Former NFL receiver Antwaan Randle El regrets ever playing football

[DaKCMan AP]

Former NFL receiver Antwaan Randle El regrets ever playing football

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.

Since retiring in 2010, Randle El helped to found the Virginia Academy, a Christian high school in Ashburn, where he serves as the school’s athletic director. Originally, he was a proponent for the development of a football program at the school, but he has no remorse after it was cut two years in when it became too expensive.

“The kids are getting bigger and faster, so the concussions, the severe spinal cord injuries, are only going to get worse,” he said in the interview. “It’s a tough pill to swallow because I love the game of football. But I tell parents, ‘You can have the right helmet, the perfect pads on, and still end up with a paraplegic kid.’

“There’s no correcting it. There’s no helmet that’s going to correct it. There’s no teaching that’s going to correct it. It just comes down to it’s a physically violent game. Football players are in a car wreck every week.”

Randle El is not naive to the profitability of the sport or the impact it has on society, but with the concussion and life-long injury issues getting more attention than ever before, the nine-year veteran thinks the end may be near.

“Right now, I wouldn’t be surprised if football isn’t around in 20, 25 years.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...ying-football/

[Beef Supreme]

Originally Posted by DaneMcCloud

I don't think that people knew to what extent is damages the brain.

There's a big difference between guys that played from the 1920 to the late 1980's. The speed, strength and mass were completely different than from around 1990-to present due to nutrition, training, performance enhancing drugs and salaries.

Salaries play the biggest role because guys are no longer required to sell insurance or work on the farm or any other financially motivated work because their earning cover them for a year (or more).

I don't think that Randle-El is "whining". I think he's stating that with the full information (which the NFL withheld), he likely would have chosen baseball over football.

That's going to be a trend in coming years unless the NFL and NCAA don't make further changes to the game. It's going to become like boxing, which used to be America's favorite sport in which Heavyweight Championship Fights aired regularly on Network TV, to becoming a "fringe" sport.

Some see the writing on the wall, some don't. But when Super Bowl winning players are saying "I wish I hadn't played", that's a big problem for the sport.

And the guy who's been popping tongues at the meat packing plant for 20 years for 10 bucks an hour who can't open his hands anymore, I'm not seeing the outcry for research and rule changes there.

[Skyy God]

Originally Posted by KCChiefsFan88

I'll bet the Washington Redskins wished he didn't play football either after wasting a big free agent contract on him.

Randle El probably currently has financial issues, and since he already went to the concussion gravy train once (with the concussion settlement), he is now looking for more sympathy money.

If by sympathy money you mean monetary damages for injuries incurred due to the NFL's decade-long attempts to cover up the impact of football on the brain, then yes.

[Skyy God]

Originally Posted by BigChiefTablet

And the guy who's been popping tongues at the meat packing plant for 20 years for 10 bucks an hour who can't open his hands anymore, I'm not seeing the outcry for research and rule changes there.

No one spends 3 hours on Sunday watching a meat cutter work.

[FloridaMan88]

Originally Posted by Cave Johnson

If by sympathy money, you mean monetary damages for injuries incurred due to the NFL's decade-long attempts to cover up the impact of football on the brain, then yes.

If Randle El had played baseball, getting drafted in the 14th round, he very likely would not have had the same financial earnings that he had in the NFL.

Also baseball isn't a risk free sport either. He could have taken a fastball to the face, blown out his knee, etc.

[Chromatic]

Originally Posted by KCChiefsFan88

Also baseball isn't a risk free sport either. He could have taken a fastball to the face, blown out his knee, etc.

Which are injuries absolutely in the same league as traumatic brain injuries and CTE.

[Skyy God]

Originally Posted by KCChiefsFan88

If Randle El had played baseball, getting drafted in the 14th round, he very likely would not have had the same financial earnings that he had in the NFL.

Also baseball isn't a risk free sport either. He could have taken a fastball to the face, blown out his knee, etc.

Albert Pujols went in the 13th.....

[FloridaMan88]

Originally Posted by Chromatic

Which are injuries absolutely in the same league as traumatic brain injuries and CTE.

Yeah getting hit in your head by a baseball going 100+ MPH doesn't cause traumatic brain injury.

[ThaVirus]

CTE issues aside, it must be nice to have the athletic potential to play two different sports professionally.

[Why Not?]

Originally Posted by Iowanian

I understand these guys take a beating, but I'm so over their whining.

There is a club for all of the men who only hear or remember half of the things our wives say...it's called "Everyone".

Football players make big money in relatively short careers, and often suffer injuries that cause them pain in later life.
....So do Construction workers, iron workers, Deep sea welders(lung issues from gas), rodeo cowboys, ranchers, farmers, factory workers with repetitive motion injuries....and they do it for far less money and work far more years.

Your dream was to play in the NFL. You've made at a minimum hundreds of thousands of dollars for a single season in the league.

I know a shitload of people who have trouble getting out of bed in the morning, or have knees or backs that cause them problems.

I didn't play in the NFL and my hands swell, I've had knee surgeries and get swelling often, have had broken bones and back injuries that make some days pretty rough to get moving. So do a lot of other people and they're still going to work every day at 60 years old.

Stop bitching.

Yeah, I'm pretty over it. The NFL has done about all it can to safen up the game. Sucks these guys have debilitating injuries. No one from this point forth should say they weren't warned. Now and play football or don't(guys from this point in history on)

[Skyy God]

Also, your point is irrelevant in that he opted in to the class action and is already being paid.

The NFL had a terrible case, and they were lucky to settle for only $900M.

[Chromatic]

Originally Posted by KCChiefsFan88

Yeah getting hit in your head by a baseball going 100+ MPH doesn't cause traumatic brain injury.

Misread that srysrysry.

It does happen but not enough for it to become an epidemic among retired players who have memory problems, dementia, depression related to brain damage, etc.

[Baby Lee]

Don't tell me he's boycotting the Oscars too. . .

[Skyy God]

Originally Posted by Baby Lee

Don't tell me he's boycotting the Oscars too. . .

Nurse, 30 cc's of race injection, stat.

[DaneMcCloud]

Originally Posted by BigChiefTablet

And the guy who's been popping tongues at the meat packing plant for 20 years for 10 bucks an hour who can't open his hands anymore, I'm not seeing the outcry for research and rule changes there.

That's a ridiculous analogy.

That person had a choice. I'm sure that he/she had the option to go to junior college, to attend university, to do something other than work at a meat packing plant. WE ALL DO.

I played elementary, junior high and high school football. NEVER ONCE did anyone mention that you could get BRAIN DAMAGE from playing. No one. Broken bones, torn muscles, sprains, even paralysis but brain damage?

Nope.

You don't have to feel "sorry" for anyone. But I'm absolutely certain that armed with the information that we have today about CTE (in which the NFL willingly withheld), more and more people will choose NOT to play the game.

It's pretty simple.

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by Cave Johnson

No one spends 3 hours on Sunday watching a meat cutter work.

Maybe they're just not marketing well enough.


I can see Randle El's point. If you can play both football and baseball, the smart move is to play baseball if you can handle the boredom. You'll play longer, make more money, and you're unlikely to ever suffer a significant injury. Football is far more fun and entertaining, but I too wonder if it'll exist in 25 years, at least in its current form.