Harrison Phillips loves the look of the Winter Warrior uniforms making their debut next Monday night.
"They'll be cool," Phillips said. "This probably doesn't surprise our fans. I'm not a big swag guy. I've got my little towel, but that's not for swag. It's for sweat. I've got my knee brace, and I'm good to go. I love the new uniform. I think it's beautiful. I can't wait to have that jersey."
While all of that is true, Phillips also noted that all-black uniforms would have a slimming effect for the interior defensive lineman.
"Why, at one time in my life, can we not have a black jersey to make me look skinny? I just want one picture to show my future kid, 'Look how ripped your dad is,' " Phillips joked. "But I can't have that when I look like Barney in all purple or the Michelin Man in all white. Whoever reads this, if we can get all black in my time here, I will be forever grateful."
Phillips survived snow games earlier in his career as a 2018 third-round pick by the Bills, including in 2021 when New England managed to topple Buffalo 14-10 in "wind, snow, sleet" on a Monday night when the Patriots completed just two of three passes for 19 yards.
As "cold" as the Winter Warrior uniforms run, the elements aren't a factor inside U.S. Bank Stadium, a venue that's become so special to Phillips and his wife Shae that the couple chose it as the setting for taking photos with ultrasound images to announce they're expecting a son in spring 2025.
We sat down with Phillips for this Water Break presented by Crown Royal to break the ice on him becoming a father for the first time.
Phillips, by the way, has worn size 16 cleats since his freshman year of high school and was in the 99th percentile of the size chart during his youth to the point where people thought he was 7 or so when he was only 4.
Q: In light of that, is Shae prepared in the event of carrying a big baby?
A: We are trying to stay positive. I was a big baby, but I think as long as we have a healthy baby and a healthy momma, we're good. For offseason plans, we want to be cautious if it does have to come early because of the size or something like that, include that in our, 'Don't travel after this many weeks.'
Q: What made it so special to take your announcement photos on the field?
A: Obviously we're high school sweethearts, went through the college experience, through the Buffalo experience, but we got engaged while we were Vikings, married while we were Vikings and we're bringing life into the world as Vikings, so this will forever be a very big chapter in the story of our life. I hope I play this game for as long as Harrison Smith does or longer, but if I don't, and I'm not fortunate enough to have my child have memories of me playing in the NFL, we want to create as many of these cool experiences of, 'Hey, the announcement of your birth was on the field.' We'll have him at games in the coming seasons, but I don't know how long I'll play, and I don't have many memories before age 5, so that would mean I've got to play six more years, which would be a blessing.
Q: What was the excitement level when you found out?
A: Super excited. God's timing and everything worked out extremely well. It was awesome. Tears of excitement, tears of happiness. I'm just super proud of how my wife has been handling everything. It's a lot easier being me. I almost feel like it's a disservice saying, 'We're pregnant.' My wife is obviously being a champ. I try my best, but I'm so ignorant to some of it, and with the season, it's hard. I've got a little app on my phone that updates me about what's new and the size of the baby and some tidbits. I've been watching some things on YouTube and taking recommendations from friends on books.
Q: You already peppering teammates who are dads with questions?
A: Yeah, Garrett Bradbury's wife and Blake Brandel's wife, I can't remember if there was another lady or two in there, but they created a spreadsheet of things they purchased that they liked. 'This is the stroller we bought, and this is our review. These are the baby bottles we bought,' and stuff like that, so just to have people in our circle of trust to bounce those ideas off has been super helpful.
Q: What do you think will be the most challenging aspect of fatherhood?
A: I would say the sleep part is huge for me. I'm thankful that this timing is kind of in the offseason, OTA timing, so I'm able to sacrifice some of my sleep for the betterment of my wife and the baby and things like that. What's really difficult is as competitive individuals you like to be, 'A hundred percent of me is dedicated to X or Y,' or 'You have to fully invest in something to be uber successful.' I remember contemplating some of that stuff with Shae at the time, 'We're probably ready to get married?' Yes, I think we are, but I want to be able to look my wife in the eye and tell her, 'You are the most important thing in the world to me.' Early on in my career I still had things in football that I needed to overcome and prove to myself so that I could say to my wife, 'You are first.' The same way with bringing a baby in the world, it's like now football moves down another notch on the overall life importance. It's going to be an interesting balancing act for me to stay competitive and have to workout and be on top of my recovery, all that while saying, 'You have to be the father of the year every year for the rest of your life.' I'm excited for that challenge. … I think about that Kobe Bryant mindset of true competitors where it consumes your whole being. That's somewhat how I feel about the sport, and I think it's gotten me to overcome some of my shortcomings talentwise to be playing here today. I don't want that competitiveness to fall down the chain as priorities can change.
Q: Have you had any discussions about names?
A: Ha, we have. We are very far off. I like very unique, powerful, king names that are just prominent —
Q: Got that Viking blood and all —
A: Yeah, and my wife is more like, common, Biblical, so we will see how that all changes. You've got first names, middle names, multiple children hopefully, so we're going to keep working and find something we both like, for sure. Hearing some players, I've heard guys say they go in with two names and wait until the baby comes. We haven't considered that option but we'll definitely — there's a [dating-app kind of thing for baby names], we're on that right now. Unfortunately, the ones I like and the ones we've matched together, there's a big discrepancy of numbers.
Q: That app has got to help when parents-to-be have different schedules.
A: Yeah, I can sit for five minutes at lunch and swipe through. … I think we have four or five that we've matched on where, 'We'd be fine if this is the name,' but we're hoping for, 'Oh my gosh, this is the name!' We're still waiting for that to happen. She has her one like that, and I have my one like that, so hopefully we find one together. When you're in this business for so long and play with 100 men every year and they have children and brothers and friends, you know so many names. So when my wife says a name, I think of a person, and when I say a name, she thinks of a person.
Q: What's it been like for the defense to have the success it has had this year?
A: Overall, I think the thing that's the coolest is if you were to sit through a meeting or watch a practice, you wouldn't think that our defense knows that. Our defense doesn't act like they are good. Now, on Sundays, we have full confidence: 'Let's get a three-and-out, let's get a stop.' But there's not that sense of we've made it or a complacency or we've got it all figured out. It's still people getting hungry, and we've got a lot of people upset we're not playing good enough. Myself included. Some of these guys are like, 'OK, cool, I want to find my actual ceiling. I don't want to play good ball or OK ball. I want to find my ceiling as a football player.' I think that's good that after a win you still have players saying, 'I wish I could have made more plays. I wish I could have helped us more,' so if we just continue keep doing what we do, you have to win games now. If they gave out T-shirts for No. 1 defense after 13 weeks, that would be great, but they don't, so let's see how the cards fall and try to play our best football from here on out.
Q: With so many new free agents, how do you get this many new guys playing together so well?
A: The players who have been here with [Kwesi Adofo-Mensah] and [Kevin O'Connell] two years prior kind of understood what the vibe is supposed to be, what the identity of this team is trying to be, just enough of those guys in those rooms, so yeah, you've got J.G. (Jonathan Greenard) or Gink' (Andrew Van Ginkel) new in that room, but you have some other cornerstone pieces who can relay, 'This is how we do things.' Those guys bought in completely, doing the small stuff in the offseason, golfing together, or whatever. I think our team is unique because it's not just offensive guys hanging with offensive guys and defensive guys hanging with defensive guys. We were at the Lakers-Timberwolves game, and there were 20 of us in there. It was probably 10 offense and 10 defense. It was awesome, so just coming together, and [Brian] Flores has always preached you can't have unique results without unique relationships, and I think if you were to sit down a kid from Omaha, Nebraska, who went to Stanford with a guy like [Jerry] Tillery who is from Shreveport, Louisiana, and we're friends. Maybe that doesn't happen other places.
Editor's note: During this interview in the locker room at Twin Cities Orthopedics performance center, fellow defensive lineman Jonathan Bullard walked by and joked with Phillips about not getting a golf invite. The two NFL veterans who have been teammates since 2022 have a strong relationship, so I asked about playing with Bullard, a third-round pick of the Bears back in 2016 who has played for Chicago, Arizona, Seattle and Atlanta.
A: One of the best strengths of Bull' is he is so best-for-the-player focused. Sometimes you can have guys who are what the team can do better. Bullard is so good at what is best for the player in his individual career. If coaching says one thing or play style says one thing, Bull' is someone who will tell you to your face exactly how it is, good news to hear, bad news to hear. I think he's really respected for having enough guts to say something that other people are too timid to say because he's seen it. He's been a lot of places and he's man enough to tell you the truth about certain things that come up. That's helped a lot of our young players. We talk [junk to each other] more than anybody out there. That's somebody that when football is all said and done with, we'll probably be sending things on Instagram or Facebook down the road. We have a lot of good memories in three years. This business is so transactional that to start next to somebody for three years actually doesn't happen much. It's kind of rare, so it's been fun.
