The Wi-Fi wasn’t working when Devon Kennard’s wife went into labor. He was on a flight back to Detroit from a Lions preseason game in Oakland, mid-training camp, with no way to text her. He had no idea whether his daughter would be born before he landed.
“It was a whirlwind,” Kennard told PFN’s Unguarded Access at Pro Athlete Community’s Accelerate Event in Phoenix, a multi-day conference designed to prepare players for their post-NFL careers. “Having a kid during in the middle of season is tough. But the biggest blessing in the world.”
His older daughter is 7 now. His younger daughter is 5. Kennard says those numbers out loud the way someone admits a figure they don’t quite believe.
Devon Kennard and Khalil Herbert on Becoming NFL Dads Mid-Season
Khalil Herbert got luckier with the calendar. His son was born on a Friday before the Chicago Bears’ last game of the season at Green Bay. Short flight, short turnaround. He was back in time.
“It was amazing. It was life-changing,” Herbert said. “I feel like it helped me just get my ducks in a row a lot quicker, start thinking about the future, planning for them and things I got to do for them.”
Kennard’s other birth story landed harder. He and his wife had danced their first song together at his best friend’s wedding when she went into labor that night. Their daughter was born the next day. Her first Mother’s Day came on the road, the family driving across the country to the mountains with a 7-month-old strapped in the back.
“Life does not get any easier,” Kennard said. “But it gets better.”
‘Put the Phone Down’: The Hard Lesson Both NFL Dads Keep Re-Learning
Cam Mellor, the Unguarded Access host, told Kennard and Herbert he doesn’t have kids yet and asked for their best advice. Kennard didn’t hesitate.
“Show up,” he said. “I can’t believe my oldest is 7 already. As they grow up, you don’t get that younger version of them ever. They evolve and change. You can get so locked up and occupied into what you got going on professionally, personally, whatever. There’s nothing more important than those kids, because the time goes so fast.”
His example was the park.
“You don’t feel like playing, and you’re at the park, and you tell them to go play on the park, and they ask you to play with them,” Kennard said. “Keeping in mind in a year or two, they’re not going to want you to. They’re going to say, ‘I can do it by myself.'”
Herbert took the cue and ran the same play with different details. His son keeps reminding him of himself.
“My mom laughs at it all the time, because he’s just like me as a kid. Doesn’t listen. He just thinks everything’s funny,” Herbert said. “I’ll be like, ‘Kayen, put it down.’ He’ll look at me, smile, take off running. I’m like, ‘All right, now I got to go chase this kid through the restaurant.'”
MORE UNGUARDED ACCESS: The Candid Ty Montgomery Story You’ve Never Heard
The deeper advice came out in Herbert’s voice the same way it had in Kennard’s.
“Put the phone down. It’ll always be there. Whatever you got going on will always be there, but they’ll always be this young for this amount of time. You got 18 years with them after that, like, they out the house, doing whatever they got to do. So this short time of their life, just being there, being present.”
Then he summarized it in five words.
“Be there. Doesn’t matter what it is, just be there.”
The NFL calendar doesn’t bend for any of it. Kennard, retired since October 2023, can finally enjoy his dinner now. Herbert, on his fourth team in a calendar year with the New York Jets, is still in the trenches of it. Both men knew what was sitting on the other side of Cam’s question, and neither one tried to make the answer sound easier than it is.
