The Spirit of Jonathan Owens

He is the NFL survival story. Go Long sits down with the man who slayed self-doubt, married Simone Biles, vaulted himself into the Green Bay Packers' starting lineup and isn't close to finished yet.

Jan 13, 2024

GREEN BAY, Wisc. — Life is sweet for Jonathan Owens. Honestly, this doesn’t feel real.

“Like a movie,” he beams.

He’s starting for the Green Bay Packers. He’s married to Simone Biles. He’s sipping a margarita with salt ‘round the rim and ordering a New York Strip at a restaurant of his choosing: Cedar & Sage Grill House, a mere four miles from Lambeau Field. This is his first time here, but the scenery befits a 28-year-old safety eager to reflect on a life laced with cinematic drama. It’s peaceful in our booth. Nothing but the melodic hum of music, nearby conversations and unforgettable memories. Owens, in a sparkling “J.O.” necklace, earned this opportunity. Owens willed himself out of the anxiety-inducing NFL sewers to face the Dallas Cowboys in an NFC wild-card playoff game.

Life and career have simultaneously peaked to such a climax. The joy is overwhelming.

The air’s fresher here in Titletown these days. Look closely and you’ll see Curly Lambeau, bronze and 14-feet high, pointing with more vigor in front of the stadium that bears his name. Virtually nobody expected the Packers to contend this soon after finally divorcing Aaron Rodgers, so public sentiment this January is starkly different than the Super Bowl-or-Bust stress winters past. This is the youngest team to ever reach the NFL playoffs. Yet, as our conversation heads this uplifting direction — toward that factoid of the week — Owens’ demeanor changes. Abruptly.

He hates the narrative that Green Bay is flying to Dallas with nothing to lose.

Upon hearing two words specifically — no expectations — he scowls. He interjects.

“We have our own expectations,” Owens says. “We’re not going in like, ‘We’re young, we’re young.’ Yeah, guys are young. But we tie shoes up the same way everybody else does. It’s football. After about Game Eight, that rookie stuff is over with. You’re good now.”

House money? Nothing to lose? Owens is sickened by the suggestion.

“We’re not going to just participate.”

So, that’s the message. To everybody. He’s the rarity on a roster full of first- and second-year starters. The Division-II safety out of Missouri Western went undrafted, was cut five times, toiled three years on the practice squad and will never forget rock bottom. Long before dining at Cedar & Sage, one Hail Mary toss away from the Austin Straubel International Airport, Owens was dumped off at the Indianapolis International Airport by the Colts. That day felt like the final scene to his football career. At 8 a.m., Owens worked out for scouts — no coaches were even present — and thought he killed it. He was wrong. Afterward, a personnel man told Owens the Colts did not see the explosion they were expecting.

Someone drove Owens to the airport at noon, and he had all day in the concourse to wallow. His flight home wasn’t until 7 p.m.

He sat in the food court. He migrated to his gate. He contemplated a new career.

“That messed me up,” Owens says. “It hurts your ego. However long you remember, people have been telling you how good you are: ‘Man, you could do this, you could do that.’ And then it’s like, ‘Yeah, I didn’t see that explosion.’ Now you’re on the outside looking in.

“That definitely hurt.”

The 2023 Packers are full of blissfully ignorant kids who don’t know what they don’t know, and that’s a glorious stage in life. Part of us all wishes we could go back to being 22 years old. There’s no gray stubble on the facial hair of the Packers’ headliners if they’ve got facial hair at all. Hairlines are intact. While the ex-quarterback does the football equivalent of Madonna’s plastic surgery — desperately, sadly trying to stay relevant — the current quarterback is the epitome of cool and calm and, no question, Jordan Love’s temperament is contagious. Do not expect the young bucks to feel pressure.

But to label this entire Packers team as inexperienced ignores the rise of this football survivor. Every time Jonathan Owens should’ve disappeared — torn ACLs, a father’s death, cut repeatedly — he extinguished self-doubt. Without him, there’s a good chance Green Bay isn’t even in the postseason.

Nine Cowboys were selected to the All-Pro team. Only one Packer. But, no, they’re not traveling to Jerry’s World as “participants.” They expect to win.

Owens has been pushed to the brink far too many times to be scared.

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“Blind Faith”

Ankle weights, cleaning supplies and heartache. That’s how the football dream began for Jonathan Owens.

Back in private school, he didn’t want to simply jump as an athlete. Jonathan Owens aimed to soar. Each morning, underneath his mandated khaki pants, Owens strapped weights around his ankles. He recalls mesh composition with bags full of beads. He was disciplined, too. Class to class to class, Owens left those weights on all day and, voila, quickly gained a rep as the kid with the freaky hops.

Owens could dunk a basketball in 10th grade. Years later, his 43-inch vertical leap at a college pro day would top everyone at that year’s NFL Combine by 1 ½ inches.

This came with consequences, however.

Ahead of his senior year in high school — during summer workouts — Owens hurt his knee. And, well, didn’t think much of it. The swelling subsided. He played that entire football season and ignored the times it swelled back up. (“It’s just my knee,” he’d say. “Whatever.”) The season ended with Owens earning a college scholarship, and he stayed active. From pickup hoops, right into the track and field season. Then, the first meet of the year? On the long jump? His knee buckled again. He could not ignore this swelling. Finally, Owens got his knee checked out by a doctor and learned that he had torn his ACL back in the summer.

When Owens researched ankle weights deeper, he learned that they can pull on your ligaments over time. Everything’s connected. He believes they contributed to this torn ACL, and the one he’d suffer in the pros.

The good news: Missouri Western didn’t pull his scholarship. Off he went to the D-II school 300 miles from his hometown of St. Louis. Boarding, however, was not free during summer workouts. Players had two options: Pay the $1,200 to bunk on campus or volunteer to work. More specifically, to clean the dorms. This also was where the Kansas City Chiefs held training camp. So, to earn the right to lift weights for a D-II school, there was Owens making the beds for players on the 2016 Chiefs.

If this sounds grimy, think again. He viewed this as a pretty sweet gig.

Whenever players broke camp, they’d leave all sorts of valuables behind. Missouri Western players knew to go directly to the room of a 10-year vet at the end of camp because there’s a good chance that a player making millions left behind a TV that he purchased at Walmart strictly for camp. Owens still remembers De’Anthony Thomas’ room — the ex-Oregon return man had shoes everywhere.

Clear the sheets. Fold the laundry. He’d clean up rooms for any type of camps held on the St. Joseph, Mo., campus. For extra spending cash, Owens took up shifts as a server at Red Lobster. Once, safety Eric Berry walked in and sat at the bar. As co-workers went bananas, Owens calmly made a point to say hello, introduce himself and tell Berry that he happened to play safety, too. Alabama or Georgia or Michigan, this was not. But it’s all Owens knew and he loved it. He looked up to safety Donte Watkins. How he tackled. How he worked. And in four seasons, Owens did enough to warrant an NFL shot with 254 tackles (155 solo), seven interceptions and four forced fumbles.

But first came a date forever tattooed in his mind: Aug. 17, 2017. Two weeks before that final collegiate season, Owens essentially was blindside-concussed by Berry himself with news from home. That’s the day the man his mother married in 2001 — the man he called “Dad” since age 5 — was killed. Nathaniel Cannon, 52, was found dead from a single gunshot wound in a St. Louis alley. No information was known about a suspect or a motive, the St. Louis Post Dispatch reported.

All Owens heard was that Dad was shot and killed in an armed robbery.

To this day, nobody knows what transpired.

This is trauma he clearly does not want to discuss at length.

He does remember one emotion vividly. Football became a hell of a lot more serious into that final college season because he knew Mom needed him. Not only did Mom lose the love of her life. Now, she was all alone with her debilitating muscle disease: Polymyositis. Similar to muscular dystrophy, this disease deteriorates the body over time. Arthurine Cannon scoots more than she walks because she cannot pick up her knees. One of her legs is weaker than the other. Going upstairs is always a strenuous workout. Owens didn’t have time to be depressed. Seven days after the funeral, he played in Missouri Western’s season opener and never looked back. That season, he performed well enough to earn his own pro day. The 43-inch vert, 4.43 in the 40, 11-foot broad jump and 18 reps on the bench didn’t get him drafted, but Owens signed to the Arizona Cardinals’ 90-man roster.

Of course, that’s precisely when self-doubt first bubbled to the surface.

Three weeks into OTAs — hardly enough to show coaches anything — Owens’ season ended when he tore the ACL and meniscus in his other knee. With another wave of 300+ rookies incoming the following spring, Owens was viewed as damaged goods before his career even began. And forget what any coach, any scout thinks. Owens started to lose belief in himself. He never even put on the pads, thus had zero clue if his D-II skills could translate to the NFL the next season. There was no evidence to look at himself.

“I’m just standing on the sideline watching these dudes like, ‘Oh shoot, that’s Aaron Donald!’” Owens says. “Not getting a chance to get out there my rookie year, it really took me back like, ‘Man, am I going to come back fast? As I fast as I was?’ That was tough and you had to get right back to it because it’s training camp. It’s evaluation. There’s no time to be hurt. I’m still coming back from my knee and it’s getting sore.”

Still, Owens didn’t think he’d actually get cut. Bare minimum, he figured the Cardinals would store him away on the practice squad. The ink was hardly dry on his new apartment lease when Owens received a phone call, then a text message from an Arizona area code 20 minutes into a massage. The team needed to see him. He was cut. The next 3 ½ weeks of unemployment felt more like 3 ½ years.

His mind wandered. Was this it? Was he finished? The unknown ate away at his insides.

He told loved ones he was fine — a total lie. He didn’t know who he’d be without football.

Those 3 ½ weeks, Owens completely lost his identity.

When the sweltering Arizona sun began to set, he’d train alone on a field directly across the street from the Cardinals’ practice facility. Watch friends exit the team’s parking lot in their sleek vehicles one moment, then get shagged off this field the next because amateur soccer teams needed the space for practice. At which point, Owens then trudged over to the choppy grass on a baseball field with nothing but his dog, a bottle of water, a speaker.

Owens vividly remembers sitting in the dugout, terrified of the future.

This is the scene that represents authentic NFL life. This somber wait — one of the “toughest stretches” in Owens’ life — represents reality more than anything glamorized on Sundays. The majority of the sport’s infinite workforce is perpetually swiping right, praying for one date. One tryout. One chance to make a first impression.

“You need blind faith that something is going to happen,” Owens explains. “You don’t know when you’re going to get that call. But you just have to be ready for it. It could be in two months. People don’t understand that. I’ve been playing football my whole life — since I was 12. So not having that? That was definitely tough. You just sit in the house, watching the games, and I’m like, ‘Bro, I know I can do this. I know I could be somewhere on somebody’s P-Squad at least.’ I had to be patient.”

As Owens relives this fragile state of mind, I cannot help but think back to the night we all started to think football had a death date. After one pro season, linebacker Chris Borland retired in March 2015 due to concussion concerns. We’d later connect one year later to discuss the future of the sport. Borland is a deep thinker who raises legitimate, terrifying points. Mothers across America have undeniably banned football. What most people have long forgotten from the night of Borland’s bombshell, though, is a tweet from Eliot Wolf, the Green Bay Packers’ director of player personnel at the time. Back then it wasn’t strange for someone with such a title to share an opinion on the platform. As the nation freaked, Wolf said this: “Anyone worried about the future of football should see the amount of calls and emails we get from kids literally begging to get into pro days.”

One-hundred percent true then and now.

Owens might’ve felt all alone on that field across from the Cardinals. Truth is, there are thousands… upon thousands… upon thounsands of NFL hopefuls doing the exact same thing across the country.

And that’s exactly what makes cracking into the NFL so difficult.

The Colts brought him. The Colts shipped him off. Anxiety only heightened.

“That was the moment. That’s what flipped it for me because I felt like they just threw me,” says Owens, flicking his hand over the table dismissively. “Here you go. See you later. Good luck. Just keep working out.’ That was really what drove me.”

Owens told his agent that if he gets one more invite, he’s making the team. The Houston Texans called, and Owens gave himself no other option. He took his dog to the pet hotel and said “I’ll be back!” With that, he packed up as much as he could for Houston — clothes, valuables, his gaming system — to mentally convince himself that he was not flying back to Arizona. Blind faith fueled the workout of his life and a practice-squad contract with the Texans on Sept. 29, 2019.

He cried tears of joy.

“A resilient mindset,” Owens says. “I knew this was what I was supposed to do.”

Finally, he had a foot in the door.

He stayed fully engaged in UDFA survival mode through the 2019 season and into 2020. But unlike the majority of those scrapping on football’s fringes, he wasn’t living out of hotels. He had a place downtown and, soon, a new girlfriend in the suburbs. His personal life took a turn. After begging the NFL for love — in this case? — love found him. Seven months after becoming a Texan, shortly after Covid hit, Owens took up a friend’s advice and uploaded a profile on the private dating app, Raya. That’s when he saw the picture of an attractive young woman named “Simone.”

He swiped. She swiped. And he repeats it louder for the people in the back because it’s true: Jonathan Owens had never heard of “Simone Biles” before. Seriously. He never paid any attention to the Summer Olympics. After connecting, Owens saw on Instagram that Biles had a massive social-media following and simply assumed she must be pretty good at this whole gymnastics thing.

Also, for the record: Simone messaged Jonathan first. She’s the one who shot her shot.

Honestly, part of Owens was afraid to commit because this was only his third year in the pros. He wondered if he should bask in the bachelor life a little longer.

Instead, he messaged back. Three days later, Biles drove 45 minutes to the city to see him.

They laughed the whole night.

‘Your mind is a powerful weapon’

Our perennially offended Online World lost its mind last month when Jonathan Owens referred to himself as “the catch” in this union during an appearance on “The Pivot.” If Owens doused his wife’s uneven bars in grease before the Olympics, it wouldn’t have produced the vitriol he faced after such an innocent joke.

He turned his notifications off and ignored the bonfire completely. Simone got a good laugh out of the total freak-out.

Says Owens: “They don’t know how we feel about each other.”

From Date 1, this relationship has been a sharp contrast to 99 percent of celebrity spam. A genuine connection borne out of the pandemic. When Covid locked the country down, the two hung out every day. There was barely any talk of the Olympics or the NFL. Owens knew that Simone was a gymnast, but never the gymnast because she never bragged about it.

“The magnitude of her success?” he adds. “I had no clue.”

This was Covid’s silver lining. Just like you, these two slummed around in the living room, watching shows like “Tiger King.” There was no obsessing over likes on Instagram. This was no partnership arranged by PR handlers who calculated the mutual financial benefits. Public appearances weren’t strategically plotted for the cameras. Both Owens and Biles recognized an endearing character trait in each other instantly: Absence of ego. Biles didn’t need a man worshiping at her alter — she was real, down to earth, on that app to sincerely find love.

“I got to meet just Simone,” Owens says. “I wasn’t just ‘fan’d’ out like, ‘Oh my God, tell me about this!’ We’re just talking and having genuine conversation.
“You want somebody that’s genuinely there for you. You don’t want someone that worships you because of your accomplishments. Accomplishments and success don’t equate to being a good person. So, it’s all about how you treat people. And so that was the one thing that stood out to me about her personality. Before I found out who she really was. I found out the person and then I found out, ‘Wow. She acts like this even though she’s so well known.’ That really showed me how down to earth she is.”

Who is that? A “goofy, goofy” person, he chuckles.

Owens didn’t realize his new girlfriend was a nationwide luminary until they left the house around May for Houston’s No. 1 cookie spot, “Milk and Cookies.” People lost their damn minds. It was madness. Strangers asked Owens to take pictures of them. He was blown away. (“Like, ‘Oh shoot! These people love her!’”)

On the field, Owens appeared in six games that 2020 season. That’s what made getting stashed on the practice squad in 2021 — yet again — especially painful. It felt like he was running in place. Most NFL teams are going to give their draft picks every opportunity to succeed because those are financial investments, those are the players GMs and coaches risk their careers on. Ego’s at play. By comparison, the margin for error is microscopic for undrafted street pickups. Trent Sherfield, an ex-teammate in Arizona, shed light on this ugly world. Veterans lobby for fewer practices each collective bargaining agreement but, while less strain benefits them, it hurts those on the second, third and fourth string. During camp, Owens remembers getting two whole reps in a practice to prove his worth. Development is stunted.

Veteran safety Mike Thomas, an undrafted safety who’s played 12 seasons and counting, told Owens to stay patient.

Finally, he caught his NFL break.

Injuries vaulted Owens into the lineup toward the end of that ’21 season. In a 41-29 upset win over the Los Angeles Chargers, Owens undercut a post-corner route in Cover 2 to pick off quarterback Justin Herbert at the goal line. When ESPN replayed the highlight, the camera panned to Biles and his Mom in the stands. A special moment. He was mic’d up for this one. This singular play smashed all simmering self-doubt for good, and that’s all it takes for a player toiling in obscurity: One play for belief to burst. A dislocated wrist the next week did nothing to derail his burgeoning conviction. He belonged.

The next season, 2022, Owens had 125 tackles as a full-time starter.

The next April, it felt like the NFL finally wanted him. On the Tuesday before flying out to Cabo, Mexico to marry Biles, his agent heard from the Green Bay Packers. They wanted to sign Owens. The two got hitched. Biles told Vanity Fair that Wedding Day topped her first Olympic win. And when they returned to the states, Owens signed the dotted line.

He’s thinking the same thing you are: Good Lord, imagine their offspring. “Phenoms!” Owens says. Granted, he doesn’t care if his future son plays football. Owens only wants his kids to be passionate about something. To then attack that passion with relentlessness and know nothing’s ever given to you. He sounds like a man already raising kids.

“Just because you have a name doesn’t mean you’ll get the advantages,” he says. “You still have to work.”

Biles has been famously open about her mental health since pulling out of the Tokyo Olympics. Owens was here, in the U.S., a 15-hour difference in time zones. From 7 p.m. his time to the point of dozing off, they chatted. The night before Biles withdrew, she told Owens she didn’t trust herself. Any hesitation that gets inside the head of any gymnast whiplashing their body at impossible angles is a scary problem. (“I’m terrified watching,” Owens says. “I can’t even imagine.”) From afar, Owens consoled her best he could. Biles took two years to decompress, crying in bed from the trauma some nights.

Therapy has helped immensely. So much that Owens — who never even knew anybody who went to therapy — started going himself.

Then, Biles lent a hand.

Laying in bed one week before the 2023 NFL season began, Owens watched film on his iPad. Biles started watching the action herself and verbalized something that was on her mind all summer. She told her husband he was thinking too much on the field. He looked… “slow.” If anybody else made such a comment, Owens would’ve dismissed it as nonsense. But he took this to heart. He started seeing the Packers’ team psychologist, who explained that paralysis by analysis was likely weighing him down.

“It messed me up because it’s like: ‘My lady is telling me this, so do I really need to…’ but she knows what she’s talking about when it comes to mental health,” Owens says. “When she said that, it kind of hit me: ‘Man. I guess I am.’”

Her advice stuck. Owens got his opportunity in this Packers defense when former first-rounder Darnell Savage went on IR with a calf injury and Owens played… fast. In coverage against the Rams, he spontaneously shot the B gap to force a fumble. Green Bay won, 20-3. On Thanksgiving Day, he didn’t assume the ball popping out of Jared Goff’s hand was an incomplete pass. As players from both teams stood around, Owens instinctively scooped up the fumble and returned it for a TD. Green Bay won, 29-22.

“I’m playing free,” Owens says. “I addressed stuff that I didn’t know that I was struggling with. But she brought it to my attention. Once you do that mental work? Your mind is a powerful weapon.”

Head coach Matt LaFleur noticed. In November, he said Owens has been “unbelievable,” noting the safety’s “level of physicality” on the back end. LaFleur loved how fearlessly Owens took on crackback blocks. Owens will be a free agent in the spring, but he’s not stressing his football future. Not anymore. He loves life in Green Bay. A self-proclaimed “big wing guy,” he has cleaned up at Legend Larry’s. A chicken-wing spot, it should be noted, on par with the best in Western New York. Cold weather doesn’t bother Owens. He’s seen locals walking around in t-shirts and shorts and thinks it’s all rubbing off on him — “I’ve gotten calloused to it.”

There’s always been two ways for young pros to view life in Green Bay. Either you’re pissed at the lack of nightlife or you’re grateful for the lack of distractions.

The general manager who put Green Bay back on the football map, Hall of Famer Ron Wolf (Eliot’s father) nailed it during this chat with Go Long in May 2021. He said: “In my opinion, you can’t be in a better place. Everything there is geared toward the player. Everything they do is about the player. That’s the greatness of that franchise. To me, that’s why it’s been so successful. It’s about playing football. That’s all. It’s not about any other thing. It’s not about going to some owner’s wife’s tea party. This affair or that affair. It’s about playing football and being a professional football player.”

Owens reaps the rewards of this tranquil reality.

With Biles staying back in Houston during the week to train for the 2024 Olympics, he spends free time studying plays on his tablet.

As a result, “J.O.” has given Green Bay no choice but to leave him entrenched in the lineup. He strives to be the smartest player on the field. If he knows what all 11 defensive players must do every single play, he’ll be indispensable. That’s why Owens is always finding new ways to sharpen his mind. On the meditation app, Calm, he listens to “Train Your Mind with LeBron James.” One of the NBA superstar’s stories stuck with Owens, too. After suffering an injury, James said he convinced himself that he actually wasn’t injured, and played on.

The clearer his mind, the faster Owens plays. Unlike so many defenders past in Green Bay — snarling Mike Daniels didn’t mince words — he is someone who will push boundaries. When Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes was trying to gain a first down with one minute left in a one-score game, Owens smacked him. The Chiefs QB was still inbounds, still fair game and officials (ridiculously) flagged him.

Whereas other DBs sanitize their physicality after such a penalty, this did nothing to slow down Owens. He’ll never forget his wife’s advice.

In Green Bay’s 17-9 win over the Chicago Bears to make the playoffs, he dinged quarterback Justin Fields. This breed of physical QB always put tacklers in a bind. Quarterbacks are fully permitted to lower the boom on a zone-read play, but the DB is supposed to play with hesitancy? Not quite a fair fight. Fields kept the ball, turned upfield and Owens says the two made direct eye contact in the hole. As if mutually signing a document that a collision was imminent.

That is, until Fields opted to slide at the last moment.

“At the last second I tried to turn a little bit so I wouldn’t… but, I mean, it was all shoulder,” says Owens with a hint of exasperation. He was not flagged.

“Hopefully I don’t get fined.”

He won’t change his game either way.

Next up: Dallas.

‘Seize it’

Jonathan Owens will attack NFL offenses through the same scope as the All-Pro he met that day at Red Lobster. Seek and destroy — “fast and physical” — in the vein of ex-Chief Eric Berry. Playing in today’s NFL is not easy for any defensive player interested in violence. Owens tries to take his head out of the equation best he can by lowering his strike zone when a receiver’s about to catch the ball. All DBs struggle playing “through the hands,” he adds, because you might accidentally hit the head.

But he won’t allow any penalty to tap his brakes. Not after everything that led to this opportunity to play 60+ snaps a game. That’s why Owens often thinks back to the agonizing moments that should’ve shattered him. There’s something therapeutic to knowing exactly how far he’s come.

At approximately 4:30 p.m. (EST), the nation will be watching the college kid who was once cleaning up the Chiefs’ dorms. The Cowboys will test Green Bay vertically. Twenty-nine of CeeDee Lamb’s receptions went for 20+ yards this season. He easily could be the player who decides this wild-card game. For better or for worse.

Informed that this playoff game could boil down to Jonathan Owens, he makes it clear such an opportunity is more than welcomed.

“If your number’s called, you have to make it happen. That’s all you can wish for.”

And then:

“Can’t be afraid of the moment, man. You’ve got to seize it.”

This is the message Owens spreads throughout the entire locker room. It may take getting cut five times. It may take seven bitter hours alone with your thoughts at an airport. But Owens makes a point to tell anyone on the practice squad, anyone biding their time on the depths of the roster that frustration is temporary. “All this right now?” he’ll say. “This is a small part of your career. This is what just led you up until you blow up.” That’s why he gushes over wide receiver Bo Melton. The 229th overall pick out of Rutgers in 2022 was signed off of the Seattle Seahawks practice squad. And, like Owens, he patiently waited for his time to shine. Against the Minnesota Vikings on Sunday Night Football, Melton caught six balls for 105 yards with a touchdown.

The next week, Owens’ locker mate — wideout Dontayvion Wicks — caught two TDs vs. the Bears. Wicks was the 159th pick last April.

For all the offseason talk about first-rounders, even the defense has stayed afloat with guys like rookie cornerback Carrington Valentine (232nd overall pick), street pickup Corey Ballentine (played for six teams since 2019), linebacker Isaiah McDuffie (220nd pick in 2021), Keisean Nixon (signed for $965,000 in 2022) and, of course, Owens.

“Now, look,” Owens says. “None of that matters. I’m out here with the same helmet on as y’all. We all are out here now.”

History tells us that playoff experience is relevant. Since that other 14-foot statue in front of Lambeau Field was winning championships — head coach Vince Lombardi — one fact has remained the same in pro football. There are three levels of intensity in this sport: Exhibition. Regular Season. Playoffs. Owens promises that vets will not allow anyone to feel intimidated.

All young players need to do, he says, is look into his eyes. Match his energy.

Simone has joked to her husband that soon she’ll be known as “Jonathan Owens’ wife.” A heartfelt thought that seems… unlikely. Which is perfectly fine with him. This relationship runs deeper than social-media clout. When they’re back in Texas, it can get annoying when people are constantly hounding them at dinner. But since Biles takes it all in-stride, so does Owens. He’s still the official freelance photographer for strangers.

These NFL playoffs could bring about one change, however.

All night at Cedar and Sage, not one person says a word. There’s a chance they’re being polite. That’s Wisconsin for you. Locals are the antithesis of a paparazzi. But from what I gather, there isn’t even a hushed There’s Jonathan Owens whisper or the slightest of slight gawking glances from any of the nearby tables. One margarita is enough and Owens doesn’t come close to finishing his steak. Doesn’t bring it home, either. Not with Lamb ‘n co. looming.

After he heads out, our waitress admits she didn’t know this player. The name doesn’t ring a bell.

Maybe on Sunday, that will change.

Miss anything at Go Long this week?

Man in the mirror: Our feature on Alim McNeill, the defensive tackle bringing Dan Campbell’s vision to life.
Go Long Show, Wild Card Preview: A look at all wild-card matchups with co-host Jim Monos
'They hit a home run:' Brett Favre explains why he is all in on Jordan Love and sees the Packers as the most dangerous team in the NFC.
Ty & Bob Pod, Why the Packers will win in Dallas: Bob McGinn never makes predictions, until now. A full dissection on this matchup.
The tournament is set: A first look at all the wild-card games.

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