Following a 12-season career in the NFL, Will Blackmon has repositioned himself in quite a few different ways. Along with launching his own podcast, starting the Blackmon Football Academy, and becoming a Master Sommelier with his own wine concierge service, he also works as an NFL analyst for FS1 and NFL Network.
Blackmon stopped by the Short & To The Point podcast with Jessica Kleinschmidt this week to discuss his many ventures and interests. But when it came to his broadcasting career, he says that the transition from being a player to an analyst had some unexpected challenges.
“I would say the challenging part is when you’re in studio,” said Blackmon. “Because everything’s produced. You have limited amount of time. You gotta get to your talking points. You can’t really elaborate on what you really want to say because you don’t have that much time. Or the topic doesn’t allow you to do that.”
Blackmon added that he appreciates being able to say exactly what he wants to while calling games.
“The beauty of calling games is I can do all that,” said Blackmon. “I’m pretty much doing everything but playing. It’s really cool because leading up to the game, I’m preparing as if I am playing. So it’s really cool to be up there, see it, and literally, you’re just talking football. And for me, that’s what I do at home.
“That’s what’s fun for me.”
The Super Bowl winner added later shared that the transition from player to broadcaster requires adapting to the logistics of a broadcast and that can take some time.
“I wanna say it was seamless in terms of the actual content, what to say, what to talk about. But you have to learn all the logistics of production and being on camera,” said Blackmon. “I’m pretty lowkey and chill in person. So my regular talking voice is even lower when I’m on camera. So even just trying to be a bigger personality of myself…it was hard for me to be big cause, I’m like that’s not me, I want to be myself. Well, then I had a guy say ‘Well you can be yourself, just be a bigger version of yourself.’
“The thing that works across the board is just being a good teammate. Being on the same page with your play-by-play guy. You two are having fun. Or even in media, just having no ego and let’s just all have fun. Let’s all put on a really good show.”
Blackmon also discusses what it was like to play with Aaron Rodgers, his passion for collecting football memorabilia, and his picks for the best wines to avoid hangovers. It’s a pretty wide varied conversation on Short & To The Point, which is available wherever you find your podcasts.
