Holy crap! 49er’s linebacker Chris Borland just announced his retirement at age 24, one year into his NFL career. ESPN’s Mark Fainaru-Wada and Steve Fainaru reported it here, and that is easily the best injury-related piece you’ll read this month. I can’t recommend it enough.
Chris Borland was already on my injury radar, as I wrote this about him pre-draft, and, even after his huge rookie season, I was planning on revisiting his ongoing health concerns. My concerns were all in regards to his shoulder injury history though, nothing to do with the concussion concerns which led Borland to call it quits.
That piece has plenty of great, honest, intelligent quotes from Borland, all of which outline how seriously he took this decision. For my money, the best was this thought he had after playing through what he thinks was a concussion:
What am I doing? Is this how I’m going to live my adult life, banging my head, especially with what I’ve learned and knew about the dangers?
Before anyone gets all stupid macho and throws around jock-talk about, “passion,” or, “dedication,” they should really read the piece. Borland is an intelligent man who thought this through and researched the hell out of it before making his decision. Any players that react poorly to Borland’s decision in the following days might want to consider that perhaps Borland knows something that they do not.
