When retired football player Carl Nassib came out as gay in 2021, he made history as the first openly gay NFL player actively playing the sport.
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It certainly wasn’t an easy decision to make, but it definitely was a brave one. In a 2025 interview on The Pivot podcast, Nassib opened up about a moment that made him realize that coming out might be possible.
Hosts Ryan Clark and Channing Crowder, also former NFL players, asked Nassib if he had any stories to share about his time in the league.
“I don’t want a bad story because everybody thinks football players are these big meatheads who don’t understand anything,” Crowder said, and Nassib assured him he had “funny stories.”
He explained that while he was playing for the Las Vegas Raiders in 2020, they were playing against the Cleveland Browns, which was his first team in the NFL. The Browns kept running a play called a “bootleg” away from him. And he was “so mad” about expending so much energy.
“Stop with these gay ass bootlegs!” he yelled. Later in the story, he admitted he was “ignorant” for using the word in such a way.
But he did not expect the entire offensive line to turn around in shock at what he had just said. “You can’t say that!” they said.
“Oh man, the league is ready for this,” Nassib remembered thinking. “They are ready for me. We got some allies here. …I was like, ‘This is so funny. The guy about to come out, saying the word gay, getting shut down by five massive dudes.’”
Of course that one exchange isn’t the only thing that inspired Carl Nassib to come. Later in the interview, he explained that the death of his uncle, a gay man himself, inspired him.
Nassib explained that he comes from a big family, and his uncle, who was his mother’s youngest brother, was the only openly gay person in the family. He came out to his Uncle Bill on his deathbed in 2019.
“When I came out to him, he was like, ‘This is the biggest weight off my chest. I’m not the only one,’” Nassib said. He said he remembered thinking “Man, there’s probably so many people out there that are going to feel that same way.”
Nassib, who retired in 2023, partnered with The Trevor Project at the time of his coming out. He continues to work alongside them. And while no only NFL players have followed his lead, he leaves behind a powerful legacy.