Rght guard Jalen Rivers, coming off a solid effort against Jets Pro Bowler Quinnen Williams, continues to impress as he prepares to make his sixth NFL start Sunday against the Bears (1 p.m.-Cincinnati’s Local 12) at Paycor Stadium.
Named as the Bengals nominee for the NFL's 2025 Salute to Service Award, Rivers sat down to talk with Bengals.com senior writer Geoff Hobson in this week's conversation. He talks about the impact of the military growing up in a Navy family, as well as learning on the job in the NFL that includes an impromptu chat with quarterback Joe Burrow.
The Conversation
GH: You've been named to rep the Bengals for the NFL's Salute to Service initiative. That must be quite an honor given your background.
JR: It's pretty special, I would have to say. I have three parents who were in the Navy for 20, even 30 years. My mom's been in 26. She was an E8. My stepdaddy was an E9 and did 30. And my dad, he was an E7 and did about 20, 21 years.
GH: Were they ever deployed together?
JR: No. One was always there. Thank God. Luckily, I had three parents. If my mom or stepdad had to go, I would go with my dad.
GH: You and some of your teammates helped install a ramp for a veteran this week. Why did you join?
JR: That means a lot. When (director of player relations) Eric Ball was asking about community service, he put me down for last week, when I was supposed to be playing with the kids. And then he mentioned something with veterans. So that raised my antenna up real quick. I want to do that instead of the Play 60. It means a lot, especially coming from a veteran household.
GH: You were basically raised by a Navy community.
JR: Yeah, I was originally in Virginia, and then we moved to Jacksonville, but surrounded by a lot of Navy. The families would do a barbecue or cookout on base, and you get to meet a lot of people in the military.
GH: Was the military a big impact on you, or was it just kind of on the periphery?
JR: It was big. Growing up, going to a lot of events on base. I really didn't know what my parents did, for real. I just knew they went to work. And then as you get older, you start to ask questions. Having parents in the military, it taught you how to go throughout life. They go through boot camp and stuff like that, and it really opens their eyes a lot, and then it teaches them how to raise their kids, and it taught me how to be a hard-working guy to get whatever I want.
GH: What do you think were some of the lessons that you learned from them?
JR: It's a lot. But I will say the biggest lesson is to never quit, even though it can get hard. I look at them, they raised a family. They had to be deployed away from family for nine, 10 months overseas. As much as you want to quit and be like, I'm done with this, I want to go with family.
No. You'll never quit. There are a lot of times throughout life, and not even just with sports, I'm like, you know, I want to be done with this school. As times get hard, and you just want to pity yourself, you can't. You have to push through because nothing in life is going to come easy. I've always been taught that.
GH: Was there a time when that kicked in, when you had to fight through something when you were on the verge of quitting?
JR: It never once crossed my mind, like I'm going to quit. When things get hard, you say I don't know if I keep doing this. But you snapped back out of it, and I'm going to do it. When I was younger with school, you wanted to get straight A's. I always was a perfectionist and set a high standard for myself. That comes with having your parents disciplining you and expecting the best out of you. And just me, too, just expecting the best of myself. But there were a lot of times I'd get a B and you're studying for a test. This is hard, and you get in the test and I would say, this is hard.
It will go to sports and when I was growing up, if I'm not getting the technique down or something like that. How can I do this? I'm not going to get this down. But I'm the type of person to do whatever it takes to get it down.