Jarvis Landry was like every parent at the beginning of the pandemic last year, looking at his 4-year-old daughter and 2-year-old son and wondering how quickly he could fill up his Amazon cart with enough indoor activities to last them an indefinite amount of time during a global lockdown.
The boxes piled up on the front door so quickly that he couldn’t remember what he ordered. Landry said he was never a stranger to diaper duty and some of the other essentials of early fatherhood, but this is where he excelled the most. This was his time.
“Oh my God, I bought so much stuff, toy trains, soccer goals, Nerf guns, man,” Landry said. “One hundred-piece Legos.”
Then, of course, the most popular activity ended up involving some paint and pieces of paper. The kinds of things that existed in the house all along. If there was anything that bound Landry to the struggles of the lay person over the last 18 months it was this; piles of new toys, crafts and experiments, but only love for the boxes they came in.
“We ended up just throwing some of the stuff away,” he said.
As NFL players approach their first Father’s Day amid a new normal, preparing a workforce return not unlike the rest of the country adjusting to office life again, they all do so with a broadened perspective. Football, like many professional sports, can be a nomadic, isolated existence; a nonstop run of training, recovery, games and practices that often shift the power dynamics of a household and force players to fit in time with their families around a demanding schedule.
That changed in 2020 when virtual offseasons bled into virtual training camps. Facilities were empty. Gyms were empty. Players had to train on their own and, in many cases, welcomed the opportunity to see a side of their home life that may have been somewhat foreign to them as their professional careers took off. For some dads, pajama blowouts, pregnancy craving runs and endless hours spent creating some kind of safe, time-sapping, educational activity for a wobbling toddler are rights of daily passage. For others, it was a new world, albeit one that they welcomed with open arms.
Landry said the time inspired a push among him and other Browns players to ask for a reinstitution of family days during training camp, a former staple of summer in which siblings and children could pile onto the field after practices. He said the request was met with enthusiasm from head coach Kevin Stefanski, himself a father of three, who would lobby for the expanded guestlists as COVID-19 restrictions dwindle.
Even as they return to football as they knew it, they can still take a piece of their time at home.
“All the moments that we had to spend together, that whole period was obviously a trying time for the world, but I’m so grateful because it gave me a lot of time to focus on them,” Landry said. “It gave me time to be where my feet were. Training during the offseason, traveling, you’re always worried about your kids but you're singularly focused on what you’re doing. Getting to spend more time with them was something I was really grateful for.”
