Nate Burleson Is Having the Time of His Life
Inside the CBS Broadcast Center in New York, a stuffed squirrel is taunting Nate Burleson. It’s laughing at him and, a moment later, presses a giant red button. Fluorescent-green slime pours onto Burleson. It’s bracingly cold and can stain clothing, but he claps his hands and grins wide. Another episode of Nickelodeon’s NFL Slimetime has just wrapped.
Welcome to life after professional football. Nate Burleson is enjoying the hell out of it.
If you’ve watched football since the turn of the twenty-first century, you know Burleson. For eleven years, he was a wide receiver and kick returner for the Minnesota Vikings, Seattle Seahawks, and Detroit Lions. He was good, but he didn’t put up Hall of Fame numbers or hoist the Vince Lombardi Trophy. If you’ve been watching TV lately, then you’ve almost certainly seen him. The forty-three-year-old is a coanchor of CBS Mornings, an analyst on The NFL Today, the host of the rebooted Hollywood Squares, and a cohost of NFL Slimetime, on which he’s been slimed no fewer than twenty times.
“Bring it by the boatload!” he tells me on a Friday morning in New York, still fresh and energetic after two hours of live TV on CBS Mornings.
Transitioning out of professional sports is like returning from the moon. How could life after such a high-adrenaline experience ever compare? It drove Buzz Aldrin nuts, and it sparks an existential crisis among many athletes—including Burleson, who retired in 2014. Never winning a Super Bowl worsened the sting. “You have to come to grips with it,” he says. “How are you dealing with this?”
Burleson cast about for meaning. He opened a restaurant in Seattle, started a couple fashion lines. A year after retirement came his dark night of the soul—which, he admits, is pretty damn funny in retrospect. “I’m literally drunk watching my old highlights: ‘Look at those moves. Damn that guy was good. Look at those hips.’ ” Then he texted one of his former NFL coaches. “I heard you guys had some injuries,” he wrote. “Let me know if you want me to come out there.”
Suit, shirt, and tie by Amiri; loafers by Armando Cabral; sunglasses by Barton Perreira; bracelet and ring by Mateo New York.
The response: “Nah, we’re good. But hope everything’s good with you and the family.”
That’s when everything changed. “Men make trophies,” he realized, but trophies are given out for success off the football field too. Suddenly he had a new goal: “Go win some other trophies.”
Burleson and his wife, Atoya, have three kids: two boys and a daughter. He comes from a family of athletes—a dad who played pro football and three brothers who excelled at sports. (One played in the NBA.) To set himself apart, Burleson pursued the arts as tenaciously as he did football. “I thought I was going to be traveling the world with a little beret, reciting poetry at some café in London,” he says. His fifth-grade teacher, Ms. Irving, submitted him for the Paul Robeson Award, which he won. Years later, he learned about Robeson: a professional football player in the 1920s who became an actor, singer, and artist. Robeson became his model for life after sports.
Burleson started on the NFL network before jumping to Paramount, home of CBS and Nickelodeon. And like Robeson, he’s continued to reach outside his comfort zone. Since 2021, he has shared an anchor chair with hard-news heavy-hitters Gayle King and Tony Dokoupil on CBS Mornings. Covering politics was a challenge at first, he admits. He had to find his voice. “I wasn’t in the NFL in this new era when players were responding to ‘shut up and dribble,’ ” he says.
Suit and shirt by Ralph Lauren Purple Label; loafers by Santoni; vintage scarf, stylist’s own; ring by Meuchner; Rolex watch, earrings, and band ring, Burleson’s own.
He poured himself into politics, recalling advice from another NFL-player-turned-broadcaster, Michael Strahan. “He said, ‘Remember, there are people that don’t want you to be in that seat. Treat it like football. They can’t argue with the results.’ That’s what I’ve been doing ever since.” Soon, Burleson was not only delivering the day’s most serious news stories but also mixing it up with politicians. Last year, he interviewed President Obama.
“Working in media is harder than the NFL,” he says. “It’s more exhausting to the spirit.”
Burleson has transformed himself from the ex-player who sent his old coach a desperate text. In fact, he’s one of one. Who else does hard news, NFL commentary, kids’ programming, and Hollywood Squares in one week? Oh, and he’s reciting his own poetry—not in London cafés but on CBS Mornings. “The biggest compliment is when someone says, ‘You know what? I didn’t even know you played football.’ ”
Nate Burleson was a good football player. Now he’s a standout media figure who’s won four Emmy Awards for his work. Trophies. Life after the NFL suits him well.
Opening image: Suit and shirt by Ralph Lauren Purple Label; loafers by Santoni; vintage scarf, stylist’s own; ring by Meuchner; Rolex watch, earrings, and band ring, Burleson’s own.
Photographs by Andre D. WagnerStyling by Alfonso Fernández NavasHair by Kevin Ryan for Smashbox CosmeticsGrooming by Vincent Oquendo for ChanelVP of Video: Jason Ikeler Directors of Video: Amanda Kabbabe, Kathryn RiceSenior Director of Social Video: Mia Lardiere Senior Shooter/Editor: Sam Miller Senior Director of Social Audience: Mia Lardiere Senior Entertainment Director: Andrea Cuttler
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