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When football is all that you’ve known for the majority of your life, what do you when that gets taken away?
That’s the question that has Philadelphia Eagles superstar center Jason Kelce thinking twice about his potential retirement from the NFL.
Kelce told former teammate Chris Long on Green Light podcast that he fears facing ‘a level of depression’ when he finally does step away from the game.
‘It’s exciting to think about possibilities, it’s exciting to be able to lose weight, feel good and not have to physically fight for my life every day,’ Kelce said. ‘It’s also daunting, it’s anxiety. At the end of the day, it’s the unknown.”
The 36-year-old went on to explain the feeling he gets in the lead up to a game.
“People ask if you get nervous for games but the only games I get nervous for are the first time – you don’t know what is in store. Ironically it makes you play better, it makes your senses alive. But that is kind of where it is at when you start thinking about retirement.”
Previous Reports Claim Jason Kelce Already Informed Teammates Of Retirement
Kelce reportedly told Eagles teammates that he was retiring following the team’s NFL Wild Card round loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
But he’s since refuted those reports.
Now Kelce explains that the fear of the unknown is what’s kept him from ultimately stepping away from the game.
“It is exciting, the possibilities. All of us were fortunate, we can go in a lot of different areas. But that is also very nerve-wracking, you don’t know what you are going to like until you are doing it,” he says of retirement. “You don’t know what you are going get fulfillment in until you are doing it, you don’t know what you are going to be great at until you are doing it.
“All that stuff is also in the back of your head. No matter how you handle it, no matter who you are, how well prepared you are to enter the next stage, everybody goes through a level of depression, really.”
Kelce will have to call it quits eventually. And when he does, he’s likely destined for a spot in Canton in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.