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Good wide receivers are worth their weight in gold in the NFL. In some cases, even if they have already retired.
For 17 years, all with the Arizona Cardinals, Larry Fitzgerald was one of those wide receivers. The future Hall of Famer had an astounding 1,432 receptions for 17,492 yards and scored 121 touchdowns in his NFL career.
The crazy thing is, despite playing for almost two decades and being out of the game since the 2020 season, he only just turned 40 on August 31st.
So, even after he retired, there were some people out there who thought Fitzgerald might still have had some gas left in the tank.
Among those people were current Kansas City Chiefs head coach Andy Reid and another future Hall of Famer, Tom Brady, who both tried to lure him out of retirement to join their teams.
Fitzgerald caught over 100 passes in five different seasons and more than 90 passes in eight, so it’s easy to see why both Reid and Brady would want him on their teams, even after retiring.
“I’ve tried to hire Larry 15 different times,” Reid said on the Let’s Go podcast this week.
“I begged him even when he was out for a year to come back. Come on!”
“That makes two of us,” said Brady.
“I tried to recruit Larry many times! And he kept shooting me down.
“I’m like, nobody, most guys get excited,” Brady continued. “Fitz is like, ‘No, I’m good.’
“I said, ‘Wait a minute!’ Hold on. We gotta get you in some big games, gotta get you at least… and he said, ‘No, I think I’m pretty happy with where I’m at.’
“He made a good decision.”
https://youtube.com/shorts/qxZwfBniR08?si=JQsoFWnfHr8ibrzv
That’s probably an understatement.
Since retiring, Larry Fitzgerald, who earned a Business Degree from Harvard in 2020, has been on the Board of Directors of DICK’s Sporting Goods, Tempus Ex Machina, First Move Chess and Boys and Girls Clubs of America. He has also been an owner or part-owner of Greyson Clothiers Sportswear, the NBA’s the Phoenix Suns, the Rajasthan Royals Cricket Team, the Arizona Drive Major League Pickleball team, Larry Fitzgerald Enterprises, and the Larry Fitzgerald Foundation. Plus, he works for ESPN as an analyst and co-hosts the Let’s Go podcast with Brady and Jim Gray.
Oh yeah, he was also the Executive Chairman of the Arizona Super Bowl Host Committee in 2022.
Dude has been busy.