Playing in the NFL requires elite athleticism… Not just to break in, but to maintain your place in the league—as a result, the league is comprised of some of the most physically fit and well-conditioned athletes in the world.
And every offseason, once their bodies get a chance to heal up—getting back in the gym is almost always the first thing an NFL player will do to start preparing for the upcoming season.
Without fail, there are always a handful of players that really take those offseason workouts to another level though… and come back absolutely shredded.Let’s take a look at 10 NFL players, who clearly didn’t miss a rep this summer—and are heading into training camp in… drum roll please…“the best shape of their lives.”
Will Levis
The former University of Kentucky quarterback had himself a nightmare of a draft night, slipping all the way out of the first round after initially being rumor to be among the top names called…
But the reality is—that seems to have been out of his control entirely… Because Levis went the whole nine yards leading up to the draft, by getting absolutely shredded in the lead-up to his first NFL season to further his status as a prospect and show teams how serious he was about being a professional.
I mean, check out the insane difference between December, when he was recovering from injury and March, a month before the draft.
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It is hard to believe that is just a four-pound difference!
Unfortunately for Levis, pumping iron didn’t do him any favors in the eyes of NFL scouts, who, I guess were more focused on minor details like pocket presence and accuracy downfield!
At this point, we are rooting for Levis though. If he thrives in the NFL, maybe we will so a whole new generation of jacked quarterbacks come up through the ranks, which, I think we all can admit, would be a hilarious reality to exist in.
DJ Fluker
Making it into the NFL once is hard enough… But the now 32-year-old DJ Fluker has decided that since the first go around left a lot to be desired—he’s going to make a second attempt at the whole professional football player thing.
Which… Considering how disappointing his first stint in the league was—is a bold, but also worthwhile mission—provided he can now deliver on the promise that he showed all those years ago coming out of Alabama.
The offensive lineman isn’t just waiting around expecting an NFL team to scoop him up now though… Fluker has undeniably been putting in work.
And they don’t seem to be just glory muscles either… Fluker had a chance to workout at his Alma Mater’s pro day and he looked equal parts strong and spry.
Now, it is just a matter of seeing what he can do in camp if and when a team takes a chance on him. And if the whole second act thing doesn’t shake out for him—at least he can enjoy the fact that he’s now in preposterously good shape!
Mekhi Becton
There are a variety of reasons that can prompt NFL players to shred up during the offseason… Plenty of them do it… really, just for the gram, but others, like Mekhi Becton, do it out of necessity.
In Becton’s case, it wasn’t just to perform better on the field, but also, to actually stay on the field—as the young lineman has endured more than his fair share of knee issues since the Jets brought him into the league with the 11th overall pick in the 2020 Draft.
At the time New York took him, Becton, who stands at 6’ 7” was somewhere in the neighborhood of 370 pounds. An astronomical weight to carry if you are even just walking around… let alone enduring the constant toll of an NFL season.
But Jets fans should have hope renewed heading into the 2023 season based off the images we’ve seen, he’s lost a considerable amount of LB’s by hitting his training regimen hard this offseason.
He looks like a completely different person!
Obviously, there are no guarantees going forward… But I have to shedding some of that excess weight will at a minimum give him a better chance of getting through the season healthy!
Ezekiel Elliot
Dallas Cowboys’ running back Ezekiel Elliot’s apparent weight gain has been a reoccurring topic of conversation over the last couple of years.
In part, because he was so well-known for wearing a cropped jersey during his younger days, but also, because there has been a decline in performance that seems to have coincided with the increased bulk.
So much so, that his once fiercely loyal fan base in Big D has even become bearish on him, particularly with the emergence of Tony Pollard over the last couple years.
It seems that Elliot has recognized that it is high time for him to do something about it—and has been hitting the offseason workouts like never before!
Something his trainer, Josh Hicks confirmed to the Athletic during an interview, saying: “I don’t think Zeke has ever worked like this in the offseason. I could be mistaken,” Hicks said. “But me, personally, when it comes to my drills and what I do and how I do it, I know he hasn’t worked like this.”
I don’t know if this is exactly music to your ears as a Cowboys fan, players, or coach, who has watched the running back struggle to regain form over the last couple of years… but if he can turn it around in 2023, I’m sure a better late than never sentiment will quickly emerge amongst the Cowboys contingency.
Daniel Bellinger
While the Giants’ second-year tight end is not yet a household name in New York, let alone around the rest of the country, Daniel Bellinger is doing his very best to change that.
I mean check out the gun show at the Meadowlands!
There is absolutely no denying the work that he put in this offseason. It is even more eye-popping when you look at the disparity between his physique compared to last year.
I don’t know about you, but I think that the smart money is on Bellinger topping his 2022 totals of 268 receiving yards and two touchdowns in 2023.
Aaron Rodgers
Aaron Rodgers looks like he may have a BIG season ahead of him. He’s entering his first season in New York, after an extensive tenure in Green Bay—and he has a lot of people to prove wrong, after a 2022 campaign that was underwhelming, at least compared to his ridiculously high standards.
And much to the relief of Jets fans, it now appears that it hasn’t just been his “mindfulness”—or whatever you want to call it—that he’s been working on this offseason, because the 40-year-old is looking yolked.
With Rodgers, I don’t think the fans are so much concerned with the size of his biceps, but the implication that accompanies them. The quarterback is training—and focused on football, something that came into question during the end of his time as a Packer.
Tua Tagovailoa
So… this one comes with a bit of an Asterix, because while the Miami Dolphins quarterback hasn’t exactly gotten shredded this offseason… it has been a VERY busy one for him. For starters… He took up jiu-jitsu in the hopes that it would help him become more malleable and absorb contact better next year… and there is no denying that Tua has bulked up in a BIG way.
Taglovailoa has played most of his professional career somewhere in the neighborhood of 215 pounds, but after struggling to stay healthy amid the wear and tear of the NFL grind—he made the decision to put on some extra padding.
Some Dolphins fans were quick to raise the alarms when they saw the initial pictures come out of Miami’s camp, but I think they rushed to judgement. It isn’t a bodybuilding contest out there… It is football. And for Tua to be effective, he needs to be able to stay healthy.
If his team of trained professionals directed him to put on a handful of extra pounds to better endure the relentless beatings of an NFL season, I think that we should look at that as a positive.
Let’s not forget… Taglovailoa is a freak athlete… He’s not like us regular people—he can put on 5 to 10 pounds and have it be a good thing!
Kenny Pickett
Pittsburgh Steelers’ quarterback, Kenny Pickett, has not been resting on the laurels of an awesome part 2 to his rookie season in 2022. Instead, it appears he’s been hitting his offseason training program with all the focus and dedication one would want out of their budding franchise quarterback.
This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that has followed along with Pickett’s offseason comments—as he called his shot on the Pat McAfee show, saying: “I want to gain a little bit more weight and have a little bit more muscle mass on me heading into this season after experiencing a lot of these hits and you know, the game just played a little bit faster here.”
He continued to explain that he ended up getting a little bit too lean as a result of the training he did leading up to the 2022 NFL Combine. Which… makes sense based on the 40 yard dash, the shuttle run, and events of that nature becoming of increasing importance to quarterback prospects,
And based off the early reports out of Steelers camp, I think it is safe to forecast that he’ll at least be starting this season off weighing more than 219 pounds, his combine weight.
Probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 225… maybe 230 pounds.
For Kenny Pickett, who suffered two concussions and faced a couple of nagging injuries during his rookie season, the extra bulk could be a significant help in keeping him healthy for the long haul!
Jaylen Warren
Jaylen Warren is no stranger to hard work… the 5’ 8” running back made his way from Snow College to Utah State, then Oklahoma State—all the way to the Pittsburgh Steelers as an undrafted free agent in the 2022 draft.
He wasn’t a huge contributor for Pittsburgh in 2022, but the fact that he played 16 games as an undrafted free agent should be testament enough that the work he put in wasn’t in vein.
Better yet, it seems that Warren wasn’t done improving—as he has turned quite a few heads in training camp with the changes to his physique.
I mean, must have put an extra five pounds of muscle on his legs alone! Even if he himself barely noticed it during his offseason training!
“It’s kinda crazy because I didn’t really notice it until others told me,” Warren said. “I know I feel great and my body fat percentage is the lowest it’s ever been. I didn’t do anything different, I just did it more often.”
Well, don’t worry Jaylen—we’ve all noticed—and we are ready to see what that new, shredded frame can do for the Steelers in 2023!
Jalen Hurts
Okay… This one might come as a little bit of a surprise to everyone, not because people doubt Jalen Hurts’ work ethic—or his interest in training… But rather because after seeing the way he developed during his first couple of season in the NFL, it seemed a laughable notion that the Eagles star quarterback could get anymore jacked than he already was!
After all, we are talking about a quarterback that could squat over 600 pounds or something ridiculous like that!
That is a downright crazy number to hear from a quarterback… I mean, you want to talk about a freak athlete—Jalen Hurts is your guy!
Anyway… All that training seemed to pay off based on the monster stats he put up in 2022.
Not only did he look physically stronger and faster, Jalen was also a much-improved passer. The eagles QB went for 3701 yards and 22 touchdowns to just six picks.
And to say he was a force to be reckoned with on the ground might be understating it. Not only was he completely unstoppable in short-yardage situations running that maddening sneak play the Eagles ran so well, but he also accumulated 760 rushing yards and 13 touchdowns.
It is actually somewhat scary to think about what Hurts might look like in 2023 after another offseason of grinding the way he does.
Especially after hearing all of his Eagles teammates rave about how much improvement they have already seen out of their young quarterback thus far during the team’s OTAs.
Which NFL player do you think got the most shredded this offseason? Did we miss anyone?
