FLOWERY BRANCH — Mack Hollins is a big dog guy. That is to say a “big dog” guy, not a big “dog guy.”
“Not the little rat dogs. Those aren’t dogs,” the Atlanta Falcons wide receiver said. “I don’t know what those are. Rabbits, big rabbits.”
This is one of Mack’s many opinions.
“I hate cats. Cats will steal your soul. Never trust a cat. The small ones? No. Never look them in the eye.”
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Big cats, like lions, he likes. Hollins said his father owned a lion when he was growing up in Ohio.
“It wasn’t one of those TLC hang-in-the-house lions. It was in a big cage. Killed a deer and ate it.”
He thinks eating with utensils “makes you soft.”
“If you can’t eat it with your hands, you shouldn’t be eating it.”
When a reporter inquired about soup, he said, “Shouldn’t be eating soup. You’ve never seen a lion eat soup. You’ve never seen a gorilla eat soup. You’ve never seen anything savage eat soup.”
He almost never wears shoes away from the football field.
“Hate shoes. Hate that I have to wear these,” he said of his cleats. “I feel very uncomfortable in them. When I’m back in Florida, I’ll get kicked out of grocery stores. Lot of Instacart.”
The Falcons say wide receiver Mack Hollins is a good fit in Atlanta despite his eccentricities. (Courtesy of the Atlanta Falcons / Shanna Lockwood)He said he almost got kicked out of the Apple Store near the Falcons training facility recently because of his unique look, which includes curly hair that either hangs to his shoulders or sits on the top of his head in a large mound.
“I was in the Apple Store barefoot like three days ago,” he said. “When I walked in there with no shoes, the shorts I wear out here (for practice) and my shirt is real short. I’ve got the hair out. … Then I pull my MacBook out and they’re like, ‘OK, he either stole the MacBook or something is up.’”
Shoes, Hollins said, interfere with the body’s connection to the ground.
“If I cut the roots out of a tree, it wouldn’t make very much sense. If this is how I feel the ground, this is how I connect to everything around me, why would I cover it?” he asked, moving his feet back and forth. “Nobody is wearing mittens here, but everyone has shoes on. Feet and hands are the exact same when you’re a baby and then all of a sudden they put shoes on, and they stop feeling (the ground).”
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He does not own a car and gets around with loaners, walking, on his bicycle or catching rides with teammates. After checking into the apartments at Atlanta’s practice facility that are used to house players during training camp, Hollins asked the team if he could live there year-round.
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“That is very convenient,” he said. “I don’t know why guys don’t stay there. That’s literally the best you can get.”
The team said no, citing NFL’s rules about competitive fairness.
He owns three snakes — two ball pythons that are between four and six feet long and a Colombian boa that is 11 feet long.
“I love animals, and they are way easier to take care of than dogs,” he said.
Hollins believes watching too much TV “makes you soft.” On the other hand, he does love anime.
“‘One Piece’ is the greatest work in human history,” he said of the Japanese animated TV series. “Actors always screw something up, but with anime, it can always be perfect.”
Dunk on ‘em, Mack! pic.twitter.com/g39HSUDCDx
— Atlanta Falcons (@AtlantaFalcons) August 9, 2023
Beyond having more than his share of eccentricities, Hollins admits a history of being “too hard a critic” on teammates he is trying to motivate. It sounds like a tricky combination of traits to drop into a young group of wide receivers like Atlanta’s.
Actually, though, it has been perfect.
“He’s a different cat, but he’s an awesome dude,” wide receivers coach T.J. Yates said. “Mack has been an unbelievable addition to our room. From a leadership standpoint, he has really taken hold of that room. Everybody kind of follows him.”
Hollins has played for the Philadelphia Eagles, Miami Dolphins and Las Vegas Raiders in his five years in the league. After totaling 66 catches in his first four seasons, the 6-foot-4, 221-pounder had 57 catches for 690 yards last season.
“I think that maybe showed other people, ‘Hey, he can do it,’” Hollins said. “It’s funny because whenever a guy has a good year, people say, ‘Man, his offseason must have been so great.’ Not really, he’s probably had great offseasons the last five or six years. It’s not like I just started training at wide receiver last year. I just happened to get the opportunity.”
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When he signed a one-year, $2.5 million contract with the Falcons in March, he immediately became the most experienced wide receiver on the roster.
“Mack came in and set the standard for us,” wide receiver KhaDarel Hodge said. “He’s a guy that holds you accountable for everything you do. If you say you set goals to do something, then he’s going to remind you every day. A lot of the guys respect him for that. He’s a great leader for us.”
And also, “He’s like a barbarian type of guy,” Hodge said. “Mack is Mack, I’ll say that. He’s got his own style, his own ways. He gets it out of the mud. I can say that. Mack gets it out of the mud.”
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Hollins leads the Falcons wide receivers’ group chat and organizes team dinners. (He wears flip-flops into restaurants when he goes with teammates and then slips them off under the table, Hodge said. “I’m not going to ruin everybody’s meal with them kicking me out,” Hollins said. “If I’m by myself, I’ll go in barefoot.”) He holds an 8 p.m. study session each night of training camp for the wide receivers.
“He’s awesome, brings phenomenal energy every single day,” wide receiver Scotty Miller said. “It’s great to have him around. Just a great leader. Definitely a character.”
Hollins is currently reading “The Comfort Crisis,” which encourages seeking out discomfort to make your life happier overall.
“It’s about how humans throughout history have always done something to struggle and now we live in air conditioning, and if it’s not 72, it’s 74, you’re calling down and saying, ‘Hey, our AC is broken,’” Hollins said.
To that end, Hollins submerges himself completely in a post-practice cold tub for two minutes simply because it’s uncomfortable and he hates it so much, he said. He also is a believer in constantly trying to learn new skills. He has checked bicycle racing and scuba diving off his list. Next are a sky-diving license and a pilot’s license.
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“He’s a character, for sure. He’s awesome,” offensive lineman Chris Lindstrom said. “I met somebody this summer who was doing like 20-mile bike races with him. He’s really, really fun. It’s cool getting to know him.”
Touchdown, Mack Hollins!
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📱: Stream on NFL+ https://t.co/qmlcxeno4U pic.twitter.com/zMDCtbmJl3
— NFL (@NFL) September 25, 2022
The eating with his hands thing does take some getting used to, his teammates said.
“We’ve had a conversation about that,” quarterback Desmond Ridder said. “I told him I could get down with it for some things, but ‘some things, Mack, I’m just going to use a fork.’”
Wide receiver Drake London called Hollins “a caveman.”
“Mack is his own person,” tight end Kyle Pitts said. “He’s unique, but I would never walk around with no shoes or socks.”
And not using a knife and fork?
“That’s OK, but if you eat spaghetti with your hands, that’s nasty,” Pitts said.
“I saw him the other day with some mashed potatoes get in there with his hands with some honey on there,” Miller said. “That’s Mack Hollins for you.”
It likely was Manuka honey, which is made in Australia and New Zealand from bees that pollinate tea trees. Hollins is something of an evangelist for it.
“It’s supposed to be way better for you,” Yates said. “He just gave me a bottle and said, ‘Here eat this.’”
Coach Arthur Smith knew all about Hollins’ idiosyncrasies before the Falcons signed him because both played collegiately at the University of North Carolina.
“I know a lot about Mack. We’ve got a lot of mutual friends,” Smith said. “He’s had a really positive impact for the whole offense. He’s just a fun guy to be around. I haven’t really seen him eat with his hands or if he eats with his toes, I don’t know. I let our guys be themselves. As long as they work hard and are good teammates, I have no issue with it.”
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Hollins arrived at North Carolina as a walk-on and finished his career as the school’s career leader in yards per reception (20.6 yards on 81 career catches). He still cherishes the experience of going from walk-on to scholarship player for the Tar Heels. Players who get scholarships right out of college? You guessed it: “Soft.”
“I think scholarship kids are pampered,” he said. “Now, a lot of them worked hard and that’s why they got scholarships, but in my mind, they’re just pampered. Just like early draft picks are pampered. I’ll always think that no matter what. I was a fourth-round pick, I was pampered too. I got away with more stuff. It made me feel soft, I didn’t like that.”
Hollins feels like he’s a perfect fit in Smith’s run-heavy offense because he’s not just a willing blocker but an eager one.
“My mom said when I was a little kid, I had anger issues,” he said. “I probably have anger issues, but I’m more refined.”
Hollins’ voice consistently has carried across the Falcons’ practice fields throughout training camp, encouraging, prodding and sometimes trash-talking teammates. While praising the play of London, who was Atlanta’s leading receiver a year ago as a rookie, he has refused to concede the No. 1 wide receiver position to London.
“The No. 1 spot is up for grabs. Drake is my (training camp) roommate, but he gets no free days,” Hollins said. “Every spot in my mind and in every receiver’s mind is up for grabs. Just because he got a nice signing bonus, there’s no free lunches now that I am here. If you’re a prima donna, this isn’t the room for you. You’ll get called out for it, at least by me. I don’t like soft people.”
He has made that perfectly clear.
“As long as he’s doing what he’s doing on the field and doing for us what he does from a leadership standpoint, I don’t care what he eats or how he eats it or what kind of shoes he wears,” Yates said. “He brings a different element to our room. He might be one of the most interesting men I have ever met.”
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(Top photo: Courtesy of the Atlanta Falcons / Shanna Lockwood)
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