One of the more stunning stories of this NFL offseason came Monday night when San Francisco linebacker Chris Borland — a rookie a year ago who looked to have a long career ahead — announced he was retiring due to health concerns.
Specifically, Borland said he worried about the effects of concussions and has decided to end his career almost before it began.
Though it’ll be tempting in some circles to frame this as just another chapter in what has been a pretty even offseason for the 49ers, this story obviously is much bigger than that.
Many former players have talked on this issue with increasing volume the past few years, as have some older NFL vets, helping give the issue of head injuries and other related health issues greater attention.
Most Read Sports Stories
But to see a 24-year-old up and quit is shocking, and will only put a greater spotlight on player health.
Related: Former Seahawk Grant Feasel’s family hit hard by football’s trauma
It’ll also be tempting for some to frame this as another young player retiring early, following the recent decisions of San Francisco linebacker Patrick Willis (who it should be noted is 30 — hardly young by NFL standards), Pittsburgh linebacker Jason Worilds, and Tennessee quarterback and former Washington star QB Jake Locker.
Those three retirements hardly fit the template of Borland, though.
Though injuries certainly contributed to Locker’s frustrating four-year career, I got no real sense that, in talking to his father, Scott, last week, he was necessarily worried about his long-term health.
Willis had feet issues but also had played a while (eight seasons).
Worilds is said to have left largely for religious reasons.
All of those are quite a bit different than a 24-year-old who appeared headed to the kind of career that would set him up financially for life before calling it quits after just one season.
Will this lead to major changes in the sport, or more players deciding to cut their losses and get out early?
One who thinks it could is longtime NFL agent Leigh Steinberg — the guy who Jerry Maguire was modeled after — who predicted recently that health issues could make it that upper- and middle-class kids never play football to begin with, their parents steering them to safer sports.
What will happen, Steinberg told the San Jose Mercury News, is that “the socio-economic demographics of the game will change, so that the same people who play will be those people who choose to box and pursue other such sports.”
That seems extreme to me given the money that is flowing through the sport.
Consider this tweet earlier Monday from the NFL Players Association:
Those kinds of numbers get only bigger every year as the salary cap increases — it has jumped $10 million each of the past two seasons and shows no real signs of slowing.
And that, along with all the other reasons people have played football for decades — love of the game, the impossible-to-replicate feel of a Friday night or Saturday or Sunday afternoon — I think will always prove too enticing for players to really leave the game in droves. I covered the Washington Huskies from 1997-2012 and talked to many players after their careers were over, and I never really found anyone who regretted having played the game. I often was surprised that no matter how disappointing someone’s career might have seemed on the face of it — a highly touted recruit who barely played, for instance— he almost always said he would do it again in a heartbeat.
But who knows? Maybe Borland’s decision someday will be seen as a turning point in football, the day when the powers-that-be either truly enacted reforms to make the game safer, or many would-be players turned to something else.
One player who said Borland’s decision wouldn’t change his view of the sport is Seattle middle linebacker, Bobby Wagner, who tweeted this Monday night shortly after the news broke:
https://twitter.com/Bwagz54/status/577675890164813826
Wagner’s tweet got a lot of attention, so he then followed up with a few more, including a tweet that has since been deleted in which he wrote, “It wasn’t a shot at Borland I respect his game and his decision. Everyone feels different. I’m speaking from my point of view.” He followed that with this tweet:
https://twitter.com/Bwagz54/status/577687592298135552
Wagner’s point, that everyone is motivated differently, is worth remembering when wondering if Borland’s decision will start a trend. Obviously, we’ll need to wait a few years to really know.
Another Seahawk — Russell Wilson — also weighed in Monday night but did so merely to wish Borland well, as the two played together for one season at Wisconsin: