It’s a cliché, but it’s god’s truth: every Sunday we are involved in the physical equivalent of a car crash. Sometimes more than one. I heard NFL owner Terry Pegula, of the Bills, mock the idea of players’ getting brain injuries in our sport, saying, “You can be driving your car and get a concussion in an accident. I don’t want to discuss the relevance of it in football.” This is so ignorant. The NFL consists of voluntary car crashes, one after the other, for the entertainment of others. Players say that they’re willing to “die on the field” and people cheer. It’s self-destruction, but the “warrior code” is real. It might sound like bullshit, but the people who say it aren’t bullshitting. The “warrior code” can kill you. It’s unique to football, which is part of the appeal. I watch the NBA and guys sit out indefinitely for a pulled hamstring, but I’ve seen guys play through stuff you could never imagine a human being playing through. Forget concussions. Everyone plays with concussions. But to see people play entire games with bone on bone in their knees or dislocated shoulders, torn ligaments, thumbs, fingers, hips, all kinds of things, is to see a mix of brave and crazy.
I’ve seen players go out there handicapped, and then they pay the price. Too many guys I see getting crippled in slow motion, and I feel like I can see their future. Watching guys go through those injuries, get pushed to levels their bodies cannot handle or sustain, you understand why so many players suffer when it’s all done. I tell myself that when I’m working out, I’m not just prepping for next season but for retirement. I want to stay lean and have good eating habits now, so I can function later in life.
This is where the brotherhood can hurt you. You are going to have brothers you love to death, who try to push you to play through an injury. They say, “We need you.” And you want to be there for them. It’s not some coach telling you this in a speech he stole from Al Pacino in Any Given Sunday. It’s your teammates. Organizations can use the brotherhood mind-set against you as well. They’ll coax you to take that cheaper contract or come back earlier from injury. They go for your most sensitive spot: the desire to be with the people you care about long term. But if you get hurt, your locker will be cleaned out by breakfast or if you’re lucky, lunch.
Then there are people in the brotherhood who urge you in the other direction. They say, “You need a life. You have a family, man, you’ve got kids. Don’t come back unless you’re ready. Do not step on that field unless you are ready to go. Don’t do it. Don’t trust any doctor but the one you hire.” In the words of Hall of Fame linebacker Mike Singletary, “Can’t do it. Won’t do it!” That’s what a real brother says. Don’t go out there, unless and until you’re ready. We need more brothers to look out for each other in this way.
You look around the locker room, and so many players moving toward the end of their careers are walking around with mighty physiques, but on the inside they are torn apart. It’s not just their bodies. Mentally they’re not there anymore, because for their whole lives, sport has defined them: everything they have in life is because of this sport. People love you because of the way you jump and run; when you lose it, you no longer mean anything. That’s the hardest part: to be so alienated from your own body that you look at your physique, feel in your bones that it can’t do what it was once able to do, and know that your value and worth in the eyes of others will be diminished. The question is, how can we free ourselves from having our physical ability be the final word on how we see ourselves?
But we as players don’t operate this way, and that’s why so many experience intense suffering in retirement. People’s minds are broken not just because of concussions but because they don’t understand that an athlete needs to build up an independent sense of worth and purpose so there’s something to move on to after that last game check. It’s the toughest task, because while you’re playing, fans and management and coaches don’t want you to evolve. They want you to be the same fucking person you were when you got signed as a rookie. Why do people feel like athletes need to be stuck in their place in life? The only thing you can do is run fast, jump high, and sell some products. You can’t go out and do other stuff. This can make retired players in their thirties already feel empty and isolated—you wake up in the morning and don’t even know how to start the day. It opens you up for depression, drug addiction, and not wanting to live.
Today I’m going to work on this book, take my kids to the beach, attend a meeting about building a school in Africa, and run a science program for kids. You have to be able to do projects that impact the world or you’ll devolve into dust. You’ve got be a human being. Enjoy yourself. It’s your life!
Martellus is my role model for this. He creates children’s books, he runs a business and develops apps. Ever since we were kids, he’s been creative. And entrepreneurial—he used to collect the bikes we got for Christmas, get out tools, take the bikes apart, and sell the parts. It was amazing. He took them all to school and sold
