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Leagues and Governing Bodies

NFL Players Retiring Young Could Start A Trend With Long-Term Injury Concerns Mounting

When a slew of players in the span of five days "chose to leave the NFL at the age of 30 or younger, it sent shock waves throughout the league," according to Lindsay Jones of USA TODAY. Former NFLer Champ Bailey, who retired last year, said, "Twenty years ago, guys weren't informed about how this game affects you long term. But now there's so much information out there." Jones noted all the players who "announced their retirement this week had this in common: Each walked away from more money." 49ers LB Patrick Willis, who retired this week at age 30, had three years and nearly $20M in base salary remaining, while 27-year-old Steelers LB Jason Worilds and 26-year-old Titans QB Jake Locker -- who both retired -- "were each prepared to become unrestricted free agents for the first time." The league and NFLPA said that they "don't have precise statistics on when players choose to retire." NFLPA Communications Dir Carl Francis said, "It goes to show that our players have other interests. It's a product of our players taking advantage of post-career programs, and I just think it's a part of the process of players playing the game but also planning for their futures" (USA TODAY, 3/12).

READ & REACT: In N.Y, Michael Powell wrote in this "brutal and most lucrative of major American sports, players have tiny windows in which to earn their pile." Powell noted of Willis, Worilds, Locker and 31-year-old Dolphins CB Cortland Finnegan, "not all of them left because of injury, or the fear that one day their brains might flicker in and out like an old television set." Worilds, who made $10M last season, "is said to have forgone a new contract out of his desire to render service to Jehovah’s Witnesses" (N.Y TIMES, 3/12). Dallas Morning News columnist Tim Cowlishaw said these players retiring at young ages “could be as big a story as anything in free agency.” Cowlishaw: “Are these guys reading up on what’s happening in the world with concussions in the NFL? They’re not saying it, but it could be what’s happening.” ESPNW’s Kate Fagan said, “This is not an anomaly." She added, "We are going to start seeing this year after year and the NFL better be worried.” L.A. Times columnist Bill Plaschke said, “This is what happens when the players are armed with the knowledge that the NFL didn’t want them to have. This is why the NFL all these years tried to hide the concussions” (“Around The Horn,” ESPN, 3/11).

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