He once was voted one of the NFL’s dirtiest players. Now, Jon Runyan hands out fines: ‘If you want to avoid getting hacked, bring in a hacker’

A few months ago, Jon Runyan was at the NFL Films office in Mount Laurel when his phone rattled. It was his former Eagles teammate, Hugh Douglas. Douglas was trying to settle a debate with their other former teammate, Jon Ritchie, over a play in 2001.

Ritchie, a fullback, was lined up in the backfield for the Oakland Raiders, and needed to make sure the end man on the line of scrimmage — Douglas — had his hands down. So, he ran at Douglas full speed and took his legs out.

The NFL fined Ritchie $10,000, which, 23 years later, he wanted Douglas to pay back, because he believed it was a legal cut block. But Douglas refused, maintaining that the play was illegal.

They decided to consult an expert — Runyan — who has worked as the NFL’s vice president of policy and rules administration since 2016. This was when the irony began to set in.

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“We knew he worked at the NFL office,” Douglas said. “But then it was like, wait a minute, Jon Runyan does rules. He does the fine stuff. We were like, ‘Are you [expletive] kidding me? Jon Runyan?’”

The former offensive tackle is used to this reaction. He had a reputation for playing past the whistle. In a 2006 Sports Illustrated NFL player poll, Runyan was voted the second-dirtiest player in the league (tied with Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker Joey Porter and behind New England Patriots safety Rodney Harrison). He wasn’t above tripping a guy, or stepping on his feet, or cleaning the pile.

Former defensive tackle Hollis Thomas said the 6-foot-7, 330-pound Runyan set an aggressive tone on his first day of Eagles practice in 2000.

A rookie defensive end, Dwight Johnson, hit him with some force. When he tried to do it again, Runyan grabbed him, threw him on the ground, and gave him a “that’s-what-you-get nudge” with his foot.

“[Jeremiah] Trotter came to [the rookie’s] rescue,” Thomas said. “He was like, ‘Oh, you think you’re swole!’ Then the entire defense kind of jumped him. It was like Runyan was King Kong and the DBs were the little airplanes.”

Ritchie said the Raiders would dedicate a portion of their special teams meetings to studying Runyan’s “cheap shots” when the Eagles were attempting to kick extra points. He described his former teammate’s playing style as “angry,” “mean,” and “cruel.”

As someone who racked up an estimated 12-14 fines in his career, Runyan understood how handing out discipline for the NFL would look. But he took the job anyway, and has held it for almost a decade.

“Everybody just kind of laughed at it,” said Runyan, 50. “They were like, after all the stuff you did on the football field, how the hell did you become a compliance guy?

“If you have an IT system, and you want to avoid getting hacked, you bring in a hacker. If you want to have good home security, you bring in a burglar.”

Runyan developed his physical playing style in college. He went to the University of Michigan from 1992-95, where he was coached in the hard-nosed, bruising, Bo Schembechler brand of football, which was still in place even after the coach’s retirement in 1989. In Michigan’s team meeting room, players would see two words: “pursuit,” for defense, and “harassment,” for offense.

The message was clear.

“Always be up in someone’s face,” Runyan said. “Leaning on him, pushing on him. The guy I’m blocking is a better athlete and faster than me 99% of the time. So, if I do just enough to annoy him, and he’s trying to fight me, that takes his athletic ability away.”

He was selected by the Houston Oilers in the fourth round of the 1996 NFL draft, and moved with the team to Tennessee in 1997. By that point, he’d become a starter, and was quickly developing a reputation for being a “nasty-ass offensive lineman,” in Douglas’ words. Runyan helped guide the Titans to the Super Bowl in 1999, and signed a six-year, $30 million contract with the Eagles in 2000.

It was a lot of money. But in return, they got “the best right tackle in football,” in then-coach Andy Reid’s opinion.

“We throw a lot of money around in this business,” Reid told The Inquirer in 2000. “It’s good to see that money go to someone who deserves it.”

Runyan spent his 14 NFL seasons toeing the line of physical-but-not-illegal. This proved to be more difficult after he signed with the Eagles. League rules became more stringent, and he was forced to adjust.

He couldn’t, for example, jump across the pile, over Duce Staley, and a throng of defensive linemen, shove San Francisco 49ers linebacker Jamie Winborn — right before the whistle was blown — and always expect to get away with it.

“He just waylaid him,” Douglas said. “I was like, ‘What the [expletive] is he doing?’”

This gritty mentality gave the Eagles exactly what they needed at the time. When Runyan arrived in 2000, they were a team in search of offense. Donovan McNabb was a young, developing quarterback in his first full year as an NFL starter. They did not have many big-play weapons in their passing game.

In short, they were lacking an offensive identity, and Runyan gave them one.

“He wouldn’t yell and scream,” Douglas said, “but when he put that helmet on, and it was time to play football, you were like, ‘Yeah, I see why Andy [Reid] got this [expletive]. Cause he crazy.’ He set the tone.”

Added former Eagles center Hank Fraley: “Everybody fed off of him. He brought that bully mentality.”

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With Runyan anchoring their offensive line, the Eagles reached the divisional round twice, the NFC championship game four times, and the Super Bowl in the 2004 season, in which they narrowly lost to the Patriots, 24-21. He retired after spending the 2009 season with the San Diego Chargers, and ran for office in New Jersey’s third congressional district in 2010.

Runyan won, and served two terms in the House of Representatives. He didn’t seek a third term. The former tackle liked the process of legislating, but he didn’t like all that came with it: The public posturing, the fundraising. So, in 2016, he reached out to Howie Roseman about a role in player engagement.

Roseman, the Eagles’ executive vice president of football operations, told him to write a job description. Runyan sent it to former Eagles teammate Troy Vincent, who used to be the head of player engagement for the NFL, and Vincent called him back.

“Are you interviewing for this job?” he asked. “I might have a position for you up here.”

Vincent wanted Runyan to be the head of discipline for the league office. He would analyze rules, make sure they were implemented, and if they weren’t, he’d hand out fines. Runyan accepted the job, and found it to be intuitive work. Despite existing in the gray area during his playing career — where any given hit could elicit a flag — he said that he had a very black-and-white understanding of the rules.

He knew where the line was drawn, and was not reckless in crossing it. This understanding has helped him in his current role even though the league’s rules are quite different now.

The NFL said it has made more than 50 changes to its rulebook since 2002. For example, when Runyan started with the Eagles, tackling a player by grabbing the inside of his shoulder pads (“the horse-collar tackle”) was legal. Now, it is not only a penalty, but it can draw a fine. These rule changes are a lot to keep track of, and Runyan’s job is to make sure that nothing is overlooked.

“People don’t realize, the officiating crews are like a quarterback,” Runyan said. “So depending on the formation, they have reads that they’re going through, progressions that they’re going through, and a lot of times they just move down to the next progression, and something happens when they take their eyes off of their first read.

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“I have the benefit of slowing it down and taking a look at all 22 players, so I can see that kind of stuff. And I can tell you, a lot of times, even when we watch it live on Sunday, there’s no flag on the field. And it’s like, ‘Alright, I’m already tagging that play because I know there was a foul missed here.’”

Every Sunday, Runyan and Vincent watch all the games, with an eye on potential fouls. They review them again on Monday with the NFL’s compliance team. Runyan sits with coaching supervisors on Tuesday to let them know what calls were missed, and on Wednesday, he and a few other NFL executives decide which plays are worthy of a fine.

Runyan has been careful not to show any favoritism — even to his own son. In 2022, he fined then-Packers guard Jon Runyan Jr. $5,215 for unnecessary roughness in a game against the New York Giants. Out of courtesy, Runyan gave Junior a heads up.

“He had attempted to do a leg whip earlier in the game, and I knew he was still asleep, so I just texted him,” Runyan said. “I go, ‘You know, this play in the second quarter, you tried to leg whip this guy, but you missed.’ And then 20 minutes later, I’m like, ‘You did it again, and you got him! You’ll have a letter by the end of the week.’”

He will dole out 300 to 500 fines a year, but his job is not all about punishment. It’s about protection and making the game safer. This is the part that most excites Runyan. Compared to Congress, where meaningful change takes a long time, football moves quickly. And the results of those changes can be life-altering.

He points to the “Use of the Helmet” rule as an example. It was tweaked a few years ago — “we added six words to it,” Runyan said — and so far, the league has seen fewer helmet-to-helmet hits.

These kinds of outcomes make those long days in the league office worth it. Runyan understands, firsthand, how violent football can be. He said he hasn’t suffered severe post-retirement injuries, but not all of his former teammates have been as fortunate. Former Oilers and Titans tight end Frank Wycheck estimated he had 25 concussions during his 11-year career. He died at 52 in 2023.

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Brian Westbrook, one of Runyan’s former Eagles teammates, said he believed concussions were the cause of memory loss that he began experiencing in his 30s. It’s likely that football players have sustained concussions for as long as the sport has been played. But for decades, the long-term health issues resulting from concussions were unknown. It wasn’t until the 2000s when that perception began to change, following the suicide deaths of multiple retired NFL stars.

Runyan was in the midst of his NFL career at that time. When he was playing, he didn’t think much about how he’d feel when he was 60. But his hope is that he can encourage more players to think about that now.

“Two of my former teammates are dealing with a lot of brain injury issues,” Runyan said, without specifying which teammates. “A lot of drug abuse and a lot of depression stuff. Legitimate issues. In and out of rehab, broke the family up, all that kind of stuff. And I try to communicate with them and talk to them as much as I can, but it is really difficult.

“And unfortunately, that was a part of the sport. But that’s why you’re seeing the NFL shifting towards playing safer, and creating rules like use of the helmet, that mandate that we get the head out of the game.”

This is admirable work, and Runyan plans to continue to do it. But that doesn’t mean his former teammates will stop teasing him.

“I love to see all of these guys transition into new careers,” Douglas said. “It’s great to see growth. But at the same time, I’m like, damn, this ain’t the [expletive] that I know. I remember what this [expletive] used to be. This dirty-ass playing [expletive].

“To hear he’s giving out fines … It’s like, man, God is good. Because if he can change, anybody can, you know what I mean?”