Ex-NFL OL Mike Pouncey Reveals He Lost 70 Pounds in Retirement

Pouncey signed a one-day contract on Thursday to retire a Dolphin, and looked a bit different than he did in his playing days.

During his time USC’s interim head coach in 2013, Ed Orgeron once remarked on the psyche of his offensive linemen as it relates to the team’s snack offerings: “Feed a lineman a cookie, he’s happy.” It appears that former Pro Bowl lineman Mike Pouncey embodied that sentiment.

Pouncey, who last played in the NFL with the Chargers in 2020, signed a one-day contract to officially retire as a member of the Dolphins on Thursday, the team he spent his first seven years with. And he looked quite different than he did during his playing days.

Pouncey told reporters that he and his twin brother, Maurkice, had lost 70 pounds since they left the league, per ESPN’s Marcel Louis-Jacques. When someone remarked that they now eat “like rabbits,” Pouncey quipped: “Well when we were playing, we ate like pigs.”

Thursday’s celebration was an esteemed honor for Pouncey, who made three straight Pro Bowls from 2013 to ’15 with Miami, and added another one with the Chargers in ’18. It surely had added meaning for the Florida native who grew up a few hours away in Lakeland to officially end his career in his home state with the team that drafted him.