Simon Stepaniak is living the American dream. It started after he retired from the NFL at 24.
Preparations for undrafted free-agent negotiations had sunk in before his phone rang. It was a random number out of Green Bay. What transpired after he hung up was nothing short of jubilee. He had to plug his ears while talking to the Green Bay front office.
Thirty minutes later reality had set in. It was already in the back of his head: The same player who wasn’t sure he wanted to continue playing football after his senior season at Indiana had just been drafted.
It should have been the biggest moment of his life, but in Simon’s words, it was almost like he couldn’t enjoy it.
“I had it in the back of my mind,” Stepaniak said about the possibility of playing in the NFL. “Throughout college, I was back and forth. ‘I don’t want to go… I don’t care if I go… If I can go, so be it.”
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His NFL potential was apparent to some in the third grade, when Stepaniak started playing football.
“It was because he had feet,” Roger Osborne said. “He could move his feet as a big kid.”
Osborne, the father of one of Stepaniak’s teammates, coached Simon on the offensive line until his senior year at Ross High School in Hamilton, Ohio, just about 25 minutes northwest of Cincinnati.
Osborne sports an Ohio State National Championship ring given to him by Urban Meyer, which reads “Thanks, Oz” on the inside. He assisted the Buckeyes with special teams scouting before their National Championship win over Oregon. He interchanges that with a Green Bay Packers Super Bowl ring that was gifted to him by a former player at Mt. Healthy High School in Cincinnati.
Stepaniak would never tell you he envisioned the NFL while in high school. He didn’t even understand why MAC schools were recruiting him.
“I was happy to play anywhere, and then you’re going to pay for my school?" he says. "I was like ‘What the hell is this?’ This is a dream."
All of a sudden, Division 1 head and assistant coaches were flocking to one of Butler County’s smallest schools, pulling Simon out of class to meet him and discuss the possibility of playing at their school. Simon recalled one meeting with Western Michigan that caught him off guard.
The coach had told Simon they weren’t going to offer him because there was no point.
“He said I was going to play on Sundays, and that they wouldn’t get me if they tried,” Stepaniak said. “It was weird.”
Simon excelled in pancaking people, and that combination of size and quick feet grabbed the attention of schools like Louisville, Penn State, Kentucky, and Indiana. Greg Frey, the Hoosiers' former offensive line coach, spearheaded his recruitment. Simon says Indiana getting in early meant so much.
“I was pretty easy, once I latched on to somebody we built a connection," he said. "It’s pretty hard for me to change up on someone like that. Anybody could have come in early and swayed me, but coach Frey was a great guy and coach (Kevin) Wilson showed a lot of love.”
He recalled a meeting with Wilson at school one Saturday morning after a Friday night game. Coach sat him and two of his teammates down to talk, flipping on the TV. Except, the coach only played Simon’s film.
“It was kind of weird, why are we just focusing on me?” Stepaniak said.
Simon’s commitment to Indiana made waves. Athletes out of Ross don’t often commit to Division 1 schools, let alone one in the Big Ten.
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Stepaniak’s first couple of years in Bloomington were mentally and physically brutal. While Ross invested in its athletes, the training program wasn’t up to par with larger, private high schools like Moeller or St. Xavier. Even though he hit 29 reps of 225 on bench press his senior year before enrolling at Indiana, he had to catch up.
“They were trying to rush me to play early, it was another thing where gaining confidence didn’t happen till college when I got bigger and stronger and realized I could play,” Stepaniak said. “They’d always tell me I was good enough to play, I just never believed it.”
He described his first two years as “culture shock.” There were long days of getting beat up and keeping his head above water. Coach Frey’s aggressive style was new and took adjusting to, but Simon said he needed it.
His first full game was against Purdue at the end of his redshirt sophomore year in which the Hoosiers won 26-24.
“That was cool as hell,” Stepaniak said.
Following that game, now-head coach Tom Allen took over after Kevin Wilson’s departure. The regime change saw Frey be replaced by former Indiana offensive line coach Darren Hiller, who came over from Cincinnati. The change presented a whole new thing to adapt to, but Stepaniak took it in stride, not letting it impact his play on the field.
“It was a weird change because he was the defensive coordinator so I didn’t really have interactions with him,” Stepaniak admitted. “I was just kind of the asshole on the O-line who was being aggressive with his guys.”
After the next two seasons, Simon had separated himself as a leader on the offensive line, and on the team as a unit. However, with four years under his belt, he was left with a choice. With the chance to come back for a fifth year and the possibility of being drafted in the back of his mind, Simon had to decide if he wanted to continue playing football.
He eventually decided he was done. He texted his family and told them of his plans to hang it up after his fourth season.
That was until he spoke with the strength staff at Indiana.
After being convinced to return to Indiana, his fifth season was his best. He allowed one sack in 12 games and it was no longer about him playing professionally, it was about whether he would be drafted or not. Then he hit a major roadblock, tearing his ACL in practice before the Outback Bowl against Ole Miss, which understandably dinged his draft stock. Nevertheless, Matt LaFleur and the Packers decided to draft Stepaniak in the sixth round.
“It’s one of the coolest things, seeing your name up on the screen of the thing you’ve watched your whole life,” Simon said.
Apparently, 37 reps on the bench press at the combine (second among all offensive linemen), being a captain, and a three-year starter was enough to garner a late-round pick and a $152,000 signing bonus. He only saw half of that after taxes, but he bought a diesel truck that couldn’t fit in his garage in Green Bay.
Given the pandemic, everything about rookie OTAs was virtual. The Packers asked their draft picks to send an introductory video listing their name, position, school, and signing bonus. This would usually be done at the first team meeting, with the rookies standing up and bashfully sharing how much money they had made in front of the whole team. Simon took it as a chance to show his true colors.
After a few uninspiring, effortless introductions with monotone voices, then came Stepaniak riding in on a Cub Cadet.
“He sent out a general message saying to be creative, I thought everyone was going to do something crazy so I have to do something ‘Billy Bob,’” Stepaniak laughed. “Everyone was just standing in a bathroom, I was like ‘Oh god, I’m going to look like an idiot’.”
Simon turned off the engine, spit on the ground, and responded to the prompt.
Then his brother Sam rode behind doing a wheelie on a quad. It was a far cry from the other rookies, but the extra effort was appreciated by LeFluer.
“That is the standard right there, looks like that Cub Cadet is getting upgraded,” LaFleur said.
The Packers offered to reimburse their players who couldn’t train in Green Bay to buy weight sets or workout machines. Due to the months-on-end wait list for most dumbbells, Simon missed out. They’d later discover a lot of the wives and girlfriends used the allowance to buy a Peloton. Simon and his family were kicking themselves for not thinking about that.
He worked out at The Lunkhouse in Shandon, Ohio. No, it’s not a public gym or place of business. From the naked eye, it’s a shack in the middle of a field. But to those lucky enough to be granted access, it’s a haven with heavy dumbbells, a bench press, and a squat rack.
“Thank God he let me use that gym, there was enough in there for me to maintain,” Simon said.
Simon didn’t get to Green Bay with his then-girlfriend Kendell Wiles until July. The two met at Indiana, bonding over being athletes. Kendell ran track at Indiana and excelled at the 800 meters. She's the daughter of Charlie Wyles, a 35-year coaching veteran who now leads the defensive line at NC State.
Due to COVID, the rookies had to spend the whole camp in a hotel, which Simon described as “hell.”
“We had to wake up at a certain time to go get tested every single day,” Simon said. “It added so much to your day.”
He was always stressed about the unknown. It wasn’t anything he wasn’t used to, and it wasn’t that he didn’t love football, but the newness of playing for a new team and being in the NFL created a healthy amount of anxiety.
“It was the stress and the weight of everything,” Simon said. “They say eyes are always on you. In college, you can get by if you have a bad day. If you have a bad day in the NFL, in practice, they’ll point it out and get somebody else in there.”
He described camp during COVID as a ghost town. No reporters, no fans, no families. Kendell had to stay behind in the hotel all day while Simon was at the facility.
The Packers declared Stepaniak inactive for every game he was on the 53-man roster in 2020. He was placed on Injured Reserve in Jan. 2021.
“The ACL took a year of recovery to come back and play at a high level, I went through that first year rehabbing,” Simon explained. “The explosion wasn’t totally there when I got cleared. I could get through practice, I just couldn’t get what I used to be able to get… It’s hard to compete at that level when you’re not all the way there.”
His second OTA was the turning point, and similar to the decision he had to make after his senior season at Indiana, it was in the back of his head that his football career may be coming to a close.
“I stuck it out for the final OTA before I left because that first year wasn’t a true experience. Maybe this will spark something else… But still, it was like I didn’t like it, I didn’t want to do it anymore.”
“He came home from camp every day and I just thought something was off with him,” Kendell said. “He was really negative about the whole thing.”
Kendell would continue, saying she had to pry it out of Simon who scarcely wants any situation to be about himself. She asked him if this was something he really wanted to do.
“We finally had a good heart-to-heart,” Kendell said. “We were both very emotional, obviously. It’s a big change…”
Simon retired on July 31, 2021. He sat down with his offensive line coach Adam Stenavich and head coach Matt LaFleur to let them know of his decision. It was a weight off his shoulders.
“He was more enjoyable to be around also,” Kendell laughed.
He didn’t make a notes app tweet or a fancy post on Instagram to announce he was stepping away. The people he cared about already knew why, and that was enough for him.
“Everyone outside looking in is not in your shoes or going through the stuff you’re going through,” Simon said. “It’s easy to say ‘stick it out for the money’ but I didn’t think it was worth it to do that.”
He came back to Cincinnati where he had a garage big enough to fit his truck. He talked to his high school coach about joining the staff at Ross but Simon realized it just wasn't the right time. He didn’t know what he was going to do for work, and he thought staying around football made the most sense. He’d quickly realize it didn’t.
He even admitted he can barely watch a Bengals game without getting stressed out.
It was never that Simon fell out of love with football, even at the hardest times in camp during COVID, the passion for the game was still there. He just loves being a normal guy who spent time with his family more than the lure of being a professional athlete.
“It wasn’t a huge surprise,” Sam said. “I remember the multiple conversations of him just saying he wanted to be home to ride quads and shoot guns. When he got home he seemed a lot happier, it was a huge weight off his shoulders as well… He was fully committed to being a normal person.”
Simon and Kendell married on June 25, 2022.
He now works for H5 traffic control in Cincinnati. He’s put in a situation where he’s an important cog in the machine of the company. He’ll soon be his own boss, and the success or failure of the company will rest on his shoulders. It doesn’t exactly align with the media advertising degree he earned from Indiana, but that isn’t a concern.
“It’s like the American dream,” Simon said.
That's Simon's dream, when most people would probably dream of playing in the NFL.
“That’s what I love to do, that’s the fun stuff in my mind… My mom kept me in the game, telling me that there was nothing happening back here, that people were just living their lives, but that’s what I wanted to do. Be around family, doing the simple things.”
“Literally last week they built a ramp for the shed out there and that was their exciting Saturday,” Kendell said.
“It’s fun,” Simon laughed.
Simon does crossfit at a gym down the road from their house in Cincinnati and Kendell frequents Orangetheory. She likes the running, it makes her feel fast. She tried to get Simon to join.
“There’s no weights really,” Simon explained.
He’s a far cry from the 322 pounds he weighed when he was in Green Bay; he now checks in at 255. The video of him hitting 37 reps at the combine when he was a self-proclaimed ‘beefy brisket’ is starting to make its way around his gym.
It’s clear in talking to Simon that he doesn’t reminisce about his football days often. If you asked him whether he’d rather spend a Sunday in December anchoring the offensive line for the Packers or re-doing his living room floor with his wife and brother, he’d probably choose the latter.
His Instagram bio lays it out perfectly:
“Just a regular everyday normal guy.”
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