12
votes
Colts QB and former #1 overall pick Andrew Luck abruptly retires from pro football at only 29 years old
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- Title
- Andrew Luck retires: Colts quarterback stuns NFL with retirement decision at age 29
- Authors
- Jared Dubin
- Published
- Aug 25 2019
- Word count
- 1194 words
This is a huge development in the NFL world.
As a Jaguar fan, I can't say I'm sad to see Luck retiring. He's a phenomenally talented player and the Colts stroke of luck to go from Manning to Luck caused many of us Jaguar fans to be salespeople for Morton Salt especially given the Jaguars QB woes and inability to find their own franchise QB.
As a football fan, this is a somber reminder of the toll the sport takes on it's players. Jacksonville had it's own sudden retirement in linebacker Telvin Smith who took the season off for his mental health. Buffalo center Eric Wood retired at 31 after a neck injury. Ryan Shazier, of Pittsburgh, has been lucky just to walk again. Rob Gronkowski, the Patriots tight end, was retired at just 29 following multiple concussions. NaVorro Bowman was 27.
For all the flash entertainment the NFL provides, the human cost is real.
We often take it for granted that these guys are being paid millions of dollars to play a game. It's something every young football player aspires to. But the physical toll is now causing many players to retire much earlier than they would've. And the reasoning is always the same. "Get out now before it's too late".
Now many parents are refusing to let their sons play the game out of fear of the long term impact to their health. Across the country, the numbers of young players are falling. Not drastically, not yet. But noticeably. Parents are guiding their children to sports that take less of a physical toll.
Hell, I only played 5 years over high school and college and still feel the aches and pains at 31. My knee hasn't been the same since my ACL popped, despite having surgery for it. My memory is shit. I mostly chalk it up to just being absentminded but in my worst nightmares, the fear that maybe I developed CTE becomes a horrifying thought.
And the other injuries I witnessed.....I remember seeing one of my teammates, our running back, get carted off the field after his leg snapped in half. Literally. Snapped right at the midpoint of his lower leg. My brother broke his femur as a sophomore and my other brother tore all the ligaments in his ankle.
I cannot blame Luck for his decision and I think it's classless that some Colts fans were booing him after the news began breaking he had decided to retire. The Colts organization, by and large, did a piss poor job of finding players to protect Luck and he was consistently one of the most sacked QBs in the league.
This is so true, but the reality is that almost 4 out of every 5 retired NFL players are broke two years after leaving the league. Then they're on their own with a joke degree they got so they could play football and no real skills. Like you said, the sport takes an incredible toll on their bodies so they've probably got injuries to contend with too. All the while the owners and managers are taking in long-term money and not even paying taxes on it since somehow the NFL is a non-profit.
That is very true and something I should’ve touched on.
It’s a joke around the NFL that NFL doesn’t stand for National Football League but “Not For Long”
Not only is the average career only 3-4 seasons, but only a fairly small percentage will ever see the millions and millions someone like Andrew Luck or Tom Brady see/saw.
Most of them will be sent packing with whatever earnings and aliments they managed to collect and, as you mentioned, most will be bankrupt within a few years of being out
The NFL hasn't been a non-profit since 2015. Even before that, individual clubs were still taxed, but the league office itself wasn't. And as the article points out, the NHL and PGA are non-profits as well.
further reading
Thanks for that, but at the same time the vast majority of players who have been injured or left the league and gone broke did that while the NFL was tax exempt. I think that the tax bill of 2017 took away non-profit status from these organizations.
Not to miss your larger point, but Gronkowski was 29 when he retired.
Corrected
Internet lied to me
I audibly said "holy shit" several times when this notification came up on my phone.
To give some background to those who don't follow American football: Luck was drafted in 2012 regarded as the best QB prospect and most "sure-fire" draft pick since John Elway. He inherited a putrid 1-15 team and led the Colts to the playoffs every year he finished healthy. Unfortunately, he was plagued with injuries, and missed a majority of 2015 and all of 2017 with various ailments. full list here It didn't help that owner Irsay seemed allergic to drafting offensive linemen that could keep his multi-million-dollar QB protected, until last year.
What's most surprising is when he's choosing to do it. Players usually retire sometime in the offseason (March-August), for someone to do it in the third week of the preseason before the regular season starts, much less the quarterback and leader of the team, is unprecedented. This leads me to believe that his lingering injuries were much worse than were originally reported, and I think he'd rather enjoy life while he can still use both legs rather than play until he can't anymore.
Was also utterly surprised by this, both the timing and the earliness of it. I distinctively remember "Suck for Luck" campaigns in many fanbases, mine included, along with the rumors of teams doing it on purpose. However I do not blame him whatsoever. There are simply far too many reports, and evidence to support them, of teams rushing players that aren't ready to be back on the field to suffer some of the harshest bodily punishment I've ever seen.
Saw this article on the Wall Street Journal today, seems like a pretty good one: The Wisdom of Andrew Luck’s Retirement
Slate's most recent Hang Up and Listen podcast covered Luck's retirement, including perspectives from two other NFL players who retired "early", including Nate Jackson who wrote Slow Getting Up: A Story of NFL Survival from the Bottom of the Pile
https://slate.com/podcasts/hang-up-and-listen/2019/08/andrew-luck-nfl-kicker-tryouts-and-the-national-womens-soccer-league-on-hang-up-and-listen