NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal - BONUS EP: Wide Receivers Michael Pittman Jr., Christian Watson and Adam Thielen from Radio Row

Episode Date: February 8, 2026

NFL Daily goes into 11 personnel for this bonus episode featuring three distinguished wide receivers! Indianapolis Colts WR Michael Pittman Jr, Green Bay Packers pass catcher Christian Watson and now-retired Minnesota Vikings legend Adam Thielen join Gregg Rosenthal and Jourdan Rodrigue for conversation about each of their respective teams, goals for the future and more!NFL Daily YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/nflpodcastsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Welcome to NFL Daily where we love a little bonus content. Look, we had a lot of opportunities to talk to players. We like watching, and we had so much we couldn't fit them all into our shows during the week. So this is going to be a bonus episode, and we love a theme. And so the theme here, wide receivers. Michael Pittman joins us first and has a lot to talk.

about when it comes to the Colts and just his future with the team, Alex Pierce's future, playing with Philip Rivers. We got Adam Thielen. We got Christian Watson of the Packers. Another guy, a potential 2027 free agent and obviously right in the middle of a great offensive season for the Green Bay Packers and one of the favorites next year going in for the NFC. So these were great conversations.

And we're just going to play them all for you, one after another. and then you'll hear us next at the Super Bowl. Looking forward to that and hope you enjoy Michael Pittman coming right up. Welcoming in Michael Pittman, veteran wide receiver of the Indianapolis Colts. He's here with EA Sports. Excited to talk to you, Michael. Like, I've loved to watch you for a long time and especially coming off this season. I feel like we have so much to talk about.

But, like, that was a season your Colts had? Yeah, no, I mean, everything started out great. And we thought, hey, like, for the first, like, 10 weeks, like, we felt like we were unstoppable. Our offense was off to a historic pace. And everything was just going good. And then obviously, we had some unfortunate injuries. Daniel goes on to break his leg and then keeps on playing, like with a broken leg. I mean, that guy is tough as nails.

And then goes on to get hurt again, which, which ends his season. And then obviously, like, we have our quarterback stuff. And then Philip comes in and plays his absolute tail-law. I want to stop you there. What was your reaction? When you first heard that he's going to be the quarterback, and then what was it like being in the huddle with him? Yeah.

So at first, when Shane came in and, like, told, like, you know, I just, like told us, like, I kind of thought that it was funny. But, like, in the best way possible where I was like, I was, like, excited, but I didn't know, like, what was going to happen. And then Philip came in on two and a half days of practice. The guy hasn't played in five years and takes Seattle down to the wire, right? Got you a lead. Yeah, a minute to go.

Right. And, and, like, he, like, kept on getting better and better because he was getting in, like, better football shape because, like, he came off of, like, just, like, five years. So he's not really, like, just, like, going to be in shape. But just having them there, like, it's almost like having a coach that's, like, playing there with you. And, you know, like, he was, like, checking calls and getting us in. And, like, just, like, getting us in the best possible plays. And I feel like that's why we even played the 49ers super, super close. And we were right there.

And we just got to find ways to, like, finish those games. That Monday night football game was so cool because we, the audience, got to hear the mics turned up. They turned the center mic up. I don't know if you went back and watched that broadcast specifically. I know you watched all the tape. But they turned the center mic up so you could hear Philip Rivers doing all the things. But you had heard that. I mean, you obviously hear it every snap to snap.

You also hear it in the huddle. Can you like give us your, first of all, your best impression? And second of all, kind of what that was like for you to hear all of these. It's almost like he's predicting the future as it before it comes. Yeah, I mean, Philip is full of a lot of sayings. I mean, is dagum. I feel like his main thing is like, oh, shoot, you know what I'm saying? So like that.

And then also like I played with him my first year. So I mean, me and him go way back and like just like having him there. I just like it was great. And I thought he gave our team the best chance to win and we just came up short. It hits me that, yeah, you've now been in the league. I still think of you, you are a young player, but you're now like in the middle of your career. you're on a veteran contract and all that. So you've been in the league for six years.

And this Colts team, we talked about it, was kind of quietly a win now type of team because I think you had a lot of continuity, a lot of veteran players, a lot of guys coming back. What did it mean to you that after the way the season ended, they decided to bring Shane Steichen back? And does that give you a vote of confidence

of this group getting another chance to do it again? Yeah, yes. So I think that that tells everybody that they still believe in like this roster, believe in this team and everything that we've done leading up to this because you like think back. Like those first 10 weeks, if we can figure out a way to sustain that and keep that going, I mean, you look up and if we're going on that path, I mean, we're at least a 14 or like just like a 14 like win team and we're headed into the postseason. Like, who knows what happens, right? So, but, but, you know, like, that all sounds nice. And then, like, there's what actually happens,

and we got to just find ways to get it done. You know, it's interesting, too, because I think it was that there was a needle that had to be threaded in deciding to say, okay, we're going to keep building continuity like this, especially at head coach, obviously directly impacts what you guys are doing on the field. But it didn't go further than that. Like, there's an urgency. It almost reminds me of, like, a. player going into the last year on a on a contractor and I know you have some empathy for that.

Yeah. So it's like, right? So but it's like it's that that urgency, that feeling of like, we know that there's belief in us and we have to go. There's like this, this is our moment right now kind of feeling it. It felt like that externally watching from the outside and I guess do you feel that on the inside? Absolutely. I mean, when we traded for sauce, I mean, like that, like, that was their way of showing everybody, hey, like, we are putting it out there. Like, we're doing everything possible. Because Chris kind of gets a bad rap for not doing enough, like, splash trades. But, I mean, the team that he's put together, I mean, we have a very well-rounded team,

like when it comes to offensive weapons, like defensive players. And I thought he's done, like, a really good job. And then obviously, Dan obviously comes in and he's playing great. And so we're just looking forward to build off of that for next year. Yeah, when you talk about those weapons, your wide receiver room is, you know, one of the best in the league. Thank you. A diversity of like different. He's like, you got to keep it together.

Yep, yeah, yeah. You're like, I mean, we're talking about this in continuity. And I'm thinking, well, that's true, but you got to get Daniel Jones back. You got to get Alec Pierce back. And it's interesting. You've been there a while and you've seen some of these younger. guys like Alec and Josh Downs develop kind of how has that been for you and and and you know being doing what's best for the team too. Oh yeah. I mean obviously they got to do what's best for the team and like

nobody knows like what they're going to do because I'm going into the last year of my deal. Like I don't really know what they're going to do with me. You know what I'm saying? They could do something. They could leave it the way it is. I don't really know. But I just know like back to our room like we just have a really diverse group of guys whether it's Josh Downs like on like just Josh Downs like just Josh, like just like Josh, like on third down or it's Alec going deep or Tyler Warren like running sales and working that like middle like making these like tough catches. So and then obviously we got, um, we have Jonathan Taylor who was one of the, uh, contestants for offense player like the year and was the front runner up until week, what, 14, 16. So, so like we all

thought that it was a done deal. So, uh, we have a very diverse group of guys. And, And I felt like Daniel really helped us on the, or he, I thought Daniel really helped us unlock that. Does it play, just to get inside the mind of a player, like when you are entering your last year of a deal, does that, like, is that on a player's mind a lot? Does that impact the way the season goes or how you operate? Yeah, well, I mean, like, I don't want to say, like, I think it can in a positive way. it puts a little bit more urgency on it because you're feeling that you're like hey like i have nothing guaranteed you know i have to go out there and i got to earn hey how are you and like then like like just like i got to go out and earn it and that's what i'm going to go out there and do this

year go out and get back to where my normal um production is and and i think it's going to be great What I, I was, we were talking off air. I spent a little time out there this year in the building working on a feature for the, for the athletic, my other place that I work. And I was, humble brag. I was really taken by how connected the locker room was. And there's a mix of people in there, veterans, young players. Everyone gets, everyone vibes with each other. It's not separate pockets. Like everyone was felt very connected, D-line, you know, receive everyone. And I wonder kind of when things got tough for you, first of all, it must have been really refreshing for Daniel Jones to go in and feel that, first of all. But then when things got tough for you guys down the back stretch, like what did that manifest into, that connectivity? What did that show up as in the tougher moments? Absolutely.

I mean, this is probably the closest team I've ever been on, like in terms of guys that actually want to hang out and actually want to do stuff outside of football. And I think what it translated to for us is obviously it didn't translate to wins because we didn't win after that. But everybody stayed in it. Everybody continued to work hard. Everybody continued to believe. And like we showed flashes versus like some really good teams.

And one of those teams is playing on Sunday. So, you know, like we just kept that belief and we kept on working hard. And I felt like effort was always great. was always there and that's kind of like the building block like of a good team is effort first but are the colts too nice maybe you need a little edge oh nice no I mean like I mean like just like I feel like we have some really like like just some really like gritty guys and um that's something that I try to bring to like every game and like just like I feel like that's like who I am like just like I'm a gritty get down and dirty guy sneaky great division now too we had Liam go

Loves a competition. Do you know what's fun? I saw the shadow of it cross your face. We have had a lot of people on the show who have players who have all but said, hey, we see those Patriots are in the Super Bowl. You know, if they got there, I think we can, you know, we could have done it. You know, we had Garrett Bowles on that was like if we would have had boat, you know what I mean? It's kind of that sense like we can also do this kind of thing.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I mean, give them credit. I mean, just like they're like a really like, talented team and they are, they are coached well. But, but I guess like nobody saw it coming like for them, right? And like they kind of just jumped out there and kind of surprised everyone kind of the same way that we did in the first half of this season. Because I mean, like I think guys were giving us like three games, like just like three and 14, like, which I never understood that. Like just like we're like some bums or something. But, um, yeah.

Yeah, so like just know that anything can happen throughout the course of a season, you know, like you get rolling, confidence starts flowing, and like you start racking up wins. I like an NFL where the NFC, the AFC South would just take some grief over the years. It's like they don't get enough prime time games. And now we got three really strong teams. We'll see what happens with the Titans. Before we let you go, we got to have you talk about EA Sports. Yes. And Madden, you know, very popular in my house.

I guess it is. Absolutely. So Madden, I feel like, is like just like, every kid's dream is like to be in a Madden video game. And I think it was the 2020, like, was my first year. And I was excited and I'm loading it up. And my overall was like 71. And I was like, that's trash. And but, you know, like just like going back, like I've been playing Madden since I was, I don't know, 10.

you know me my dad brother all all playing and getting like just competitive but they're actually putting on a really nice thing tonight it's headed by zach bryant and it's going to be lots of fun and i will be there as well so excited for that that's pretty cool did you i'm guessing your score increased by quite a bit where you got yeah yeah well i haven't checked i mean i was trended towards like getting up there and then like the the the back half this season, they might have bumped me back down. I know. They should bump me back up.

They're bumping it during the season. It's tough. Forget contract motivating you. You need that Madden score. If you have like a bad three weeks, they bump it down. It's not nice. But hopefully I'm still in the upper 80s trending towards that 90. I think you're at 84.

Oh, that's so trash. I know. Our producer just came into my ear on that. 84 is that's not bad. That's terrible. Like I just like I think like the highest I've been is like 89. Okay. Which is still about 90.

In our book, you're like a 97, okay? A friend of the show. I hear you. Yeah. Yeah, I don't need to be hearing from an NFL starting a great wide receiver on a nice second. Oh, he's not happy with the 84th. Think of what the kid Michael Pittman would think about that. He'd be pretty happy.

Great having you on, Michael. Thank you, guys. Thanks for being here. This month, IHeart Radio is celebrating the stars of the 2026 Winter Games. Ocala, Florida, might seem like an unlikely home for a winter Olympian. but Aaron Jackson is a sprinter in a league of her own. After making history as the first black woman to win an individual Winter Olympic gold medal, she returns to the ice faster than ever.

A former inline skater, she dominates the 500-meter sprint with explosive power and arrives in Italy to defend her crown. For more Winter Games gold, Search Olympics on the IHeart Radio app. I'm Dylan Playfair. And I'm Tyler Smith. We're putting loneliness in the penalty box by talking to some of our favorite athletes about the importance of friendship. This is Bromance.

Bromance is brought to you by Charm Diamond Centers, proudly Canadian-owned and operator. Charm has been part of your love stories and bromances for over 50 years. And you can find Bromance on the IHeart Radio Network or wherever you get your podcast. Really excited about our next guest, Christian Watson, the Packers' wide receiver.

We got a big-time playmaker in the middle of his prime. It was just in the mix, obviously, in the NF-Selt. NFC. Welcome, Christian. What brought you to the Bay Area hanging out in Super Bowl Week? Just get out, do a couple of things in the community with the NFLPA and then just kind of show face to the media. That's us. I love it. I love it. We can hear more about this Packer's season. It really struck me when you came back from that injury. Tell me if you disagree that it was maybe a slightly different Christian Watson. Maybe it was the way they were using you, but like more production, more like higher success rate, but you're still hitting big plays down the field, like more yards per game.

Like you were kind of filling a role, which you almost never see of a guy coming right off the injury and you're almost doing more than you did before. Like how did that come to happen? I mean, honestly, I think it really just came down to, honestly, just the confidence that I was playing with. I mean, I think that I was just playing a lot, you know, more confident and a lot more free. than I had in the past. And I think that, you know, that kind of gave, you know, the, you know,

Jay Love and, you know, the coaches more confidence in me, too. So, I mean, I think it just gave me, you know, more opportunities to make plays and just helped me go out there and, you know, keep it going. I think that was a big emphasis for me in the offseason. We just, you know, maintaining that, you know, confidence in that, you know, that mindset throughout the offseason. So once I got back, I'd be able to be. able to just go out there and play fast and play free.

And, yeah, I mean, it definitely worked out. I'm curious about that because that's not easy to do when you are returning from something like that. Did you, was it like self-talk? Was there stuff you read? Were there just, like, things that you reminded yourself every day to just be, you know, I've been through like the worst, aka the worst, and like now I can just go be free like that? Oh, yeah.

I mean, honestly, all of the above. Yeah, cool. Definitely a lot of self-talk. You know, definitely a lot of, you know, just, you know, mental and just, you know, having conversations, you know, having conversations in my head. And then just, you know, the things that I was doing, you know, I was, I couldn't run and, you know, catch balls, but, you know, I would position myself and just kind of spot catch. You know, I was making sure that I was on a jug still, you know, catching footballs. And then really just being around, you know, football as much as I, as close as I could, as much as I could throughout that process. so that, you know, when I was, you know, transitioning from, you know, jogging or, you know, standing still to jogging and then to running and then, you know, running routes and stuff, it was a lot smoother of a transition.

You know, I didn't feel like, oh, I haven't done this in months. You know, it felt, you know, like I was kind of just right back into things. So, yeah, now, that helped me a ton. How is it playing in this in this Matt Lefleur offense? I can hear Jordan's voice in my head that, like, Matt Lefleur really likes, likes his offense, like, he likes his offense, very exacting. He wants things a certain way. How would you describe kind of playing in this offense? You know, I think it's honestly, it's been really good. You know, I think that he's really good at putting, you know, a lot of different guys in

positions to be successful. You know, I feel like it's, you know, really, you know, anyone can eat, you know, at any time. I mean, I don't think he relies too much on, you know, one guy. or, you know, one playmaker to make the plays. I think he relies on, you know, all the guys that are out there. So, you know, it's been great playing for Matt and playing in his offense. You know, I think that, you know, we've had a really young offense, you know, these past couple of years. So I think that, you know, we've grown as an offense, you know,

as we've gotten, you know, more reps and, you know, gotten more confidence in each other. And I think it'll continue to build. I'm excited to see where this next year goes, you know, with the rookies that we had last year, you know, just going to be stepping into bigger roles. And, you know, I'm definitely excited to see where it goes, but I definitely enjoy playing under Matt. Okay, so I've known him a while,

so I promise I'm not sending you up here, but it's something I've noticed over the last couple of years. Have you guys, the young group that kind of you guys all grew up together a little bit in this offense together? Did you guys, like, make him more relaxed? Did you make him, I guess, cooler, quote-unquote? Did you make him looser a little bit? Because he has, respectfully, just unclenched a bit,

it seems like. And you can tell when he's feeling like Jordan Love leans back with the fade away, you know, passes down the field. And you guys vibe really well together. You can tell when he also feels it too. Is that you guys having an effect on him as the play caller? Maybe him feeling that a little bit more? I mean, honestly, I don't even know if that's something that, like,

I would have, like, recognized or really, you know, looked into. But I definitely think that he's done, you know, a really good job at kind of, you know, just relaying and, you know, coaching and, you know, telling us what he wants and, you know, what he expects from us or, you know, like installing the stuff and then kind of just letting us, you know, do our part. And I don't think that he's tried to, you know, overcoach or, you know, lean in to those things too much when it comes to just, you know, how we're, you know, going out there. I think that as long as, you know, he's doing his part and then we're doing our part, I feel like that's kind of been, like, you know, mutual in that way. And I feel like that's, you know, been really helpful for us as a young offense because it's kind of just helped us, you know, kind of like you said, just grow and, you know, mess really well together.

So, I mean, yeah, I mean, I guess, yeah. It's okay if you made him cooler. It's fine. I mean, I mean, I don't want to say cooler, but, I mean, I feel like he's definitely kind of leaned into, you know, the fact that we have a younger, you know, developing and growing offense over these past couple years. Yeah, I would imagine there's something kind of rejuvenating about that because it fits, like, as you're saying, that collaboration. but also like you guys are all kind of doing that second phase of growing up, growing up as an adult, essentially, together all with the same group. You know each other really, really well. You're doing one of the most difficult jobs in sports, if not the most difficult jobs in sports to do.

Under a microscope, you all have the same sort of empathy for each other, I think. And like, I don't know. It would seem to me that there's something very cool about, like, he's worked with vets prior to you guys coming in for quite a lot. long time and then now he's got this incredibly young team. I would feel like that would be rejuvenating in a way just to feel that collaboration and like feeling like everybody's growing together. A hundred percent. I mean, I definitely feel like he does a good job at kind of understanding, you know, the players that he has and, you know, how he kind of has to approach, you know, different guys or, you know, a different group of guys. I feel like he really, you know,

has a good understanding of, you know, how to just approach, you know, different stuff. So, you know, I mean, it's definitely been, it's definitely been, you know, just easy, you know, working with Matt and, you know, learning from him. You got a favorite, like, deep ball catch in your career, favorite contested catch? My career? Sure, or even this last season, anything, stand out. I'll let you think about it while I give you some props that there's not a lot of receivers exactly like you right now, like vertical receivers, guys who take the top of, like, I think of a, uh, I think of a, uh, and Alec Pierce right now. I think about guys who are, like,

you've averaged 17, 18 yards per catch, like your whole career. It's part of what you do. You're at a higher volume this year, and yet you're still doing it deep. So I know there's, like, an art to that. Maybe you could explain to the listeners, what is the art to being, you know, a deep ball.

Why are you so good at your job? No, just specifically, like, what makes those deep balls. And yeah, yeah, if one of them stands out of one that, like, you know, you loved in your career. Yeah. I mean, I don't, I mean, I'd have to really, like, sit down and think about, you know, my whole career. But, I mean, one that just kind of sticks out to me right away because it was kind of like, you know, the catapult to, you know, my career and the success that I've had was just the Dallas game, my rookie year. You know, I caught a go ball from Aaron Rogers down the sideline and, you know, scored, did my backflip.

And, you know, kind of the rest was history. I mean, that's definitely one that, you know, always sticks out to me. But I mean, I feel like it's just always kind of been, you know, something that I've done. I don't think I've ever, you know, really looked into it too much. You know, I've always been, you know, a fast guy who, you know, can, you know, run really fast, you know, in a straight line. So, you know, any opportunity I get to, you know, just run fast and, you know, be the defender that way, I feel like that's just kind of always what I've done. So it kind of just feels natural. You got the right quarterback for it, right?

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, and when we talk about, like, I brought it up earlier, One of our favorite things on this show, and it happens on a weekly basis, which we love to see, is, like, the deep ball, but he can't, like, he has to make it a fadeaway jumper. And it looks so easy, but there's, like, this, like, cool, like, there's this art to it and this, like, makes it so much more difficult, but it's not difficult, if that makes sense. And, like, that's got to kind of juice you guys up a little bit, that he's capable of doing stuff like that. Oh, yeah, no. It's like rule of cool football.

He's definitely got a little swag to his game when it comes to that. He definitely is on point with his fadeaways. And yeah, no, I mean, it just makes the highlight a little bit better when you, you know, you pan from a fade away to, you know, a touchdown down the field. So, you know, I always like it because it adds a little bit more swag to my highlights as well. So, yeah, no, it's definitely, you know, it's a big part of his game. I mean, I feel like he's kind of just, you know, been cool in that area of, you know, being poised back there and making plays when stuff is breaking down.

And yeah, no, even if it's not breaking down, maybe just hit a fadeaway just for the fun. And it always works out. That's what we love about him. He plays like, it's fun. And you do too, and it's just a cool pairing for that reason among many others. We had him on our show. We had Jordan on our show last year. We were very proud of ourselves because we got him to laugh a lot and kind of just be like, you know,

because he's so professional and all. and he's to look quieter, you know, all that stuff. What is the Jordan love that you know? Like, what's the side that maybe you see all the time and you're surprised that, like, media like us are talking about him in this way? I mean, yeah, no, he's definitely the fun, energetic, laughing. He's definitely that guy.

That's what I see every day. I mean, he's the quarterback of, you know, an NFL football team. You know, I'd say, you know, he's, you know, one of the best, you know, in the league to do it. So I feel like he's got to have that presence, you know, when he's talking to everybody. But, you know, he's just, you know, one of the guys at the end of the day. I mean, he's got that, you know, that humor to him.

And, yeah, no, he's just one of the guys. Does he, is he aware of the Toyota Thon thing? Like, are you guys aware of the Toyota thing? Oh, yeah. Okay, all right. He's making money. Okay, I was like, at least he's making money, I guess. It's good.

I love that. Yeah. Okay. Because that's a phenomenon unexplainable to mankind, I think. Yeah, yeah. I don't know how it came to be or what. But, yeah, no, he's definitely, he definitely, he definitely. turns it up a notch during that Toyota found for sure.

Last thing for you, what's it like playing in this division? What's it been like and what's it like, you know, thinking about it moving forward, because lines basically got in your way last season, in 24, I mean. It's a loaded division. You guys have obviously been a consistent playoff team, but lines get in your way. And this year, you know, in the end, the Bears get in your way. When you play the Vikings, you got to deal with Brian Flores and them. Let's just like, kind of what's your mindset of these rivalries right now and then these different

teams kind of stopping the Packers along the way? Oh, you know, I mean, it's definitely a tough, tough division, a competitive division. But I mean, I think that's, you know, exactly, you know, that's exactly what I want. You know, I want it to be, you know, those, you know, competitive, chippy, you know, the energy and the vibe elevated for those games. I feel like that, you know, just brings a different, you know, just brings a different energy to those games, those are the type of games I want to play. And I want to play in those big time chippy games.

So, you know, I think, you know, I- Those Bears games were awesome. Oh, yeah. For the average fan, just watching that trilogy? Yeah, no dog in the fight. Like, it was a gift. Yeah, you really would. So, I mean, I enjoy it.

But, you know, at the end of the day, obviously, I think that, you know, the Packers are still the team to beat in the division. I'm excited to see, you know, how it plays out this next year. I know we have to let you go, but really quick. Like, we love on the show, too, that, like, coaches are now. getting more, showing more personality too. Like, we love real beef between coaches. Like, we love all of that locker room.

Like, what do you guys make of, like, Matt, being a little dry, like, sarcastic, but, like, kind of coming out and taking a stand, I guess, in the division is like, hey, I've been here, actually. And, you know, I'm not going away. And, like, kind of the chippiness back and forth between bears and packers in that regard. You know, I mean, I feel like you've got to have a little bit of that. I mean, I feel like, you know, it starts, you know, from the top down in terms of, you know, that rivalry and that beef. You know, obviously there's a, you know, obviously a professional side to do it, too.

You know, you don't got to do too much of it. You know, you got to, you know, let your, you know, play do the talk in as well. But, I mean, yeah, no, I, you know, I love, you know, when the coaches show a little bit of personality and, you know, put that stuff out there. I feel like it brings the vibes to the team, too. Yeah, we had Liam Cohen and we had him on earlier, too. And, you know, that was a highlight moment. I think for coaches, anyway, him and Robert Salah kind of going back and forth earlier this year. So we love the competition at every level.

Bring more beef. Yes. It'll be happening in the NFC North. Great job. Thank you. Christian Watson. Great season. Had like a, I do the big free agency list on NFL.com.

So I'm always scouting the future years. It was a short-term contract extension for Christian Watson before this season. But who knows? It's getting better and better. I'm looking forward to what's next for you. And who knows, you might be on that list next year. Or maybe Packers are smart. They'll back up the truck for you.

And you'll sign long term there. Thanks again, Christian Watson. Appreciate you. Yeah, thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you. Welcoming in Adam Thielen to the show, who just wrapped up an incredible 13-year career. I'm giving you credit for that practice squad.

Thank you. Everyone skips that, so I appreciate that. Not here. We're on the details. Yeah. I love it. 2013. And one of the craziest NFL stories, now that it's over,

because I don't think the average listener or fan even remembers at this point, but like when they only tryout, like rookie tryout players, I can remember having like an extended incredible career. That's just a long congratulations for wrapping it up because it was a really cool story for people that don't know. You know, had a rookie tryout, made the team, D2 college, and then had this great career, obviously. with the Vikings and then wrapping up here with the Steelers. So congratulations, Adam.

Oh, thank you. Yeah. It's wild to look back at it. You know, it's like when you're playing, you don't really give yourself that ability to look back on things. You're kind of just always going for the next thing, the next year. You know, what do I need to do to get better? So now just be able to take a deep breath, look back at everything. It's crazy. It's wild, but very blessed and thankful for a crazy career. This is perhaps a very invasive question. Okay. How are you processing it? How long do we have right now? How long do we have?

No, it's been awesome. Honestly, right now it doesn't feel any different because this is like a normal off-season, right? You get a little break from training and all those things. I will say that I've kind of dove into the retirement life as far as I'm playing pickup basketball 6 a.m. on Tuesday and Fridays and not lifting very heavy. I did about a 15, 20-minute leg workout this morning, which felt awesome. because I didn't have to worry about doing this long, elaborate warm-up and sprinting and training. So I'm diving right into that, which is great.

I was a little worried when you started to say pick up basketball. It's really worried you were going to start to say pickleball, which we don't classify as a sport on this show. Oh, okay. I do like pickleball. It's okay to like it. It's okay to like it. It's okay to like it. It just seems like, you know, go for like a sports sport.

Like there's a, you know, tennis, you know, just do it, go the whole way if you're going to play a racquet sport. I will say, though, have you done individual, like one-on-one pickleball? Like, that's a serious workout. I think you know the answer to that question. Yeah, he has not done it. Based on his answer to your question. True, true. It's a great sport.

Watch out, though. You will get addicted. I will not get addicted, and I will not let my family play it either. No. I always think about, like, when I watch receivers. who win in different sorts of ways and understand the subtleties of the position and get better throughout the course of their career

who they learned from. And you've played with and played for, such a variety of different coaches. You obviously spent that time in Carolina too, which I didn't mention off the top. I'm curious of any of the players or coaches who you looked up to, who taught you the most about kind of learning the positions.

Unfortunately, I'm going to give you a very politically correct answer because it is true, but it sounds kind of crazy. But honestly, it was like such a, there's so many people that kind of influenced my abilities to play receiver. And I go back to high school, like coaches in high school. I remember like so many things that I remember them kind of like preaching. Like I used in my NFL career. Like my head coach in high school was like, you will not play if you can't block.

Like I remember like being a sophomore and like. thinking I was pretty cool because I made the varsity team and making all these cool catches in practice. And I remember him like getting after me because like I wasn't blocking. And he was like, you won't play if you can't block. And I kind of stuck with me my whole career into the NFL. I remember my college coach, like some of the drills that we would do really helped me in my NFL career

as far as the top of the route stuff. And then there's so many players, right, that I watched growing up, Chris Carter, Randy Moss, guys that I watched when I was in college that were having tons of success, Julio Jones and Kelvin Johnson. And then when I got to the league, you know, Greg Jennings was there with the Vikings and just kind of learning his process. You know, he was an older player at the time.

But just being able to pick his brain a little bit, Gerius Wright, who was kind of this slot receiver that was just like Mr. Clutch. And no one really knew how valuable that he was to the team, but learned a ton from him. And then just guys that I played with Diggs, just watching him and how he ran routes, how he caught the football and his aggressiveness run after the catch. Guys that were on other teams like Devante Adams watching his releases. So it's a really long-winded answer.

So I'm sorry, but we're a very long-winded show. All right. I like it. So we love this. I like this. But I really did take out so much of everyone's game. And then really cool was when Justin came in. And he just kind of provided this really useful.

unique, new style of playing receiver that I hadn't really seen in person. And so I really pulled a lot of things from his game and tried to use it, not as good as him, but tried to use it in my game, which, which again, that's the beauty of this game. It's so fun to see the different styles, the different types of competitors. And you're playing the same position, you're running the same routes, but everybody has a little bit of a unique way to do it. And I will say everybody had the same thing in common and I feel like it's something that's lost in translation of

how to play receiver at high level and that's playing with speed. A lot of times people want to be like, oh, he's good in zones or he's really crafty, but like you can't be crafty in the NFL. Like you have to be, you have to play with speed and explosiveness and you have to be able to stop on a dime. If you can do those things and you can

catch the football and have body control, he'll probably be a pretty good receiver. What I love all of that, but what you also were able to do and to have the tenure that you had was to really understand where to attack defenses. To do that, you had to really understand

the evolution, de-evolution, and re-evolution of defenses as they reacted to offenses over time. What did you study? Who did you watch? What tape provided usefulness to you in terms of understanding the little nuances and shifts

of how especially, you know, passing defense was going to try to attack you. Yeah, it's crazy. As you're saying that, I'm like thinking like, I almost start to laugh because it's like the difference from when I first came to the NFL to now and how defenses are attacking and playing. It's almost like comical because it's like a whole different game. You know, like every coach has like influenced the game in some way.

And and then and then the ones that have success, people try to mimic it, right? And they're like, oh, okay, that's really good. I never thought of that. I'm going to use that. And then offenses started to pick it up and then they have to do something new and unique. And so I think about just like when I first. came in the league. Like there wasn't a lot of like cover zero, all out blitzes, you know, it's more like either you're playing man or you're playing like cover two with two high

safeties and and a lot of quarters coverage in first and second down because you could protect the run and and the pass. And then now it's just like how can we make cover two look like cover zero? You start in cover zero and everybody just bails out into this like cover two coverage. and they try to make you throw hot when you really can't and play this like cat and mouse game. So it has changed a lot. For me, thankfully, in my career, I didn't really have to worry about that

because they told me what to do. Like I got to run a slant route. I got to run a slant route. There's not really much you can do. So really what I would study is, okay, what are they teaching technique-wise to these corners? So like we're playing the bears. How do they teach them?

Are they soft-shoe guys? Are they backpedaling kind of at the snap when they're press coverage? Are they quick jam? Are they going to put one hand on you? Are they going to put both hands on you? And then once you kind of feel that, it's like, all right, my studying is kind of done. Now I just have to kind of run the route that's called and adjust on the fly.

To that point, this might be maybe a very rudimentary question, but sometimes we hear defensive coaches talk about changing their zoning roles and the depth of their drops and all of those types of things, to mess up receivers who really are trying to gain a leverage advantage based on all of those little techniques and traits that they know that their corners are playing with. Is that, are we there yet? Because you hear, you know, you see coaches, the Salas and Flores, certainly, but you see like some of these really top tier defensive coaches,

like take what they think, what they know the offense knows about their roles and then F with them a little bit. Are we there yet across the league, do you think? Or are we sort of like scratching the surface of all of that? No, that's good. I think it's interesting because every week, you're like, okay, this team is in this family, this is the type of defense they play. And you're like, this is how people attack them. Well, the funny thing is that on the flip side, they know how teams are going to attack them.

And so the more simple, the defense, the more, the easier it is for them to know exactly how teams are going to attack them. Like the old like Seattle, cover three, lean the safety the other way, carry the other side. Like, like, they knew the attackers, right? So like, that's all they practice is the. How are they attacked? But then, like, you go into this offensive meeting and you're like, oh, like, we're going to kill these guys. Like, this is easy. Like, all of you do is, you know, set a guy down here and throw it over the top.

Like, it's pretty easy. But again, like, they practice that. So again, it's this cat and mouse game of like, okay, like, they might know this, but we're going to do this. And I think the offenses that just, like, maybe kind of throw that out the window and just like, all right, we're just going to be really balanced with our approach. And then we're going to run the ball. We're going to have play action. We're going to have keepers. We're going to have down the field shots.

When we know that it's a certain coverage, we got a quarter's coverage, and we know that they're going to play it on this down. I think those are the offense. And I think, honestly, that's Seattle. Like, in Clint Kubiak, Clay. Clay was my OC. Like, that's the Kubiak way.

It's like, we are going to be, we're going to attack in all the different phases of the game and keep it really simple for us and complex for the defense. But when you try to play this cat and mouse game in like perfect play versus perfect deep, defense, I think it gets tough. I heard you say cat and mouse game there. And I'd immediately thought of the quarterback you just played with Aaron Rogers,

who just loves to play like a cat and mouse with his opponents. You were just there with him. And there were great moments towards the end of the season. I thought like he played his best ball of the year with the Steelers. There were rough moments. If you were trying to convince a doubter, maybe like myself, who looks at kind of the breadth. of the entire season, just like numbers, like success rate and how that offense was moving

and thinking about the future in Pittsburgh, maybe you wouldn't try to convince me, but that, like, that he would still make sense as a starting quarterback for that team in the future. Like, why would that be? So, okay, I'm going to start this in a weird way to answer this question, but I'll come back. I will, I promise. But, okay, first of all, quarterbacks, right? They get all the heat, all the blame, and they get all the praise, right? Like, if you're good, if your team's good, like, best quarterback ever, he's, he's MVP candidate, all these things. And if your team's not winning or your offense playing well, it's all the quarterback, he's terrible, he can't do it anymore, he's getting too old, all these things. And, and granted, they get paid really well, so it's still

a good job to have, right? They get paid, paid very well compared to everyone else in the league. But it's just kind of just, that's just kind of how it is. And I say that all to say that there's so many factors that lead into individual success in the NFL. And that's why we love it. It's the greatest team game there is because it takes 11 guys on every individual play to have success. They have to do their job. If one guy doesn't do his job, the quarterback can't throw the ball. He's getting hit. And so I think there was so many of those times in my time in Pittsburgh that just one guy, and sometimes it was me, right? One guy wasn't doing his job and didn't do his job well enough. And it made maybe the quarterback look bad or the offensive coordinator.

or maybe the running back look bad, right? So, and again, that's why I love this game. It's so fun to be around because it's, you can have all the playmakers, you could have all the guys on paper that it should have an explosive offense. You got this quarterback that's a Hall of Famer, and you're still going to have games where you just don't move the ball. And that's why like every game is so interesting to see what happens.

But again, I told you he was going to have a long-winning question or answer and it's going to come back around. I say that all to say that he can still do it. His process is unbelievable. And to see some of the throws he made in practice and him to do it day in and day out, like he was out there competing on Wednesdays. And like it's just like when you're in a huddle with a guy like that that is out there giving everything he's got every single day, he has this process.

He's got us over there watching film on Tuesday nights. He's talking ball. He's explaining ball on Wednesdays and Thursdays to all the young guys of, hey, you know, who's the O-line blocking here talking to the running backs? So they understand, okay, this is the blocking scheme. So this is how I cut off of it. There's not a lot of that in the NFL. There's so much going on that you don't get to really teach football. And he's doing that.

He's taking the time to do that. He can still do it and he can still do it at a high level. He just needs some pieces around him that, you know, that they can kind of all do it together. See, that practice, that prep stuff. That's something. There's no way I can know that. That's why I wanted to ask and get. get the answer and really great perspective.

Not long-winded, but we do have to get to another guest. So I really appreciate Adam Thielen your time and good luck. I appreciate it. Thanks, Adam. This is an I-Heart podcast, guaranteed human.