Buffalo Bills’ Mack Hollins Brings Barefoot Mentality to Buffalo

PITTSFORD, N.Y. — Mack Hollins loves being barefoot.

“Shoes are a tool,” Bills receiver Mack Hollins said. “You don’t walk around with a hammer just because you have to nail something every now and then. Why do you walk around with shoes just because you might step on something every now and then?”

But there is a method to this madness.

“I don’t do anything just for fun,” Hollins said. “Even if it seems like a good idea, there’s always a purpose.”

In fact, it was only eight years ago that Hollins tore his groin and went online to find a group of sports massage therapists from Australia called Melbourne Muscular Therapies who would later change his life forever.

“At the time, I couldn’t walk,” Hollins said. “I was ready to retire and they got me back on my feet in other ways. Body exercises and other training exercises, but walking barefoot was one thing. So for the next two or three years, I just trained barefoot, and then two or three years ago I thought, ‘What’s the point, I’m getting rid of the shoes.’”

Hollins now spends his time at Bills training camp in Pittsford, competing for a spot on that roster while encouraging his teammates to follow in his footsteps.

“What I do seems crazy, and then on the fourth or fifth day of camp, their feet hurt like crazy, they take their shoes off and they’re like, ‘Oh, I feel better.’ Why did you wait until day five? Why wait until your feet hurt to start working on them? Why not just take your shoes off? When you get home, you take your shoes off and you exhale because it feels good to have them off and you’re allowed to take them off, so take them off.”

Hollins is proving he’s the same kind of trendsetter off the field as he is on it.

“We have about 30 guys who are on tours who are now barefoot,” Hollins said.

Training camp at St. John Fisher continues Monday as the team prepares to practice with protective gear for the first time.