After being drafted by Packers, Jon Runyan Jr. tries to follow in father's footsteps
GREEN BAY, Wis. - Before Jon Runyan Jr. found his way to the offensive line, the place his father made a name and career for himself, he’d already tried several positions on the football field. He was a tight end, a safety, even a quarterback.
But there was one specialty most people don’t know. Even those who did, like his college coaches at Michigan, forgot. When Runyan was a freshman, his team at St. Joseph’s Preparatory School in Philadelphia had a kicking problem. “Our kicker,” Runyan explained to his father after practice one day, “can’t even get it to the uprights.”
So his father, Pro Bowl right tackle Jon Runyan, grabbed every football in the house and trotted his son to the backyard. He crouched to the ground while his two daughters retrieved their brother’s kicks, over and over and over until Runyan Jr. gave his high school coaches no choice.
He was the team’s new kicker.
The biggest kicker you’ve ever seen.
“He’s out there,” Runyan Sr. said, “kicking extra points with freaking knee braces on. It’s a skill not many people had.”
Runyan, an all-state lineman, was second-team all-Philadelphia Catholic League place-kicker as a senior.
Funny the memories that come flooding back when a lifelong dream is met. As Runyan Sr. watched the Green Bay Packers draft his son with the 192nd overall pick in the sixth round Saturday, enduring the tortuous draft-day wait not unlike he had as a fourth-round pick 24 years earlier, his mind scrolled back to the beginning.
He thought of his son “running havoc” with playmate Brian Dawkins Jr. inside the Philadelphia Eagles locker room.
“They would gather up everyone’s wristbands all the way up to their armpits,” Runyan Sr. said. “They’d basically look like they were wearing sweaters.”
He thought of sitting in his armchair on Tuesdays after a game, body beaten and swollen, drilling footballs high, low, behind, across the living room to work on Runyan Jr.’s hands. His wife, Loretta, was barely 5 feet, 5 inches. Dad worried his son wouldn’t grow big enough to play his position.
“He’d go, ‘Hit me in the hands,’” Runyan Sr. said. “And I’d say, ‘No, you’ll thank me for this one day. You probably won’t have the size to play offensive line, but you’ll make one hell of a tight end.’”
Now the Packers intend to give Runyan Jr. a chance to make their roster as a guard. Another position change? Runyan Jr. doesn’t care where they put him.
“My whole career,” he said, “I’ve just always been about getting on the field and doing what’s best for the team. I’m comfortable at any position they throw me at.”
Maybe he can back up Mason Crosby.
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From his earliest memories, Runyan Jr. was around the NFL. His father’s career spanned 14 seasons — nine of them in Philadelphia — before he retired when his son was in seventh grade. Runyan Jr. was 6 years old, sitting in the stands at Lincoln Financial Field, when the Eagles converted a fourth-and-26 to beat the Packers in the 2003 NFC wild-card game.
Dad was on the field, playing right tackle.
“I remember very clearly,” Runyan Jr. said. “Nothing but awesome memories.”
Even now, Runyan Jr. can name drop with the best of them. What was it like growing up inside an NFL locker room? He watched Donovan McNabb, Terrell Owens, Brian Dawkins and Brian Westbrook up close, observing their work ethic. He wanted to be them.
Even more, he wanted to be his dad.
That doesn’t mean it was easy. Runyan Sr. wasn’t the overbearing type, always “hands off” when it came to sports, his son said. Still, his father cast an immense shadow. Try being a middle-school player when your father not only is right tackle for a die-hard city’s professional franchise, but one of the team’s most popular players ever.
“Yeah, it was difficult growing up,” Runyan Jr. said, “especially playing in the Philadelphia area where my dad was such a great player. One thing my high school coach told me was, ‘You just gotta be you. Your dad is a completely different person than you, so you don’t have to live up to any of his expectations.’
“It was a struggle for me in high school, but I chose this road moving onto college, and I’m comfortable with everything I’m doing. He’s cast a big shadow over me, but I’m not trying to live in that shadow my whole life. I’m trying to step out and make an even bigger one.”
As much as Runyan Sr. stepped back — the only sport he ever mandated his children play was basketball, not football — there’s no escaping the similarities. The father sees himself when he watches his son. They even stand the same, Runyan Sr. said, back stiff, hands on hips between plays.
Runyan Sr., known as a fierce if sometimes dirty player, instilled an uncompromising toughness. Once, when Runyan Jr. was in eighth grade, he got a “stern talking to” after congratulating his opponent on the field after a play. Runyan Sr. doesn’t remember what led to the friendly banter, only the sight of his son patting his competitor on the back.
That was unacceptable.
“I saw him congratulating the guy,” Runyan Sr. said, “and I’m like, ‘No, you don’t do that. You’re out there competing.' It’s just more of the getting in people's head, the mental aspect of it. To me, if someone comes up and knocks my block off or whatever, you just kind of get up and walk away, and you don’t think twice about it, people get scared of you because they think you’re insane. So it’s an intimidation thing. You just walk on by and don’t show that.
“I don’t have a problem saying stuff to somebody, but don’t let the whole team and everyone else in the stadium and on television know that you considered that a great hit. Poke him and say, ‘You timed that up perfectly, that was kind of lucky,’ and just walk away.”
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Runyan Jr. wasn’t walking away from his father’s legacy. He embraced it, head on.
After leading his team to consecutive Pennsylvania state titles at St. Joe’s, Runyan signed at Michigan. The same school where his father played.
“He grew up with our family in Michigan,” Runyan Jr. said. “Every time we’d go visit them, we’d always make a stop through Ann Arbor. It kind of just felt like a second home to me, so it was kind of like a no-brainer from that standpoint.
“I chose to go to Michigan, a school my dad went to, him coming from the background that he had as a Pro Bowl player in the NFL, and I put that on myself and carried that well, I feel like.”
Runyan Jr. played sparingly in his first two seasons, including a redshirt year. He broke in at right tackle in 2017, then started at left tackle the past two seasons. That meant blocking the best the Big Ten had to offer, including former Ohio State edge rushers Nick Bosa and Chase Young, top-five picks in the past two drafts.
With his 33¼-inch arms just short of the 34 inches expected from NFL tackles, the Packers project Runyan as an athletic pass protector who can slide inside to guard. That’s just fine with him — whatever position the team needs. But if guard is his most natural fit at the next level, general manager Brian Gutekunst said Runyan might be able to play tackle, too.
“We may experiment with him inside,” Gutekunst said, “and kind of see where his best fit is.”
Runyan Sr. said his son is able to play whatever position the Packers want, even tackle. Forget the tape measure, he said. His son has the athleticism to play on the edge, and the swagger. Some linemen get out on the island and freeze, unsure of themselves. Runyan Jr. has no problem with pressure. He’s lived with it his whole life.
With good reaction to the snap, Runyan Jr. learned how to consistently find himself in optimal blocking position. He ran a 5.08-second 40 at the NFL scouting combine in February, 10th best among offensive linemen. There will be an adjustment to the NFL game. “Like anybody else,” Runyan Sr. said, “he tends to get a little bit high.” His quickness and nimble feet will serve him well in the NFL, Runyan Sr. said.
“You don’t block people with your hands,” Runyan Sr. said, “you block people with your feet. If your hips are low and square and between the rusher and the quarterback, you don’t need your hands. That comes down to being technically sound. If you’re a pure technician, you can survive. But you’re going to lose, because you’re going to make mistakes. When you make mistakes, that’s when your hands and athleticism take over.
“He’s a better athlete than I was. He has way better feet than I have.”
That’s extraordinary praise, even if Dad is a little biased. He has watched his son’s journey, observing the work ethic required to reach the NFL. Now he’s ready to see how his son’s career will unfold.
He isn’t the only one. Runyan Sr., a retired congressman from New Jersey, got a call from a blocked phone number late Saturday night. Former House Speaker Paul Ryan was on the other end. The Wisconsin native and Packers fan, who served two office doors down from Runyan Sr. on Capital Hill, offered his congratulations.
Runyan Jr. is skeptical whether he’ll have a political career after football, though he has considered it. Might want to hold onto that contact just in case.