How Joe Cardona went from almost-pilot to Patriots long-snapper

Cardona changed his career path a number of times before he was finally encouraged to commit to the NFL full-time, leading him to the Patriots.

New England Patriots long snapper Joe Cardona (49) reacts during the second half of an NFL football game against the New York Jets on Sunday, Oct. 27, 2024, in Foxborough, Mass. The New England Patriots defeated the New York Jets 25-22. AP Photo/Greg M. Cooper

By Khari D. Thompson

November 13, 2024

2 minutes to read

If Joe Cardona had his way coming out of the Naval Academy, he would’ve flown planes, not snapped passes on field goals and extra points. But fate and some timely advice from the U.S. Armed Forces steered Cardona to Bill Belichick and the Patriots.

The Patriots long snapper, who also serves as a lieutenant with the Naval Reserves, joined “The Quick Snap” podcast on Veterans Day and said his father’s career in avionics inspired him to pursue a career in a cockpit first and foremost.

“I wanted to go be “Maverick” [from the Top Gun movies],” Cardona said, saying he grew up idolizing the Tom Cruise character from the original 1986 film Top Gun. “I wanted to fly jets. That’s the life I wanted. I thought it’d be cool.”

So when Cardona underwent his pre-commissioning physicals during his junior year at the Naval Academy, he planned to select aviation as his service path.

There was just one problem.

“My sitting height was too tall,” he said. “I’m only 6’2”, but my torso length is just freakishly long, I guess. So my sitting height disqualified me from flying jets.

“I turned to the doctor, and I remember he’s like, yeah, you’re over by a quarter of an inch. … I look at him, and I’m like, ‘Well, what’s the big deal being over by a quarter of an inch?’ He basically goes, ‘Well, if you have to eject from your plane, not all of you is going to make it out. I was like, Roger that,” he added with a laugh.

https://twitter.com/quicksnappod/status/1856377047737569580

That re-evaulation period of Cardona’s life goals coincided with the start of his junior season with the football team, when he began to see a path to the NFL as a long snapper.

“I made the decision, ‘Hey, I’m going to get big and strong, put myself in position to be physically an NFL player, and then, I would pursue the Marine Corps at that point,'” he recalled. “If I’m the same athlete as a professional football player, I should be able to be a pretty good Marine.”

So Cardona pursued both the NFL and Marine Corps paths simultaneously going into his senior season while still snapping for the Midshipmen. That’s when the Marines stepped in: “When push came to shove, the Marine Corps said, ‘Hey, you got this football thing going on. You probably should focus on that.'”

So he did, and Bill Belichick, whose father Steve spent 34 years coaching at the Naval Academy, drafted Cardona in the fifth round of the 2015 NFL Draft, making him the fourth long snapper ever to be drafted (and the second Belichick had selected after Jake Ingram in 2009).

The Navy, meanwhile, took Cardona in “with open arms” and delayed his commission until the 2016 season, when he worked over the weekends as a Command Duty Officer in Rhode Island.

He was then promoted to lieutenant in 2019 and currently serves as the department head of Maritime Security Squadron 8 in Newport. Cardona also received the NFL’s Salute to Service Award for the 2023-24 season.

While he didn’t become the next “Top Gun,” the two-time Super Bowl champion has made quite a career for himself while serving his country at the same time.