Luke Kuechly Joins N.F.L.’s Under-30 Retirees Club

“If you actually had to be like, ‘I can’t take this anymore,’ I can’t imagine how much worse they get,” Boone said. “This stupid game isn’t worth your kids watching you drool over yourself.”

Boone played for San Francisco in 2015, when two linebackers at opposite stages of their career — Patrick Willis and Chris Borland, a promising 24-year-old rookie — retired within a week of each other because of concerns about their safety. The news jolted the team, but Boone said teammates accepted it.

“It’s hard to get out of the league, because it’s addicting at times,” Boone said. “But if you knew your body couldn’t handle it, after working your whole life to get here, it’s admirable.”

An exquisite tackler, Kuechly approached the position of Ray Lewis and Dick Butkus with a modern sensibility, as stout against the pass as he was against the run. He was one of only four defensive players in the 2010s to make the All-Pro first team at least five times.

“There’s only one way to play this game, since I was a little kid, is to play fast and play physical and play strong,” Kuechly said in his video, which lasted more than three minutes. “And at this point, I don’t know if I’m able to do that anymore. And that’s the part that is most difficult. I still want to play, but I don’t think it’s the right decision.”

Chris Nowinski, the co-founder and chief executive of the Concussion Legacy Foundation, interpreted Kuechly’s comments to mean that he was thinking about his brain. He added later, in an email, that he thought concerns about C.T.E., or chronic traumatic encephalopathy, the degenerative brain disease linked to repeated head hits, played a role in some of the players’ decisions to retire at a relatively early age.

C.T.E. was diagnosed in 110 of the 111 brains examined by a neuropathologist, according to a study released in 2017. Researchers at Boston University announced in a 2019 study that tackle football players doubled their risk of developing the worst forms of C.T.E. for each 5.3 years they played.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/15/sports/football/luke-kuechly-concussions-retire.html?emc=rss&partner=rss