I Guess Roaf Really Did Want to Spend More Times With Joe Horn's Kids

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ROAF: INTO THE SHADOWS
Pro Bowl tackle leaves no room for doubt by anyone that his career has come to an end.
By ADAM TEICHER
The Kansas City Star

“I want to let people know I will not come back and play football this year or ever again.”

There’s no ‘For Sale’ sign in the front yard of Willie Roaf’s south Overland Park home, but from the looks of things inside, that will soon change.

Much of the furniture and personal belongings are gone, long ago shipped to the owner’s new home in California. A bed, a kitchen set, a black felt pool table and a monstrous TV are about all that remain, and even those will be cleared away shortly.

The scene, coupled with Roaf’s announcement almost two months ago that he was retiring from football and the Chiefs, makes his plans evident.

Roaf, an 11-time Pro Bowl left tackle and an almost certain future Hall of Famer, still felt compelled to make them clear to everyone, most notably the Chiefs.

“I just want to put an end to all of that,” Roaf told The Star on Thursday. “I want to let people know I will not come back and play football this year or ever again. I don’t want people to think I’m coming back or I might come back, because it’s not true.

“I wanted finality on this deal. I’m retiring from football, period. It’s frustrating that the Chiefs were saying I might return or I was thinking about returning. I don’t think that was right. That’s why it’s time to address it myself.”

Later in the day, Roaf read a seven-minute statement but didn’t answer questions at a news conference at the downtown law offices of Foland and Wickens, where his cousin T.K. Smith is an attorney.

But at home, Roaf told The Star he is having no regrets about his decision to retire, not even knowing how the Chiefs self-destructed in Sunday’s season-opening loss to Cincinnati.

The Chiefs not only allowed seven sacks, but quarterback Trent Green is lost indefinitely after suffering a severe concussion.

Not on the morning of the game nor any time since, Roaf said, has he felt the game calling him back

“As a matter of fact, I feel otherwise,” he said. “I was in Minneapolis Sunday visiting some friends. It was cold and rainy when I woke up. I couldn’t get out of bed very well. My hip was hurting. I took some Tylenol. That didn’t help. I took some Aleve. That didn’t help. It was sore for four days. When your hip was hurting, that’s a pretty good sign you’re doing the right thing. It’s just now starting to feel better. That’s just some of the stuff I have to deal with. I’ve got to live with this body, and I’ve got to take care of it.

“It was not tough not to be here playing for the Chiefs. Once I came to grips with this, that was it. I’m content with it.”

Roaf didn’t see the game on TV. It wasn’t shown in the Minneapolis area.

But he saw the highlights and knows the sordid details.

“It was a tough game,” he said. “When they get that offensive line solidified — I guess Kevin Sampson will be back this week — they’re going to get it together. They’ve just got to keep working. That’s just one football game. They’ve got 15 left to play.”

The Chiefs, obviously, are desperate for a player of Roaf’s ability. But to Roaf, that point is moot because he believes that at 36, he can no longer be the player he once was.

The sore hip, along with lingering knee and hamstring issues, won’t allow it — at least in Roaf’s opinion.

Roaf said publicly early in the offseason that he planned to play another year. He started to change his thinking after beginning workouts in the spring.

He made the retirement leap after the first team meeting with new coach Herm Edwards.

“He said that any guy in here interested in retiring doesn’t need to be here,” Roaf said. “His point was that you needed to be focused, and if you weren’t, you didn’t need to be a part of the team. That made a lot of sense to me. It wasn’t fair for the other guys on the team for me to be there if I wasn’t sure about playing and if I didn’t think I could play at a level I’ve always played at. I’ve got too much respect for my teammates and Herm and the rest of the coaches to do that.”

Roaf said he told Edwards he would retire as the Chiefs were beginning their minicamp. He said Edwards told him to take some time to think it through.

“I was conflicted in May,” Roaf said. “I wasn’t sure what to do. I didn’t know whether I should play feeling the way I felt. But after getting away for a while and thinking about it and hanging out with my kids, it was clear for me.”

That’s when, Roaf said, he sent the Chiefs formal written notification he was retiring. But the Chiefs never made an announcement, leading to speculation that Roaf might return.

That speculation disturbed Roaf, who said he believed it was a distraction for the Chiefs.

Only after this week’s notification that Roaf would be in Kansas City to publicly declare his retirement did the Chiefs act. Roaf spoke for the first time since the start of training camp with president/general manager Carl Peterson on Tuesday.

The Chiefs publicly acknowledged Roaf’s retirement and formally moved him to the retired list.

“If I wasn’t doing this today,” Roaf said, “the Chiefs would have just kept on the way it was going. That’s not fair to me. That’s disturbing to me. Nobody has the right to tell me what I ought to be doing.”

His new life includes a home in Newport Beach, Calif. Roaf begins the new fall quarter at the University of California-Irvine. He is about a year’s worth of classes away from finishing the sociology degree he began many years ago at Louisiana Tech.

Roaf is talking with ESPN2’s “Cold Pizza” about doing one or two appearances weekly. Other than that, his future is uncertain — other than it doesn’t include football or the Chiefs.

“That’s a good question,” he said. “I like to take it one day at a time and figure things out. I have four children in three different states, so I have to make time for them and I’ll spend more time with them.”