Ex-NFL tight end Luke Willson finding second career on TSN

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Three years since ending his NFL career, Luke Willson isn’t that far removed from the game.

If you turn on your television set to TSN on the night of a big NFL game, you’ll likely see the Canadian former tight end breaking it down alongside longtime anchor Jay Onrait.

And though it took a while for him to become a TSN regular, Willson said that the first phone call from the network asking for his services actually came during his NFL career.

Having done the odd hit with TSN during Super Bowl week, a producer reached out to Willson following his release from the Oakland Raiders back in 2019.

“I was like, ‘I really appreciate it, but I’m not done yet!’” Willson said in an interview with Daily Hive.

Willson had just 16 games left in his NFL career from that initial phone call, however, and eventually found himself back on TV. Starting off with a few remote hits with Onrait, Willson said the working relationship grew “pretty organically” over the next few years.

Having two older brothers who stayed in Canada to play football for the Western Mustangs, the 6-foot-5 Willson hit an early growth spurt that began to help him in the first stages of his football career at Windsor’s St. Thomas of Villanova Catholic Secondary School.

“I haven’t grown much since ninth grade,” Willson said. “Don’t quote me, but I think I was the tallest kid in school in Grade 9.”

Getting scouted at a camp by the Houston-based Rice University, Willson recalled the moment he was first offered an NCAA scholarship.

“I was 18, a pretty fresh 18 at the time… I remember looking at my parents, taking the phone off my ear… it’s a pretty shocking moment,” he recalled.

After a four-year career at Rice, Willson was picked in the fifth round of the 2013 NFL Draft by the Seattle Seahawks.

Spending the majority of his career with the Seahawks, he got to experience the pinnacle of the NFL in his first season in the league, defeating the Broncos 43-8 in Super Bowl XLVIII.

But as much as the Seahawks are remembered for being one of the era’s most dominant teams, the team’s 28-24 loss the following year to the New England Patriots in Super Bowl XLIX and the aftermath of that devastation remains one of the biggest “what-ifs” in NFL history.

Moments after losing the game, the Seahawks had a private party planned with a performance by Snoop Dogg and Drake. Being Canadian, Willson said he’s long supported Drake but left the party early due to the emotions of the game.

“My favourite artist is ripping an after-party and I’m sitting in the hotel room doing nothing,” he said. “My sister and my whole family were there… there were maybe 200, 250 people in this room. As much as I love Drake… you were so sad in that moment. It was such a brutal loss. I couldn’t just sit there and pretend to be happy.”

While it wasn’t the final play of the game, a last-minute interception on the goal line of Seattle QB Russell Wilson from New England’s Malcolm Butler essentially sealed the Seahawks fate.

With Seattle having the ball on the one-yard line, the consensus expectation was that they’d hand the ball off to star running back Marshawn Lynch. But with the Seahawks calling a surprise passing play, Willson, who was on the opposite side of the field from the interception, said he never thought about suggesting an alternate play call.

“It’s not a democracy,” Willson said about the politics of an NFL huddle. “I might’ve been the last person in the stadium [to realize what happened]… I hear everybody screaming, and voices I didn’t actually recognize… I’m just like, ‘what happened? That can’t be good’… I thought we’d run the ball, but you can kind of argue that if you’re blue in the face.”

With less than 30 seconds left in the fourth quarter, Willson recalled the moment he realized that his dreams of a second Super Bowl win were shattered.

“You’re looking up [at the clock] you’re like, ‘the math isn’t mathing’… we just lost a Super Bowl.”

While Lynch wasn’t able to play Super Bowl hero on that day, Willson recalled a funny moment during a fourth-quarter touchdown during a playoff game against the New Orleans Saints.

After being spotted by television cameras during a game eating Skittles, Lynch became synonymous with the candy brand, later appearing in commercials for the company. Willson himself has recently signed a brand deal with M&Ms, helping promote the “Huddle with your Home Team” campaign.

“I was one of the first guys down there for the celebration and there’s Skittles coming at you at 100 miles per hour,” Willson said of Lynch’s late-game touchdown. “I remember taking a whole thing of Skittles off the side of my helmet and being like, ‘What if one of those things hits me in the eye right now?’… I wasn’t into the Skittles as much as I’d be into M&Ms.”

As for his relationship with Lynch these days, Willson admits they aren’t the closest friends, but he still hears from the former NFL star from time to time.

“He was such a phenomenal teammate… he just always had your back. He was always going to be his authentic self,” Willson recounted. “I randomly run into Marshawn like, once a year. I wouldn’t necessarily say that we’re wildly close, but I’ll just get a phone call from him and usually he’s talking sh*t to me, but in a fun way, or he’s got a question about Canada.”

But with his playing days well behind him, Willson is hoping that his story resonates with those watching him on TSN.

“[I hope when you see me on TV], you learn [my story], pretty stereotypical Canadian… Hopefully that gives them a little motivation or inspiration to chase their dreams,” Willson said. “I do feel a bit of responsibility to help grow the game here in the country.”

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