admin Chris Long might be busier in football retirement than he was during his 11-year, two Super Bowl winning NFL career. Since hanging up his pads in 2019, the Charlottesville, Va. resident began hosting his now-three-times-a-week podcast, Green Light with Chris Long, and this season added television to his repertoire, appearing weekly alongside Jay Cutler, Channing Crowder, Ryan Clark and Chad Johnson on Inside the NFL. Last month, he announced the launch of his new media company, Yote House, a full-service production company and content studio that will continue with Long’s flagship pod alongside two new original series.
That’s the professional stuff. The married father of three also runs a robust foundation focused on clean water access and educational equity, and is committed to his adult softball league squad. We sat down with him in his Charlottesville, Va., studios to catch up on all the irons he’s got burning in the “retirement” fire.
GQ: We’re sitting in your podcast studio in downtown Charlottesville. You started the pod four years ago. Does it feel like it’s been that long?
Chris Long: It’s kind of flown by. It has been fun, but not in the way of “time flies when you’re having fun.” When I played football, it was year round. But the pressure would come off you in the off-season, because it would just be about the work. You weren’t being graded on performance.
This is a different grind, where I haven’t really poked my head out for more than a week until this past summer. We had our baby girl, June, this summer, and I took three weeks off, which felt like an eternity. Over the last four years, it’s been Groundhog Day. Continuing to try to be consistent, to make little decisions that optimize our efficiency and our product. It’s been nonstop learning and nonstop working. That’s a little different from my last job.
You knew you were good at football to be a top draft pick (2nd overall pick in the 2008 Draft), and starting in the NFL. But when you began this pod, it’s the unknown of, am I going to be good at this?
And even four years in, am I good at this? Football is a production business: did you play well? Did you do your job? Did you not do well? You have such an immediate criticism/praise cycle. But this is a very subjective thing. It’s also something that when you push it out, it’s hard to know what people are thinking as they’re sitting there listening. Do they like it? Do they not? Sometimes your only window into feedback is yes, the numbers, but also reviews online or your mentions. That’s a slippery slope, because I don’t think that’s representative of most people—I don’t think most people are really as online as the minority of folks who are really loud.
