How does an NFL player decide to retire? ‘I’m not done’

Inside the visitors locker room at Texas Stadium, Emmitt Smith stared at his No. 22 Arizona Cardinals jersey and, through tears, said to himself: “I’m in the wrong place.”

A season earlier in 2002, Smith became the NFL’s career rushing leader in his 13th year with the Dallas Cowboys. But after that season, owner Jerry Jones decided to release Smith because of salary cap constraints and to inject youth into the roster.

Smith, 34 at the time, said he was not ready to retire and wanted to continue playing. He signed a two-year deal with the Cardinals.

It was hardly the career-ending scenario he imagined.

“I’m bawling, crying like a baby,” Smith recalled of his return to the Cowboys’ home stadium, as a member of the Cardinals, in the Netflix documentary “America’s Team: The Gambler and His Cowboys.”

“I was supposed to be over there,” Smith said of the Cowboys’ locker room. “It broke my heart into a thousand pieces, and I realized right then and there. … I could not separate the game of football from the Dallas Cowboys. When I finished my contract with the Cardinals, I signed for a single day with Dallas.”

The end of an NFL career can be ceremonious or dysfunctional, and oftentimes, somewhere in between.

This offseason, countless NFL players — including enormous names such as Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Aaron Rodgers and Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce — will ponder the decision whether to continue playing in the NFL or retire.

“It’s definitely an individual decision, and it’s tough,” said Hall of Fame running back Barry Sanders, who retired at 31, just 1,457 yards shy of breaking the NFL rushing record. “It’s definitely a tough thing to grapple with … you always have to measure the fire in your belly.

“You have to measure your interest in the game… what’s going on with your particular franchise and team. … All those things that are valuable and important to you, and why you play. That’s how I would kind of sum it up. What’s important to you? What gets you up in the morning? Or can you see yourself continuing?”

Speaking with three NFL players — two of whom reversed their retirement course — meant gaining insight and perspective into their decisions, learnings that can be used by the next generation of pros who will walk off the field for the last time amid uncertainty or conviction.

Here are their stories:

Current job: Los Angeles Chargers safety
Playing career: 11 seasons (4 in Arizona, 3 in Baltimore, half a season in San Francisco, 1 in New York [Giants], 2 in Los Angeles [Chargers])

Jefferson thought he was ready to be done. So did many of his trusted confidants.

He was 31, his body ached, the injuries had accumulated — he missed the entire 2020 season because of a knee issue and had dealt with a Lisfranc injury during the 2022 season that caused him to miss nine games. He was unsure if the injury to his foot would ever feel good again.

His play suffered, and he realized following his only season with the Giants that he didn’t produce to his standard.

“I didn’t look or feel like who I knew I could be,” Jefferson said.

He consulted with close friends — those he loved — before coming to the conclusion it was time to retire in May 2023. He would move on to the next phase of life.

During his three seasons in Baltimore, Jefferson previously had conversations with executives within the Ravens organization about a post-playing career in scouting. It’s something he took interest in as a player and a role that would keep him in football.

His exact title for his first job after retiring from the NFL? Scouting intern for the Ravens.

“I just kind of veered off into that because I knew at that time I had good momentum to be able to do that and it’d kind of be an easy transition going back to an organization that I had been with,” Jefferson said.

In some ways, it was an easy transition. In others, it wasn’t.

Scouting was a role he had essentially done his entire playing career. Jefferson knew how to watch film and break down players’ strengths and weaknesses — that skill came almost naturally.

The unnatural part? Sitting in a cubicle for 12 hours a day, no offseason and rarely a day off. Then, logging his hours into an online system to receive a paycheck that amounted to a tiny fraction of what his game checks once looked like.

“Huge difference,” Jefferson said, still with a look of disbelief, of his paychecks. “You would look at what you get paid and I was, oh my gosh, that was humbling. I was like, ‘I’m literally just working 12 hours a day for free.'”

And on top of it all, as a scout, he seemed to have less time to see his family and children.

“I was still around the game, still around football, and a lot of the guys that were still on the team with the Ravens, they were my teammates for a long time,” Jefferson said.

But it was also different. As a scout, he was privy to confidential information — including about players, so he couldn’t continue to hang out with players. “I had to struggle with that, too,” he said.

And then, there was the struggle in going to games. “Just getting that feeling, being down on the field pregame, my jitters were going. … It was crazy. I just had the itch crazy.”

After a year in scouting, Jefferson’s next decision came easy. He knew who the competition was and what level he needed to play at. Jefferson knew he wanted to keep playing.

“My mind was kind of already fixated on, ‘Let me go home and train and see if I can do this,'” he said.

Jefferson returned home to San Diego and began to work out. He was out of shape, in part he said because of the cooking and baking of his coworkers’ spouses in the scouting department.

He worked out. He felt good. And then he drafted five different versions in his notes app of a text message that he eventually sent Joe Hortiz, once a Ravens executive who is now the general manager of the Chargers. After a year of retirement, he wanted to make a comeback.

To his luck, the Chargers had an open tryout on their schedule, and Hortiz invited Jefferson to attend. He ended up signing to their 53-man roster on June 14, 2024.

“Best decision of my life,” Jefferson said of returning to the game. “One day I’m going to show people all the texts I got when they found out I was trying to come back, even for my friends again, and remember how last time I kind of listened to them? Didn’t this time. They were telling me, ‘You’re washed. Just let it go.’ They’re like, ‘Bro, just let it go.'”

“I don’t ever hold it against them because they just don’t, they don’t know. They don’t feel what I feel. So I don’t hold it against them.”

Jefferson said he still loves those who told him to retire, but he admitted that listening to their opinions ranked among his biggest regrets.

“I kind of let other voices, opinions a little bit kind of like steer me like, now you’re done. These are my friends too. And I usually lean on my friends and stuff. I don’t necessarily make a decision based off what they say, but I do factor it into the decision and I was getting a lot of that too. … Love them … but you don’t always have to listen to them.”

Jefferson’s advice to any professional athlete who is undecided about whether to play or call it quits?

“If you can go, go. If you could do it, do it,” he said. “If you’re an NFL player, this is probably the only professional sport you can play and there’s really nothing better. … It’s one of the best decisions I have made in my life, being able to come back with a second chance.”

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Eric Weddle comes out of retirement to play for Rams

Adam Schefter gives the details behind 37-year old Eric Weddle’s decision to come out of retirement to play for the Rams in the postseason.

Current job: Rancho Bernardo (San Diego) High School football coach
Playing career: 14 seasons (9 in San Diego, 3 in Baltimore, 2 in Los Angeles [Rams])

Weddle remembers the phone call like it was yesterday.

Two years into retirement in 2021, the 37-year-old had just finished interviewing for the head football coaching job at Rancho Bernardo High School when he looked at his phone and saw a missed call from then-Rams defensive coordinator Raheem Morris, followed by a text message that read, “Hey, give me a call when you get this.”

Weddle called, expecting a conversation about scouting the Cardinals’ offense, who the Rams would be facing in seven days in an NFC wild-card playoff matchup.

But that wasn’t why Morris called.

“We’re just kind of chit-chatting and he goes, ‘You’re not fat and out of shape, are you?'” Weddle recalled. “I thought to myself, ‘No way is he going to ask me what I think he’s going to ask me?'”

In retirement, Weddle still watched every Rams game. He knew as they entered the postseason that injuries had decimated their secondary. What he said he couldn’t anticipate was that he, 749 days removed from playing his final NFL snap, would be the Rams’ best available choice.

“No, no, of course not,” Weddle told Morris. “I run around. I play basketball once a week, but I’m not what I was two years ago.”

“You think you could give us 15, 20 snaps on Monday night?” Morris asked.

Weddle laughed. “You’re joking right? Am I the best option?”

Morris responded: “You’re the only option.”

A father of four, Weddle two years earlier made the decision that the 2019 season would be his last.

After playing nine seasons with the Chargers and three with the Ravens, he signed a two-year deal with the Rams, but his family remained in San Diego — about 160 miles from the team headquarters in Thousand Oaks, where Weddle lived alone.

“It was a hard season,” Weddle said, noting the 9-7 record during that 2019 season and the feeling of a Super Bowl hangover that never quite went away. “Honestly, midseason, it was my first year that I was away from my family. For 12 years, I’d come home to my wife and kids and I’d be Dad. That wore on me a lot, if I’m being honest, and it was just like, I’m not a bachelor anymore. That doesn’t bring me happiness. So that wore on me.”

With one season remaining on his contract, Weddle said he felt like he could have continued playing, but was ready to move on.

“I was ready to be at home,” Weddle said. “I was ready to coach my son. I was fully content. I was happy.”

So his decision to come out of retirement when Morris called wasn’t an automatic one.

“I was coaching youth football at the time and had no desire to come back,” Weddle said.

He consulted with his family, talked to some players and also to then-secondary coach Ejiro Evero. He called Rams coach Sean McVay.

Weddle, who admitted nerves at the very thought of returning, said: “They asked me to do things that I knew I could do.”

And that sealed his decision. Weddle played in the Rams’ wild-card victory over Arizona six days later, and then subbed in again in a divisional win at Tampa Bay. He started in the NFC Championship Game against San Francisco. A month after coming out of a retirement, started in the Super Bowl LVI victory over Cincinnati, collecting a ring (and a torn pectoral muscle during the game).

“It was a very surreal five weeks of really empowering my mind to do something that I had never really unlocked before,” Weddle said. “And it was really exhilarating, if I’m being honest.”

Weddle’s decision to go back to retirement after that Super Bowl run came easy. He had no desire to make another run at a prolonged NFL career.

“If you’re not 100% mind, body and soul ready for the grind, then you need to retire because you owe it to your teammates, you owe it to yourself to be a hundred percent committed in everything that entails,” Weddle said.

“Especially as an older guy, you’re much more in a leadership position trying to help the young guys while also preparing to still give it your all on the field. It becomes such a mental grind as you get older.”

Current Job: Amazon Prime NFL analyst, “Fitz & Whit” podcast
Playing career: 16 seasons (11 in Cincinnati, 5 in Los Angeles [Rams])

After signing with the Rams in 2017, 12 years into his NFL career and at age 35, most offseasons would begin the same way, with a reporter questioning whether Whitworth had plans to retire or would continue on to another season.

Toward the end of the 2018 season, the retirement speculation hit a crescendo as the Rams made a Super Bowl run, potentially providing Whitworth the chance to earn a ring and go out on top.

“It was like, ‘Dude, I don’t feel like I’m retiring. Why do y’all keep saying that?'” Whitworth recalled. “It kept making me feel that way. … This belief that people keep putting [thoughts in] your head about you and whether it be your looks or your appearance or whatever, if somebody keeps bringing it up to you, it just makes you start to be self-conscious of it.”

The Rams lost 13-3 to the New England Patriots in Super Bowl LIII. After returning home from Atlanta the following day, Whitworth returned to his routine workouts.

His first thought after losing the game? Disappointment.

His second thought? “I’m not done,” he said.

Whitworth relied on the advice of Hockey Hall of Famer Wayne Gretzky, whom he ran into at a golf club in Los Angeles. “One thing I would tell you, make them rip that damn jersey off your back,” Whitworth recalled Gretzky telling him.

“After we lost the Super Bowl, I was just like, ‘Man, you know what? I’m just going to ride this thing out until I just flat-out feel like I can’t go anymore.”

His conversation with Gretzky, a four-time Stanley Cup champion who played 20 seasons and retired at 38, left an impact.

“To hear somebody who had that insane of a career be like, ‘Man, nothing ever feels like playing. Nothing ever feels like being in that locker room. Nothing ever feels like being with those group of people that you’re with fighting every day for something you’re all collectively going after. Nothing will ever replicate that. So don’t ever walk away from it until you’re ready,'” Whitworth said.

“So that stuck in my head. And I tell guys that story all the time when they ask me just my advice is like, ‘Man, make them rip it off your back. If you love doing it, man, make them rip that jersey off your back.'”

Whitworth played three more seasons, from 2019 to 2021.

And, as the Rams went into the playoffs in what would become his final season in 2021, the 40-year-old made a comment to his wife, “I said, ‘You know what? I think this is the last ride. Let’s go get it.'”

As it happened, the Rams returned to the Super Bowl and defeated the Bengals, the team Whitworth spent 11 seasons with before Cincinnati offered him a one-year contract — a sign to many players that the organization anticipated his career to soon be over.

Following that Super Bowl on Feb. 13, 2022, Whitworth met with McVay. They discussed the possibilities going forward for the veteran offensive lineman, and McVay emphasized that ultimately, what mattered to Whitworth and his family was all that truly mattered.

“I’m comfortable with what I told my kids after that game. I felt like it’s time for … I’m ready to just watch you guys do your thing.”

In retirement, Whitworth admitted the first season being out of the game was challenging — realizing the NFL keeps churning and carrying on, and players become footnotes.

“When you walk away, it feels like it moves on and you don’t. And so that next year, and I say all that to say that next year, I did feel real distant. I did feel left out and you do start to think, ‘Man, I could go play again,'” he explained. “And I think sometimes guys feel that because what they’re actually feeling is left out and they want to go prove they could still do it.”

Whitworth stands by his lasting piece of advice.

“Make them rip it off your back.”

ESPN’s Nick Wagoner contributed to this story.