Early in John Sullivan’s NFL career, his father died from a heart attack. So Sullivan always knew that when he finished pushing around nose tackles, he would push himself to get in better physical shape.
Sullivan, uneasy about the health implications of weighing 320 pounds, overhauled his diet and workout routine in 2019 and lost 80 pounds. He looks great, feels great and enjoys spending time in Connecticut with his family and keeps busy as co-owner of a company that organizes hunting and fishing expeditions.
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The only disappointing part is, it all happened a little too soon.
Sullivan wanted to keep playing for the Rams. As their starting center in 2017 and 2018, Sullivan provided invaluable on-field leadership and communication for a young offense that became the best in the NFL. Sullivan stayed healthy and one year ago, at age 33, reached the Super Bowl for the first time.
Then it ended. Sullivan knew that the size and structure of his contract, and his age, made him a prime candidate to be dropped by the Rams. Indeed, they decided shortly after the Super Bowl not to pick up their option for the second and final year of Sullivan’s contract. They encouraged him to stay in shape and told him they might re-sign him later in the offseason. Sullivan wanted to return, even at a lower salary, and even if it meant being a backup to young center Brian Allen.
When the Rams didn’t draft a center last April, Sullivan thought he would return. Then in May, coach Sean McVay called. The Rams wouldn’t be signing Sullivan, McVay said, but should they need a center, he would be on their short list. But that was the cue Sullivan needed — to know it was time to move on.
“We’ve always communicated very clearly with each other,” Sullivan told The Athletic, “so I just told (McVay) — and there’s no malice as I repeat this story — but I just told him that I’m not going to put my life on hold on the off chance that, at some point, you guys either have a need for me or you want to bring me back.”
Eight months later, Sullivan calls McVay “the best coach I’ve ever played for, in any sport at any level.” He cheered for the Rams in 2019 and took no joy in their underachievement, much of which was attributable to the poor early-season play by the offensive line. A large percentage of the Rams’ fans bemoaned the loss of Sullivan and guard Rodger Saffold, who had helped anchor one of the NFL’s best lines in 2017 and 2018.
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Sullivan didn’t sulk. Just the opposite. He moved on to his next challenge, one bigger than facing Aaron Donald every day in practice. He wanted, for the first time in his adult life, to pay attention to his body.
“That was exciting and very motivating,” Sullivan said. “If there was sadness or frustration (about leaving the NFL), it wasn’t outward for me. It really turned into motivation to just get as healthy as possible.”
It didn’t take long. Sullivan, who says he weighed 320 pounds on game days with the Rams, is at 240 after less than a year, having dedicated himself to a strict regimen of cardio workouts and a better diet.
The staggering results went on public display the first time this month, when Sullivan shared a post-workout photo on Instagram. Sullivan had been in touch with his former Rams teammates, who were aware of his weight-loss journey, but some of them seemed to be seeing it for the first time.
“Dude WHAT!!” quarterback Jared Goff wrote in a comment. Punter Johnny Hekker referred to Sullivan, who stands in the left side of the picture, as “Slim Shady.”
Sullivan said he didn’t expect — or intend for — the photo to attract so much attention, but he said, “If that helps to inspire somebody who is struggling to change their life — in any way, but especially when it comes to weight loss — then I’m happy people took notice of it.”
Sullivan says he weighed 270 pounds at age 13. He eventually grew to 6-foot-4 and his college, Notre Dame, listed his weight at 298 pounds in 2005. It went higher during a decade-long career with Minnesota, Washington and the Rams, who listed Sullivan at 312 pounds. That was occasionally true.
“I played every game at like 320,” Sullivan said. “You would hot-box the night before, on Thursday night, so that you could make weight on Friday morning, and then re-hydrate right back up to 320.”
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Heft matters in the NFL, especially for a lineman, so Sullivan willingly carried the weight but always with some trepidation. His father, Rick, died from a heart attack at age 69 in June 2010, shortly before the start of Sullivan’s third NFL season with the Vikings. Sullivan knew, at that point, that he would reshape his body in retirement.
That almost happened five years later, when a serious back injury — one that required two surgeries — sidelined Sullivan for the entire 2015 season. He returned in 2016 with Washington, where McVay worked as offensive coordinator, then followed McVay to the Rams in 2017 and enjoyed great success. On the night before last year’s Super Bowl, Sullivan and his wife, Ariel, learned they were expecting their second child.
So while the realization that he wouldn’t be returning to the Rams impacted Sullivan, it didn’t deter him. He channeled his competitiveness into improving his lifestyle. He eschewed heavy weightlifting for more cardio and, instead of his previous eat-anything attitude, he started the Keto diet and intermittent fasting, then transitioned away from Keto after results of bloodwork convinced him to alter his plan.
Sullivan took motivation from former NFL linemen such as Matt Birk, Nick Hardwick and Joe Thomas, all of whom recently dropped significant weight after retirement. Not all situations are the same. Hardwick, for instance, was a 171-pound wrestler in high school who, during his NFL career, had to be attentive to eating more simply to reach his listed playing weight of 305 pounds.
“I think his task was probably more difficult than mine,” Hardwick said this week of Sullivan, “in the sense that his body naturally wanted to be bigger. So he had a higher set point that he had to fight through, and he’s probably still going to have to fight a little bit to maintain that lower body weight. So big kudos to him, and his discipline and willpower, to be able to stick with a plan.”
Sullivan started eating well, running two to three miles three or four days a week, and cycling. Shortly after his second son, George, was born on Aug. 30, Sullivan was down to an adult-low 235 pounds.
“When he was born,” Sullivan said, “it was sandwiched in the middle of like 50 straight days of cardio. I didn’t cheat for anything. I didn’t drink during that entire time. I was never a big drinker to begin with, but I abstained completely from alcohol. I committed to it. I made a choice to change and I committed to that choice.”
John Sullivan, pictured with coach Sean McVay in 2017, said he weighed 320 pounds on game days. (Kirby Lee / USA TODAY Sports)
Sullivan also returned, full time, to his Connecticut home and started a new life. He hunted grizzly bears in Alaska and became part-owner of a company, Steve’s Outdoor Adventures, that organizes hunting and fishing expeditions around the world. Sullivan works as a consultant under famed hunter Steve West.
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Football? Yes, Sullivan kept tabs on the Rams but said he didn’t have the Sunday Ticket package necessary to watch every game. He didn’t always see the turbulence around the Rams’ offensive line.
After Sullivan’s departure and the loss of Saffold to free agency, the Rams went from a center-left guard combo with 236 combined NFL starts to one with zero, as Allen and Joe Noteboom stepped in. That was an enormous transition, particularly given the importance of the line to the Rams’ success.
“We had come so close,” Sullivan said, “and the O-line had been such a strength that I figured that the Rams would leave the O-line intact, do what they could to bring Rodger back and make another run at the Super Bowl with that group. But I also knew, at the same time, that the NFL is a business.”
To be clear, Sullivan said he understands why the Rams did what they did. His contract for 2019 was incentive-laden, and because he had remained healthy in 2018 and started all 16 games, the Rams would have been on the hook for approximately $5 million with Sullivan. In March, the Rams decided against picking up that contract option and instead ate $1 million in dead-cap space.
Sullivan said he wanted to return for a 12th season and that the Rams were open to a reunion — at a lower salary-cap hit — depending on how things developed at the draft in April.
“They didn’t draft a center,” Sullivan said, “so at that point in time, it signaled to me that there was a good likelihood that they were going to bring me back and that Brian and I probably would compete for the job. I was more than comfortable being a backup, if that was the direction they wanted to go.”
Finally in May, Sullivan said, McVay called again, and indicated that the Rams weren’t going to sign Sullivan but wanted him to stay in football shape and that he would be on their short list “if anything came up.” Sullivan also tried to get signed by the New York Jets, who instead signed Ryan Kalil.
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The Rams bet that Noteboom and Allen were ready, and that the team would be better served using the cap savings from Sullivan and Saffold — who signed a four-year, $44 million contract with Tennessee — on matters such as re-signing Dante Fowler and paying for part of Goff’s massive contract extension.
The reasoning wasn’t terrible, but it was bold and didn’t work. The Rams’ line clearly struggled with effectiveness and chemistry early in the season, and by November, both Noteboom and Allen had suffered season-ending injuries. Both second-year linemen were in a tough spot. They wanted to play, of course, but didn’t necessarily asked to be tasked with replacing two veteran leaders.
“I think when you watch them, you see a couple things,” Sullivan said of Allen and Noteboom. “You see, number one, how talented they are. Each of them had plays that made you say, ‘Wow.’ Some of the things they can do physically, you end up being in awe. You could see exactly what the Rams were seeing and why they made the decision.
“But almost all young players go through growing pains. They call them rookie mistakes for a reason because you learn not to make them over time. I think it’s very hard to quantify chemistry. If there was some measure for that, maybe things would have been a little different, but you never know.”
Sullivan’s immense weight loss closed the door on an NFL return, and when the Rams gather for OTAs in a couple months, he’s likely to be on a hunt or spending time with his family.
Sullivan transformed his lifestyle, which made him a big winner in 2019, even as Rams fans continue to debate how the season would have been different with him at center.
“I was cheering for them hard,” Sullivan said. “I do know, that with Sean McVay and (line coach) Aaron Kromer and those guys, they’ll get everything figured out, and that team is going right back up to the top.”
(Top photo of John Sullivan and his wife, Ariel, courtesy of the Sullivan family)
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