Patrick Peterson is dominating the podcast game
Peterson's show "All Things Covered" is everywhere -- and it's part of a trend of NFL players taking over the podcast world
By Matthew Coller
Patrick Peterson is a grown man with a wife, kids and a Hall of Fame career, but he’ll always be Bryant McFadden’s little cousin.
When McFadden was a big leaguer playing in the NFL with the Pittsburgh Steelers, Peterson was a top high school recruit who followed his older cousin around, sometimes to places where McFadden can’t quite remember how he got Peterson in the door.
“I had young Pat P living the lifestyle before he actually lived the lifestyle,” McFadden said laughing on the Purple Insider podcast.
Peterson didn’t just tag along to Miami clubs with McFadden though. The two-time Super Bowl champion brought Peterson along to his workouts with fellow NFL players. He was so advanced as a cornerback at the time that the fellow NFL’ers asked which team Peterson played for. McFadden had to explain that Patrick wasn’t even in college yet.
“We were doing drills and you couldn’t tell that he was not a professional at that time, he had that swag that he was there before he was even there,” McFadden remembered. “He just wanted to work. Kept working, kept working, kept working.”
Throughout Peterson’s journey from the mature high schooler who would be up early waiting for his older cousin at the bottom of the stairs ready to go run drills to the LSU standout to the fifth overall pick to NFL All-Pro with the Arizona Cardinals, McFadden has always been there for him. So when the pandemic hit in March and McFadden asked Peterson to start a podcast, Pat P followed his older cousin down a new path that has turned out to be a life-changing experience for the superstar cornerback.
Peterson and McFadden started the All Things Covered podcast at the beginning of last season and it’s been steamrolling ahead and gaining popularity since then.
All Things Covered wasn’t exactly the original plan. It started as an Instagram live between cousins.
“I was trying to find ways to be innovative outside of what I was doing,” said McFadden, who is also an analyst for CBS Sports. “So I started to do Instagram live interviews with athletes, mostly prospects that were getting ready to get drafted and then I jumped into some of the veterans as well. My first veteran guest was Pat. We were just having fun with it.”
When they were finished with the IG Live interview, Bryant called Patrick to ask how he felt about his dip into broadcasting waters and asked if he might want to do it on a consistent basis. Like the majority of the world at the time, Peterson was locked down at home, so he decided to go for it.
“The idea came from being in the pandemic and being in the house and wanting to still keep people informed on the game,” Peterson said
Once Peterson said yes, McFadden got to work on a name and outline for what the show might look like and then he presented it to CBS. They were all-in.
Since its launch, All Things Covered has earned a consistent top 100 football podcast ranking from iTunes and become a NFL newsmaker.
“Things have been going well, we’ve been having some incredible guests, some awesome feedback and some good insight to the fans out there in the world,” Peterson said.
About 60 episodes into the podcast, Peterson is seeing the world — and maybe his own future — from a new perspective.
And from a broader view, he is part of a wave of NFL player-turned-podcasters that are beginning to dominate the digital world.
“I understand what types of questions players want to be asked”
Once McFadden and Peterson sorted out all the details like what day/time they would record and what their general goals were for the podcast, they started putting their cell phone contact lists to work in order to find some guests that would move the needle.
Their second show, which went live September 22, 2020, featured Kansas City Chiefs superstar safety Tyrann Mathieu, who talked about the impact that Peterson had on his career.
“Tyrann Mathieu was a special one to start with because his bond with Pat was so evident,” All Things Covered producer Eric DeBerardinis said. “Pat was really a big part of his life.”
The A-listers started flooding in after that. From Mike Tomlin to Justin Jefferson to Odell Beckham Jr. to Jamal Adams to Shaq to Champ Bailey to Master P to Jerome Bettis to Nick Saban — nearly every week featured someone who would be the best guest of the year for a sportsradio show.
Along the way, Peterson fell in love with playing the role of interviewer, finding himself enthralled with deep-diving into his guests’ lives rather than always being the star athlete who was fielding questions.
“Being interviewed for so many years of my life, you get used to answering questions,” Peterson said. “Now to be sitting back and asking the questions, it’s pretty cool. Now I can say I got an opportunity to experience both perspectives. It’s pretty cool that I’m finding I’m kind of liking it.”
When he agreed to start a podcast, the Vikings’ cornerback may not have realized just how much someone can learn by asking questions. As a massive Kobe Bryant fan, Peterson found out how Kobe went about his day-to-day business from Shaq. He adopted Nick Saban’s mentality that “every day needs to be won” after the famed Alabama coach was on the show. He’s learned about how some guests have invested their money, how some have dealt with depression and how many have handled their best and worst moments.
“I could take something from each and every one of them,” Peterson said.
According to his producer, some interviews aren’t just changing the way Peterson thinks about things. Some are even impacting the way he plays football.
“Pat’s eyes were pretty much wide open for an hour straight talking to Champ Bailey, someone that he has admired his entire life,” DeBerardinis said. “He has talked about in every episode since we talked to Champ Bailey about how he’s taking things from that conversation and applying them to Year 11 for him. He’s taking things from that conversation and he’s going to apply them on the field for the Vikings this year.”
An interesting wrinkle to podcasting as opposed to a traditional sportsradio or television is that you can conduct interviews however you see fit. There isn’t a formula or format. In that vein, athletes like Peterson aren’t held to journalistic standards that would apply to a reporter or talk host, so All Things Covered isn’t always going to ask the question that reporters would say needs to be asked. His approach is to put himself in the interviewee’s shoes and try to create an organic conversation.
“I understand what types of questions players want to be asked,” Peterson said. “I believe I did a great job of that throughout my collegiate career and being in the NFL for 10 years of preparing myself for questions that could possibly come to me. I kind of do the same things with those guys. We want a fun environment. We don’t want to ask these outlandish questions that will put the player in an uncomfortable position, so we won’t go too deep or too crazy with the questions but if the player wants to answer whatever question we asked in depth then, you know, whatever comes with it you have to be ready for.”
Sometimes this leads to interviews that reporters might wrinkle their faces at and sometimes it leads to getting more out of a guest than you’d ever expect. For example, Teddy Bridgewater revealed on the show that Carolina Panthers offensive coordinator Joe Brady wasn’t as detailed in practice as places he had been previously.
"As an organization there's things you can do better,” Bridgewater told Peterson and McFadden. "I'll just say this, for Joe Brady's growth, that organization, they'll have to practice different things in different ways. One thing we didn't do much of when I was there, we didn't practice two minutes, really. We didn't practice red zone. You walk through the red zone stuff and then Saturday, you come out and practice red zone, but you'd only get like 15 live reps. Guys' reps would be limited.”
Bridgewater’s comments were the only time he directly criticized his former team. Only read-between-the-lines pros would have spotted any issues with the offense based on his podium and traditional media interviews.
Along the same lines, Harrison Smith was quoted by the Footballsphere from All Things Covered talking about his contract situation and desire to remain a Minnesota Viking. Smith had barely spoken about his future otherwise.
“No disrespect to traditional media, it’s just natural, any part of life, you’re going to be more comfortable talking with someone you know rather than someone you’re a little bit more unfamiliar with,” DeBerardinis said. “We don’t head into any conversations heading into an ‘ah, gotcha’ moment, we have generated some headlines but I think that’s a product of Pat feeling comfortable and our guests feeling comfortable than they would in some other settings.”
You might think that Peterson would be uncomfortable with making headlines. After all, he signed up to have some fun with his older cousin and chat with other players, not to have his guests quoted constantly by media outlets looking for content. But Peterson views the show’s ever-growing headline generation as a sign of its success.
“It’s exciting to see, there was one that popped up on ESPN that said ‘All Things Covered Podcast,’ I thought that was pretty cool,” Peterson said. “The questions we’re asking that are getting answered, people are listening. That’s a good thing. It would be on ESPN or CBS if nobody was listening. We want to keep going that way.”
Peterson may have jumped into a pool of popular player podcasts that is ever growing, but he’s still a rare bird in the fact that he’s a current player. Many of the world’s most popular football podcasters are former players.
Darius Butler, who spent his career with the Patriots and Colts, operates the Man to Man podcast with ex-teammate Antoine Bethea, said that he would have had a difficult time managing the balance of podcasting and playing at the same time.
“I couldn’t imagine doing it as a player, honestly,” Butler said over the phone. “It’s going to be tough to do but Patrick is at a point in his career where his legacy is kind of stamped, his word is going to be respected and he is savvy enough to not put himself in certain situations. If he does speak out on certain things, that’s what he wants to say and it’s going to be exactly how he wants it said as opposed to interviewing with someone and they clip out 15 or 10 seconds from the interview and say, ‘this is what Patrick Peterson said.’”
Peterson is very confident in saying that he expects no issues regarding his podcast career. For a player who has been interviewed since his days of following McFadden around, doing the dance between saying something and not saying anything that will make waves is as second nature as backpedaling.
“I’ve been in this league a very, very long time to understand how to differentiate the two and I’m keeping the interview all about me and if it’s something about me that I want to get in depth into then I’m allowed to do that because it’s about me and not anybody else,” Peterson said. “That’s great part about it, I can still take that interview side of me out when I am on the podcast. I won’t say it comes easy to me but being interviewed for so many years, you kind of know what questions to avoid and how to avoid them in the proper manner.”
But everyone on the show is aware that nobody listens to All Things Covered to hear Peterson’s player speak. DeBerardinis says that McFadden’s relationship with Peterson helps them avoid cliché land. If you listen to the show, you already understand his main tactic is to give listeners a little bit of interesting intel without stepping on toes. Peterson wasn’t going to tell the universe which players were struggling in training camp but he did tell a story about Justin Jefferson challenging him during one-on-ones because he wanted to go at the legendary corner.
“Stuff like that, it’s fun insight,” Peterson said. “Something like that a fan can take away and say, ‘oh those guys are challenging each other.’ Versus saying he’s running this, that and the other and we’re running this defense. I’ve been there done that, Matt.”
The Vikings’ cornerback already has a season under his belt of working through the week-to-week of an NFL season without stepping in any hornet nests. We’ll see if that streak continues as the season goes along with the aggregators always listening.
“It’s just the raw me”
Patrick Peterson knows he’s not young anymore. He’s well aware that he has more NFL seasons behind him than ahead of him. Podcasting allows him to have one foot in the broadcast door ahead of his peers if he decides to pursue a career on TV after his football career is over.
“If that opportunity does present itself, I’ll have to take a look at it and see whatever they need me to do if that’s compatible with my schedule and whatnot,” Peterson said. “There’s a lot that goes into that decision but it would definitely be something that I would love to entertain.”
But more and more former players are making their podcasts into very successful broadcast careers rather than relying on TV networks to decide who’s worthy of having a voice.
Butler went to broadcasting bootcamp and had some tryouts for networks but something didn’t really click. He didn’t want to give 30 second soundbite commentary. He wanted to dive deep into subjects that drew his interest.
Butler started making appearances on his former teammate Pat McAfee’s show and found comfort in that role. He could fully express his opinion and do it with a former teammate who understood the pro athlete experience. Butler started recording episodes in McAfee’s studio and getting feedback from his producers.
“I was like, OK maybe this is something I could do,” Butler said. “Maybe I could do it this way where it’s just the raw me, take it or leave it and create your lane that way. Media is kind of shifting that way for creators on digital platforms.”
It took awhile for him to get his ducks in a row and fully dive into the idea of being a pseudo media personality but fans were quickly drawn his his anti-hot-takey style and rational opinions and smart X’s and O’s analysis. Add in the insight from someone who played with Brady, Manning and Luck and it was a hit. He liked that fans liked it.
“I figured it was something I could wake up and do every day and actually enjoy,” Butler said.
Another former cornerback, ex-Patriot/Bronco/Ram Aqib Talib also found his position as a podcaster fortuitously.
He commented on an Instagram post from Inside the Green Room, a podcast with NBA player Danny Green. The show’s co-host Harrison Sanford sent Talib a DM and suggested that he start a podcast too.
“Harrison didn’t know but I knew, I’m like I’m probably gonna retire,” Talib said over Zoom from his home studio.
They started Call to the Booth in September 2020 and the first episode focused on Talib’s retirement.
The thing that almost all former NFL players will tell you about walking away from the game is that they are painfully bored immediately after they retire. They go from always working toward something to having hours and hours on their hands. Podcasting helped Talib fill the space that was left from football.
“It keeps you [in the game] as fan,” Talib said. “When you do a podcast you gotta know about the draft, you gotta know about rosters, about free agency…. You gotta talk about it, you gotta know what you’re talking about and it just gives me a reason to have to watch and have to study it. I really just enjoy that. It’s therapeutic for me just being able to come in bring able to holla at Harrison or my other show interview guests and it’s just therapeutic, man. If you really love football it’s not even like work. It’s like, ‘Oh, I’m going to go talk to Jalen Ramsey’….It’s a little therapeutic for me. It makes you not miss the game as much.”
When it comes to former player podcasters, the hosts are getting as much out of their shows as the listeners.
“Reps in podcasting matter too”
Podcasting takes work. Peterson, McFadden, Butler and Talib — along with the many other very successful player-turned-podcasters — put in the hours. It isn’t as simple as: Open Zoom, profit.
“I feel that’s the one negative with podcasting, there’s a connotation that you can just talk into a mic and rattle off your thoughts, hit record and send it off to the world,” Sanford said. “The people who take it seriously actually want to get better with each podcast.
“There are a lot of athletes who don’t take it seriously. They think it’s easy. They think this looks cool, let’s do it, and then there’s no consistency….they don’t value what it could bring to their brand.”
Behind the scenes, hosts and producers put in the hours necessary to be prepared for their topics and interviews. Sanford said that he once asked Talib off the cuff to tell a story and the former corner stopped him and asked that he be prepped on storytime so he could think about it in detail rather than throwing something at the wall.
“Aqib takes that football approach to this,” Sanford said. “We have to send him the rundown in advance because he wants to do his research, he wants to be able to rattle off the stats as opposed to looking down at the stats. Right now we’re doing rankings and he doesn’t want rankings with his name on it to look bad.”
Peterson is already carrying a lot on his mind as a current NFL player, so many of the research responsibilities are put on the plate of his producer DeBerardinis. He also sends messages to the hosts during the show to offer direction as the recording progresses.
“I do really, really extensive research on the guests and make sure that all angles are covered and we’re asking the best sorts of questions and if something pops up we’re totally prepared for something someone might say with always the ability to follow up -- and that’s something that I preach on an episode by episode basis,” DeBerardinis said.
He estimates that there are about 15 calls per week that go back and forth with McFadden regarding guests and topics and then when a show finishes, DeBerardinis edits and publishes the show to its many platforms.
“We are putting our blood and sweat into this as well, so we appreciate that because if they weren’t all-in on it, it would be a lot tougher,” said Talib’s producer Paul Aspan.
Not only do the athletes with a football-like mentality want to be prepared, they want to improve. Sanford and Aspan will break down the tape, so to speak, with Talib. They’ll tell him where he needs more energy or give him advice on how to annunciate.
All of the player/podcasters say they have found themselves growing quickly because of the sheer amount of hours that go into podcasting.
“I feel like I’ll look back at myself three years from now and I’ll say, ‘oh my god I thought I had it figured out,’ and it’ll look completely different, just like anything you put craftsmanship into,” Butler said.
“Reps. You talk about reps, reps in podcasting matter too,” DeBerardinis said.
The reps tie back into the players’ futures. If Peterson were doing a 15 minute weekly segment on a sportsradio show, he’d never come close to the amount of hours that it takes to master the craft. With 50 hours per year, he’s getting a leg up on every other former player hoping for a post-career broadcasting gig.
“Eventually once you get comfortable with finding your voice, it’s easier to strip down,” Sanford said.
“As a media professional I hate the way this sounds but it kind of cuts out the middle man,” Aspan said.
“I’ll give you my top five”
So where will All Things Covered or any of the other player podcasts take these athletes?
Talib in particular enjoyed the term “wildly rich” when it was used facetiously in the line of questioning about his future as a podcaster.
“Ideally I want to keep hammering at the podcast, keeping hammering at the broadcasting and then whatever one of them come with that what you said, ‘wildly rich,’ whatever one come with ‘wildly rich’ check, then that’s the one I really want to focus in on and really lock in on,” he said.
But he also sees the possibility of his show leading to something on a bigger platform.
“If I had a Showtime or Starz coming, they want to call into the booth and buy and make a TV kind of like All The Smoke,” Talib said. “If it was something like that, I was going to be wildly rich off it, of course I’m going to lock in and that’s going to be what I do. I’m gonna keep dabbling in both and I’m gonna keep working on both until one of them come calling.”
It wasn’t long ago that there was a lack of understanding from businesses and corporations about what podcasts are and how to utilize them in terms of marketing. That’s quickly changing and Butler said he’s finding different ways to turn a fun project into a legitimate business.
“This might just start off as a little podcast but two years down the line Fan Duel might want to come and partner, Draft Kings, somebody like that, or merch, there’s so many different ways that you can monetize it and also you’re enjoying it and you’re obviously good at,” Butler said.
Peterson doesn’t know where it will take him. Bigger platforms, business opportunities — he can think about all that later. For now, he wants to keep interviewing, keep learning and keep telling stories.
I asked him who he’d like to have on the show and he couldn’t contain himself to only talk about one dream guest.
His top five: “I’d love to get Barack Obama on. I’ve never had an opportunity to meet him. I would love to get him on the show. That’s No. 1. No. 2 would be LeBron James. I’ll give you my top five. Tiger Woods. Justin Timberlake. And, I’d probably have to go with Virgil, he’s the Off White creator.”
He’s got plenty of work to do in order to land the people on that list. But setting the bar high is what Peterson has always done, whether it’s as the little cousin trying to make the NFL, competing for a Super Bowl or doing a podcast with his older cousin.
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