Chris Long might be busier in his football retirement than he was in his 11 years, two Super Bowl wins NFL career. Since hanging up his towels in 2019, the Charlottesville, Virginia resident began hosting his now three-times-a-week podcast, Green Light with Chris Longand this season added television to his repertoire, appearing weekly alongside Jay Cutler, Channing Crowder, Ryan Clark and Chad Johnson on In 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 thing. This married father of three also runs a solid business foundation focuses on access to clean water and educational equity, and is committed to its adult softball league team. We sat down with him at his studios in Charlottesville, Virginia, to catch up on all the irons he burned in the fire of his “retirement.”
GQ: We’re sitting in your podcast studio in downtown Charlottesville. You launched the pod four years ago. Does it feel like it’s been that long?
Chris Long: It’s sort of skimmed over. It’s been fun, but not in the “time flies when you’re having fun” sense. When I played football, it was all year round. But the pressure would go away in the offseason because it would just be work. You were not graded based on your performance.
It’s a different routine, where I didn’t really put my head out for over a week until last summer. We had our baby girl, June, this summer, and I took three weeks off, which seemed like an eternity. For the last four years, it was Groundhog Day. Continue to try to be consistent, making small decisions that optimize our efficiency and our product. I learned and worked non-stop. It’s a little different from my last job.
You knew you were good at football from being a top pick in the draft (2nd overall pick in the 2008 draft) to starting in the NFL. But when you started this group, the question was will I be good at this?
And even after four years, am I good at it? Football is about production: did you play well? Did you do your job? Didn’t you do well? You have such an immediate critic/praise cycle. But it’s a very subjective thing. It’s also something that, when you put it out there, it’s hard to know what people are thinking when they’re sitting there listening. Do they like it? Is not it ? Sometimes your only window into comments is yes, numbers, but also online reviews or your mentions. It’s a slippery slope, because I don’t think it’s representative of most people – I don’t think most people are really as online as the minority of very vocal people.
