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Is Pat McAfee's retirement a sign of things to come for the NFL?
Kicker Pat McAfee of the Indianapolis Colts, seen here introducing the rock band O.A.R. at the Coors Light Carb Day during the 2015 Indy 500 Festival, announced his intention to leave football and join the online media world today.  Joey Foley/Getty Images

Is Pat McAfee's retirement a sign of things to come for the NFL?

When the news that Indianapolis Colts punter Pat McAfee chose retirement at 29 over postseason surgery in order to pursue a career in entertainment, many in the NFL as well as fans were shocked to say the least. However, McAfee's choice to quit football seems to be endemic of a growing movement of players who are now choosing life over a future fraught with injury and further debilitation.

At first glance, it might be easy to shrug off McAfee's retirement because as a kicker, his workload and general level of punishment doesn't quite compare to, say, a running back or linebacker, but in reality, the training regimens are relatively similar, particularly when it comes to conditioning. It takes a lot to ramp up for each season, and at some point, one has to question if the punishment is worth the prize.

As players learn more about the dangers of the degenerative brain disease chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), brought on by repeated concussions, it's becoming far easier to walk away from a game which makes its players instant millionaires, largely because now, more than ever, the value of health outstrips that of money, hard as it might be to believe.

In fact, in the past three seasons alone, more elite-level players like D'Brickashaw Ferguson, Patrick Willis, Calvin Johnson and Marshawn Lynch chose retirement over the grueling demands of remaining in a league with a 100 percent rate of injury. 

Just 10 short years ago, it would be unheard of to see a player in their prime willingly walk away from the NFL for reasons other than a career-ending injury, but now players are looking at a future without football and many are fine with it.

In the case of McAfee, he reportedly planned his retirement early in the season, deciding that his success with standup comedy and radio were more than enough to pry him away from the game he loved. At 29, he certainly had more than a few seasons left in the tank, especially as compared to former teammate Adam Vinatieri, who at 44, will enter his 22nd year in the NFL next season.

While McAfee has a plan, which includes joining the infamous site Barstool Sports in a variety of roles, to include podcasts and blogs, many departing players aren't leaving the league for another career, but rather because they simply want to remain ambulatory well into retirement.

When Ferguson saw Concussion, a fictionalized account of Dr. Bennett Omalu's discovery of CTE, it shook him as a player, leaving him feeling betrayed by the very league that brought him fame and fortune. In an article he penned for Sports Illustrated, Ferguson expressed his frustration, saying, "Since seeing Concussion, I can’t avoid wondering if I am in danger of experiencing some degree of brain injury when I am done playing. It couldn’t happen to me, right?"

Chris Borland, a former linebacker for the San Francisco 49ers and a standout at Wisconsin, delivered a similar shock as McAfee by retiring from the league after his rookie season, saying that he feared getting brain damage if he continued to play. With that decision, he left behind a contract set to pay him $2.35 million, but as he told ESPN, "If there were no possibility of brain damage, I'd still be playing."

If this is where we are in 2017, with players becoming far more self-aware about their health versus trading their bodies in for riches, what does that mean for the NFL? The league, with revenues in 2016 projected to reach upwards of $13 billion, things have never been better for the Shield, however, if your favorite players start a mass exodus from your favorite teams, what will that mean for the bottom line in another decade?

For now, men like McAfee, Ferguson and Borland are anomalies, and in that, the NFL remains safe, at least today. Injury will always be a part of football, but as even former players say that they would hesitate letting their kids play the game that made them famous, it's hard not to see a coming tsunami that could threaten the state of the game as we know it.

Professional football is a game that's endured many changes, from leather helmets to Astroturf, innovations and inventions all tried to keep up with the increasing demands of our most violent game, but one has to wonder if we're coming towards an impenetrable wall, an area where the game becomes too much for any innovation to shield players from the gruesome effects of traumatic brain injury, or crippling of limbs. 

Many players will say without hesitation that the game they loved is one they played without regret. For those with a competitive spirit, that's not hard to believe, but if we've come to the point where these same players have to be saved from themselves, at least the ones who don't choose to walk away on their own, how long does the NFL truly have left?

To be sure, it's hard to say, but football is still the most popular game in America for a reason, and fans will likely stay glued to the screen or their stadium seats come hell or high water, until the last gladiator limps (or is carried) off the gridiron once and for all. 

Until then, the best we can hope for is that the smartest players are smart enough to know when to retire, and the rest can be protected long enough for them to leave on their own two feet and enjoy a retirement with as little pain as possible.

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