Sam Hartman is already making headlines well before his first rose ceremony.
The Washington Commanders quarterback, who was just announced by ABC as the lead for the upcoming 30th season of The Bachelor, has an old viral moment making the rounds again: a playful exchange from August 2025 with a female Commanders fan who wanted him to send a message to her mom.
In the clip, the fan asks Hartman to say hello to her mother, Susan, and adds, “She thinks you’re super hot.” Hartman wastes no time leaning into the joke.
“Susan, shoot, I don’t discriminate from age. I appreciate your support,” he says.
The fan later joked that she had earned “daughter of the year” status after getting him to deliver the message.
The resurfaced video has only added to the buzz around Hartman’s new reality-TV role, and it shows the kind of easy, flirty confidence that helped make the clip memorable in the first place.
Hartman addressed the Bachelor opportunity on Good Morning America on Friday, saying his first reaction was disbelief. “Honestly, at first I was like, ‘No way,'” Hartman said.
He also explained that Jesse Palmer, the former Bachelor contestant who now hosts the show, helped him get a clearer picture of what he was walking into. “I got really lucky and talked to Jesse Palmer and he kind of gave me the insight, what it is and what it’s not,” Hartman said.
For Hartman, the idea of finding love on television doesn’t bother him. He said the way a couple meets matters less than what happens after that.
“When people are saying ‘I do,’ they don’t ask where you met; they just ask if you wanna do it forever,” he added. “I don’t see any problem with that.”
Still, he knows the setup will test him. Hartman admitted he’s uneasy about the challenge of meeting 30 women and trying to form real connections.
“I’m very nervous,” Hartman said. “I have a tough time having a conversation with one girl, [so] 30 is gonna be pretty tough.”
His Commanders teammates had plenty to say about the news on the flight home after Friday’s game against the New York Giants. “My teammates were there giving me advice on the plane ride back,” Hartman said. “Probably not going to listen to anybody on that.”
Hartman has not appeared in a regular-season NFL game and is currently on Washington’s practice squad.
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