NFL has the vertigo-inducing variance of these Vikings. One veteran starter on their roller-coaster ride of a 2025 season puts the imminent Kyler Experience best. “It could be really good,” he says, “or it could be really bad. There is no middle ground.” Minnesota strategically cleared the books to position themselves for either route. Vikings players on the record (and anonymously) supply unfiltered truth on both quarterbacks. Pack the hazmat suit, too. Players, coaches and front-office execs bring all Cardinals grime to life. And then, to objectively dissect Murray’s 1-of-1 play style, we check in with some Hall of Famers.

These Vikings could compete for a Super Bowl… or combust.

Murray could catapult into the upper echelon of quarterbacks and stick a middle finger to his doubters forever… or get banished to backup quarterback island.

This summer, our charge at Go Long was to figure out which direction Murray takes this team.

In Part I, we pan a magnifying glass over the forces that brought the Vikings and Murray together.

In Part II, we envision where this partnership goes.

This is the risk this team needs to take.

Read more

EAGAN, Minn. — Nothing about his career makes sense. Eric Wilson spent most of a decade in special teams anonymity before announcing his arrival with the delicacy of an asteroid last season.

Nothing about this conversation makes sense, either. The Minnesota Vikings linebacker throwing haymakers to punch footballs loose, swallowing quarterbacks whole and leaving running backs with a constellation of bruises in pass pro is shockingly… chill. He doesn’t snarl and scowl. Off the field, he’s a free spirit. No wife and no kids, he travels the world. Right before OTAs, Wilson visited New Zealand, Australia and Asia with some buddies.

He skateboards, golfs, collects cars. Wilson owns a 1995 F250, a 1995 BMW M3 with an LS3 engine swap, a 1990 Benz and C5 Corvette.

Before games, he’s not exactly twitching to heavy metal or gangsta rap. Wilson leans into easygoing 80s and 90s tracks to slow his heart rate.

But then, it’s time to play football. Everyone must flip the proverbial switch, but this is more of a mythical shape shift.

Wilson explains.

“Some guys think that if you’re this ferocious linebacker, you have to always be like that in real life,” Wilson says. “That’s not the case. You can be a great person, very kind, soft-spoken, have some fun. But then you can get out there and be an absolute menace on the field. I love it because you get to use that God-given aggression and power and strength and unleash it with no parameters. It’s a great thing.

“I wreak havoc, man.”

Wilson makes a simple calculation in his mind.

One, he views it as his duty to put all work on display when the ball is kicked. Sunday is the payoff. Holding anything back — at all — would be an insult to those endless hours of training. Two, he knows he’s not only playing for himself. He thinks of his family, his teammates, the city, the state, “the whole fucking organization” each game.

“Everybody,” Wilson says. “It’s not just about you. That’s what I love about ball. Some other dude’s trying to knock you off your spot? You’ve got to knock him off his spot. Straight up.”

We’re seated on leather furniture in a lobby around the corner from the Vikings’ indoor practice field.

Wilson points at the ground as if it’s the line of scrimmage.

“Who’s going to take this yard? Am I going to let you take this yard or will I knock you back and take this yard?”

He’s winning that yard. His ascent to the NFL’s elite class of linebackers was one of the most under-appreciated storylines of last season. Somehow, these Vikings won nine games with the most obscene quarterback play in the league — nothing shy of a Minneapolis Miracle. So, this offseason, he was finally rewarded for his decade of NFL survival in the form of a three-year, $22.5 million extension.

Where the bleep did Eric Wilson come from?

Truth is, he’s been the same guy all along.

He only needed the right team and the right coach at the right time.

Go Long strives to bring you real, raw football.

Subscribers receive every player profile, every deep dive as we travel the country to bring you unique pro football coverage.

Subscribe now

The 6-foot-1, 231-pound linebacker first cracked into the league with these Vikings as an undrafted free agent in 2017. Once they had enough in 2021, he signed with the Eagles. They released him two months into the season. Houston and New Orleans welcomed Wilson for a cup of coffee, didn’t see anything special, bid him farewell, and after waiting year… to year… to year with the Green Bay Packers, he got his shot as a starter in ‘24 — excelled — and packed his bags. Again.

Back to the Vikings he went in ‘25. The union was perfect.

In taking his annual sledgehammer to convention, Brian Flores unearthed a rare mineral. He gave the linebacker free reign to blitz and Wilson became the fourth player since 1999 (when TFLs became an official stat) to post at least 115 tackles, 17 for loss and six sacks. He was a Next Gen Stats darling. His 6.5 sacks and 40 pressures ranked No. 1 amongst traditional linebackers. His 4.4 yards/target allowed in coverage was second-best. His 20 run stuffs (zero or negative yards) tied for third.

Minnesota allowed 4.5 yards per play when Wilson was on the field vs. 6.5 when he was off it, the largest discrepancy for anyone with 100+snaps. His 22.5 percent pressure rate was the highest for any player since 2022 with 150+ rushes.

Not bad for a player pinballing around the league.

To understand how this is possible, first get inside of Wilson’s mind.

Understand how he approaches each snap.

Back at Lee M. Thurston High School, Wilson had scholarship offers on both sides of the ball yet chose defense over wide receiver because that’s where he believed he could more directly nuke a football game. To him, wide receiver was too reliant on other people. The quarterback must see you’re open and deliver an accurate ball. Linemen need to hold up in protection. There’s too much wishing and hoping and wondering.

At linebacker? Hell, he could go nuts “every single play.”

This is how Flores thinks. All 11 players in his Minnesota defense are a threat to wreck a play.

Talk of bending without breaking is blasphemy. Flores doesn’t coach to keep a game close. He’s not the tennis player who calmly volleys back ‘n forth waiting for the opposition to screw up. Inside this building, the mentality is different.

“Some people may think of defense as ‘defending the field,’” Wilson explains, “but really you’re attacking the ball. The whole game, you’re attacking the ball. You’re the aggressor. The offense has to defend the ball. They’re technically attacking the field to score, but we’re attacking the ball. Every play, they have to defend. Everyone who has the ball, what are they doing? They’re trying to technically score, but they have to defend the ball every single play. We’re in attack mode.”

Swarming to the ball. Creating turnovers. Exacting physical pain and mental strain.

These are the virtues engrained into everyone’s brains and this is how Wilson was raised to play. Granted, stars needed to align. Growing up in Redford, Mich., about 15 miles west of Detroit, he didn’t take up football until 7^th grade. Wilson was atrocious. He hardly played. It’s a miracle he even wanted to play the following year. Especially when Wilson went to sign up for the city league’s JV team and saw the roster was overflowing with a 50-person waiting list just to make the team. Mom suggested signing up for the city league’s varsity team, so he did.

Thrown in with “the big dogs,” he recalls having no choice but to bark back.

His earliest lesson came from an uncle: “If anything fails, fucking get to the rock.” Motor 100 MPH. Never slow down. Something clicked into high school. And into college, Cincinnati Bearcats linebackers coach Jeff Koonz — now a Packers assistant — taught him the nuances of the position through countless 1 on 1 sessions.

He latched on as an undrafted rookie and, no, UDFAs are not supposed to hang around such a cutthroat industry for a decade.

His NFL career easily could’ve ended before it began — training camp is more of a landmine for this crew. One mistake gives coaches one reason to swipe left. The heartbeat of the Houston Texans, Azeez Al-Shaair, remembers living on the brink with San Francisco as a rookie free agent. He couldn’t stop tackling his teammates in practice. One team meeting, 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan sniped: “You keep doing this shit, Azeez, and you’re going to get your ass cut!” Words that could’ve slowed him down, dulled him into another camp lemming, gotten him cut. Instead, into the preseason, Al-Shaair sniffed out a screen, lit up a Cowboys running back and pointed directly at his coaches on sideline. (“Pointing at Kyle and DeMeco,” he detailed.” I’m like, ‘I told you motherfuckers!”)

Poke, prod, try to decode Wilson’s turning point and he calls his ascent more gradual. But he can relate to that same urge to make noise.

One message from a veteran the summer of 2017 still rings in his ears. The Vikings had drafted two players at his position in his class: Ben Gedeon in the fourth round and Elijah Lee in the seventh round. They even signed another UDFA in Texas A&M’s Shaan Washington. All of this with a pair of starters already entrenched in the lineup: Anthony Barr and Eric Kendricks.

There was no clear path to the field for Wilson.

Reps were rare. Curse words, in high supply. All summer, head coach Mike Zimmer serenaded him with vulgarities.

Yet, from Day 1, Wilson told himself the only way he’d make the team was if he played at that one frenetic speed. So even as he screwed up assignments, even as coaches went ballistic, Wilson turned up the volume on a different voice. Kendricks knew it was better to make mistakes at full speed than hyper-analyze every call and mentally plod through plays. “Good fucking shit!” the vet barked. “You’re ballin,’ bro!”

Wilson refused to slow down.

Nothing needs to be perfect, he told himself. Just… go.

“That’s a testament to my career,” Wilson says. “My career hasn’t been perfect. I’ve had some really great seasons. I’ve had some bad seasons.”

To this day, Kendricks and Barr are close friends.

Team to team, his confidence never waned. Stop No. 2 could’ve popped that balloon for good. After starting in Year 4 with the Vikings, Year 5 with the Eagles was a nightmare. His head was “swimming” in Jonathan Gannon’s system and coaches had zero patience. The strangest detour to understand is Green Bay because Green Bay — an NFC North rival — saw the real Eric Wilson firsthand in 2024. He had 72 tackles (seven for loss), two sacks and a forced fumble. Wilson loved playing for Anthony Campanile, now the DC in Jacksonville. The coach’s thick New Jersey accent supplied the perfect narration to his brand of coaching. Campanile, an “old school cat,” relishes the sport’s violence.

Initially, Wilson is adamant that he harbors no bad blood. He learned too much as a player with the Packers.

Still, they had him in the building. They could’ve made him an offer he can’t refuse.

Later this conversation, Wilson admits he brings extra juice to games vs. all the teams that showed him the door.

“Motherfuck somebody just because,” Wilson says. “I remember we were playing Green Bay and that happened. You use that as fuel when you’re playing those specific teams. But when you’re out there man, you realize it’s an honor and a privilege to be here, man, and take every single snap like it’s an absolute blessing. That’s my mentality.”

Year to year, teams draft a new crop of players and he’s the vet with no margin for error. Intense tension that suffocates so many of his contemporaries.

“Drafted guys get as many chances possible,” Wilson says. “They can fuck up all they want to. They’re still going to throw them out there. But when you’re undrafted, you have to be on your p’s and q’s, know the playbook, show up and be a good guy.”

News of his return to Minnesota ahead of the 2025 season hardly registered.

Wilson was the one-year, $2.6 million footnote for a team that spent more cash than anyone else on players.

But by then? Wilson had played extensively in both 4-3 and 3-4 schemes. He was ready for Flores’ buckwild mash-up.

Subscribe now

There’s no scheme like this in the league. Flores breaks rules linebackers spent their entire football lives planting into their subconscious. Blake Cashman explained in our sitdown. When players wonder in training camp why the DC is OK letting a running back leak out of the backfield wide, wide open, Flores explains that the quarterback’s eyes won’t see it. There will be utter chaos occupying his eyes the other direction.

Communication is massively important and, by now, Wilson feels comfortable handling any responsibility. After playing off the ball most of his career, he was asked to blitz and cover from all contours of the defense last season. The Vikings’ identity doesn’t only change week to week. Wilson says everything changes within the game, within a singular play. Flores loves telling his players he doesn’t care where a good idea comes from. He’s always stealing random bits ‘n pieces from defenses around the NFL to evolve his own.

One week, Wilson prowls the line of scrimmage. The next, he backs off.

“That’s what I love about our defense,” he says. “Once you understand the general purpose of why we’re doing what we’re doing, you can go out there and play fast.”

The eureka moment for everyone last fall was a 27-24 win over the Detroit Lions. Wilson eyed No. 0 in blue, Jahmyr Gibbs, and abused him as a blitzer to repeatedly tee off on Detroit’s offense.

Minnesota’s gamble this offseason is that 2024 first-rounder Dallas Turner can replace the departed Jonathan Greenard. They’ll also need to find a way to replace the brains in the secondary: Hall of Fame candidate Harrison Smith. Two major unknowns. But it’s impossible to prepare for Flores’ X’s and O’s. Everything looks chaotic, Wilson explains, when it’s not. He insists the key is trusting the man beside you. When everyone masters their specific job, the Vikings as a whole plant dread inside the mind of a quarterback. And that’s No. 1 goal.

Prolong the guessing game as the play clock ticks past 15 seconds and the playcaller no longer can communicate with the quarterback.

Quarterbacks know pressure is coming… but where?

Who?

How?

Oh shit, the play clock’s at 2 seconds!

“They drive the ship,” Wilson says. “Teams know we bring a lot of pressure and that can give them some anxiety because they control protections and the O-Line has to be dialed in. So that’s to our benefit. We definitely want to put pressure on the guy who runs the ship and get them out of what they’re used to. Some people just rush four and it might be a pretty picture every time, but maybe they have some dog-ass pass rushers who can get to the quarterback. Everyone has a different way of doing things.”

Smith, a staple in the Vikings secondary since 2012, doesn’t think Wilson was any different in 2025 than he was in 2017. Only wiser. Wilson shadowed the right vets, produced when required and was quite obviously a physical freak. “Completely shredded, strong, fast, the whole deal,” Smith recalls. With those traps and biceps, it was no wonder coaches saw a special teams maven. But, to Smith, there was one key difference between Wilson and other Adonis-built specimens in the sport.

Most times, athletes this jacked are not high-end football players. They’re too tight.

Wilson, conversely, was “super fluid and athletic and in tune to his body.” He wasn’t surprised by the star turn.

“I thought he’d be doing what he did last year his whole career,” Smith says. “Different spots, you never know how it shakes out. Scheme fits. Whatever. But what he did last year is what I always thought of him. So it wasn’t super shocking to me.

“Although the amount of things he can do is shocking.”

Wilson excels at inside ‘backer and had no problems moving to outside linebacker when Andrew Van Ginkel battled his neck injury — an extremely tough position to play in this defense. The special teams instinct to sprint full speed and destroy could be difficult to apply to a scheme that makes guys think this much, but Wilson pulls it off. The mental capacity to juggle everything at top speed is most impressive. Over his 14 seasons, Smith has seen this part of the game eat players alive. They cannot handle it. They disappear. “But I think he actually thrives when he gets to do multiple things,” Smith adds, “and showcase everything that he has.”

In a positionless defense, he’s a positionless player capable of matching up vs. backs in underneath coverage. It’s the highlights we don’t see — from the offense — that stand out to Smith. When those X’s and O’s get jumbled, Wilson is an eraser.

“There’s some gray that can occur in any defense,” Smith says. “In Flo’s defense, you need some players that just know the general situations of football and where they might be a little short. He knows how to make a reasonable choice in those decisions. There were a few times last year that were very logical and it saved our ass. They go unnoticed, but they’re big plays in games on third downs. Beyond the splash plays he was making.”

Of course, they’ll gladly take those splash plays.

Minnesota was at its best when Wilson knifed through the heart of the offense. One on one, running backs had no shot. That’s when those weightlifting sessions pay off.

“He’s physically able to just run through somebody’s face,” Smith says. “We’re going to take that all day.

The football brains of both inside linebackers have been synced up since 2020. Back to when Wilson was a Viking and Cashman a Jet. They trained together then and communicate with ease as teammates today. At this point, Cashman calls their rapport “telepathic.” Echoing Smith, he’s always viewed Wilson as one of the most underrated players at his position. They bounce ideas off each other all the time in meetings and practice. A year ago, Wilson trained in Minnesota and the two got to see what makes each other tick.

Cashman calls his running mate a “modern-day explorer.”

This spring, he heard all about Wilson’s newfound affection for Vietnamese-style yoga and how this idea came to Wilson through simple curiosity. On his offseason trip to Melbourne, Australia, he decided to explore on his own. Wilson trekked down a path, started following whatever random signs he found. A left turn here. A right there. Suddenly, he arrived at a Vietnamese Thai hot yoga class.

Nothing’s more appealing to Wilson than an activity he’s never tried before.

If a teammate mentions a philosophical book, he’ll read it.

“A very curious soul,” Cashman says. “He’s always very interested in learning new things and experimenting with things. … He’s a fascinating person.”

Cashman loves picking Wilson’s brain on his latest car projects. With the help of a mechanic, Wilson chops up and soups up antique cars in the shop.

Before games, some players are loosey-goosey inside the locker room and others obviously have pregame jitters.

Wilson never changes. Wilson brings an “easygoing swagger” to the workplace.

Right up to the snap of the ball, anyway.

Because the dream defensive player in this system is one who’s both highly intelligent… and a headhunter. Capable of being exactly in the right spot… and imposing maximum damage upon reaching your destination. Cashman certainly qualifies. Van Ginkel, too. And don’t judge Eric Wilson by his chiller-than-chill cover: the frizzy hair, soft eyes, smiley face tattoo, all-in-all laidback disposition.

“He’s one of the most relentless players I’ve ever seen,” Cashman says. “It doesn’t matter if he makes the play right away or not. He never gives up on a play. And that’s something every coach, every player loves to have in a teammate because you can always count on him. He’s got a relentless, determined attitude, demeanor out there. Every time the ball’s snap, he’s going to be making the play or involved in the play. That’s exactly the spirit you want in a linebacker.”

No wonder Wilson is happiest in our conversation discussing the current state of the sport.

By God, he loves that the last two Super Bowl champions won with a hammer.

No evolutionary change, no rule changes will warp the sport’s essence. Wilson enjoys seeing hot-shot playcallers “get a little bit fancy,” only to revert back to 13 and 22 personnel. Especially last season. Take Sean McVay. Even with an MVP quarterback, Matthew Stafford, he lined up with three tight ends more than anyone in the NFL. Out of this formation, the Rams threw the ball 126 times, ran it 204 times and totaled 2,036 yards with 32 touchdowns. More teams will copy this in 2026. Hence, nine tight ends going in the first 100 picks of last spring’s draft.

All teams know it’s about winning that one yard.

“Football,” Wilson assures, “is still football.”

Good thing since Wilson, 32 years old in September, is apparently aging in reverse.

He’s not close to finished, which cannot be said about the rest of his 2017 draft class. The 23 other players Minnesota drafted and signed that spring have all been out of the NFL since 2023.

Half of all players taken in Rounds 1 and 2 of that class are long gone.

Ten years ago, Wilson was driven to prove NFL people wrong. Now, he wants to prove people right. He wakes up in the morning with the same zest as that undrafted rookie getting MF’ed by his coach.

“I still have that mentality,” Wilson says. “I’ve got a fucking chip on my shoulder. I don’t take any day lightly. I’m trying to do everything to the best possible standard. We have a standard. You have to hold yourself to it. Regardless of what year it is, what you’ve done before, it doesn’t matter. What have you done for me lately?”

When he looks around, he sees a fleet of young players in need of guidance.

There are future Eric Wilsons, at all positions, waiting for just one shot.

He’ll use the two words that Kendricks once preached to him.

Play. Fast.

“It helps when you love the game,” he says, “and I definitely — truly — love the game.”

Share

Subscribe now

Season Preview Features to date:

Jordyn Brooks is the captain now

Dregs to Domination: The Aaron Brewer Blueprint

Ahman Green announces that he has Early-Onset Parkinson’s Disease on the Go Long Podcast:

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.

Go Long is your home for real, raw football.

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

Subscribe now

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.

Share

Subscribe now

ICYMI:

Our 2026 NFL Season Preview Features are underway:

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.

Subscribe now

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.

He believes the combination of young and hungry is dangerous. He lived the other side of it all. He’s seen teammates adopt the laziness of older players — “that poisons the team” — and is all for Sullivan and new coach Jeff Hafley starting fresh with players who actually want to play football. Only then can a team create something new. A convoy of 21- and 22-year-olds dying to prove themselves aren’t going to skip meetings and rack up $200K in fines by Week 6. (A real thing.)

When Brooks sat down with the Dolphins brass early this offseason to discuss the new vision, he left convinced this group will mold into a true team. One that won’t beat itself, one that does everything right like those dynastic Patriots. It’s extremely early. But so far, he’s seen a general willingness to work. “That’s Step 1,” he says, with a chuckle. “You’re willing to do what it takes? That’s Step 1.”

Nobody’s expecting the Miami Dolphins to accomplish anything. Hype of years past has dwindled to a whimper.

Make way for the new voice to follow. On cue, Brooks inked a three-year, $51.3 million contract after this conversation.

None of this is bluster.

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

Brooks speaks in such terms because he can relate. He, too, fell victim to temptation. A decade ago, he nearly drank his career away.

Awakening

First, a geography lesson. Jordyn Brooks paints the scene. At 268,596 square miles, the state of Texas is larger than 150+ countries worldwide, including all in Europe. Yet all the action’s on the east side of the state. That’s where you’ll find Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, Austin.

West Texas, conversely, is “all desert.” (That’s no exaggeration.)

Locals, to cope, follow the same three-step protocol.

Drink. Root for the Texas Tech Red Raiders. Drink some more.

“So when you’re a football player out there, whether you won two games or 11, you’re a superstar,” Brooks says. “You feed into that. Shoot, the culture there was, ‘go to the bars and drink. We don’t have nothing else to do out here.’”

Freed from the nest, he was much obliged to assimilate right into that culture. Obviously, it did not matter if football players like himself were only 18 or 19 years old. Step into any bar and you are the guest of honor. Brooks loved hard liquor — never beer — and Brooks is also convinced those Lubbock bartenders were extra generous with their pours to keep their saloons packed. He drank, smoked, partied. And honestly it might not have been such a big deal if the freshman was a benchwarmer. He was not. He started on Texas Tech’s defense. Statistically, Brooks led his defense in tackles but he doesn’t kid himself. He was not ready to play — at all — because it’s “impossible” to process Big 12 playbook when your head’s pounding with a vicious hangover. Idle time was never spent studying his opponent.

Thinking back, Brooks is grateful he siphoned this YOLO phase out of his system in college. Go this hard in the pros and his ass would’ve been sent packing.

He played worse as a sophomore, recalls being on “thin ice” with Kliff Kingsbury’s staff, then played well enough as a junior to consider going pro. That was always the goal: get three years in and get out. Brooks received a fifth-round grade from the draft advisory board. Further, he loved Kingsbury and Kingsbury was fired. These pre-NIL days, he couldn’t enter a transfer portal and sign with another school. Either he’d stay in Lubbock or bolt. He was itching to bolt.

That January, as the Red Raiders’ new defensive coordinator addressed players for the first time, Brooks scowled. And sneered. And refused to buy one word Keith Patterson was selling.

Patterson kept his eyes on Brooks. Afterward, he asked the linebacker to come into his office.

“What he told me,” Brooks says, “changed me.”

Patterson explained that if he stayed and if he was coachable, he’d make All-Big 12, All-American, win the Butkus Award and go Round 1 in the 2020 NFL Draft. At first, Brooks assumed this coach was spewing BS to persuade him to stay. After taking a night to digest — to ask aloud, “Why can’t I be that?” — Brooks decided to stay. The choice was binary. He could continue to live at the bars, hook up with chicks, live a self-described “fake rockstar life.”

Or he could demand more from himself. Or he could embrace a new world.

The rush of urgency to do something with his life, now, was far more intoxicating.

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

Brooks elevated in three specific areas.

Morning Film. Each AM, he’d sit down 1 on 1 with Patterson to study tape and decode all tendencies in that Saturday’s opponent. Favorite runs, favorite passes, which angle a lineman pointed his toes before the snap. Patterson fed him intel in real time — as the DC learned it himself — so the two developed a telepathic connection. Hard coaching. If Brooks botched anything in practice, Patterson ripped him in front of the entire team. The coach knew his best player could take it. A tone was set. Rover role. Dual-threat quarterbacks populated the conference and Texas Tech’s personnel was rough. To find any success, Patterson cooked up an unorthodox scheme unleashing Brooks as an all-time spy. The kid who felt free at the bars was now fully liberated on the field. “I didn’t have any responsibility,” he quips. Against mobile QBs like Jalen Hurts, Khalil Tate and Sam Ehlinger, he was gifted a play-to-play-to-play green light to trust what he saw on film and roam. That fall, Brooks finished with 108 tackles with a Big 12-high twenty behind the line of scrimmage.

He made all-conference, All-American, was a finalist for the Butkus and, as promised, the Seattle Seahawks took Brooks 27^th overall in the first round. At the end of GM John Schneider’s call to Brooks, you hear family scream in the background.

Most importantly, that fall is when Brooks learned exactly what a linebacker means to a team.

“They mirror quarterbacks to me,” he says. “The importance of leadership and how you set the tone for your team? To me, it’s equal. Ray Lewis and Mike Singletary were great linebackers. But they were great leaders. I’ve got to be a great leader for the dudes around me, which is ultimately going to help me become a better man and a better football player. That urgency was there. Having Coach Patterson come in at that time, the alliance was perfect.

“Real recognize real. He was a real guy. A real man and I see myself as that way, too.”

The NFL is destined to humble all rookies in ways they never foresee. This was 2020. Back when COVID-19 restrictions locked everyone inside their homes.

There were no OTAs, no minicamp practices. After going full kamikaze mode in college, Brooks struggled to learn a structured defense in training camp. “Mentally,” he admits, “I wasn’t ready to play.” Consequently, he played only 31.86 percent of the snaps with zero combined sacks, picks, forced fumbles, recovered fumbles and QB hits. Year 2? He moves his hand up and down. His numbers improved, but Brooks felt inferior to the vets in his room. He lists names off one by one: Bobby Wagner, Russell Wilson, DK Metcalf, KJ Wright, Jamal Adams. “I’m in here playing with future Hall of Famers,” he says. “I want to do my part. It wasn’t clicking.” At this level? Coaches don’t wrap an arm around you. At this level? Tendencies are camouflaged. No linemen are giving obvious clues away. This game of chess made college feel like Uno.

And into Year 3, his play was erratic right up to a rock-bottom moment that feels like yesterday. The play looks innocent enough on film. On New Year’s Day, against the New York Jets, he wraps up tight end C.J. Uzomah near the sideline, and his right foot awkwardly bounces off the turf. Brooks writhes in pain, reaches for his leg, and eventually hobbles away with two arms around two trainers. He tore his ACL.

The timing was atrocious. Not only was Brooks forced to watch his team lose a wild-card playoff game in San Francisco as a helpless bystander. He assumed next season was a wash given that this injury typically requires nine to 10 months of recovery. Next season also happened to be the fourth year of his rookie contract. Seattle understandably declined his fifth-year option and signed multiple linebackers. One injury, it appeared, cost him millions of dollars.

His football world was caving in.

He traveled back to Dallas for surgery.

He desperately needed another sign.

Subscribe now

Urgency

That apartment Jordyn Brooks transformed into his own personal football stadium, pillows everywhere, was one of five different homes he occupied as a kid. Money was tight. His family moved liked nomads through Dallas. Mom and Dad divorced. And when Mom lost her job, homeless, they were all saved by Interfaith Family Services. At that point, Brooks and his twin sister were 7. Two other sisters were 13 and 17. Two brothers lived with Dad.

This safety net saved the family from living on the street. He slept in a bunk bed, relied on food stamps and wore the same pair of K-Swiss shoes for an eternity. But to Brooks, this never felt like poverty. He loved Interfaith’s pizza parties and field trips. They even helped his mother get a vehicle for transportation.

When he was in fourth grade, they moved to Houston. And once Brooks linked up with that high school coach who moved him to defense, Elliot Allen, he improved his sagging grades. Pillows transformed into reality. Brooks has no clue where his life would’ve detoured without Allen — he needed such fatherly guidance. His own Dad, West Brooks, was a truck driver who lived 240 miles away in Dallas. The two rarely saw each other. Drifted apart.

He got to Texas Tech, to Patterson, to the NFL, to that surgery room.

In the past, Brooks has vaguely referenced friends who’ve died. Prod for more and Brooks replays a tragedy he has not spoken about publicly.

“One of my brothers,” he says, “was killed my freshman year of college.”

He continues.

“A man walked up on him, shot him in the face while he was sitting in his truck. Point blank. Killed him.”

On Jan. 5, 2017, shortly before 2 p.m., an unknown assailant gunned down Jaquan Brooks, 25, in the parking lot of Spring Ridge Apartments at 3619 Folklore Trail in Dallas. Jordyn’s other brother called him with the news — those two were living together. Reliving that call, he gets choked up. Pauses. “It still doesn’t feel real,” he says. “It’s kind of like a shock.” News circulated. The Dallas Police Department asked the public to come forward with any information. Crime Stoppers offered up to $5,000 as a reward for intel. This was a bad part of town and, as Brooks details, neighborhood silence is par for the course. Witnesses went mute. No intel ever trickled in. Nobody talks because nobody wants to fear for their own life. “So,” Brooks adds, “he gets to walk around free.”

Jaquan was described as an old soul who carried a Bible in his pocket. But even Jordyn admits his brother chose a “different path” in life that likely precipitated the shooting.

Once the shock wore off, he zoomed out. He realized he needed to stay on his own path.

“Something positive, something that’s meaningful, something that can make true impact,” Brooks says. “Not trying to take a shortcut in life. It helped me to understand. The path that I’m on? Stay on it. What you’re doing, you’re supposed to be doing.”

Lubbock to Seattle, he’d continue to receive similar phone calls from two of his best friends in high school. Each year, they inevitably call to fill him in on their latest childhood friend who’s been shot and killed. At first, he was shocked to hear so-and-so died. Brooks was strapped with survivor’s guilt. Over time, those deaths became “expected” because, the way Brooks describes it, half his friends went one way and half went the other. At the age of 13 and 14, everyone made a choice.

“Those guys who went that way,” Brooks says, “almost all of them are either dead or in prison. Literally. Those are the only two options. But it was good to see that because it lets you know where you are going in life? This is the right path.”

College, in his bloodline, is more of a farcical fantasy. Briefly, he imagines where his life would’ve gone if he didn’t improve those grades, didn’t earn a respectable ACT score, didn’t use football to get to Lubbock. Similar to Dolphins teammate Aaron Brewer reliving his own close call, Brooks knows his name could’ve been uttered on such a phone call.

Thus, Brooks refuses to assume he has an inalienable right to be in the NFL.

Each call revealing each homicide only feeds his own sense of urgency.

“I’ve seen it — with my own eyes — people’s paths and life go totally left,” Brooks says. “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.”

Sprawled on that artificial FieldTurf slop at Lumen Field, he was sad and mad and asking why me, why now. Those emotions, however, did not linger. No chance in hell would Brooks allow a torn ACL to ruin him. He chose to “let go,” completely, and accept whatever came next. Eighteen days later, Dr. Daniel Cooper performed surgery and he needed to stay in the Dallas area to rehab.

A twist of fate that opened a new door for Brooks. He reconnected with his father.

A relationship lost long ago rekindled. He always knew the genes were strong. Dad played college ball at Texas Christian University. One other childhood image sticks with him: a picture of Dad in his purple Horned Frogs uniform pinned on the wall. He told himself: “I want to do that” as the NFL Films looped. Suddenly, they were speaking daily again.

His living brother was in town, too.

All grew closer than ever.

“Man, it was perfect timing,” Brooks says. “You need somebody to talk to during that time. Here I was, 23, 24 years old and I still needed my father. We’ve been close ever since. Shit, we talk every day. All three of us bonded during that time.”

Nothing else mattered. Seattle signed former 10^th overall pick Devin Bush and inked Wagner to a one-year, $7 million deal in anticipation of Brooks missing time. But this father-son reconciliation became such a priority that the stress of a murky NFL future dissipated to nothing. Brooks wasn’t even thinking about football.

He didn’t even realize his knee was rehabbing at an absurd rate.

Once training camp commenced and he started running around, his knee felt good as new. He started Week 1 and enjoyed his finest season in Seattle.

“A horrible moment,” he says, “turned into a great moment.”

The ensuing spring, Brooks signed with the Miami Dolphins, a team that fully planned on competing for a championship in 2024.

By Thanksgiving Night, his team was a national embarrassment.

Humiliated on a national stage, Brooks couldn’t hide his feelings. Fed up. Disgusted. Repulsed by what this team was putting on display, the linebacker used a slur far worse than those seven words George Carlin says you can never say on TV.

Brooks called the Dolphins the s-word.

“Soft.”

He was right, of course.

Give a gift subscription

Old Miami

On Day No. 1 as a Dolphin, Jordyn Brooks stepped on a scale and the number climbed higher, and higher, and higher, inching awfully close to the 260s. He could not wait to step off that scale. Here a pro football team handed him a new contract worth millions and he repaid his new boss by showing up 20 pounds overweight.

Embarrassment overwhelmed him in March 2024.

This was not good weight. Rather, “bad, fat, vacation, cheeseburger weight,” he admits.

Miami’s team nutritionist, John Parenti, stared at the number. Then at Brooks.

“He gave me this look,” Brooks says. “It was shame. It was shame 100 percent. He couldn’t hide it.”

The glare was warranted because the scale supplied one blunt answer to a question still on Brooks’ mind. Why wasn’t I who I knew I could be? It was right there. He was not treating his body like a war machine, no. His diet primarily consisted of honey buns and hot chips.

Brooks sat down with Parenti to devise a plan to get to 235. Diet. Cardio. Sauna. Stretching. There are two types of players who take the field at Hard Rock Stadium. Those built to handle a surface-of-the-sun climate and those who cramp up and need an IV. Breathing should not be a problem for the man in the middle of the defense. His mind was sharp by ’24, but now his body needed to catch up. “Because,” Brooks adds, “we play a barbaric sport.”

To this day, he meets with Parenti weekly to seek a new 10 percent edge. Somewhere.

If Patterson’s prophecy served as a tipping point in college, that day on the scale served as one in the pros. That number was another reflection of the man. Nowadays, Brooks tells teammates that in order to be the best version of themselves as a player, they’ve got to start with the man. Gaffes on Sunday, he believes, are an extension of how you operate in life.

“Something gets hard and you give up,” he says. “Like: ‘Ah, the heck with it. I’m not going to try to do nothing about it.’ That’s probably who you are as a football player, too.”

As the 2024 season spiraled, this is what he saw.

Everywhere.

At 5-6, their season still very much alive, the Dolphins traveled north to face the Packers at arctic Lambeau Field in front of America and were thoroughly beaten with an ugly stick. Up close, Brooks saw how his teammates reacted to the cold. Many were disinterested. Others were scared. Miami fell into an insurmountable 27-3 deficit and missed 20 tackles in all. Brooks could not pretend everything was fine, instead saying the quiet part out loud: “I thought we were soft. Simple as that, I thought we were soft today.”

That word pissed off a few teammates.

He didn’t care then. He doesn’t care now.

“If the team is playing soft, we’re playing soft,” Brooks says. “We’re not playing the way that we should be playing. Let’s call it what it is. We’re getting killed out here in the cold. We’re fitting right into the narrative. As a leader, that’s what you’re supposed to do.”

Autopsies of all teams that suffer fatal hypothermia reveal a lack of candor. Shit hits the fan and both players and coaches refuse to face the facts. They’re worried about feelings, about ruffling feathers internally and/or facing backlash externally. Silly paranoia that only delays the inevitable.

Brooks could see the Dolphins were heading nowhere — it drove him insane — and opted to be the adult in the room.

“Be honest. Be honest,” he repeats. “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.

“And it’s hard. Being a leader of anything — a leader of your family, a father, any space that you’re in — it’s not easy because you’re the one out front.

“So it’s pressure on you day-in, day-out to do the thing right. To be the standard. The blueprint of what we’re trying to get done. That’s not easy to do.”

The blueprint of old ingrained in Miami was the worst in professional football.

This last half-decade is a cautionary tale for all coaches, all GMs, all owners who believe it’s possible to write a bunch of fat checks, cobble talent together, and win. It might work for a while. The Cheetah feasted. Tua Time was fun. They scored seventy freakin’ points in a game. But if the leadership’s wretched, implosion is a guarantee. Go Long reached out to multiple sources from those Dolphins teams to study this contamination.

Thanksgiving Night was a boiling point, but red flags dated all the way back to OTAs.

It was impossible to tell this Miami team was fresh off another December collapse.

One veteran knew this 2024 edition would be “trash” in May. When position groups of 10 to 15 players organized dinners, only four or so showed up. If a meeting started at 8 a.m., players moseyed into the building at 7:59. When the final meeting ended at 4 p.m., the same employees all but left screeching tire marks at 4:05. Nobody hung out. Nobody voluntarily ate together. Hence, the hidden advantage of smaller-market teams in the NFL. When there’s less to do in a city, players tend to bond off the field. Relationships matter.

“We didn’t fight for each other on the field,” says this ex-Dolphin. “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.”

Because there’s a real “psychology” to this sport, he explains. One that all cocksure calculator bros overpopulating the airwaves miss.

Pro football is destined to steer all participants into a dark, dark place. You’ll either fight through this darkness for a teammate you love… or coast. These Dolphins defined coasting. “When the game gets hard,” this player posits. “what decision are you going to make? Guys were selfish and looked after themselves.” Loss to loss, it became easier to coast. By Week 6 of the 2024 season, per sources, players had racked up $200,000 worth of fines. In a hopeless attempt to get guys to show up on time, head coach Mike McDaniel announced that sum to the team and compared it to previous seasons. The 200K was more than double the average, one source recalls.

Nobody took him serious and nothing changed.

Meetings were a joke. Some players didn’t show up, others strolled in late, others up ‘n left halfway through to receive treatment for an injury as if this was a drab, pointless History 101 lecture hall. Newcomers couldn’t believe the sight of players walking out. In functional NFL buildings, players receive treatment on their own time or in-between meetings. Never during. Wide receiver Tyreek Hill and cornerback Jalen Ramsey, two of the team’s stars, seemed to come and go as they pleased. One player recalls seeing Hill walk into a meeting 5 minutes late with McDaniel simply saying, “Hey, what’s up, Reek?” with zero acknowledgement of his tardiness.

The day after games, half the captains would miss captain meetings.

Curfew was treated as a suggestion.

What bothered guys most is that players with a “C” on their chest didn’t act like a captain. The letter was the product of past production — nothing earned. “Nobody respected the guys with the Cs on their chest,” says one player, “because they didn’t give a fuck. They made some crazy plays. Jalen is one of the most talented, gifted athletes I’ve ever seen. Obviously, Tyreek is. But other young players follow them. And watch them. And see how they do things.”

A few vets donning that “C” even brought their cell phones to walkthroughs, right in the pocket of their sweatpants.

Naturally, the 22- and 23-year-olds new to the pros started toting their phones, too. They assumed this was normal.

“Like this is a high school team and we’re just hanging out,” says one vet on that roster, still incredulous. “It’s like, okay, well if he doesn’t care, why the fuck do I care? That trickles all the way down.”

Surprise, surprise. Players were often confused on gameday.

Walkthroughs are treated differently on winning teams. All 11 players on all plays rehearse all Plan A, Plan B, Plan C contingencies. When you know exactly what you’ve got to do, God-given talent reigns. In Miami, lax Fridays and Saturdays led to hesitancy on Sunday because, as one player details, it’s difficult to trust a teammate who was texting the day prior. McDaniel failed to nip this bad habit in the bud. One starter on offense says he “was just too much of a bro” and lost control of the locker room. A delicate balance considering he was replacing a drill sergeant who lost the team.

Many players liked McDaniel, but being a head coach is much like being a father. It’s not smart to be players’ best pal. You lose authority.

Adversity inherent to the job was also foreign to him.

“When you get hit in the mouth or you get thrown under the bus a couple times or just ran over, what are you going to do? In those moments?” one player says. “If he’s ever in those moments again, I think he’ll learn from a lot of that shit because I do think he could have stepped up in a lot of different areas and a lot of different times to shut shit down.”

Once the 2024 season ended with a disgraceful 32-20 loss to the New York Jets, McDaniel admitted fining players didn’t move the needle. Ramsey and a wave of others were jettisoned through the offense. One reserve tight end noted Miami got rid of players who weren’t respectful.

Little changed about this team. Especially at quarterback.

Some quarterbacks ink a $212M contract extension and do everything in their power to justify the money. Others grab a microphone at training camp and shout “Show me the money!” as Tagovailoa did. “That video,” one player says, “really set the tone and put a lot of pressure on him.” Tagovailoa, shielded much of his football life, never came close to living up to that contract. On the field, his record dropped to 0-6 when the temperature was 40 degrees or lower and 2-9 at 50 or lower. Off it, he qualified as one leader who failed to back up words with action. At one point, in ‘25, Tagovailoa pointed the finger at players showing up to players-only meetings late or not showing up at all. His comments were widely skewered considering Tagovailoa was a.) the quarterback and b.) treating the ball like a hot potato. By December, he was benched.

All while players pointed fingers at each other. Nobody took ownership. Players would see what they screwed up on film but there wasn’t application through the week. So, problems lingered. Opponents hammered the same weaknesses. “Madness,” says one vet on the team. “We didn’t ever learn from our losses.” This isn’t Green Bay, where the nighttime options are scarce. Life’s different in Miami. Upon hearing the word “distraction,” however, one player with a front-row seat to the dilapidation loses it. There are no excuses.

“Grow the fuck up,” he snipes. “Focus on what you got to focus on.”

Which brings us back to Jordyn Brooks.

He, too, could not believe what he was seeing.

When I ask Brooks if he looked around the Dolphins locker room and saw leaders failing to back up words with action, he accurately states that any team that doesn’t win the Super Bowl suffers from this disease to some degree. He won’t throw ex-teammates under the bus by name, but, yeah. It was foul.

Leadership pills are not available at the local pharmacy. It’s either in you, or not.

“I don’t think you can be a leader because somebody says you are one,” Brooks says. “It’s a natural instinct — and people go about it in different ways — but it’s a natural instinct to get something done: No, we’ve got to get it done.”

When he was the new guy, Brooks tried not to step on toes. He let others do the talking and fell in line.

“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,’” Brooks says. “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.”

One by one, Brooks witnessed teammates quit as Miami started 1-6 last season. And, hey, it’s a hell of a lot harder to wake up each morning in this profession when your team is irrelevant. Football becomes strictly a job — not fun — and football is no ordinary 9-to-5. There’s no retreating to a cubicle to screw around on Instagram when you’re contractually obligated to smash into other human beings for a living. Brooks empathizes with the impulse to throttle down, but only to a point. Only for a millisecond. Because, again, quitting in the NFL is blatantly selfish. Quitting directly affects the man next to you.

At this exact point, at 1-6, Brooks took charge. He saw an opportunity to speak up.

The linebacker discovered a new gear he didn’t know existed and announced himself to the football world as one of the best defensive players in the sport with 183 tackles (13 for loss), 3.5 sacks, a forced fumble and first-team All Pro honors.

Trimmed down, he won those split seconds that eluded him seasons past. Shoestringin’ Jonathan Taylor on third and 2. Blitzing, then blasting through a running back to sack Drake Maye. Knifing through the line to stone Bijan Robinson for a loss. Stripping the ball out of Josh Allen’s grasp. Bullying Jaylen Warren to lasso Aaron Rodgers. Firing out of a virtual cannon to wallop Bucky Irving. The sight of No. 20 detonating plays and letting out a rebel yell with a finger pointed to the sky became a ray of light through Miami’s lost season. He was exceptional.

“The preparation, the work that goes into it,” Brooks says, “God honored it. He honored how I go about the work. Doesn’t mean it guarantees anything. But I was praying for things like this. Praying to take it up another level. We didn’t do what we wanted to do as a team, but that motivated me to play better.”

Owner Stephen Ross wisely fired everyone. In came Sullivan, in came Hafley. The two lit a match and threw more than $179 million into a bonfire. Once those embers burnt out, Brooks was essentially Will Smith at the end of Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, staring around an empty room.

Meanwhile, his old team hoisted the Lombardi Trophy without him. Brooks insists he was genuinely happy for his ex-teammates in Seattle. Still, that postgame sight pinched a nerve.

“Damn! That looks like fun. I wish. I wish.”

Brooks exhales. He was drafted by Schneider. He could’ve been on that Super Bowl dais, extolled as the chieftain of the “Dark Side.” Most 29-year-olds who witness such a celebration would sell their soul to join a contender and feel exactly what their friends did in that moment. Especially as these Dolphins embark on the most audacious rebuild in modern league history. John Facenda never waxed poetic about teams widely expected to win three games. Yet, Brooks refused to hatch an escape plan of his own. Miami’s mass exodus gave him clarity.

His Lubbock awakening. Losing Jaquan. The torn ACL. Those honey buns.

All of it steered Jordyn Brooks to the present.

“My true value is to be a leader of men,” he says. “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.”

New Miami

Leading is hard, not difficult. There’s a difference. His blueprint for the Miami Dolphins consists of the most basic habits. Here, he rattles off three.

Show up on time.

Keep your locker clean.

Practice with effort, intent.

There’s no need to pull all-nighters reading books on leadership — the task isn’t complex. But wearing that “C” means living a 24/7/365 standard for everyone else to emulate. He views this as a divine calling.

“It’s a challenge. It’s exhausting at times,” Brooks says. “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.”

He brings up Genesis 3 in the Bible. Eve technically made the mistake of biting a forbidden fruit at the center of the Garden of Eden. But the first person God addresses, Brooks explains, is Adam, “the leader,” whom he instructed not to eat the apple. “That’s what God assigned men to do,” he adds. “That’s our role. We’re to lead our wives and our children. So that’s what I try to take to work.”

Expectations beyond South Florida are nonexistent. This is the youngest team in the league and, to repeat, 60 percent of the 2026 payroll is allotted to players who aren’t even on the team. Asking a bunch of rookies to play a grown man’s game can backfire. The Cleveland DePodestas would’ve employed kids from the nearest Berea, Ohio playground a decade ago if the Sabermetrics added up.

This isn’t a case of tanking. The Dolphins needed to cut dead weight. A lot of dead weight.

Brooks knows Miami will be deploying more rookies than any team in the NFL.

“I want to help them so that they can help us right away,” he says. “They might be rookies, but they don’t have to play like it. That’s my goal. How can I really have an impact on helping these young guys be successful as they can be?”

Brooks has already identified one future superstar on the team: Texas Tech rookie linebacker Jacob Rodriguez. He raved about Rodriguez’s game so much last fall that teammates told him to kindly shut the hell up. After seeing every snap every weekend, Brooks dubs Rodriguez’s 2025 campaign the greatest linebacker season in college football history — ahead of The Boz, Manti Te’o, Luke Kuechly. “All time,” he repeats. The mustached missile created 11 turnovers to take home that Butkus hardware.

Most vets quietly seethe if their employer drafts a player at their position. Brooks, on the contrary, was over the moon when Miami selected Rodriguez 43^rd overall. He likened the sensation to being drafted all over again and cannot wait to attack offenses with a Red Raider bash brother.

“He’s got a different mentality on how he gets the ball,” Brooks says. “That’s something you can’t coach. It’s an instinct. He’s going to be an immediate success. Anything he needs, any questions he’s got, I want him to feel as comfortable as he can so that he can be as successful as he wants to be. He’s going to be great from Day 1.”

Of course, the success of the Dolphins ultimately rests on the shoulders of the team’s new quarterback: Malik Willis. His rise, as documented, is a sharp contrast to the man he’ll replace. From being overlooked at Auburn to dismissed by the Titans, Willis has been forced to wait, improve, wait, and wait a little more before parlaying a dynamite 1 ½-game cameo into a QB1 contract. Brooks gushes about this quarterback’s work ethic, describing Willis as a crystal-clear reflection of this team’s new direction.

“He’s being that leader he knows he has to be,” Brooks says. “And to me? Shoot, the sky can be the limit. Super talented. I like his play style. I love a quarterback that can extend a play.”

The organization as a whole desperately needed to take its medicine. The solution was never an individual talent at any position. Culture is real and the culture — inside this building — was toxic. McDaniel’s quirks were refreshing and fun… until they weren’t. His greatest strength, seeing the very best in people, became his demise. Tua was a hurricane vanquishing defenses… until softening into a gentle breeze. Vets on defense celebrated the departure of the sport’s best defensive coordinator because he was too mean. Hill became a pain. Ramsey, washed. GM Chris Grier stuck around far too long.

Substance, not style, is needed. Heart.

These Dolphins have been missing a Jordyn Brooks for ages.

His tone is emphatic, yet devoid of the inflated hyperbole that got the Dolphins into this mess. Brooks sounds like a mountaineer prepping for an 8,600-meter climb up K2, fully aware that the next 5+ months will be the most strenuous of his football life. But that’s precisely what he craves. He’s not married. He has no kids. Brooks is obsessed with the sport by choice. When I lob a softball — What do you do off the field? — Brooks is stumped. He’s got nothing. He’s neither on the liquor or diaper end of the young adulthood spectrum. All free time is spent taking care of his body or watching film.

When I suggest the blissful ignorance of a bunch of kids can be a good thing for this team, he interrupts.

Calls it a “great thing.”

Declares they can be the ones who flip everything upside down.

“And did it the right way. Did it the hard way,” Brooks says. “I know a lot of people look at it like, ‘Man, I’m not trying to be part of no rebuild.’ But look at it the right way. Nobody said a rebuild has to be three years. It can be three months. They drafted a lot of great dudes that are going to be stars in the league.

“Who knows man? The Miami Dolphins might surprise a lot of people this year.”

At some point this fall, Jordyn Brooks will receive news of another childhood friend’s death and his mind will again wander back to all pivot points. How the right people were put in his life at the right time to keep ascending. Then, he’ll snap back to the present. He’ll look around his Miami Dolphins locker room and realize his life’s come full circle.

He was put into all of their lives for the same reason.

Share

Subscribe now

Give a gift subscription

Related:

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.

Subscribe now

Share

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.

Share

Related:

Share Go Long

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.

Go Long is your home for longform this season — and beyond.

Subscribers can access all stories, all podcasts, all season long.

We are fueled by you.

Subscribe now

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.”

Share

We travel the country to sit down with NFL players and bring you pro football in its realest, rawest form.

Thank you for growing our community.

Subscribe now

Refer a friend

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.

Go Long is fueled by you. Our readers. Thank you for powering us into Season No. 7.

I want NFL longform this season.

Give a gift subscription

Refer a friend

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:

Share

Subscribe now

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.

Share Go Long

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

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.

Read more

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.

Thank you for subscribing and supporting, all.

Go Long is your forever home for real, raw football.

We are fueled by you.

Subscribe now

Share

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.

Subscribe now

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.

Share Go Long

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.

Subscribe now

Share

Video:

ICYMI:

Real Football:

Share

Share

ATLANTA — Life was spiraling. Most days, he was paralyzed by darkness. Lost. Depressed. Contemplating suicide. Jamal Lewis was in a scary place mentally the last time we hung out.

In all, he suffered at least 10 concussions and went unconscious “two or three” times as a battering ram NFL running back. All of it triggered the same chilling sequence we see play out for so many retirees. Lewis was remarkably candid in this 2018 story.

Since then? Too many ex-NFL players have died far too soon.

A short list…

• Vincent Jackson was found dead on Feb. 15, 2021 after his family reported him missing five days earlier. It was revealed later that he suffered from Stage 2 chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). Shortly after, ex-QB Ryan Leaf joined Go Long for an emotional conversation. Further, the Hillsborough Country (Fla.) medical examiner determined Jackson’s death was caused by alcohol abuse.

• Marion Barber III died one year later. Authorities administered a wellness check at the 38-year-old’s Frisco, Texas apartment and found the former Cowboys running back deceased from an accidental heat stroke. Barber had several bizarre run-ins with the law leading up to his death and was reportedly hospitalized twice for mental health evaluations. Terence Newman shared one chilling tale with us. He spotted his ex-teammate walking through the pouring rain one day, stopped and the encounter was chilling. Part of Newman thought Barber might start swinging at him. (“He looked like he wasn’t there, like he was a different person, like he couldn’t function.”)

• Rondale Moore died this past February from a suspected self-inflicted gunshot wound. He was 25.

• Doug Martin died in the custody of Oakland police last April. His parents had his brain sent to the Boston University CTE center to be studied for the brain disease and say their son was experiencing a mental health crisis when police held him down. They’re alleging restraint asphyxia in a lawsuit. He was 36.

• Aldon Smith passed away at the age of 36, shortly after delivering pizzas to a charity that supports the homeless. In an interview published days before his death, Smith admitted he’s “definitely seen better days.” The family is having Smith’s brain examined for CTE.

No two cases are the same. There are typically many factors at play, as all families are left to piece together maddening puzzles. But however you try putting that puzzle together, it’s clear players struggle to adjust when ejected back into public life. Lewis was one of the best running backs of the 2000s. He rushed for 10,607 career yards, 58 touchdowns, won a Super Bowl as a rookie and his 2,066-yard season in ‘03 still ranks No. 3 all-time. I reconnected with the Baltimore Ravens great on one of our Happy Hour podcasts with subscribers in 2023 and he didn’t hesitate in stating he’d do it all again.

This offseason, we met up again in Georgia for lunch.

The 46-year-old looks, sounds and moves like a new man.

Back in 2018, he was doughy. Out of shape. Today, he’s 40 pounds lighter and jacked. Back then, his kids were young and navigating life as a father was not easy. Today, we’re discussing Javen’s life as a rising actor and Jazz’s potential as a Division I slot receiver. That’s right. Despite his own post-NFL troubles, Jamal is all for his son embarking on his own career.

Effects of concussions were rocking Lewis’ world in ‘18. His temper could spike any moment. His memory flickered. Sometimes, he’d turn the key of his car and totally forget where he was going. He kept sunglasses on top of his head at all times because he was so sensitive to light. Headaches were brutal.

Today? Lewis is all smiles. Today? Lewis is enjoying immense success in business, co-hosts the “2 Livewell” podcast with Dr. Jeff Collier and there’s a good chance you saw his name in the news last February. Lewis was one of five former players to receive a pardon from President Donald Trump. Twenty-two years ago, he pleaded guilty to using a cell phone to set up a drug deal. As he explains here, there was always much more to that story. Now, his record is clean.

So, here’s some needed good news in the Former NFL Player department.

Jamal Lewis is doing great and represents real hope for all players in a rut.

Players can find purpose… but how?

Pull up a seat inside our booth at First Watch on Peachtree Boulevard.

Here is how Lewis fought back.

Go Long is your home for real, raw football.

Thank you for building our community.

I want longform.

Give a gift subscription

You look amazing. You sound different just talking to you. So, you’ve really gotten into working out?

Lewis: I started hitting it and got back in the gym, man. And I think starting that regimen, taking testosterone. My levels went up. My doctor said, “Your level’s at like 200. That’s what a girl’s should be.” And he’s like, “You probably have no energy.” I’m like, “I really don’t.” Just mentally, I wasn’t in the gym, wasn’t doing anything. And my asthma was bad. I was in the hospital for like five, seven days. You remember that, right? And I just took it serious, man, and started hitting it. Next thing you know, I started shedding the weight and I started experimenting with more of the peptides for inflammation. I got off the medication. I started losing. I lost like 20 something pounds, then it went to 30. And it just started working. Shoot, it probably took like a year and a half, two years to get to where I’m at now. But it got my energy up. It got my head straight. It got me more motivated. In a better mental space and everything else. So that’s why we’re doing this Live Well piece because I’ve seen how it changed my life. Just having more energy and being able to hit the gym and go work out and do stuff like that, it just did so much for my mental.

We got together eight years ago. And then you came on our podcast three years ago. You looked happier, in a good mental space. So far here, it seems like another level. Mind, body, soul, spirit, how are you doing?

Lewis: Doing great, man. Transitioning and making that curve into getting out of that depressive state — not working out, not hitting the gym — made things a lot better. Things calmed down. The kids are growing up. Jazz started playing football in seventh, eighth grade. That put me in a different state, too. He basically just said, “Hey, look, I want to do this. I really want to do this.” And he asked for my help. That got me really focused. So I’m like, “If you want to do it, then you’ve got to put in the work. And I can’t be driving you to put in the work. You’ve got to want to put in the work yourself because that’s what you really want.” So he showed me that and I bought in and laid out the resources. So that kept me going and gives me like a mission. He keeps me busy. My other kids, too. But he’s the one, I’ve got to take him here to practice. He’s about to get his license, too. I take him to Florida. We go train with my old trainer down there. I got him with Gold Feet down in Florida. XPE, which is my guy. He’s in Lauderdale. So when he’s got a dead period, we go down and I’ll work with some of the running backs that are either going to the Combine or going to the pros. Usually January, February, March is when a lot of the players are down there working out and training. Even the former guys. That keeps you active, keeps you going.

Business is good. I’ve started a couple companies that’ve been doing their thing and working. So it’s pursuing life — whatever comes my way — and taking it head-on. I even started writing a book called, “Still Running.” And I did that because I was trying to get the attention of the President or somebody’s ear about my case because I just want to tell my story so people could hear my side of the story vs. the ESPNs, the news and all of that. And it was crazy because I’ve been writing it for about eight months now. What really happened vs. what the government said happened. And I was just doing that because I’ve tried to approach Congress. I’ve tried to approach the Senate. I’ve tried to approach people under different administrations to try to get a pardon. But it costs. It’s like $75,000, $25,000 to try to get campaign money or donations. And the crazy part about it, I just said, “Hey, I’m going to write a book” and hope somebody hears it.

All of a sudden, I get a call from the White House. Alice Johnson, she’s like, “I just met with the President and he signed off on your full pardon.” I was like, “What?”

Where were you? When did you find out?

Lewis: I was at a cigar spot waiting for Jazz to finish training. So I’m waiting and I was leaving to go pick him up and I saw her number come through at 202 and I was like, “I don’t know who that is.” I didn’t answer. Next thing you know, I checked the message and this lady, she was like, “I’m Alice Johnson, the White House Pardon Czar. Call me back. I’ve got some good news for you.” So I called her back, that’s when she said, “I just met with the President.” I was like, “Wow. How? What?” She said, “I’ve been advocating for you for a while. I know your story. I looked at your case and I believe in second chances and I feel like you should get a second chance.” She also got a second chance from the president. So that was it. It came out of the blue. I didn’t even apply. They did everything. This lady, Alice, she did everything. She just advocated and said, “I wanted to do something for some football players.” So that’s why there were like five of us. Nate Newton and then Travis Henry and Klecko and (Billy Cannon).

Did you start celebrating? What’s the next move?

Lewis: I was in awe, first of all. The first person I called my Mom. And then of course the next day it exploded. That Friday. And, man, it was just a sigh of relief. Really. That’s really what it was. Like, “finally.” And it’s great, but at the same time, I’m writing this book and it still needs to be told. What really happened. Because it was bogus. It was BS.

There’s probably a deeper problem rooted there?

Lewis: Oh, there’s a lot of guys got railroaded and just set up whatever by informants and this, that and the other and people trying to get out of their own trouble. And it’s crazy because the government sent somebody — at me — to set me up. That’s really what the story is about. How the government really set me up.

What do you mean by that? Like something we’d see on The Wire?

Lewis: A confidential informant. It was a girl. It was a confidential informant. She was working for the feds because she got in trouble. So since that was the case, because of where I was from, there was a big sting that was going on. From where I was from. You’ve been in my neighborhood. There was a lot of that and I knew a lot of people. So I guess they knew that I knew these people. So they sent this girl to me to talk about drugs (in April 2000). I didn’t bring up drugs to her. She bought up drugs to me that was planted from the government. And then the phone call — the phone count that I’m charged with — I wasn’t even on the phone. She said she turned the microphone around the wrong way, so therefore all you heard was her talking. So you didn’t even hear me talking on the recording that I actually went to jail for.

What? You weren’t even on the call?

Lewis: Wasn’t even on the call.

So you’re not doing this cocaine deal?

Lewis: Yeah, I’m not talking to her. She’s talking about cocaine, talking about what, where, blah, blah, blah. It’s a whole 30-minute conversation. But I didn’t hear it until I got indicted and I was able to listen to the discovery. But basically you either go to trial and you get a 50-50 chance or you take this 4-to-6 months (in prison) and Paul Tagliabue and Ozzie Newsome and Art Modell, they already told me I’ve got my job, I’m good because they knew who I really was. So I was like, “I’ll go do this 4-to-6 months” versus…

But then it’s like you’re admitting guilt to it even though you did nothing wrong.

Lewis: Did nothing wrong. Because of my job and everything else, you get forced into pleading to say, “Yeah, OK. Four to 6 months, I’ll take it. Give it to me.” Versus going to trial. A lot of the detail will be in the book as far as where it started, growing up, my neighborhood, the people I associated myself with, which was, you want to say “my fault,” but these are your friends, these are your neighbors, these are your people you went to school with that you’re around. So you can’t say, “Oh, hang around better people.”

That’s all there is.

Lewis: That’s all there is in the area. I didn’t do anything wrong. But that’s what I’m hitting on — the backstory, where it started, how it happened, all the detail as far as who, what, where. And all the accounts that happened because I had got a chance to sit in my lawyer’s office every Monday after a football game. When we played on Sunday, if we were away or at home, I flew out after the game to Atlanta because I had to meet with my lawyers Monday and Tuesday, and then fly back to Baltimore. I had to fly back that Tuesday night to be at practice Wednesday.

Your mental, how do you stay sane when you’re getting set up like this — and then need to go play a football game?

Lewis: It was crazy. It was a tough time. But it taught me a lot about how strong I was as a person. And hey, God’s got something in store for you because he’s putting you through this for a reason. So it was one of those things where it’s like a Come to Jesus meeting with yourself. So it really prepared me a lot for life after. But the crazy part is the contract negotiations because it all happened after my 2,000-yard season. I got indicted two weeks after the Pro Bowl (in 2004).

Of that season?

Lewis: Yeah. That’s why it even came out.

So you believe you were targeted because of who you are and that they wanted a big name?

Lewis: Exactly.

Who’s behind all this then?

Lewis: So Mike Brown was the prosecutor. He’s now a federal judge. They just had this sting and took down probably 18, 19, maybe 20 guys. So therefore, there were dudes trying to jump on my case to try to get their time down. So that’s what the government was using, too.

Meanwhile, you’re not involved in any of this?

Lewis: I just got drafted into the NFL. I just signed a $35 million deal.

That’s why the book piece of it is good. I’m pardoned. I had to add that to the book because of the way it happened out of the blue. And I had been trying for years and I just gave up. I was like, “Forget this.”

Who wasn’t listening before?

Lewis: The Obama administration first and then it was the Biden administration. They weren’t listening because, first of all, you’re not talking to a Pardon Czar. You’re talking to a senator, a congressman, somebody like that that is supposed to help lift you to and get it in front of the sitting president. Well, you’ve got to file an application. You file an application and it’s probably 30 pages of shit that you need to put in there, whatever about your case, this and that. So hopefully it gets in front of somebody. But I was just trying to meet with people to say, “OK, this ain’t brain surgery. The case is the case.” But it’s campaign contributions, and it’s not even guaranteed.

I didn’t take it on. I didn’t do it because it was $75,000, $25,000.

And it’s just this wink-wink with a politician?

Lewis: Yeah. So you either take it or you don’t.

So here you are, believing you’re totally innocent. And the way the system’s set up is an innocent person has to spend tens of thousand dollars just to get eyeballs on your case?

Lewis: Yeah, yeah. Because you’ve got to get somebody that’s going to get it in front of him. Trump brought in somebody to handle that. And I think that’s what really helped accelerate the process. He bought Alice Johnson in. He gave her a pardon and then he brought her in as the Pardon Czar for the White House. So she handles all of the pardons and looks into the cases. That’s how they brought us five into the equation because she was like, “I think you guys have done your time, you lived under that rock for so long. It’s time. The President heard it through and put pen to paper.” Shit, you can’t complain. I was happy.

I’m just happy it happened and now it’s behind me. It’s hard to get business capital as a convicted felon. They turn you down immediately or they charge you a high interest rate. … People see through it sometimes because of who you are. Still, it comes up. So now I’ve got my pardon papers and it’s in the system that I’m clean.

How much time did you do in prison?

Lewis: It was six months. But I did it in the offseason. Four months in and two months halfway house.

What was life like behind bars?

Lewis: It was different. You’ve got to read that in the book.

When I do get it finished, I want to exclusively speak to kids at colleges and universities — the NIL kids, the high-profile kids that are basically going to have to deal with some of this stuff in the future. And making better decisions. Consequences that do happen, things that come up that you just don’t even think about and just like what happened with me. I want to be able to share that with these guys and tour some schools for that first year. And then drop the book after that. Because I think that’s who it’s for. They’re in the same boat that I was in. I got caught up right before the draft. And then I didn’t get indicted until four years later. It was about to go into the statute of limitations. It was almost at the five-year mark.

What do you regret then? Were you using drugs?

Lewis: No, I just regret being young and naive at the time to even letting this girl in my world.

She said she knew Michael Vick’s family, and Michael Vick wanted to talk to me about leaving school earlier. And it came through my marketing agent. So my marketing agent, of course, was probably trying to get Michael Vick in some kind of way. So doing them a favor then turned into this girl who was really bullshitting. She was really sent by the government.

That’s the only thing I regret. That’s one of the things that these kids need to watch out for. Don’t let everybody in your world. Especially when you’re who you are.

I was just reading a story by Dan Wetzel. A lot of high school athletes that are high profile D-1 athlete prospects are getting targeted by people overseas posing as females and they’ll ask for nudes. Then somebody in Nigeria tries to extort them and send the pictures to all their friends, all their family through the school and these boys are killing themselves.

Lewis: Wow. That’s crazy. That’s the mission with the book — to help somebody else. Because like I said, I was doing it to try to get a pardon. That’s done. So, now what?

Let people hear my story and hear from my side vs. what they read back then in 2005.

How about all the other stuff that we got into back in 2018? All the concussions you suffered in the pros did a number on you. And, mentally, do you finally feel fulfilled in life after football? Depression probably isn’t something you simply defeat completely.

Lewis: The depression was there. It was gaining the weight and feeling down on yourself. We talked about it. Not having the crowd. Not having that around anymore and getting adjusted. Now, I’m adjusted. I’m adjusted to civilian lifestyle. I learned how to deal with and cope with problems that might exist. At the time, I was either in a business or trying to start something and get something going. But with time, things developed and business started going good. Things started looking up and that kind of helped. And even like I said, losing the weight, working out, getting back active. That really helped, too.

Are you running the same businesses as before? Have things changed?

Lewis: I’ve sold out of some of them. But right now, I’ve got a company where we run underground fiber. Underground construction. So I’ve got a partner in that and we’ve been tyring to build that up for three or four years. Mainly running fiber for Telecom companies. And then since Jazz was doing his thing, I got involved in his sports. That’s why I started “Shōcase” brands with him and my older son. It’s more youth apparel type stuff. I designed this shoe bag. Because I was buying these cleats for $200, $300. Right? And then you go to basketball and shoes are, shit, even more than that. Because if you don’t get them when they first come out, you won’t find them. So I basically designed this bag where the kids can carry their shoes in them since they cost so much. A Shōcase bag. I started going to these 7-on-7 camps, all these camps that I’m taking Jazz to and I’m seeing the money grab and what they’re doing. That’s why you’ve got to go to the right camps and be at the right places where it’s not money grabs.

So many of them seem like a Ponzi scheme.

Lewis: Yeah! So basically I did my first showcase this past Saturday. So I had some of the top players in the country. I had some of the top players in the country come in and we did 1 v 1’s. Competed. Quarterbacks. Running backs. Linebackers. Receivers. DBs. We had probably about 100 kids in downtown Atlanta. I did it at Grady Stadium.

And you’re not charging an arm and a leg.

Lewis: I didn’t charge at all. It was an invite only. You know Quincy Carter. So he did all my quarterbacks. (Note: We did a 1 on 1 with Carter on the QB’s addiction battle, icymi.) Another guy here did DB training. Another guy did wide receiver training. So we basically pulled it together because they know a lot of kids that they train or they come across. I called up some coaches around the area that I knew in-state, out of state. I was like, “Hey man, I’ve got this showcase. If you’ve got some kids you want to invite, let me know their name and stuff like that.” So we evaluated them before they came just to make sure the competition was there. But it was good.

I just got my bags into the PGA Tour Superstore. It’s a big golf store. Retail. All they do is buy golf stuff. So they just brought my bags in.

And you’ve got these superstar children doing big things. That’s got to give you so much happiness. You talk about waking up in the morning and filling out the calendar to keep you busy. Now you’re waking up in the morning and one of your kids is acting in a movie?

Lewis: Javen has been staying active and doing his thing. And then he did an audition for this movie (“Undercard”) and he ended up getting it. And then he got a TV show coming out too called Route 187 (on Paramount). A Tyler Perry show. So he’s been doing his thing, man. Staying active and just staying at it. He’s 22. I think we went to his basketball game (in 2018).

Jazz was just a little guy playing baseball at the park back then.

Lewis: Now, he’s 170 pounds and has 10 football offers.

Where to?

Lewis: Memphis, Oregon State, Colorado State. UMass just offered him. You’ve got to check out his Instagram. We moved up to Milton. They’ve got a real good program. He’s put on 10 pounds since he’s been there. He’s a slot receiver. About 5-9 right now.

What traits do you think he got from Dad when you watch him out there?

Lewis: I think his feet and vision. I would say hands, but a lot of people would be like, “Nah, that’s bullshit. But I just needed the opportunity to catch balls. I had some good hands!

Once upon a time, I had you on my fantasy team in fourth grade. It was my Dad’s league. All the adults let me in it. You carried the “Crushers” to a title, rushing for over 2K in that last game. You’re right — you could catch it.

Lewis: He’s got some big hands and he can catch it, man. That’s the only reason I let him play it. But I started him at running back. You don’t know how big a kid is going to be. Let him play everywhere. But then he ended up going to this school up here and they moved him straight to wide receiver because he was a better athlete than a lot of other kids. So he started as a freshman on varsity. So that kind of got him kicked off with experience and stuff like that. That’s one of the reasons I sent him there. Because I knew he would start. Going to a big school he’s just going to sit on the bench.

He’s a junior next year. And being a slot receiver — vs. a running back — who in the hell knows what the running back position looks like in five years?

Lewis: But when you play running back, it gives you vision. It also teaches you instinct — to be able to run between people vs. just being out on the island where you just have one person in front of you. But being able to carry the ball and use that pad level. There’s certain athletic movements. Now, if he catches the ball and gets upfield, he’s hard to tackle. But I think a lot of that comes from playing that running back position because he was running scared as hell.

You could run away from people, but you were running through people.

Lewis: But I was scared, too. Back when I was young? Run scared. If you run scared, you’ll be alright.

Does he pull up your old games at all to watch you?

Lewis: He did back in the day. He was like me. He watched football. But now he watches Ja’Marr Chase and Justin Jefferson. He watches those guys. And then we go train. He sees all these guys that are in the league.

I’ve got a place down in Delray Beach. So we’ll try to get down there and actually train when you’ve got a dead period. Because the schools, they lock ‘em down. They’d have ‘em year ‘round if they could. … Now they’ve got agents in high school. I deal with a couple agents here because with my company, we like to do deals with the kids and some of them have the kids. So it’s like, “Hey, we want to get our product on these kids.” That’s one of the reasons I did the showcase. I had probably two of the top wide receivers in the country from high school that are juniors. I had the No. 1 wide receiver out of South Carolina: Amare Patterson. Then, Braylon Calais. He’s from Louisiana. It’s a chance to get around these kids and talk to them and mentor them a little bit. It’s a different landscape now.

Would you still play football all over again? And encourage people to play the sport?

Lewis: Oh yeah.

To you, why does the reward outweigh the risk now that you have a son rising up in the sport?

Lewis: He loves it. You just need to keep them safe and keep them up on the knowledge of the game and knowing the game and working out and training and tell them the ins and outs. And I’ve got stories, too. So don’t make the same mistakes I made. You confront them with that.

The good that the game has. Why does that outweigh the bad — the depression, the suicidal thoughts you’ve had since you retired?

Lewis: Because these dudes are not getting hit anymore. They’re not getting hit like that. So I think that the risk of a kid having depression at 30 years old or having suicidal thoughts, stuff like that — in their 30s — it’s not going to be that. Because these kids are not as physical, first of all. Well, it’s the rules. It’s not that they’re not physical. The rules make the game not as physical, which makes it safer. So you’re not getting killed going across the middle. You’re not able to lower your head. You’re not able to get into the habits that we had. So it’s been constantly evolving over time. The helmets are a little different, too. The protocols are different. Even with 7 on 7, they’ve got to wear the guardian caps. Even in the game now, they’ve got the guardian caps.

How much can those guardian caps actually help? The brain is still within the skull sloshing around on impact.

Lewis: I’m not an expert, but I’ve heard this enough that honestly, it’s like it’s not. It’s the second impact. The second impact is what hurts you. It’s when you go down and your head bounces off the ground. So it’s really a lot of that. It softens the blow. Even though your brain moves in your head, it’s that second impact. So you get hit, boom, and then you go down to the ground, boom. That’s the second impact. A lot of times, it’s the second impact that knocks you out and makes you unconscious.

The helmets are a little different, too. I look at old pictures of a Ridell bowl on my head. Now they got all kinds of slits and shit and it makes it a little different. You’re not getting hit. They’re tackling. We got hit. They tackle now.

I think of your time with the Cleveland Browns and that SI cover of James Harrison taking out Mohamed Massaquoi’s head (in 2010) with his forearm. We’re not going to see stuff like that again.

Lewis: Massaquoi lives around here. He’s good, man. You know he had an accident, but he’s good. He was riding the ATV and had an accident. He fucked up his arm. So now he has a (prosthetic). I think that he had an accident flipping, but he ended up putting his arm, trying to catch himself. But he’s got two kids. I see him at Whole Foods right here. Just in line. He’s got two or three kids.

Share Go Long

Subscribe now

The running backs of your era were different.

Lewis: It was hard competition, man. Every year, you’re like “Am I going to the Pro Bowl or am I not? You’ve got this guy over here and this guy over here. A ton of featured backs that were running.

You got a Super Bowl ring your rookie year, but could’ve gotten more if you had better quarterback play in Baltimore.

Lewis: If I could’ve come back that next year (in 2001), I think I could’ve helped them because they did go deep. That was with Elvis Grbac and Randall Cunningham. I got hurt that next year after the Super Bowl. They brought in three different running backs: Terry Allen, Moe Williams and they had a guy who was the same age I was: Jason Brookins. They had a rotation and ended up going (to the divisional round). We still had a good defense.

Even after those Ravens days, when you went to Cleveland (in 2007), you actually had a good season. Won 10 games.

Lewis: We were pretty good. That first year. We were just young and guys didn’t know how to come back the next year and how to work. They just didn’t know and it showed because we had a real young team. When we came back the next year, it was shitshow.

Did you have other options? I’m guessing Cleveland offered the most money.

Lewis: Cleveland locked me in a room. Phil Savage was there. He was with the Ravens before. I’m happy I was there.

That’s right — Phil Savage was the man who helped get you to Baltimore.

Lewis: He brought me in. Phil’s got an interesting story. He told me this when I got to Cleveland. He said he came to Tennessee and I think he was looking at an offensive lineman. So I think we were at the end of the season, going to bowl game. And he said he came down to see this kid and when he got there, we weren’t practicing. So he asked the GA to walk him around the facility. So they did that and I never did squats and shit. I always worked out in the sand pit. So Johnny Long, who was a trainer, that’s where we got our legs in. In the sand. I didn’t go home. I didn’t leave. I just stayed to work out and get ready for the bowl game. So I was back there training in the sandpit. Phil saw me working out in the sandpit and said, “Who is that?” The dude said, “Oh, that’s our freshman running back, Jamal Lewis.” And he said he immediately called Ozzie (Newsome) and was like, “You’ve got to see this kid.” The next year they came down to the Alabama game and I closed it out. I was on their radar ever since. That’s all I used to do. Work out in that damn sand pit.

That’s all it takes — one moment. You never know who’s watching.

Lewis: You never know who’s watching. We used to practice on a hill. You’ve got to work. Work. At full speed, let’s go. Never know who’s watching. That’s one thing we told the kids at our showcase. You never know who’s watching.

You’ve come a long way from those streets of Adamsville, right? Back when you practiced on a field full of glass.

Lewis: We practiced on that shit.

You got scraped up pretty good from those days. Arms, legs?

Lewis: Tried to stay off the ground, bro. That’s why I had those choppy steps. You’re trying to stay off the ground — not being hit.

Is all that stuff in your past then — those suicidal thoughts? Or do they creep up at all?

Lewis: It’s always finding a way to channel. The working out. The training. I’ll go ride the bike. I’ll go and lift. I’ve got a lifting guy I got to work out with. Do that a couple times a week and stuff like that. So any time I go into a state of depression or it creeps in, I get on the bike. I go work out and find a way to just channel that. Before, I wasn’t working out. So I wasn’t able to channel that energy. All I did was just get fat and gain a bunch of weight.

Something as simple as that — working out.

Lewis: Working out, man. Because I worked out all the time. Growing up, that’s what we did. That’s what we did. Worked out. Trained. My brother — trained.

That helps out guys more than anything. Even the old-timers. Jackie Smith, a tight end for the St. Louis Cardinals, spent a year with the Cowboys and had one of the biggest drops in Super Bowl history. One of the greatest players ever and not a lot of people know about him.

Lewis: Like Earnest Byner. He dealt with that for a while.

You’ve probably seen the iconic picture of a Cowboys player in the 1970s on his back. It looks like he’s levitating. That’s him. We hung out in St. Louis for my tight ends book and he’s in his mid-80s at this point. And he went through depression for years, closed himself off from family, he wouldn’t even open up to his own kids. It was that simple for him, too. Even at his age, he works out all the time.

Lewis: Being able to work out, being able to hit it. And when I started doing testosterone treatment, started doing the HRT (Hormone Replacement Therapy), everything changed. I changed mentally. I was in another place. And thank God I was able to do that. Accomplishing my goals, losing weight, getting back in shape, it just makes everything better.

Sixty pounds you lost?

Lewis: Yeah. I always say I was 295. But I’m sure I was tipping 300. Now, I’m 240.

And it’s muscle. (Note: Lewis posts workout videos on his IG.)

Lewis: Yeah, 240. I work out with Jazz sometimes. I get to the gym because I take him to work out on Saturdays. So we’ll hit the gym and it got me going.

Staying busy. That’s another thing — staying busy. With Shōcase brands, it’s trying to help these kids put the best product on the field. Which is themselves. I’m learning in the process too, because I’ve got a son that’s 16 years old going through the same thing. So me knowing the industry, me knowing what it really takes and having the resources, I ask trainers: “Hey, my son’s turning 14, turning 15. What do we need to do? How do we need to train right now?” He needs to get faster. He needs to get bigger. So I got all these resources. A lot of parents don’t have resources.

You’re such a success story here — how an ex-pro can get to this other side.

Lewis: Last time you saw me, I was down in the dumps. Mentally, I was trying to find a way. 2020 hit and I think things turned. My Dad died from COVID and, boom, things just changed and started going up. … He died on July 27. I think a little time after they came out with the shot. He was on the ventilator. He was one of the ventilator guys.

And that’s when you kind of got into working out?

Lewis: That’s when I really got into the TRT (Testosterone Replacement Therapy) treatment and stuff like that. So really it was starting in 2020. But then I probably didn’t go serious until about ’21, ‘22, and I really started getting into it. Doc would just give me the knowledge of, “This is why you take the TRT testosterone with the CJC, which is a human hormone, and why you do that.”

HGH has a bad wrap. Back in 2013, I did a story at the Journal Sentinel. One of the players I talked to was one of your old contemporaries: Ahman Green. He noted how our body already produces HGH and putting more of it back in your body is like putting motor oil back in a car.

Lewis: It helps from a healing standpoint. Because at night when you go to sleep, that’s when your HGH kicks in. So that’s when the healing start. But some of us, how often do we sleep? What time do we go to sleep? So by taking a CJC, which is not like HGH, a compound. When you take CJC, it goes in and it chases down your natural. That’s why it’ll put you to sleep quicker. Basically, it heightens your own HGH. So take it. Just like testosterone. Your body naturally produces testosterone, too. But after 40 years old, it ain’t kicking. That’s why your energy level goes down. So now by taking more of it, it heightens it and gets it up.

HGH is from a healing standpoint, like inflammation. But you’ve got VPC157, TB500, which is like “wolverine,” that’s what they call it because it’s combined. But it’s for inflammation. So a lot of people out here, a lot of illnesses, a lot of stuff that happens to you comes from inflammation. A lot of people that died with COVID, it’s because of inflammation. Inflammation jumps up and it grabs certain diseases and shit like that. It pollinates that disease. That’s what inflammation does, the mucus and stuff like that. So you want to keep that down. So that’s why these peptides keep that stuff calmed down.

What got you interested in all this? Because when we last hung out, you weren’t into health and fitness at all.

Lewis: Seeing my body. Now, I look like I did when I was toting the rock.

You’re in the best shape since when, would you say?

Lewis: I’m back. Since 2010 when I retired.

Let’s announce a comeback. Think you could give a team a dozen snaps?

Lewis: As soft as they are right now? I can get you a fourth and one. I might pull a hamstring getting there. It’s going to be a hamstring or an Achilles tendon. One of them is going. I’ll be done after that.

Share

Subscribe now

Related…

The Fight For Erik Kramer’s Life

Part I: A miracle

Part II: Victimized

Part III: A new man

The Majik Man’s final comeback

Part I

Part II

Q&A: Darren Woodson opens up on avoiding gangs, his wild Cowboys days, depression, finding purpose

Alex Green escapes the abyss

Ryan Leaf wants to save NFL players’ lives: ‘You’re not alone’

Q&A: Ryan Leaf is the ‘lighthouse’ for NFL retirees

The tenacity of Terence Newman

‘I would’ve played for nothing:’ Joe DeLamielleure, Bills & Browns HOF’er, relives a charmed football life

‘Game on:’ The unique rise of Joe Theismann

‘Whatever doesn’t kill us, right?’ A chat with Drew Bledsoe

Miss our latest profile? Go Long traveled to Philadelphia to sit down with Drew Mukuba, a man whose upbringing in Zimbabwe prepared him for all guaranteed turbulence in this city. (And Vic Fangio.)

Two years back, subscribers may recall this piece on the Vikings. In light of Jonathan Greenard’s trade to the Eagles this offseason, we figured we’d reprise and tweak a chunk of that story below.

I caught up with Greenard 1 on 1 in 2024 to see what makes him tick. Philly is betting big on the pass rusher to deliver this season.

Share

EAGAN, Minn. — The chieftain of a ransacking defense takes a seat on a leather sectional in the lounge area outside the locker room. Piece by piece, he starts removing his body armor. There’s the 2XL gloves. There’s the bulky arm brace that resembles something those literal Viking tribesmen wore in the 10th century. Jonathan Greenard tears apart the tape covering his hands and drops the remains into a pile at his feet.

Scars cover his knuckles. A pronounced 2 ½-inch scar is on top of his right hand.

The purple thread on that “V” of his practice jersey is tearing off.

His winter beard is coming in early.

All smiles here, he’s been all pain for opposing quarterbacks. Greenard pinpoints the first domino that tipped in his football life, the moment that led to all destruction we see. He was 5 years old in Hiram, Ga. Playing the glory positions in Pop Warner — running back and linebacker — eyes were always fixated on him. Especially those of his father. That early, Dad would film his games on a camcorder and then the duo meticulously broke down the footage. If Greenard showed any weakness? If he let a smaller player hit him? Dad showed no mercy. It didn’t matter if Jonathan took a handoff 70 yards to the house in the same game.

Once Dad took over as coach, he handed film duties over to Jonathan’s sister. His critiques were never confined to what happened between the whistles, either. Mack Greenard Jr. would catch a “lackadaisical” Jonathan chewing his mouthpiece and lose it. “What are you doing?!” he’d ask. “Fix your pants or something. Look like a football player. Don’t look like a fucking kid out there.” Jonathan’s older brother played center which meant Mack would often set up pass-rushing drills in the middle of the kitchen. Dad beckoned “You better go as hard as you can!” and they’d work to an all-out sweat as dinner went cold.

Of course, this was only the beginning. Greenard would soon get tested in more profound ways throughout his life.

He knows he’s not sitting here without those roots.

“Kids don’t like to be coached or held accountable,” Greenard says, “and I feel like my Dad was that one who did. I’m that same person that I was as a child wanting to be the best, wanting to make sure I critique every little thing about my game.”

Support independent journalism today. No ads, no sponsors.

We cover the NFL through a longform lens.

Subscribe now

Greenard was the Minnesota Vikings’ keynote signing before the 2024 season.

Two years later? He’s the keynote addition to a sterling Philadelphia Eagles defense.

The trade makes sense for both parties. The Vikings needed cap flexibility and have Dallas Turner, a 17th overall pick, ready for more snaps. The Eagles lost Jaelan Phillips in free agency to Carolina and wanted a Tier 1 edge rusher. GM Howie Roseman shipped off a pair of third-rounders to the Vikes and inked Greenard to a four-year, $98 million extension. With Jalen Carter and Jordan Davis caving the interior of the line, Greenard should see plenty of opportunities to wreck offenses. Both mammoth defensive tackles force offenses to slide protections, audible pre-snap and play on their heels.

Greenard has been spending time watching film with both players.

Now, Philly is banking on the Greenard of 2024 — 12 sacks, 42 pressures, 22 QB hits — taking another step.

Long before film sessions with his new Eagles teammates, yes, Greenard heard it all from his father.

All Jonathan wanted to do was relax between snaps as a 5-year-old and Dad wasn’t having it. Mack Greenard Jr. told him the offense might snap the ball when he’s fussing around with his mouthguard. Jonathan never met his grandfather but he’s positive Dad’s hardnosed discipline came from his own father’s time with the Navy. Youth football could feel militaristic at times.

Hard as Dad could be, he’d still spoil his youngest child. If Jonathan scored a couple touchdowns, he’d get a new video game. He calls himself the “baby” of the lot who got everything he wanted.

There was a ton of love. Tough love.

“If I didn’t have that and I was just allowed to do everything I wanted to do,” Greenard says, “who knows where the hell I’d be.”

All while Dad dealt with his own demons as a functioning alcoholic. He wasn’t physically or verbally abusive. Nor was he over-the-top “shit-faced,” son says. Simply, there was always a drink in his hands and he smoked cigarettes frequently. Looking back, Jonathan knows that’s why Dad pushed his three kids so hard. He didn’t want them making the mistakes.

Gradually, his health deteriorated.

By Jonathan’s freshman of high school, Dad could hardly walk. Diabetes started to develop and both his hip and knee went bad. It got harder and harder for Mack to attend his son’s games into 10th and 11th grade. After that junior season — when Jonathan still had zero D-I offers — Dad called him on the phone. His cough was hoarser this time and he admitted he was getting sick. The kids didn’t think much of it because Dad always bounced back. One week later, Mack was found unresponsive in his house.

Medics were able to revive him but when Jonathan got to the hospital on this Saturday in March 2014, he noticed a new emotion in his father: Fear.

“He was scared,” Greenard says. “That was the first time I saw my dad really scared. Like he had no control. You could see it in his eyes.”

Dad’s kidneys shut down and he got jaundice. His eyes were yellow.

The very next day, Greenard’s family needed to leave church ASAP. Dad’s health was nosediving. They all rushed over to the hospital and Jonathan can still picture his aunt in tears. The End was near. The next morning, Jonathan received the news while getting ready for school: His father had died from congestive heart failure. Mom was at work but thankfully his stepfather, Washington Varnum Jr., was in the house. Varnum gave Jonathan a huge hug.

Sixteen years old at the time, Greenard stayed at home and cried all day.

“That fucked me up,” Greenard says. “I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what to think.”

The following morning, he could hear his Dad’s voice in his head. The same one imploring him to hit someone on the football field as a tyke.

He wiped his tears away and went to school.

“The world had to continue on,” Greenard says. “I had to continue to live a purpose out in my life and understand that wasn’t everything. As close as I was to him — from that point on — I had to take everything with a grain of salt. Understand that it’s OK to deal with emotions and feel what you feel, but then there’s a point in time where you have to press on. The show goes on and, honestly, if you’re being real, nobody cares. When you go through things, people care to a certain extent. But when you get to this point where everybody’s job is relying on you to do your job, you have to find a way to put those things to the side. You have to find a way to maneuver and be the best version of yourself because it’ll eat you up.”

Wallowing in sadness wouldn’t accomplish a thing.

Greenard pressed on with Varnum assuming a greater role in his life.

He fought his way onto Louisville’s football team and, here, you can see a distinct scar on his hand That’s from the first game of Greenard’s 2018 collegiate season. Against Alabama, he lasted all of six plays before tearing his wrist up and missing the entire year. The injury could’ve dashed pro hopes on the spot. Instead, he hatched a plan. He vowed to graduate… transfer to an SEC school… get drafted and that’s exactly what he did.

At Florida, in ’19, Greenard led the conference in both sacks (9.5) and TFLs (16).

That offseason into his rookie year, 2020, it was hard to find anywhere to work out through Covid lockdowns. The Houston Texans selected him 90th overall, a whole 88 selections after Ohio State’s Chase Young.

Then, after a quiet first season, more heartbreak rocked his world. On Feb. 1, 2021, Varnum passed away with Covid. A total shocker. And this was tough because Varnum was at his side this second phase of his life. Every step of college and the pros. “When he passed away,” Greenard adds, “it put it all even in more perspective.” Again, Greenard told himself to “keep pressing” and tried to take lessons from their crushing deaths. Unlike his biological father, Greenard has never smoked and rarely ever drinks. His stepfather was amazing — he’s still grateful for Varnum stepping up — but Greenard cites a poor diet.

That ’21 season, Greenard busted out with eight sacks. Through offseason foot surgery, he told himself: Nothing can stop you. And the greatest wake-up call of them all was finding out in January 2023 that he and his wife were having a baby. That’s when he repeated four words to himself: This has to work. The sight of his daughter served as a constant reminder that there was no other option. That ’23 season, Greenard racked up 52 tackles, 12.5 sacks, 22 quarterback hits and earned his whopper of a contract in Minnesota.

With the Vikings, he knew he’d have an opportunity to step in as a leader.

“I felt like my presence was going to be felt — not just on the football field but in the locker room and around everybody,” Greenard says. “The locker room was amazing. It worked out perfectly.”

Into ‘24, Greenard reached another level. The 6-foot-3, 259-pounder has always been slimmer than his contemporaries. For years, he was told he’s too small to play on the defensive line. Not strong enough.

Criticism he still hears today.

“You can look at me and say, ‘Easy day at the office,’” Greenard says. “OK, cool. You’ve got to see me all game. I love when I’m doubted. Being an underdog. I hate being overtalked. I hate being hyped up.”

Bittersweet emotions are inevitable. He lost two fathers in less than a decade and cannot imagine what they’d be thinking right now. The same Dad dissecting film of a 5-year-old juking defenders on camcorder video would beam as his son smiles for the camera while sacking quarterback Joe Flacco. There are many days Greenard wishes both were around to witness his ascent. Their deaths still hurt.

He never wants to be the reason “energy” in the building wanes because he takes pride in being a lightning bolt of positivity.

“Whenever you’re this person who’s high energy like I am all the time, as soon as you have a day where you’re just chilling — not even mad or sad — they’re going to think something’s wrong,” Greenard says. “And I don’t want that. I don’t want any pity parties at all. I always attack the day and try to be as positive as possible. Some days I fail at that.

“I’m human. It definitely does affect me. It still does.”

That’s when Greenard looks at his wife, his daughter and promises to do everything in his power to not only see her graduate from high school but see her kids graduate. He is effectively finding a way to use that pain for good.

His professional career is now peaking.

He received the coveted life-changing contract. He’s playing for a contender, surrounded by pros who’ll make his job easier. If Jonathan Greenard is everything Roseman expects — and asserts himself as one of the sport’s premier pass rushers — Philadelphia just may boomerang right back to a championship game.

Share

Subscribe now

What’s on your mind as OTAs and minicamps wrap up?

Join the conversation inside the Substack app:

PHILADELPHIA — Here, if he wants water, all Drew Mukuba must do is make eye contact with the waitress across the diner and ask for a glass. She’s pretty rough around the edges — mid-70s, raspy voice, a tooth (or two) missing — but refers to all male patrons as “baby.” Best guess is that he’d receive water in three minutes tops. The clanking of plates and glassware synchronizes with Classix Philly 107.9 on the FM dial above. Flyers, Phillies and Eagles banners hang on the window. Life is good.

As a kid, growing up on the other side of the world, the process of acquiring one of life’s most basic essentials was painstaking. He lived in Zimbabwe up to the age of nine.

The nearest water pump to their refugee camp was approximately three miles away.

“I ain’t going to lie to you,” says Mukuba. “It was a walk.”

He’d trudge all the way to that pump, fill his bucket to the top and — by the time he returned home? — that bucket was only half full. No matter how hard he tried, it was impossible not to spill. There was no choice but to make three round trips at a time because the Mukubas needed water to cook, bathe, drink. Mom and Dad had six kids with a seventh in the future.

Everyone in their community made the same long walk.

Nobody viewed the exercise as perilous. Rather, protocol.

“This is life. This is my normal,” Mukuba says. “It’s the norm to me. It seemed normal looking around. But looking back? It’s insane.”

All memories remain vivid. Especially one burning desire to get to America.

All roads naturally steered Mukuba to the country’s birthplace: Philadelphia, Pa.

A perfect fit considering NFL life deemed normal here is insane everywhere else. This league’s ripe with fan bases that’d sacrifice their liver on the black market for just one championship and the desperate Bird Gang just might’ve boasted the most potential donors before triumphing over the New England Patriots in 2017. The coach was eventually fired. A new coach was hired. Philly clawed their way right back to another Super Bowl in 2022, lost by a field goal, then thoroughly flogged Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LIX.

Two rounds of confetti buy most franchises a lifetime of goodwill.

Not here. The 2025 season was consumed more like a brain-rot reality show on Netflix. Its content equal parts addictive and disturbing.

All shine glistening off the two Lombardis gave way to internal strife, the egging of an offensive coordinator’s home, wild Reddit theories and one report that the Super Bowl MVP quarterback was uncoachable. GM Howie Roseman went Full Howie, again, replenishing the roster with fresh blood. All chess moves help. A paradigm shift is now required beyond those transactions. Buffalo must learn how to attack on pure instinct, so Joe Brady is the new head coach. Green Bay seeks a killer instinct, and Javon Bullard is much obliged. Meanwhile, inside MetLife Stadium, Calvin Austin III is aiming to administer electroshock therapy to the New York Giants.

Spoiler alert: Expect more turmoil in Philly. More boos. The pressure ratchets up too high.

Mukuba digs the college atmosphere — how emotions swing violently both directions. “How they talk shit?” he adds, “it’s deeper than just football to them.”

Mukuba also knows the team itself cannot ride the same tidal wave as its constituents.

Calm is required. A deeper level of “appreciation.” For football, for the team-provided meal in the cafeteria, for everything.

“If I would say something to the team — or anybody — it’s to be thankful,” Mukuba says. “Because there’s a lot of people that don’t get to experience this. There’s a lot of people dying to get to the NFL. I know there’s somebody right now that would die to be in my position. Looking at how I grew up, what I was around, who I was being around, guys that didn’t make it? I’m a professional athlete. It doesn’t get any better than that. My job is to play football, something that I love to do. I couldn’t ask for more.

“A level of appreciation will take you a long way.”

The concept of dysfunction inside a locker room doesn’t register to someone growing up in such a primitive land.

His words are prescient for a club that resides in deafening, demanding terrain.

“Despite everything going on, you’re your own person,” he says. “You still have to go out there and do your job or you’re putting yourself in jeopardy. I like that mindset for everybody. In the NFL, you’re on your own. You’ve got to survive on your own. If you don’t take care of your own business — if you don’t do what you’re supposed to do? — it’ll get you gone.”

He doesn’t believe any inner-squabbling created distractions.

But even if it did? Even an issue arises this year? He jumps in.

“It’s none of your business. Do your job.”

Every defensive back is bound to face-plant in front of millions of viewers and every defensive player whose boss is named Vic Fangio is bound to experience the old-school coach’s rage. These film sessions are straight out of the 90s with humiliation in high supply. At one point last season, his voice bellowed Mukuba’s name with damning disdain.

It was at that exact moment Mukuba needed to make a choice.

Go Long is your forever home for longform.

We travel the country to sit down with the players who bring this sport to life.

Subscribers can access this story, and all stories, in full.

I want longform.

As the Second Congo War raged, an African conflict that resulted in an estimated 5.4 million deaths, Mom and Dad knew they needed to flee, to give their growing family a fighting chance at survival. Roughly 1,500 miles south, they settled into a Zimbabwe refugee camp. The goal? Gain asylum to the United States.

Three years in, Andrew (he prefers “Drew”) Mukuba was born. He spent the first nine years of his life right there in Harare, Zimbabwe.

“The hard times?” he begins. “You can’t forget the hard times. … At one point, I barely had anything.”

It was obviously safer than the Congo. But don’t conflate safe with easy. Survival still mandated all children take on specific tasks: sweeping the yard, doing dishes and, yes, those long walks to the water pump. Seven kids jammed into a one-bedroom house by Tetris’ing mattresses across all available floor space. Kids slept, woke up, thought nothing of it. “We never complained,” Mukuba says. “In the moment, it was just normal.”

Normal also included electricity shutting off without warning.

Thirty minutes. A day. A week. Three weeks straight. Nobody ever knew when it’d turn back on. The family resorted to using candles until those candles burnt out. Many days, the Mukubas lived in pitch black. A memory that reminds Drew of one favorite pastime. Instead of playing video games, his fun consisted of somehow creating light from an old DVD, wires and a battery. He tapped into parts of the brain kids in more developed country certainly did not.

All while temps climbed into the 90s. Forget AC units like the one booming above our table at Penrose Diner, two miles from The Linc. Zimbabwe was extremely dry with no bodies of water in sight. All the Mukubas could do was crack a door, leave a window open and hope for a breeze.

All while food was often scarce. He ate rice and beans on repeat.

Soccer was a go-to source of recreation. He’d play all day with other kids in the camp, with a dash of basketball and track. Cut off from the rest of the world, Mukuba had no clue the NFL existed. Mukuba didn’t even know football existed. Their television could only play DVDs. Unless you were in just the right area of town and tilted the antennae at just the right angle, channels were not an option.

So, no. He didn’t harbor any fantasies of playing pro sports. Simply emigrating to the United States was the dream. His parents spoke about this country as a land of opportunity. Both traveled Zimbabwe to work, save up money and, finally, they got the opportunity to fly west in 2012. Those early years in Austin, Texas, Mukuba’s mind was blown by the number of cartoons at his disposal on PBS Kids and CBS. Still, the states presented new challenges. He couldn’t speak a lick of English, which made it tough to find new friends. Whenever kids herded out to the playground, he couldn’t communicate. He was bullied.

Then, Mukuba was introduced to football. The shape of the ball made zero sense to him.

“Something shaped like an egg seemed weird,” he says.

It was love at first sight.

Drew and his brother started by buckling on bike helmets and crashing into each other at home — Drew playing on his knees since he was much taller. He didn’t know the rules. Nor was he on an official team of any capacity because Mom wasn’t sure how to sign him up. All Mukuba knew was that the objective of the sport was to get to the end zone as fast as you possibly could. The more familiar he got with the language, the more he could communicate during those elementary recess games. And one day, in fifth grade, Mukuba scored TD after TD after TD. Chickens, dogs, pigs, goats, elephants. His best guess is that he acquired this speed living amongst so many wild animals in Zimbabwe.

Watching on, the school’s gym teacher couldn’t believe his eyes. Shannon Crenshaw pulled Mukuba aside and asked if he’d want to play for his little league team.

“Shit,” Mukuba says, “the rest is history.”

Mukuba started playing and Crenshaw became a mentor for life.

By his freshman year of high school, he was taking football very seriously. He never complained about anything. Not when he saw his mother, Tshala Bilolo, getting up at 5 a.m. each day to work as a housekeeper at the Omni Hotel in downtown Austin to support her kids. His parents divorced in the states and she shouldered the load.

He’d soon receive his first college scholarship before playing one down of varsity football. After tearing his meniscus and transferring schools, he couldn’t play by Texas high school rules. It didn’t matter. At one camp that summer before his sophomore year, by his count, he allowed zero receptions on 13 passes thrown his way. Arizona special teams coordinator Jeremy Springer walked right up to him and offered on the spot. Mukuba’s mind was blown. Two days later, Arkansas called with an offer. Three days, Tulsa joined the party.

And when Mukuba got his chance to star at Lyndon B. Johnson High School, all powerhouses were in: Alabama, Tennessee, Ole Miss, Texas, etc.

Football inherently demands sacrifice. There’s an understanding that your body will ache (severely) the morning after. Mukuba felt a gravitational pull toward all pain, all hard work. He wasn’t fazed by practicing in triple-digit temps when there were full water bottles on the sideline. His best qualities represented the sport itself.

“The game of football,” he says, “is more than just football. It teaches you life lessons. It installs discipline. It installs teamwork. A lot comes with football. But for me? I’ve already had a lot of that stuff installed in me. I had discipline because of how I was raised. My culture. That’s something we harp on. That put me ahead of the football players because I already had those things in me. I naturally apply it to football.

“I was set to win. I was set to overcome whatever is in my way. Because I’ve dealt with a lot of difficult times, difficult moments in my life. Seeing what I’ve seen, what I went through, nobody was thinking what I was thinking at my age.”

A four-star recruit, he didn’t want to attend school close to home. This nixed Texas and Texas A&M. He didn’t believe LSU’s position coach one bit when he said Mukuba could start Day 1. (“Feeding me a whole bunch of bullshit.”) Clemson promised the chance to compete for a starting spot in the secondary. He liked that honesty. He also liked the idea of moving 15 hours away, even if it meant not visiting the campus until he moved in. Mukuba never had a chance to travel to Clemson during COVID restrictions his senior year. A “leap of faith,” he calls it.

Success was instant. Not only was Mukuba the first player Dabo Swinney ever signed without meeting face to face. He became the first freshman to start at the school since records were first kept in 1972, earning a slew of accolades: Freshman All-American, ACC defensive rookie of the year, third team All-ACC.

Then, his football world came crashing down.

Injuries compounded. He had a brace fashioned around a dislocated elbow. His meniscus, torn in high school, often throbbed. He sprained his ankle. The worst pain of all was a sprained MCL. Head to toe, Mukuba was a shell of himself as a sophomore at Clemson.

But he was on the field, so nobody cared. Nobody gives a damn about the fine print to a 72-yard touchdown against South Carolina.

On the field, he was overthinking everything. Off it, his social media accounts were bombarded. Unlike life in Zimbabwe, technology is unavoidable here. He read all the hate. Even Swinney, an eternal optimist, was ragging on him. “They don’t make Sophomore All-Americans!” Mukuba remembers him crowing. Living 1,000+ miles from home didn’t seem like such a great idea anymore.

“I fell into a dark hole,” Mukuba admits, “because I wasn’t playing my best football. Injuries were fucking me up. I was getting bombed on. I was getting my ass torn up on the Internet. It was crazy. I played some of my worst football.”

Mukuba, an introvert, was in no rush to spill his guts to either of his roommates.

Both, however, helped him realize he needs a life outside of football.

In America, he swiftly realized that the hero can became the goat and then the hero again at warp speed. Those who weather the storm are at a distinct advantage. Any defensive back is bound to get beat. Now that he plays for the Philadelphia Eagles? Yeah, he’s thankful for this turbulent 2022. After bouncing back in ‘23, he then opted for a change of scenery to reset “and start from ground zero” back in Texas. It was the best decision of his football life. In ‘24, Mukuba totaled 69 tackles (41 solo), five interceptions, a forced fumble and played hero for the Longhorns in the Peach Bowl. His interception in double overtime sealed a win over Arizona State.

“Every time I’ve had a setback,” he adds, “something good always came out of it.”

Such as the birth of his son through that Clemson roller-coaster. Right after a 31-24 OT loss to Florida State, he went for a walk with his girlfriend and… she said it was time. They rushed to the hospital, they became parents and Mukuba shrugs off those early witching hours. He was already operating on three hours of sleep with early lifting sessions. All three live together here in Philly.

His perspective — much like Josh Allen — changed with this new arrival.

“Now, you can’t be selfish. Now, decision-wise, you’ve got to be a lot wiser than you were before,” Mukuba says. “You don’t think for yourself. Now, I think twice before I do certain things that I know I feel iffy about — because I know it’s not just going to affect me.”

Philadelphia selected him in the second round and, in a Clemson repeat, Mukuba wasted no time introducing himself. In Week 2, the Eagles traveled to Kansas City for a Super Bowl rematch.

Like most ‘25 Eagles games, this was a grimy, low-scoring affair. On the sideline, Hurts pined for his D to create a turnover. Facing second and goal at the 6-yard line, the Chiefs were poised to take a lead in the fourth quarter. Seated here, Mukuba smiles wide and replays it all again. The Eagles prepared for this exact play during practice, he explains. They knew that when the running back looped around Mahomes in motion, the ball was going to tight end Travis Kelce. This is who Mahomes wanted in the red zone.

In truth, Mukuba admits he should’ve broken on the ball earlier. If Old Man Kelce simply catches the ball and falls down, it’s a touchdown. He dropped it. Mukuba cradled the interception, sprinted 41 yards the other direction and the Eagles scored a touchdown to go up 20-10. Inside the locker room, his phone buzzed nonstop with so many messages that it froze. None of the apps would even load. Mukuba needed to stay off his phone for several minutes before reading the several hundred texts and DMs.

Eagles players visited an elementary school that following week and kids went nuts at the sight of him.

“Man, you would have thought they saw Michael Jackson out there,” Mukuba says. “People just started looking at me different. A lot of opportunities outside of football started presenting themselves. Everything changed. People know who I am off of that one play. It was life-changing.”

On cue, our waitress opens up the blinds and a light shines directly on Mukuba. The NFL’s best can all pinpoint one specific moment their lives changed. Take the last two MVPs. Allen, in Year 2, on Thanksgiving Day, monster-trucked through the Dallas Cowboys defense for a fourth-down conversion that asserted both he and the Bills were for real. Matthew Stafford, as a rookie, famously threw a game-winning touchdown after suffering a separated and dislocated shoulder vs. Cleveland. One tipping point can launch a career.

Of course, this league can also KO you to the canvas at a moment’s notice. It’s a remarkably humble profession.

Mukuba learned this the hard way.

Every defensive player is destined to experience the Wrath of Vic. That’s how Zack Baun termed it during Super Bowl Week in New Orleans. One mistake. That’s it. One mistake and Vic Fangio, 68 in August, will magnify the error up on the big screen for maximum embarrassment. His respect must be earned. Mukuba says Fangio didn’t even talk to him his first two months with the team. That KC pick helped. But four weeks later, one nightmare performance against the New York Giants on Thursday Night Football put Mukuba squarely in Fangio’s crosshairs.

In a 34-17 loss to the Giants, Mukuba whiffed badly trying to tackle Wan’Dale Robinson near the sideline on the receiver’s 35-yard score, surrendered a catch on a key third down and had multiple coverage busts when the ball wasn’t thrown his way.

It was his turn.

“I fucked up that game,” he begins. “After that game? Vic was on my ass, man, for a whole three weeks straight until I got right. He was on my ass. … Vic didn’t like me that game.

“He’s just old school. He’s honest with you. He doesn’t care. He’ll tell you the God’s honest truth in front of everybody. Whoever. It doesn’t matter. He will speak his mind. And that goes back to that old-school coaching and old-school mindset he’s got. You might not want to hear it. You’re not going to want to hear it. But you’ve got to take it. You’re a grown man. You’re a professional athlete.”

Fangio didn’t gently pull him aside to discuss those plays. All gaffes were broadcast for all to see.

“It was really hard because it was in front of everybody,” Mukuba says. “But I took it as a challenge.”

This was Mukuba’s next gut-check moment.

He easily could’ve recoiled as Fangio barked in his ear those ensuing three weeks. Turned into a robot terrified of making a mistake. So many 21- and 22-year-olds are not strong enough mentally to handle harsh coaching. Especially today. College coaches are increasingly hesitant to criticize their own players in fear of losing them to the transfer portal. Piss off a five-star and he’ll kindly take his talents elsewhere. (“You don’t want to lose your best players in college,” Mukuba adds, “because you’ll lose your job.”) Fangio, conversely, isn’t distracted by such sensitivities.

Mukuba embraced his roasting. He didn’t try to split the atom overnight. After that horror show in East Rutherford, he instead targeted a specific aspect of his game each week with safeties coach Joe Kasper. Eye discipline. Body positioning. Studying receiver releases. Formation recognition. And one of his favorite fixes: Block destruction. At his size (5 foot 11, 186 pounds), Mukuba needed to find new ways to shed receivers. Power or speed alone wasn’t working, so he started taking better angles.

The better the rookie played, the stronger Philly’s entire D became. Fangio even gave him flowers publicly.

It’s no surprise the same coaching tact is deployed by DeMeco Ryans in Houston and Mike Macdonald in Seattle. Players hate you now, love you later and the net result is one of the best defenses in the league.

“A lot of guys respect Vic,” Mukuba says, “and believe in what he’s saying and trust what he says.”

Everything came to a screeching halt, of course. Mukuba broke his ankle in Week 12 against the Cowboys when a teammate’s body weight crashed on the outside of his leg. Adrenaline pumping, he walked off the field on his own. Ten minutes later, the safety couldn’t walk at all. His rookie season officially wiped out, Mukuba made a point to stick around the team as much as possible. Stay positive. He didn’t want to fall into another Clemson-like pit of depression. Instead, he turned himself into a student of the sport and started seeing a completely different game. The Eagles lost to San Francisco in the wild-card round of the playoffs, safety Reed Blankenship signed with the Texans and, now, Roseman is betting big on Mukuba’s ascent. A lot rides on his ability to take the next step.

And in 2026, he wants all the smoke. He wants everything Fangio has to offer because he knows it’s all designed to help him.

One NFL dynamic does surprise him. Mukuba can tell other young players get starstruck and act like fans. “Oh shit, that’s Jalen Hurts,” he says imitating them. “Oh shit, AJ Brown.” These are players you might’ve idolized but they’re not deities. They’ve got a job to do. Fall into a trance for a half-second, mesmerized by the talent across the line of scrimmage, and you’ll get beat for a touchdown. He refuses to put anyone in the NFL on a pedestal.

“Be you. You’ve got to be you,” Mukuba says. “You’re your own person too. You’ve got to respect the game and respect the person across from you. But shit, at this level? You’re here to do the same thing they’re here to do. Do your job, they do their job.

“You need a free mind to just play.”

Playing in I-95 traffic was a more enjoyable endeavor than watching the Eagles attempt to play offense much of last season. Out is Kevin Patullo, in is Sean Mannion as OC. Out is AJ Brown, in is Makai Lemon, Dontayvion Wicks and Hollywood Brown at wide receiver. Defensively, on paper, it’s hard to nitpick a weakness. Jonathan Greenard is one of the league’s most underrated edge rushers. A player we got to know in 2024. The core remains rock solid.

Mukuba believes the Eagles have all ammo required to get back to the Super Bowl.

Everyone must contribute, he notes, from the team nutritionist to the front office. “If one thing is off,” he adds, “a lot will be off.” No wonder he sees Roseman constantly. The GM is involved with everything to make sure there is no such leakage. Other scouts might’ve viewed Mukuba as a third- or fourth-round pick after his pedestrian 40 time. The Eagles fully understood what’s ticking inside and valued what they saw on tape. Ex-DBs coach Christian Parker, now the Cowboys’ DC, was a major advocate. (“He’s definitely going to hear it when we play them.”)

Until training camp begins, Drew Mukuba will spend time with his 2-year-old. He’s trying to get into fishing and golfing. He’s been loving all invites to all sporting events. Mukuba attended the first hockey game of his life when the Flyers made the playoffs and is planning on checking out World Cup games at The Linc. Unimaginable back at age 8. Mukuba knows there are droves of kids back in his home country still walking miles for water. That’s why he launched a nonprofit two months ago. Mukuba plans on flying back to Zimbabwe to pay it forward.

Their hard times will pay off. He’s proof.

“Since I was young, I’ve always had a different mindset,” Mukuba says. “It gives me an advantage over a lot of people.”

Ask what’s so different about the way he thinks and he points to his childhood. He was forced to grow up a decade earlier than kids in more developed countries.

“It helps me prepare,” he continues, “for whatever’s coming next.”

This spring day feels something like the calm before a storm. Nobody inside this diner recognizes the second-year safety, but they all will at some point this 2026 season. For better, for worse. That’s how life works for all teams that call this city home.

Turbulence is a guarantee.

He’s thankful for it.

Share Go Long

Subscribe now

ICYMI:

Go Long sat down 1 on 1 with Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen.

The former MVP opens up on everything.

I want NFL longform.

Give a gift subscription

ORCHARD PARK, NY — The quarterback who spellbinds defenses with ballistic-missile arm strength, aerodynamic athleticism and one of the sport’s highest IQs has officially met his match. Many nights, Josh Allen is wide awake from 2 a.m. to 3 a.m. And precisely when he thinks his baby girl is fast asleep and starts to lay her back down, she wakes up.

Her eyes stretch wide open.

Dad cannot help but laugh.

“Because she’s me,” says Allen. “She is me and my wife. I don’t like to miss a good time. She wants to hang out with us.”

Whispering from another room doesn’t help. Both Allen and his wife, Hailee Steinfeld, have learned it’s best if the sound of their normal chatter serves as white noise to help their daughter ever… so… gradually drift off. They’re not outsourcing parenting duties to a cadre of nannies. Allen, with immense pride, dubs himself “The Diaper King.” So far, he has surrendered zero blowouts. With very disciplined diaper methodology, he’s hoping to extend this streak for months. Not a single onesie has bit the dust. The key, he explains, is to stretch each wing flap over as tight as possible. He’s hesitant to namedrop the brand of diaper, as if protecting a top-, top-secret play.

Up close, I detect zero fatigue. No bags under his eyes. Nary a trace of exasperation.

The quarterback with an entire city on his back glides from the outdoor practice field to chairs waiting inside an empty fieldhouse. Allen is positively radiant.

All a striking contrast from the last time America saw him. The night of Jan. 17, 2026 supplied another round of medieval torture for all associated with the Buffalo Bills. Allen has never appeared this wounded in eight pro seasons. Moments after his team’s 33-30 overtime loss to the Denver Broncos in the AFC divisional round, Allen stepped up to the podium and sniffed away emotions best he could. He exhaled deeply, kept his eyes down, tapped the dais. Concealing the debilitating pain from yet another postseason stunner was an impossible task.

Tears poured. He pointed the finger at himself.

This is exactly where Go Long’s exclusive 1 on 1 with Josh Allen must begin. He was gutted that night.

How on earth can anyone harness all this raw emotion for good?

Half of me expects Allen to treat that night like a traumatic episode and refuse to relive the despair in any way. He does not. He is facing his new reality head-on.

Subscribe now

“Every year you go through something,” Allen begins. “Scottie Scheffler talks about it all the time — the absurdism of ‘Why do I want to win this so badly? What’s the point of going out there and winning?’ Because at the end of the day you win and it’s on to the next. You’re just trying to win again. Those emotions that go on, it’s like, ‘Damn it. Every year that’s gone by, we haven’t gotten it done.’ The fire inside of me continues to push and want to get over that hump. No matter how crazy it seems. I want to accomplish something. I’ve set my mind to it and I want to accomplish it and I’m going to keep trying until I do.”

When I ask Allen to articulate that fire inside, he points to the first seminal moment of his football life.

To being “the underdog” and “always overlooked.” Back to when the entire football world ignored him out of Firebaugh, Calif. His 1,000+ emails were rendered spam.

He humiliated every college coach who doubted him out of high school and every highbrow tweeter mocking him out of Wyoming. Josh Allen is an NFL MVP who has accrued more than a quarter-billion dollars in earnings and married a Hollywood actress. He has a daughter. He just turned 30 years old. The baby-faced prospect taking the draft stage at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas now rocks a full beard. To locals, he’s blood. It’s no stretch to declare Allen — a quarterback most fans abhorred on draft night — the most beloved athlete in Buffalo sports history.

This 2026 season is the next seminal moment of his football life.

Thirty-year-old Josh is remembering 18-year-old Josh.

No quarterback in NFL history has more playoff wins without a Super Bowl appearance, and it’s killing him.

“Being in this position now — year after year, you don’t get it done — people start writing you off and putting you away,” Allen says. “I don’t want to be in that conversation of the one that didn’t get it. I don’t want to be the greatest to ever play to not get a ring. It’s not a great accomplishment, in my opinion. I’m going to keep working hard.”

“To get over that hump is going to be something special. I’m looking forward to doing that.”

He does not speak in hypotheticals. His belief is strong as ever.

New head coach, new stadium, new wide receiver at work. New wife, new baby at home. Playoff devastation has not battered Allen into submission. This sight of a blank canvas, writing his own story from age 30-on, has Allen feeling rejuvenated. No, “extremely rejuvenated.” He stares ahead. Up on the wall, is daily context. Four AFC Champion banners from the 90s hang, reminders of a franchise that forever falls short. To the right of those banners is another that reads: “On a mission.”

Only the sound of an AC unit humming above and Allen’s voice fill the indoor facility.

Allen has spoken often with Steinfeld about their children being able to see him play football. He wants to hold his daughter under one arm, while clutching the sport’s greatest prize, as confetti rains.

“This city winning a Super Bowl is the last greatest sports story in all of the world,” Allen says. “I really do believe that. I want to be the guy that does it.”

Through this organization’s annual march to the playoff guillotine, the 6-foot-5, 240-pound Allen has simultaneously cemented himself as one of the greatest statistical quarterbacks in January. Allen’s 101.5 passer rating trails only Patrick Mahomes, Kurt Warner and Bart Starr amongst passers with more than five playoff starts. He has thrown for 3,915 yards, rushed for 767 yards and scored 39 TDs with only six interceptions in 15 games. Thirteen Seconds is an all-time crime that haunted the Bills more than anyone knows. He was on a historic heater that ’21 season and we’ve chronicled the calamity here and here. Defense has been the issue. A tight coach. Themes covered ad nauseum in this space.

Plays that should go down as legendary — his TD strikes to Gabe Davis, his dropped bomb to Stefon Diggs, his fourth-and-5 prayer to Dalton Kincaid, his OT heave to Brandin Cooks — instead erode in the sands of time.

Yet, there’s no sugarcoating Denver. All the turnovers, the missed opportunities.

Two blunders stick with the quarterback: his fumble before halftime, his misfire to Dawson Knox. On the first, the Bills essentially gifted Denver three free points. Allen took off, tried to make a play, got stripped. On the latter — 16 seconds left, from the Broncos 32, down three, defenders closing in from the front and back — Allen rushed a throw just a hair and airmailed his wide-open tight end. “A couple of things that if you can go back and change ‘em,” he adds, “it might be a drastic outcome.”

He regrets the mistakes. He will not make the worse mistake by letting those gaffes sterilize his game. Creatives must create without fear of cancellation or condemnation. There’s no instructing Picasso to neatly color between the lines, no banning profanity from Dave Chappelle’s stand-up. Josh Allen became Josh Allen, blow-torching all doubters, because he’s always been willing to venture places no other quarterback can. Or will.

This offseason, he fine-tuned his deep ball. There are always mechanics to tweak.

But damn right, he’s forever a stuntman. No calculated actuary.

“I’m going to play football how I know how to play it until I can’t,” Allen says. “And when I can’t play it the way I want to play it, it’s probably when I’m done. But hopefully that’s still quite some time.”

So, nothing will keep him off the field. Allen has started 142 straight games, the longest active starting streak in the NFL. He could barely walk the final month of last season with a broken fifth metatarsal in his foot. To him, it’s not complicated. Like Brett Favre before him, the QB with an iron-man streak of 321 starts, he takes pride in being available for his teammates. He actively thinks about the blood and sweat everyone pours into this profession and winces through injuries that’d sideline peers.

Come Monday, he knows the pain will be unbearable. It’s his negotiation with the sport.

“I don’t want to let these guys down,” Allen says. “And when I’m not on the field, I feel like I’m letting them down. So, I do everything in my power to make sure throughout the week I can make my body usable for gameday.”

This interview could morph into a 401 human anatomy class with Allen detailing every body part dinged through the course of his career. He isn’t in a rush to feed any 275-pound edge rushers a bucket of chum. His physical toughness, however, is a direct extension of his roots.

Everything that makes him who he is. Everything he’s tapping into now.

The 2,000-acre family ranch in Firebaugh, Calif., he assures, was “in the middle of nowhere.” There was no hopping on a bike to pedal to a friend’s house. He fondly relives the days walking around on rocks barefoot and occasionally throwing those rocks at dumpsters. Once, his father couldn’t figure out why the windows of trucks on the property were shattered. It was Josh and Jason. The Allen boys found a couple of BB guns and fired away. Joel Allen always told his kids that “idle hands make for the devil’s work.” His kids played baseball, basketball, football, soccer, swam and even did karate and gymnastics. Anything to keep busy. To Josh, all sports sounded a lot better than moving irrigation pipe in the dead heat of summer.

Seeing Dad work those crops as temps crept into the 100s fed a different grit.

So did all epic battles with Jason.

Thirteen months younger, Jason pushed Josh “physically, emotionally, mentally.”

“We’d go at it every day,” Allen says. “We grew up not as great of friends. We competed so much to a point where it was like: ‘Just stay away from me right now.’ And that’s the brotherly love you should have. Now, I would give my life for my brother. But he pushed me as a kid. He was younger than me, but I always felt like he was bigger and stronger than I was. He was always better looking.” So I was like, ‘I’ve got to figure something out.’”

One spat during basketball practice led to shoving and Josh chucking the ball at Jason.

Jason was not pleased, punching his brother directly in the eye. The shiner lasted days.

Teammates bumrushed Josh off the court before the fight escalated into something worse, and Josh drove home. Josh forced his little bro to find his own way back. Stories like these are near and dear to Allen’s heart, the “best times” of his life. Stuff the two now laugh about when, you know, Josh is competing in pro-am events in the Pacific Palisades with Jason as his caddie and Tiger Woods as his partner.

What happened next, of course, is the thesis of a Canton speech one day. Allen received zero FBS offers out of Firebaugh. He was a 0-star recruit. Completely off the recruiting radar. After lighting up defenses in junior college, Allen sent hundreds upon hundreds of emails to every head coach, offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach he could find on school registries and was still dismissed.

Allen knows thinking about this do-or-die juncture of his life — back when nobody knew him — helps him right now.

At Reedley (Calif.) College, he’d sit next to receiver Rafael Araujo-Lopes and send those emails all day long. Allen expected to hear from D-I powers, especially after throwing for 470 yards and seven touchdowns against Merced Community College. After the seventh score — a game-winner with 13 seconds left — he recalls Reedley OC Ernie Rodriguez, the one man who believed in him, saying he’d get offers from everybody.

“And,” Allen says, “that wasn’t the case.”

Picture the literal exercise of contacting schools. Picture a teenager copying, pasting and hitting send on email… after email… after email… 1,000 times only to hear nothing. Only for his name in the Sender column to be treated with the seriousness of a Nigerian Prince scammer. Mass rejection this extreme should’ve zapped Allen’s will and killed off all quarterback dreams. Allen jokes that the school’s Wi-Fi might’ve been choppy.

Silence spoke volumes. He wasn’t good enough.

Mass rejection this damning should’ve informed Allen to explore a Plan B.

He jumps in.

“I’m a firm believer in no Plan B because it distracts from Plan A,” Allen says. “That was my whole thing. I was like, ‘I’m going to figure it out.’ And I’ve always told myself in the NFL that there are two types of players: guys that figure it out and guys that get figured out. So I’ve always wanted to be in the first one there. Figuring it out.”

I ask Allen what stirred inside of him that everyone missed.

“You can’t measure certain things,” he says. “You can’t measure the want or the heart or the grit or the toughness. You can sit there and grade on physical attributes all you want. But there’s a whole other piece — that’s the science and the art to it. Somewhere in the middle, there’s a little something else and I feel like I’ve got that something else.”

This day, he provides further clarity on what exactly went down.

Eventually, two schools did call him: Eastern Michigan and Wyoming. Per JUCO rules, prospective recruits could visit schools in a two-week window. For some reason, both schools waited. And waited. Before Wyoming finally told him to visit because they had an offer for him. Two days later, Eastern Michigan called to fly him out. (“I’m like, ‘I can’t. I’m going to Wyoming. You could have done this earlier.’”) Eastern Michigan pulled its offer.

Naturally, Allen’s first collegiate start came against Eastern Michigan and they broke his collarbone. The next year, they beat his Cowboys again.

“But,” Allen adds, “I think I’d like to say I got the last laugh.”

Share Go Long

Moments after the Bills edged the Steelers in a critical 2019 AFC primetime game, Allen spotted a familiar face in the Pittsburgh crowd. It was Rodriguez, his Reedley OC, screaming at full throat. The quarterback shared this special moment on his Instagram account, crediting Rodriguez as the one person who believed in him out of high school. Without that foot in the JUCO door, Allen might’ve had no choice but to swap shoulder pads for those irrigation pipes.

Place a call to Rodriguez and the stories flow.

• His belief. Rodriguez witnessed an Allen throw to the right sideline in a playoff game his junior year of high school that made him come back for five games his senior year. He figured a quarterback this tall, this young with this strong of an arm had room to grow. Get him to 225-230 pounds — with these intangibles — and Allen could flourish. “He had this swagger to him,” Rodriguez says, “even at the high school level.”

• How Allen took over. Allen, as the No. 2, hounded the coach. Daily. “When’s my time? When’s my time? When’s my time?” Rodriguez told him to stay patient, inserted the QB for a couple of series in Game No. 2, the fourth quarter of Game No. 3 and everyone felt a change. “A surge of energy,” Rodriguez says. “A surge in confidence.” When he let Allen take the second series of Game No. 4, everyone knew it was time. Even the team’s starting quarterback. When the OC asked QB1 Sean Stell Jr. to go back in… he declined. He admitted Allen should stay in. “I’ve never seen anything like that before,” Rodriguez adds. “I swear to you. I said, ‘OK, you’re seeing what I’m seeing.’”

• His drive. Allen grew up a diehard fan of the Fresno State Bulldogs. His family often made the quick 40-mile trek east to tailgate and attend games. All he wanted was a shot as a walk-on and head coach Tim DeRuyter refused. Before Allen had an official practice with Reedley, he asked Rodriguez if they could get some work in. By total coincidence, the OC had his new QB meet up on a field just west of Bulldog Stadium. Proximity that no doubt served as motivation. While teaching Rodriguez things about his offense the OC didn’t even know, Allen could visibly see the team that essentially told him he was trash. And after the QB passed for 317 yards per start, rushed for 660 yards and scored 36 total TDs, Rodriguez begged DeRuyter to rethink this prospect. The coach refused, the quarterback never forgot.

• His character. When one Reedley offensive tackle got kicked out of his dorm and had no money and no place to live, Allen took him in. A couple of days turned into a full month. Allen didn’t ask for a dime. This is why Rodriguez knows Allen is obsessed with winning a Super Bowl. “The Super Bowl is the ultimate,” he says. “Winning MVP was cool. But he wants to celebrate it with the team. It’s always about his teammates.”

  Share

All acrobatics Rodriguez witnessed at Reedley — the jukes, the hurdles, the 90 MPH fastball in baseball — rage on today. He’s north of 30. He has suffered broken bones in his foot, his hand and endured more physical (and mental) anguish than most quarterbacks endure in a lifetime. An alien from another galaxy could appreciate Allen. He turns drab OTA practices into spectacles. One day after our chat, there’s No. 17 in red rifling completions to DJ Moore, his new WR1, in the back of the end zone. Standing a few feet behind the back line, I’m certain my orbital bone will crack if any of these receivers let one ball whistle through their fingertips.

His horsepower is different.

His play style and leadership, too.

Fans love him because he plays the position the way they have in their backyards. The connection is visceral. Players love him because he carries himself no differently than a punter on the practice squad. Aura is not manufactured. When Allen is at his best, he cannon-blasts through the entire Kansas City Chiefs defense on fourth and 2, flexes both fists in the end zone and screams with one shoulder pad ajar. He both Space Jams the ball over the goal line vs. Arizona in the September sun and vaults horizontal to the pylon vs. San Francisco in a December blizzard. He executes a “Fat Perez Euro Step” TD celebration to uphold his end of a bet, trash-talks 6-foot-5, 295-pound Cam Heyward, creates new handshakes with new teammates.

Football doesn’t need to be a monotonous 9-to-5 drag. I relay a quote to Allen from one of his former teammates in our 2023 series. This longtime vet said Allen “wants to run through your face and establish the fact that he’s the biggest alpha male dog quarterback in the history of pro football” and that he’s “a freaking 10 year old who wants to have fun.”

Joy — Allen knows — is contagious inside a building.

“I don’t feel like I have to fake it or be performative or put on a face for anybody,” he says. “I live my life that way. I try to be the exact same person every day I step into this building. I hope that guys see that and feel that and it allows them to be as comfortable as they can be where they can let their mask down and be exactly who they are. If that’s a jokester, if that’s a serious person, if that’s in-between. Whatever it is. Being able to come in here and be like, ‘I love coming to work.’ Because I do. Genuinely, I drive in, I’ve got a smile on my face. I look at our new stadium and think, ‘That’s the coolest thing I’ve ever seen. I get to hang out with my good buddies. I get to go golfing with them and continue to build that camaraderie.’ It truly is the best job in the world.”

This approach to the sport hints at what’s changing most.

Allen took part in all nine head-coaching interviews for a reason. The way he wants to play the sport fully aligns with the way Joe Brady intends to coach the sport. His energy mirrors Brady’s energy.

In the locker room, Brady posted a sign that reads: “Be you with us.”

“He wants your personality to show,” Allen says. “He wants you to celebrate with your teammates when we score, when we get interceptions. When I’m on the field, I do that. I throw a touchdown. To me, throwing a touchdown never changes. It is the coolest feeling in the world. It’s hitting a walk-off home run. It’s hitting a buzzer-beater. There’s nothing like throwing a touchdown in the NFL and getting to celebrate with your guys in the end zone because it’s not easy. You have to celebrate those times.”

As long as Allen’s the quarterback, there will be no proverbial sticks up proverbial asses in this building. He wants everyone to feel comfortable.

All players. All coaches. When Brady was hired as quarterbacks coach, he admitted to us in April that he was nervous. Far too rigid, too uptight. With one joke, Allen completely changed the temperature of the room. The two were off and running. It didn’t take long for Allen to realize this relationship was special. He was vulnerable with the coach, willing to share what worked and what didn’t work on offense.

Allen cites the fact that Brady’s offenses have ranked amongst the NFL’s best in various advanced metrics.

“He’s got a keen eye for certain things,” Allen says. “He’s extremely smart. He works his tail off. He’s in this building all the time. And he truly cares about this game so much. He cares about this team. Guys can feel that.”

No way is Allen beating his coach to One Bills Drive. Not with a newborn. When Brady’s alarm blares at 3, odds are he’s trying to rock a newborn back to sleep.

Upon arrival, everyone grasps the stakes. Heartbreak accumulates. Frustration mounts. A longtime coach has now been fired. Allen is well aware that most viewers will interpret anything shy of a Super Bowl appearance as a failure. Expectations to win — and win big — have never been higher for the Bills. Nobody knows when a championship window will close.

He hears the criticism and insists there’s nothing anybody could say that he hasn’t already told himself.

“I’ve already cussed myself out many a time for doing stupid things,” he says. “I’ve already put that expectation on myself. So the external pressure or the external factors? I don’t feel them because I don’t think they weigh as much as the pressure that I put on myself or the internal belief that I have in myself.

“And again, the camaraderie that we have in this locker room, I do not want to let these guys down.”

It’s real.

Players feel this.

Third-year back Ray Davis was stunned to learn Allen is 30 years old. Calling his QB “a wonderful human” and a “a great competitor,” Davis is adamant: Allen is still peaking.

“He’s aging backwards,” Davis says. “He’s getting better as he gets older and I think we’ve yet to see the best from him.”

All players claim they’ll run through a brick wall for their quarterback. In Orchard Park, you get the sense they’d actually do it. Affection for the QB runs deeper here than anything I’ve seen in 16 years covering the NFL. When Allen said he let his teammates down in Denver, and the quote was relayed to Dion Dawkins, Buffalo’s left tackle broke down. He couldn’t speak anymore, turning back toward his locker.

The doors to this quarterback’s home are always open and no teammate has witnessed Allen’s evolution closer than Knox, another freshly minted Girl Dad. Both still make a point to golf once a week, though fatherhood tends to strike with more force than a blind-side blitz. These days, the two share tales of sleepless nights and breakthrough moments. Like, say, the size of their daughters’ poops. Knox is floored by his friend’s ability to both master the smallest details in practice, while still keeping it light at the ping-pong table.

One of the major reasons Knox needed to stay in Buffalo at all costs was Allen.

“It could be so easy for him to have that air about him being a superstar,” Knox says. “It’d be easy for him not to have time for other guys. But he carries himself as a normal human being. He’s so genuine, so down to earth. His humility. It’s easy to talk to him. No one’s ever uncomfortable talking to him about something or hanging out with him off the field. That mix says a lot about his character and it’s what we love so much about him.

“I can’t imagine the weight of an entire city on your shoulders like he has. And he handles it so gracefully.”

Adds Davis: “He goes out there and puts it on the line every play. For a true leader to take the blame — knowing that it’s a team sport — that shows the type of man he is. He’ll take all bad criticism and keep it away from his team. That’s what you want as a leader. When you see him take the blame and cry for a team loss, it shows he put everything into it to try to get us the win.”

Unprompted, tears well up again. He cannot help it. One recent conversation comes to mind and Allen clears his throat to keep it together.

We’re discussing legacy now and Allen notes that the “Patricia Allen Fund” — named in honor of his late grandmother — surpassed $17 million in donations from 90,000 different people around the world. Money that helps critical care teams at the Golisano Children’s Hospital of Buffalo. One mother this offseason told Allen that equipment purchased through his fund saved her child’s life.

What began as routine visits to brighten up someone’s day organically turned into a surreal force of good.

“The coolest frickin’ thing in the world,” Allen says. “You have this mentality of leaving a place better than when you found it. My Dad’s always said that, too: ‘If you’re going to do something, do it with all your heart.’ That’s what I feel like I’m doing.”

He thinks about his football legacy, too. Decades from now, Allen knows how he wants to be remembered.

“The quarterback,” he says, “who got the job done here.”

Knox is more certain. He views a Super Bowl triumph as an inevitability.

“We’re going to win one,” the veteran tight end says. “And he’s finally going to be able to bring a ring and a Lombardi to this city — and it’ll be multiple Lombardis before he’s done.”

Pressure to win a championship intensifies with each defeat and, no, Allen does not want to go down in history as Dan Marino, Karl Malone, Charles Barkley, Ted Williams, Marcel Dionne, etc. A new season presents new challenges. Within his own division, Drake Maye has arrived. Within the conference, Patrick Mahomes, Lamar Jackson and Joe Burrow all return from injuries. Starting over is mentally taxing and what truly makes the quarterback Allen idolized as a kid the greatest ever. Tom Brady suffered soul-crushing defeats, dusted himself off and climbed the mountain again.

Those Mile High tears hinted at the debilitating toll these playoff losses take. Inside the visitor’s locker room, Bills owner Terry Pegula said he saw Allen with his head down, crying, inconsolable. “I walked over to Josh,” Pegula continued, “he didn’t even acknowledge I was there. He sat there sobbing. He was listless. He had given everything he had to try to win that game.” A scene that represented the living-and-breathing embodiment of an impenetrable playoff wall.

Change was obviously needed to relaunch this quarterback’s climb.

Pegula fired Sean McDermott. No relationship in sports matters more than the one between head coach and quarterback. Allen and Brady can forge the sort of bond that’s been missing. At Brady’s introductory presser, the quarterback glowed from the first row. General manager Brandon Beane again reshuffled the roster. This season, the Bills also move into new Highmark Stadium across Abbott Road. Allen is hopeful this structure, unlike the last one, does not reside on sacred Native American burial grounds. There’s no way to know for certain, though Seneca Nation observers were on site.

But the No. 1 reason the face of the franchise appears reborn is obvious. The birth of his child could not have come at a better time.

“I truly believe,” Allen says, “I’m stepping into the best version of myself.”

Josh and Hailee both are royalty in their respective fields. One could run for mayor and win in a historic landslide. The other has more than 20 million followers on IG. A peaceful, uninterrupted dinner at The Grange in Hamburg is an impossibility. As new parents, the two are relishing normalcy and privacy, declining to share the name of their child publicly. Together, they’ll cherish every milestone. Allen is ecstatic for their baby to turn the personality corner. He’s already seeing a wry smile. Rest assured, he makes it very clear shows like “Cocomelon” and songs like “Baby Shark” are permanently banned.

No longer is Josh Allen putting his body on the line for his teammates alone. He’s driven by a completely new why.

“It’s for this little being that’s looking up to me now,” he says.

All emotions from the last five months replay through his mind. Misery after the latest playoff loss. Ecstasy after the birth of his daughter. Everything in-between.

He smiles.

“I got my why,” Allen repeats. “My wife and my baby.”

Share

Subscribe now

Go Long is completely powered by you. Our readers.

Enjoy longform storytelling? We’d love it if you shared our publication with a friend.

Share Go Long

Give a gift subscription

Related: