Tempe, Ariz. – My walk from my rideshare service through the parking lot and to the side entrance of the Verde Dickey dome at Arizona State is miserable. It’s 115 degrees. I finally push through the pressurized revolving doors to enter an inflatable indoor practice facility, the length of a football field, with bright green turf and stark white lines for the yard markers inside. 

A gold pitchfork is emblazoned on the field, denoting this is Sun Devil country. But the players littering the field in front of me aren’t college kids.

I scan from left to right, noticing trainers from the Sports Academy clad in black workout clothes, manual therapists with their tables set up in a row, players wearing all sorts of team-issued gear and B.T. Jordan, milling around and greeting those in attendance like the old friends they are.

Jordan’s sixth annual Pass Rush Retreat, held at ASU’s campus, has become a go-to event for many of the league’s top defensive linemen, so much so that they’re willing to make the trip to the Valley of the Sun and deal with its sweltering summer heat in order to attend. 

It has grown since its first year in 2019. Back then, it was just a bunch of nose tackles, the guys in the middle of the defensive line, getting together to go over the nuances of the position no one else understood.

“But then Rashan Gary and a couple other defensive ends showed up, anyway,” Jordan laughed.

Jordan has been a pass rush consultant employed by multiple NFL teams at this stage of his career, including the Seattle Seahawks and, this past season, the Denver Broncos.

‘It’s a real brotherhood’

The Broncos, who had the highest sack rate in the NFL in 2024 and a league-best -105.2 passing EPA. The same team that had the best quarterback pressure rate with a four-man rush last season. Yeah, those Denver Broncos.

Jordan has a track record that keeps players like Rashan Gary and Kenny Clark of the Green Bay Packers, Jonathan Greenard of the Minnesota Vikings and L.J. Collier of the Arizona Cardinals coming to the annual Pass Rush Retreat, which also welcomed first-round rookies Mason Graham of the Cleveland Browns and Walter Nolen of the Cardinals this year. It’s why the event has grown from 15 nose tackles to over 60 defensive linemen. It’s why so many are giving up their precious vacation time to get better and invest in themselves.

These events aren’t unique to defensive linemen. O-Line Masterminds, hosted by Duke Manyweather in Dallas, is in its eighth year (Our own Ben Arthur was on the scene there). Tight End University, hosted by Travis Kelce, George Kittle and Greg Olsen, just put on its fifth annual event.

But there’s less fanfare here at the Pass Rush Retreat. It’s all about the work.

Jordan and I are huddled over in the corner on various pads used in drills. The first part of the day, in which Jordan and his team of trainers led players in individual pass rush drills, is over. There were scattered groups working simultaneously – some tethered to their workout partners with workout band, while others perfecting individual pass rush moves with standup drill dummies, expertly weaving in and out on each repetition.

It’s easy to look around at the various team logos and get caught up in the fact that on the field, these guys are opponents. They’re in a room full of their competition. In a position like defensive end or outside linebacker, those responsible most often for getting to the quarterback, the limelight shines a bit brighter. Individual success means you contributed to your team in the most direct way possible. It’s something each of these players’ egos crave, even when they say they don’t have one.

But on a deeper level, lining up on the line of scrimmage as a defender is a shared experience. It’s a fraternity. It’s something each of these men, who play the position at the highest level, uniquely understands better than anyone else in the world. It’s their job to be their best selves, and it’s also their responsibility to make each other better and leave the game better than they found it.

“It’s a real brotherhood,” Jordan said. “They want to see each other grow and see each other get paid, see each other dominate. And that’s what it’s all about. It’s just keep pushing each other, giving each other knowledge, and just making it better; helping the position grow.”

An honest film session

It wasn’t just on-field drills that players were signing up for, either. There was a conditioning element, where players worked out together in Arizona State’s football weight room. Snacks littered a back counter, looking more reminiscent of a youth summer camp than something for professional athletes. But if you’ve ever been around an NFL facility, you’d know that none of these guys are far from an Uncrustable or squeezable applesauce.  

A couple of floors up from the weight room in ASU Football’s facility was the team meeting room, which is where players filed in now. It’s about 2 p.m. They’ve been going since about 9 a.m. But they spread out methodically, almost on autopilot from their countless meetings during the season, and settle in to watch film.

And there I was, back row, dead center, a literal fly on the wall, surrounded by the NFL’s elite speaking a language I was conversational in, at best, but that they all spoke.

Jonathan Greenard was first up. A game against the San Francisco 49ers popped up on the giant screen at the front of the room. Before Jordan himself can say anything, Greenard chimes in, narrating his thought process, play in and play out. They weren’t all highlight-worthy, either. There were self-critiques coming from Greenard, almost more than any sort of rationalization or even bravado. Players around the room called out from time to time, asking questions, making comments and offering advice.

This continued for the Broncos’ Jonathan Franklin-Myers and the Browns’ Maliek Collins. They oscillated between sage advice and sheepish explanations of mistakes. Any time there was a particularly good play, though, the entire room erupted in hoots and hollers.

“Ok, JG!”

“God damn!”

“I see you, ‘Liek!”

It was like all that ego I saw on the field just fell out of the room.

“Having an event like this where you have other Pro Bowlers, you have other guys with the experience we got in the league, we have a lot of young guys, first-round picks, a lot of good potential,” Rashan Gary told me. “You get to learn and pick everybody’s brain, but the main part is really coming together, camaraderie. [Some of us] see each other this year on the field. So, yeah, you pop in a little ‘ish’ here, and then you see them perform on the field. It’s like, man, it pays off.”

The art of the pass rush is a holistic thing. It isn’t just about mechanics, or talent, or intelligence or physics, for that matter. It’s all of those things together, executed to perfection, with fractions of seconds to read and react.

“Pass rushing is really an art,” Jordan said. “That’s what I kind of figured out. It’s a true art, and breaking it down, and taking the guys’ weaknesses and trying to make them strengths, taking a strength and making it more of a strength. That’s basically all it is. Most coaches, they don’t have time to focus on one detail with one player. They have to work on the scheme and everything like that. So me, being a consultant, I’m able to focus on specific details of pass rushing and if you can rush the passer, you get paid in the NFL.”

You didn’t think it was completely altruistic, did you?

Events like the Pass Rush Retreat are win-win situations for players looking to get better, and get paid. So while we think of them as competitors, and while they act like it even on a practice field in the middle of the summer by chirping back and forth, at the end of the day, they’re more than that.

They’re brothers.

“I love the camaraderie with it,” said Gary, one of the biggest talkers on the field of the event. “At the end of the day, it gets us all better. Because if I’m talking at a high level, that means everything I do have to be at a high level. And if not, then the microscope is on me, which I want it to be, because, like I told them, I’m not gonna tell you to do nothing that I won’t do myself. And that’s what I tell my teammates. So I try to lead by example.”

Consider the rest of the league, and especially the league’s offensive linemen, on notice.

Carmen Vitali is an NFL Reporter for FOX Sports. Carmen had previous stops with The Draft Network and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. She spent six seasons with the Bucs, including 2020, which added the title of Super Bowl Champion (and boat-parade participant) to her résumé. You can follow Carmen on Twitter at @CarmieV. 

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