By Tom Rock
The team is gone to do whatever they do during the bye week – Pete Kendall to drive his kids to hockey games, Kerry Rhodes to attend the Louisville-West Virginia game tonight, Bryan Thomas to just sit home and chill – but I was thinking about all the things that happened in the locker room yesterday, when Curtis announced his quasi-retirement.
It was just another reminder of the mortality of every career, a reality that often becomes clear during the cut-downs and releases of training camp but rarely surfaces during the season. That’s when the players are focused on winning games, not how long their careers will last. Until a bomb drops like it did yesterday, and suddenly people are talking about what it means to go out “on your own terms” or how you play every play “as if it were your last.”
It seems to me that these players spend their entire lives working to get into the NFL, and once they are here they then have to spend time thinking about how to get out. Or when to get out. Or what their “own terms” could possibly be.
“I think he’s very lucky in the sense that, right up until the end, he probably had the opportunity to go out on his own terms with his accomplishment and the money that he has made -- it’s hard to do,” Kendall said of Martin’s bow-out. “The overwhelming majority of players the league, either you love the game too much, or the money, or the camaraderie in the locker room and you just don’t know what to do. You’re scared of the other side.”
I'll write again on the other side of the bye weekend.
Comments (2)
I think each of the running backs that are in the mix right now have the potential to help the Jets, but from watching the first half of the season, I realized how spoiled the Jets (the team and the fans) were by having Curtis. He was a reliable back who could get the hard yards, eat the clock, pound it down your throat, and was a team player to the point that he played with an injury and pain. Not having him on the team will be tough, both strategy- and morale-wise.
Yeah, no Super Bowl, but when you consider how long the average NFL career is and how most players don't really have the success like he had, I think he should be proud of what he's accomplished.
Thanks, Curtis. Good Luck, man.
To blame Chad is clearly stupid. Against the browns the defense proved in the 4th quater how they should haave played the entire game. If they had it would have never been close. Also the play calling sucked. Misuse of Brad smith (did brian s ever consider faking to him...duh, ya think?)and was there a reciever with any separation the whole day? The play calling sucked the hole game on both sides of the ball. I love the new coaching staff but fellas dont blame this one on the players, if you took it for granted.