Jonathan Owens isn't the only NFLer with an Olympic significant other.
Arizona Cardinals wide receiver Michael Wilson is juggling his schedule to watch as much of his fiancée, Sophia Smith, star on the U.S. women's national soccer team, as she competes in the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris. In the throes of training camp, Wilson watched some of the first half of both of Smith's games before heading out to practice, .
Unlike Owens, Wilson didn't travel to France to watch in person, citing the importance of this camp for a second-year player.
"It's too important of a year to miss," he said, adding he might have asked out of camp if he were a fifth- or sixth-year vet.
Wilson has experience rooting for Smith from afar after last year's FIFA Women's World Cup in Australia and New Zealand. At least with only a nine-hour difference between Arizona and Paris this year, he's able to catch a little more of the action.
"It feels like the same thing as last year," he said. "So, it prepared me big time."
Wilson and Smith met as freshmen at Stanford. The Cardinals receiver proposed in June.
The 23-year-old Smith is a rising star on the USWNT, scoring two goals in their most recent match against Germany. Wilson isn't surprised that Smith is becoming a household name.
"I don't think anyone's shocked," he said. "It's not like she was some underrated player that took the world by storm. She'd been in the national team [program] since she was 16. Now she's kind of coming in her own and realizing, like fulfilling the prophecy.
"But it's really cool to see because there's a lot of people that get nodded as like the next great, the chosen one. Not all the time it works out. But I'm not shocked that it's happening for her because not only is she extremely, extremely talented, like rarely, rarely talented, kind of like how (Cardinals rookie wide receiver) Marvin (Harrison Jr.) is, and some of the greats are, but she also has the love for the game and does all the little things off the field. So, the sky's the limit."
It's rough that Wilson has to watch from afar, but the second-year wideout is trying to carve out a larger role in the Cardinals offense in 2024 after showing flashes during his rookie campaign.
