playSarah BarshopOct 12, 2026, 06:00 AM ETCloseSarah Barshop covers the Los Angeles Rams for ESPN. She joined ESPN in 2016 to cover the Green Bay Packers for ESPN Milwaukee. She then moved to Houston to cover the Texans. She came to ESPN after working as a writer and editor for Sports Illustrated.Multiple AuthorsOpen Extended ReactionsIT WAS THE middle of April, and Los Angeles Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford was drawing up a play on a whiteboard on the sideline of a youth flag football game.He was surrounded by a group that included his three oldest daughters — Chandler (9), Sawyer (9) and Hunter (8) — as he described how to read a quarterback’s eyes and attack the run.Stafford’s daughters, who expressed interest in playing the sport after watching a girls flag football camp at the Rams’ facility last year, were supposed to be coached by a local high school student.
But after a conflict came up with the student’s schedule, Stafford said all eyes turned to him.”Everybody just kind of looked at me and was like, ‘I mean … it should be you,'” Stafford told ESPN.Stafford’s team won the championship, but he said his focus was trying to teach the players — six girls and four boys — the fundamentals of flag football.”I tried to keep it as simple as I possibly could,” Stafford said. “We kind of just lined up and played the same defense all the time and tried to keep it simple for them so they could go play and have fun.”Stafford is one of many current NFL players who coach their kids in sports that include football, soccer, baseball, basketball and golf. ESPN spoke to 16 of those players about what it’s like to coach their children and what it means to spend that time with them.New England Patriots right tackle Morgan Moses said he gets recognized at games when coaching his sons — Isaiah (11), Jeremiah (10) and Legend (8) — in youth football during the spring.”It’s funny because a lot of the parents from the opposing team are like, ‘They’re running NFL plays!'” Moses said.THIS REALLY COOL: #Rams MVP quarterback Matthew Stafford coaches his daughter’s flag football team and was drawing up plays for them today. 👏👏👏 Imagine the MVP of the league as your coach. Pretty damn cool. https://t.co/jJ6oYlhTnO— MLFootball (@MLFootball) April 26, 2026 Stafford, the reigning NFL MVP, said he didn’t lean too hard on his NFL expertise.”I’m just a dad out there at that point,” Stafford said.
“I could scheme up some stuff, but can we execute it? Probably not.”I’d draw something up, we’d run the play, I’d look at my sheet and be like, ‘That’s not anything what I thought I was going to get,’ but we score a touchdown on it.”LOS ANGELES CHARGERS outside linebacker Bud Dupree said he will never forget when his sons — Jett (8) and Ace (6) — told him that they wanted to play flag football. Jett was 4 when he joined a team rather than just playing around with his dad and brother.Dupree said it was important to him that he coached his sons because he has seen how much youth sports has changed from when he was a kid.”A lot of coaches are in it for the wrong reasons,” Dupree said. “A lot of coaches are gambling on the games.
They yelling at the kids that never played sports in their life.”So, I want to make sure that [when they’re young what] they’re doing is not necessarily focused on all wins. It’s focused on maturing in the game, getting better at the actual sport and learning from the mistakes that they playing and understanding the actual game of football.”Dupree created several teams called BD Elite. His sons play on the 8U team, but he also has 10U, 15U team and 18U teams.”I started it for my kids, but along the way, I just wanted to reach as many kids as I could, and I took upon that to make it stand, man,” Dupree said. “Now, I’m trying to get kids in college, give them scholarships, taking on that.
It’s not only affecting my kids’ life, but affecting other kids.”Carolina Panthers long snapper JJ Jansen coaches sons Luke, 13, and Ben, 7, in baseball. Jansen called coaching his “greatest passion,” saying, “[It] takes up a lot of my time because I want it to take up a lot of my time.” For the past five years, Jansen said he has coached during the NFL season and spends time during the week thinking about how he can “positively impact” the kids on his team.”Everything from scripting practice, thinking through how they each should develop in their own way,” Jansen said. “One of my absolute favorite things to do is scripting out practice and going through each player, thinking, ‘What do they need? What are the skills they need to develop?
What [are] the strategies they need to learn?’ I spend way too much time on it, but I love it.”When Jaguars quarterback Nick Mullens’ son, Luke, 7, started his first season of coach-pitch baseball in Birmingham, Alabama, Mullens told the head coach of his son’s team he was available to help if needed but didn’t want too much authority.The offer was gladly accepted. The first part, anyway.”A week into practice, I was the second in command,” Mullens said. “The first practice, I was timid, but three practices in, you’re like, ‘All right, listen up.’ And the kids start listening to you a little bit, so I really enjoy that aspect of it. It’s a lot of fun.”Moses said his goal is simple: for the kids on his team to learn the fundamentals of football.”I told everybody I really don’t care if we win or lose, I just want the kids to walk away knowing they learned great football strategy,” Moses said.
“So when they leave, and if they don’t play on my team the following year, they have a set of fundamentals they can lean on.”EVEN THOUGH MULLENS is entering his NFL ninth season (20 starts) and was coaching his son in Birmingham, Alabama, the town right next to Hoover, Alabama, where he grew up and attended high school, he didn’t get recognized much by other parents or coaches. Which meant he was inevitably going to be asked, “What do you do for a living?” by those parents and coaches as the league is active in the NFL offseason.At first, he was reluctant to tell them he was a professional football player because he knew the conversation would then revolve around that, and he’d rather talk to the other parents and coaches about their professions. So, he’d sometimes … embellish a bit about his career.Such as the time he told someone he worked for a logistics company. But that presented a different problem for him.”Then, they keep asking you questions.
You’ve got to make stuff up as you go,” he joked. “So I’ve been down that path, and it’s like, ‘Dude, you’re better off just telling people what you do.'”Jansen has done most of his coaching with former Panthers tight end Greg Olsen, who gets more attention than Jansen.”I think my younger kids get a kick out of it,” Jansen said. “My older kids, it’s a little bit of, like — it’s not an eye roll. It’s just sort of like, ‘Oh, here we go again.'”Jaguars punter Logan Cooke said he gets recognized by parents at times when helping coach his 5-year-old Cooper play T-ball, but the fact that he’s a Pro Bowl punter means absolutely nothing to the players.”I’m not Trevor Lawrence walking out there so there’s always subtle comments about it, good luck this weekend, stuff like that,” he said.
“But the kids have no idea, and they wouldn’t even care. They’re so young.”FORMER NEW ENGLAND Patriots quarterback Brian Hoyer serves as the offensive coordinator for the freshman football team at Xaverian Brothers High School in Westwood, Massachusetts, where his son, Garrett, is the starting quarterback.Hoyer, who played in the NFL from 2009 to 2023, was helping coach the varsity team after former NFL quarterback — and Xaverian alum — Matt Hasselbeck convinced him to help out. Hasselbeck served as the team’s quarterbacks coach while his son Henry was in high school.But when a coaching change left the freshman team without an offensive coordinator, Hoyer was asked if he wanted to take over.”I could have never
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