Mike Alstott hasn’t been around the NFL for nearly two decades, but he hasn’t exactly disappeared either. The former Buccaneers fullback still has a presence around Tampa Bay, and last week he used a long conversation on the Pewter Report Podcast to look back on his playing days, talk about life after football and size up a league that looks nothing like the one he once helped define.
For Alstott, retirement has been busy in its own way. He said he’s stayed involved with the Bucs, including appearances tied to the team’s schedule release and other current-player events, and he credited the Glazers and Brian Ford for keeping him connected. He also continues to work through his Mike Alstott Family Foundation, travel some more and stay hands-on at home.
“I’m blessed, I really am, in a lot of ways,” Alstott said about remaining around the team. “First of all, to be able to live my dream and come here in Tampa and play football.
At the same time, geez, it’s what, 20 years, 19 years since I finished playing. To be able to still be a part of the team and be on the schedule release and different stuff with the current players.
Again, I’m blessed. Just very appreciative of the Glazers and Brian Ford and how they still keep me relevant within the team.”
He also made it clear that “retirement” doesn’t mean sitting still. Alstott said he likes building and tearing things apart, and then putting them back together with his own ideas. He even rattled off a recent project: a sauna and a longevity bathroom with a cold plunge, shower and protein station.
“It seems like I’m always busy doing something,” Alstott said. “A lot of foundation stuff… I travel a little bit more.
I was coaching three years ago, head coach for 12 years. I was really obviously consumed in that each and every day.
I like to build; I like to tear things apart and build - literally.
“I’m not lying, go in the bathroom, tear shit apart, and then try to put it back together [with] my own thoughts and ideas, stuff like that… I’ve always been like that, even growing up. A kid that loved the tools, loved putting stuff together, and be creative in different ways like that. I just built a sauna and a longevity bathroom with the cold plunge and shower, a protein station.”
The conversation also turned to one of the signature moments of Alstott’s career: the touchdown he scored in Super Bowl XXXVII, the first Bucs touchdown in that game. That score came in the second quarter against the Raiders and pushed Tampa Bay ahead 13-3 on the way to a 48-21 win. Alstott said he doesn’t think about it as often as he probably should, but he understands exactly what it meant.
“I guess I don’t think about it as much as I should,” Alstott said about scoring the first Bucs Super Bowl touchdown. “It was everything.
Everything that I worked for until that point was coming down to that one play. From six years old when I started playing football to what was I then, [29] years old?
To be able to score the first touchdown or get a touchdown or put my team ahead in the biggest game of all of our careers and be an instrumental piece in doing that. Knowing that they know that I’m going to get the ball.
“That was the telltale of my career, short-yardage, goal line-type of back. Catching the ball in the backfield, four-minute drill, run the clock out type of thing.
Get some hard yards and stuff like that in some crucial times. I loved it, and that’s what I did.
You talk about pushing the jeeps, all those moments of being by yourself or being with your teammates and there’s no cameras and we’re on the field working, we’re in the weight room working, or we’re in the classroom working. That all came to that moment of that time in that Super Bowl game.”
That kind of football is fading fast, and Alstott knows it. He said the league has tilted heavily toward passing, with only about 10 teams still leaning into smashmouth football. Fullbacks are rarely used now, and defenses have changed too, with linebackers getting leaner and more athletic to handle the modern game.
“I think the whole game has changed - in a lot of ways,” Alstott said. “The smashmouth football type of mentality you only see from probably around 10 teams in the league that still live that type of thing… It’s been more of a passing league, five-wide, and get your step backs in there, stuff like that.
Guys that can play wide receiver and running back. I think it’s coming back a little bit more.
I think teams are trying to pound the rock a little bit more, but I just think the physicality of the game - it is what it is. It’s changed immensely.”
When Pewter Report’s Scott Reynolds and Bailey Adams pressed him on the difference, Alstott didn’t need much time to answer.
“I don’t either, it is what it is. They make more and hit less so…”
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