Zay Flowers Q&A: Supporting Veterans With Cleats, Playing With Lamar Jackson, & More

Week 13 of the NFL season is here, which means it's time for the NFL's annual My Cause My Cleats event. For games played during weeks 13 and 14, players around the league will wear customized cleats that celebrate a charitable endeavor close to their hearts.

For the first time in his young career, Baltimore Ravens star receiver Zay Flowers will be participating. Flowers is working with the Call of Duty Endowment, a non-profit founded by the video game company that focuses on "placing veterans into high-quality, high paying jobs." The Endowment was founded in 2009 and has assisted 140,000 veterans in the years since. In the Ravens' Week 13 matchup against the Philadelphia Eagles, Flowers will be wearing a custom pair of cleats designed by Dez Customz in honor of Shelby Ward-Cross, a military veteran who lives in Baltimore; before the game Flowers will meet Ward-Cross and gift him a pair of the custom kicks.

Flowers, in his second NFL season after getting selected by Baltimore in the first round of the 2023 NFL draft, spoke to Sports Illustrated about what it means to participate in My Cause My Cleats, his passion for supporting veterans of the military, and his excitement in partnering with the Call of Duty Endowment. He also touched on the Ravens' 2024 season, the fun of playing with quarterback Lamar Jackson, having running back Derrick Henry as a teammate this year, and more.

Sports Illustrated: How did you first get involved with the Call of Duty Endowment Fund?

Zay Flowers: My agent actually came to me and told me I had the opportunity to work with the Endowment. I’ve been playing Call of Duty since I was, what… I can’t even remember. Probably six, seven years old. My brothers introduced me to Call of Duty. And I always felt like it was a duty of everybody in the country to take care of the veterans when you have a chance because they protect us. They protect us from danger and do what they gotta do to make sure the country’s good. Any chance I get to help a veteran I always try to take advantage of the opportunity and the Call of Duty Endowment is giving me the chance to do that on a national level.

It’s always been my dream to do something with My Cause My Cleats. I’ve been seeing it for so long and I’ve been playing football so I get to see all the vets, I get to see everybody do it. Now it’s my turn and I get to do it with Call of Duty, a game I’ve been playing since I was a kid. It can’t get more special than that.

SI: Where did your passion for working with veterans originate?

ZF: I actually had this man named, we called him Papa Sosa. He was our basketball coach. He was in the army for 22 years and he used to tell us stories about him parachuting. I was probably, what, 11 or 12? He would tell us these stories and used to bring people in to talk to us that he had worked with. He used to teach us these cadences. Like he used to make us run around the field and go, “Left, left, left right left.” He would do that every day and he would discipline us using military terms and making the team come together. It started with him. I built it from learning from Papa Sosa. He was my first experience with someone in the military protecting our country.

SI: Have you been able to work with veterans before this?

ZF: This is my first time. I get to honor Shelby Ward-Cross, a vet. I get to wear the cleats and I get to give him a pair. I can’t wait to see the smile on his face and I can’t wait to see what kind of excitement he has. Because I know I’m going to be excited. I just can’t wait to see.

SI: What does it mean to be able to participate in My Cause My Cleats?

ZF: It means everything to me. It represents who I am. I’ve seen it for so long. At first I was thinking, like, everybody just got on different cleats and then when I really started learning about it I realized they were wearing cleats for a cause. That made it even better for me. There’s a lot of things in this world that people need help with and if you get to represent them on the biggest stage in America or in the world, that means a lot. It brings a lot of attention to what we need in this world.

SI: What other off-field work have you done that you’re passionate about?

ZF: I’ve done toy drives, turkey giveaways, stuff like that. Another one I like, my best friend’s mom had breast cancer. He always did something every year and I lived with them for a couple years. She’s a big part of my life. Breast cancer awareness has become more meaningful to me.

SI: Did you know about the Endowment Fund before partnering up for My Cause My Cleats?

ZF: You know what’s funny? We were in the locker room and Derrick Henry walked up to me. He was like, ‘Yo, Call of Duty wants to do some cleats for My Cause My Cleats!’ And I was like, ‘You better do that because that’s fire.’ Then a day or two later my agent called me and said the Call of Duty Endowment wants to work with you on a pair of cleats. I was like, for real? I thought they were only working with Derrick Henry types. But I’m like, hey, we’re doing that for real. No hesitation.

SI: Lamar Jackson seems like a really fun quarterback to play with. What’s your favorite part about catching passes from him?

ZF: I’m not even gonna lie to you. I don’t even know what my favorite part is. Sometimes, when you hear the crowd scream, like 'ahhh,' it’s a sack. Then I turn and it’s just him running around. So it’s like, alright, now I get to do my thing. Now I get to do what I’m good at. So I get to hop around, run around, get open and he just delivers the ball downfield no matter how—one-legged, off both feet, dropping back off the back foot, he does it all. I don’t know what the best part of his game is because every game he does something that ups his game, you know what I mean?

SI: It seems like you both love to improvise and when you can do that you reach new heights together.

ZF: We grew up playing the same ball. We’re from the same place. I see it. We just react and we go from there. I think it’s about where we’re from and how we play football and how everybody moved. We grew up playing the game so fast. Even when you’re young, everybody in Florida is way faster than they should be at the age they are. It’s teaching you how to move quicker so that every level you get to, everything gets faster but it slows down for you.

SI: The way last year ended was tough to swallow for everyone in Baltimore, losing to the Kansas City Chiefs in the AFC championship game. What's the mindset required as a player to bounce back after a defeat like that?

ZF: You play, what, 21 games? You go through injuries, you go through everything just to get to that point. To lose, it’s like, damn, I gotta do it all over again. We have to restart. We have to go 21 all over again just to get to the point you want to and go to the Super Bowl. But I put my head down and went back to work. We’re almost there now. Just put your head down and go because we’re almost at that point. It’s exactly what you think at the time. When you lose, you realize you gotta do it all over again. You gotta go through camp, OTAs, you gotta go through all this. And by the time you look up, you’re in Week 13 already.

SI: Football is obviously a very physical game but that mental side seems tough, too. (Quarterback) Tom Brady suited up for 23 years and at the end of every single season faced that challenge you mentioned of “we have to do it all over again.” Could you even imagine doing that for another 18, 19 years?

ZF: I don’t know about 18 or 19 years. I don’t know about that. I’m trying to be on the beach somewhere by then. But it’s addicting. I always say it’s addicting. I’m addicted to it. Soon as the season was done last year, I probably took a week and a half, two weeks off. Then I was going after that. There was no stopping. I’m addicted to football, I’m addicted to working out, I’m addicted to training, I’m addicted to everything I do for my job.

SI: What’s something about your job that you feel like fans don’t entirely grasp?

ZF: As a receiver, you can’t control when you get the ball. You can’t control your performance. You can’t control what a defense is going to play. They could play a coverage to just not let you get the ball the whole game. Then everybody in the crowd, everybody in the world is like, aw, Zay Flowers got locked up. Zay Flowers ain’t catch a pass. Like, bro, they had three people watching me, it’s Cover 2. I ain’t never gonna catch a pass in Cover 2. So it’s like understanding the game. The fans just want their fantasy points or they betting on you. Even if you do something right, you did something wrong. I don’t even pay attention to that side of football.

SI: Where’s your mind at when you have those kinds of games, where you just have no shot of getting the ball most of the night for reasons outside your control?

ZF: I mean… We got Derrick Henry. We got Lamar Jackson. You want to put all your attention on me? Let them two go ahead and finish the game for me. I do not mind leaving the game for them. I do not mind seeing those boys ball. I do not mind any of that. You want to put your attention on me? You gotta worry about them two. We got weapons.

SI: Derrick Henry is definitely a weapon. This is your first year playing alongside him. What’s it been like?

ZF: The first thing everybody thinks of him is that he’s so serious. But he’s goofy. All our personalities really match on the offense. (Tight end) Mark Andrews is the serious guy. He’s a serious person. Then you got me and Lamar that just play around all day. Me, Lamar, and (tight end) Isaiah Likely, we play around all day. Play in the huddle during the game, play on the sideline during the game, play before the game. It’s a perfect match of serious and playing around, where we feel comfortable with each other and we go out and trust each other.