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Anthony Gharib, ESPN
The Baltimore Ravens were moving forward slowly.
They gained over 500 yards while holding the Seattle Seahawks to just 151, dominating for a 37-3 victory in November 2023. Lamar Jackson outpaced Seattle itself, accounting for 247 yards as it embarked on another MVP-winning season.
Baltimore had found a rhythm. The victory marked the Ravens’ fourth in a row, strengthening their case as a Super Bowl contender.
As Jackson wandered around the bench, something in the crowd piqued his interest.
Hours earlier, Gordon Cartnail, a Ravens fan, had approached Ravens equipment manager Jordan Brown with a custom rug for Jackson. Handmade from acrylic yarn, it depicted Jackson in a throwing motion. Cartnail made it with the intention of giving it to the Ravens quarterback in a game and told Brown about it.
“He’s my favorite player in the NFL. Basically, favorite athlete of all time,” Cartnail told ESPN.
Brown grabbed Jackson and pointed to Cartnail, who was grinning from ear to ear in the stands as he proudly flaunted the mat. Brown explained that Cartnail was going to give it to him, but before Brown could finish his sentence, Jackson interrupted him.
“I want that,” he said. “Tell his ass. I want that damn rug.”
And Jackson got that damn rug. Brown took it from the two-time MVP, who found Cartnail after the game, greeted him, signed his jersey and thanked him.
NFL Films posted the entire exchange in which Jackson saw the mat and it quickly went viral on social media. The elation in the quarterback’s reaction is exactly why Cartnail gets nervous.
The Houston Texans brought Cartnail to NRG Stadium to present a mat to CJ Stroud, who stopped in his tracks to acknowledge the work.
“The Texans texted me on Instagram from the Texans’ own page,” he recalled. “They said they wanted to do CJ, so I sent them a couple of ideas. We agreed on a photo and then I did the rug. They flew me out, I met them at the game, I talked to them on the sideline, and yeah, it was completely crazy “That was the first time I was on a plane and everything was incredible.”
Houston brought Cartnail on his birthday to deliver the mat during their wild card game against the Cleveland Browns last season.
Throughout their collaborations, Cartnail’s mission has remained constant: to spread positivity and honor athletes’ achievements in a unique way.
“If there’s anything I can do to bring someone some happiness, put a smile on their face, anything I can do to bring some kind of positivity to this world among all the negativity, I’m definitely up for it,” Cartnail said.
The mats serve as a way to solidify “everything you have done in a moment.” Whether it’s Jackson or Stroud’s throwing moves, their intent remains clear.
Cartnail described the work as “unique” because the rugs are handmade. A rug he made for Ravens running back Derrick Henry took him 36 hours.
The runner’s reaction gained strength, similar to Jackson’s. Ravens linebacker Marlon Humphrey also has one waiting for him.
The NBA contacted Cartnail about a mat for Los Angeles Lakers guard Bronny James during the Las Vegas summer league. ESPN contacted Cartnail for an article ahead of the Army-Navy game in 2023 that was shown on the set of “College GameDay.” Carmelo Anthony also pursued one, although Cartnail did not indicate whether anything came to fruition.
But no matter who receives your custom rugs, Cartnail strives for the same goal.
“I just want to put smiles and make smiles on people’s faces through the art that I make,” he said.
Known as “112rugs,” inspired by his birthday on January 12, he is known within the Ravens community as “the rug guy.” As a die-hard Ravens fan, most of his rugs have focused on Baltimore, but Cartnail isn’t opposed to making a rug for a rival.
“At the end of the day, business is business,” he said.
He stayed true to his word when he presented one to Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver Quez Watkins this season.
Cartnail, a Baltimore native, is currently a graduate student at Stevenson University in Maryland. He is studying criminal investigations in hopes of joining a police academy and eventually the FBI. It’s a far cry from the tufts and acrylic yarn she works with on the side.
“I feel like I’m here, there, everywhere,” he said. “But it’s like wherever God calls me, that’s where I’ll go.”
His education was the spark that influenced his career as a rug maker. While in school, he began considering business ideas and stumbled upon a YouTube video of someone creating custom rugs. Intrigued, Cartnail used a college refund check to buy supplies and taught himself how to knit by watching videos on social media.
When the materials arrived in March 2023, Cartnail, who had no prior art training, set about learning.
The basics turned out to be an immediate problem. The tufts didn’t work, the thread kept breaking, and many rugs ended up in the trash.
But the challenges didn’t derail Cartnail’s vision.
After long days of school and shifts at Home Depot, he returned home and worked on a rug.
“It was a couple of days where I thought… ‘I want to quit this and try something new,'” Cartnail said. “But I just stood my ground.”
The trial and error phase lasted every day for a month and a half. Finally, he learned the trade.
A mat for Baltimore Orioles catcher Adley Rutschman ended up being the first for a professional athlete. Shortly after, he collaborated with the Orioles on the mat for shortstop Gunnar Henderson.
From there, Cartnail’s business entered a word-of-mouth phase. While he worked to market himself to potential clients and navigate the business side of things, he was equally focused on ensuring the quality and authenticity of his work.
“I don’t want to sell people just bad quality rugs,” he said. “I want to make sure that if I do something, it’s something that people will enjoy and get their attention.”
The attention of Baltimore’s quarterback changed everything.
Two weeks before the viral exchange occurred, Cartnail ran into Ravens wide receiver Zay Flowers at a gas station. Cartnail told him about his job and Flowers requested one for his new house. Cartnail said he would do one in exchange for Flowers spreading the word, which the recipient agreed to do.
The Flowers and Jackson mats were made with the intention of giving them to each player. But Cartnail couldn’t predict the response to Jackson’s article. I had no idea NFL Films captured the moment.
Cartnail revealed that he was visiting his aunt when a friend informed him that the Instagram post had gone viral. After leaving to watch the video, he returned moments later and what had been a gloomy day was less so.
Their social networks stopped working. His follower count skyrocketed from 9,000 to 32,000 in a matter of hours. His parents advised him to soak it in and enjoy the moment. He still has thousands of unopened direct messages from that “surreal” day.
“I’m not saying I didn’t have anything [before]but I only had maybe one or two requests here and there that I had to fight for…'” Cartnail said. “To thousands and thousands and thousands of people who just flooded my DMs. “It was like an overwhelming feeling.”
The clientele began to arrive and the business grew. Cartnail finally started selling its rugs.
It’s been much the same this NFL season, highlighted by an emotional moment when he gifted a rug representing his late son to the mother of former Texans and Ravens wide receiver Jacoby Jones.
“That one was really special to me… Whatever I do, I always wanted to do something that’s special and can touch someone more than just seeing a custom rug,” Cartnail said.
