Antwaan Randle El Says If He Could Do It All Over Again He Would Never Have Played Football
(Source) Former Washington Redskins and Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver Antwaan Randle El is perhaps best remembered for his 43-yard touchdown pass in Super Bowl XL that aided a Pittsburgh win over Seattle, but a decade later, the physical and mental drawbacks have been so significant that he regrets ever playing in the NFL.
“If I could go back, I wouldn’t” play football, he told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in a Steelers-themed project posted Tuesday. “I would play baseball. I got drafted by the Cubs in the 14th round, but I didn’t play baseball because of my parents. They made me go to school. Don’t get me wrong, I love the game of football. But right now, I could still be playing baseball.”
Randle El, who played in Washington from 2006 to 2009 between two stints in Pittsburgh, said he regularly experiences trouble walking down stairs — “I have to come down sideways sometimes, depending on the day” — and has serious memory lapses.
“I ask my wife things over and over again, and she’s like, ‘I just told you that,’ ” Randle El told the Post-Gazette. “I’ll ask her three times the night before and get up in the morning and forget. Stuff like that. I try to chalk it up as I’m busy, I’m doing a lot, but I have to be on my knees praying about it, asking God to allow me to not have these issues and live a long life. I want to see my kids raised up. I want to see my grandkids.”
In 2013, Randle El and three other former players filed a lawsuit against the NFL in a Manhattan federal court alleging the NFL “has done everything in its power to hide the issues and mislead players concerning the risks associated with concussions,” according to The Village Voice. In 2015, after that suit was consolidated with more than 2,000 others, he was one of more than 5,000 players that received more than $900 million in settlement money from the NFL to resolve a concussion lawsuit.
I’m definitely not in the “Football won’t be around in 20 years” camp but these type of stories absolutely matter and if you’re a football fan who loves the game they should scare you a little bit. This isn’t some 70 year old guy talking about his knees and some headaches. Antwan Randle El is 36 and he can’t remember his wife’s name, that’s fucked up. The question is what is the solution? The NFL has obviously gotten way better with safety. 10 years ago a guy like Antonio Brown plays this past weekend in Denver, no doubt in my mind. Now he has doctors monitoring his safety and advising him on how to best proceed without doing significant long term damage. So is it money? I actually do think NFL contracts should be guaranteed. The NFL makes money hand over fist, billions upon billions, but if you get hurt and cut you’re shit out of luck. Just look at this chart on Jeff Samardzija’s career earning potential from this article HERE
That’s pretty stunning. If you had the choice to play baseball or football at a high level why would you ever play football? It makes no sense. So as much as I don’t think football is going anywhere, and that it’s an industry that fans will never lose interest in, these stories aren’t just nothing. They aren’t just throw aways where you can say “they know the risk”. Of course they know the risk, but the point is it’s hard to fully understand the risk when you’re a young invincible 20 year old. If a 36 year old, not that far removed from the game is a walking talking embodiment of the risk, it changes things. It makes it a lot more real and a lot more scary. And even if the game isn’t going anywhere, if you get enough stories like this, or Chris Borland’s retiring at age 24, eventually something will change in some way and anything who doesn’t see that coming is blind.
That touchdown pass in the Super Bowl was so awesome. Back when Cowher would do one trick play a game guaranteed and teams still wouldn’t stop it. I had 1k on the Seahawks as my “season bail out play” while in college. I’ve been dumb for a very long time.