Lindsey ThiryFeb 21, 2026, 06:00 AM ETCloseLindsey Thiry is a national NFL reporter for ESPN. She joined ESPN in 2018 to cover the Los Angeles Rams after two years of covering them for the Los Angeles Times, and has also covered the Chargers for ESPN. She previously covered the Atlanta Falcons.Follow on XMultiple Authors
play0:31Eric Weddle comes out of retirement to play for RamsAdam Schefter gives the details behind 37-year old Eric Weddle’s decision to come out of retirement to play for the Rams in the postseason.
J.J. Watt tells Pat McAfee why he’s content in retirement (1:23)J.J. Watt joins Pat McAfee to discuss why he is still happy with his decision to retire from the NFL. (1:23)
Eric Weddle comes out of retirement to play for RamsAdam Schefter gives the details behind 37-year old Eric Weddle’s decision to come out of retirement to play for the Rams in the postseason.
Adam Schefter gives the details behind 37-year old Eric Weddle’s decision to come out of retirement to play for the Rams in the postseason.
Inside the visitors locker room at Texas Stadium, Emmitt Smith stared at his No. 22 Arizona Cardinals jersey and, through tears, said to himself: “I’m in the wrong place.”
A season earlier in 2002, Smith became the NFL’s career rushing leader in his 13th year with the Dallas Cowboys. But after that season, owner Jerry Jones decided to release Smith because of salary cap constraints and to inject youth into the roster.
Smith, 34 at the time, said he was not ready to retire and wanted to continue playing. He signed a two-year deal with the Cardinals.
“I was supposed to be over there,” Smith said of the Cowboys’ locker room. “It broke my heart into a thousand pieces, and I realized right then and there. … I could not separate the game of football from the Dallas Cowboys. When I finished my contract with the Cardinals, I signed for a single day with Dallas.”
This offseason, countless NFL players — including enormous names such as Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Aaron Rodgers and Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce — will ponder the decision whether to continue playing in the NFL or retire.
“It’s definitely an individual decision, and it’s tough,” said Hall of Fame running back Barry Sanders, who retired at 31, just 1,457 yards shy of breaking the NFL rushing record. “It’s definitely a tough thing to grapple with … you always have to measure the fire in your belly.
“You have to measure your interest in the game… what’s going on with your particular franchise and team. … All those things that are valuable and important to you, and why you play. That’s how I would kind of sum it up. What’s important to you? What gets you up in the morning? Or can you see yourself continuing?”
Speaking with three NFL players — two of whom reversed their retirement course — meant gaining insight and perspective into their decisions, learnings that can be used by the next generation of pros who will walk off the field for the last time amid uncertainty or conviction.
He was 31, his body ached, the injuries had accumulated — he missed the entire 2020 season because of a knee issue and had dealt with a Lisfranc injury during the 2022 season that caused him to miss nine games. He was unsure if the injury to his foot would ever feel good again.
His play suffered, and he realized following his only season with the Giants that he didn’t produce to his standard.
He consulted with close friends — those he loved — before coming to the conclusion it was time to retire in May 2023. He would move on to the next phase of life.
“I just kind of veered off into that because I knew at that time I had good momentum to be able to do that and it’d kind of be an easy transition going back to an organization that I had been with,” Jefferson said.
Scouting was a role he had essentially done his entire playing career. Jefferson knew how to watch film and break down players’ strengths and weaknesses — that skill came almost naturally.
The unnatural part? Sitting in a cubicle for 12 hours a day, no offseason and rarely a day off. Then, logging his hours into an online system to receive a paycheck that amounted to a tiny fraction of what his game checks once looked like.
“Huge difference,” Jefferson said, still with a look of disbelief, of his paychecks. “You would look at what you get paid and I was, oh my gosh, that was humbling. I was like, ‘I’m literally just working 12 hours a day for free.'”
“I was still around the game, still around football, and a lot of the guys that were still on the team with the Ravens, they were my teammates for a long time,” Jefferson said.
And then, there was the struggle in going to games. “Just getting that feeling, being down on the field pregame, my jitters were going. … It was crazy. I just had the itch crazy.”
After a year in scouting, Jefferson’s next decision came easy. He knew who the competition was and what level he needed to play at. Jefferson knew he wanted to keep playing.
He worked out. He felt good. And then he drafted five different versions in his notes app of a text message that he eventually sent Joe Hortiz, once a Ravens executive who is now the general manager of the Chargers. After a year of retirement, he wanted to make a comeback.
To his luck, the Chargers had an open tryout on their schedule, and Hortiz invited Jefferson to attend. He ended up signing to their 53-man roster on June 14, 2024.
“Best decision of my life,” Jefferson said of returning to the game. “One day I’m going to show people all the texts I got when they found out I was trying to come back, even for my friends again, and remember how last time I kind of listened to them? Didn’t this time. They were telling me, ‘You’re washed. Just let it go.’ They’re like, ‘Bro, just let it go.'”
“I don’t ever hold it against them because they just don’t, they don’t know. They don’t feel what I feel. So I don’t hold it against them.”
Jefferson said he still loves those who told him to retire, but he admitted that listening to their opinions ranked among his biggest regrets.
“I kind of let other voices, opinions a little bit kind of like steer me like, now you’re done. These are my friends too. And I usually lean on my friends and stuff. I don’t necessarily make a decision based off what they say, but I do factor it into the decision and I was getting a lot of that too. … Love them … but you don’t always have to listen to them.”
“If you can go, go. If you could do it, do it,” he said. “If you’re an NFL player, this is probably the only professional sport you can play and there’s really nothing better. … It’s one of the best decisions I have made in my life, being able to come back with a second chance.”
Eric Weddle comes out of retirement to play for Rams
“We’re just kind of chit-chatting and he goes, ‘You’re not fat and out of shape, are you?'” Weddle recalled. “I thought to myself, ‘No way is he going to ask me what I think he’s going to ask me?'”
In retirement, Weddle still watched every Rams game. He knew as they entered the postseason that injuries had decimated their secondary. What he said he couldn’t anticipate was that he, 749 days removed from playing his final NFL snap, would be the Rams’ best available choice.
“No, no, of course not,” Weddle told Morris. “I run around. I play basketball once a week, but I’m not what I was two years ago.”
A father of four, Weddle two years earlier made the decision that the 2019 season would be his last.
With one season remaining on his contract, Weddle said he felt like he could have continued playing, but was ready to move on.
He consulted with his family, talked to some players and also to then-secondary coach Ejiro Evero. He called Rams coach Sean McVay.
Weddle, who admitted nerves at the very thought of returning, said: “They asked me to do things that I knew I could do.”
And that sealed his decision. Weddle played in the Rams’ wild-card victory over Arizona six days later, and then subbed in again in a divisional win at Tampa Bay. He started in the NFC Championship Game against San Francisco. A month after coming out of a retirement, started in the Super Bowl LVI victory over Cincinnati, collecting a ring (and a torn pectoral muscle during the game).
“It was a very surreal five weeks of really empowering my mind to do something that I had never really unlocked before,” Weddle said. “And it was really exhilarating, if I’m being honest.”
Weddle’s decision to go back to retirement after that Super Bowl run came easy. He had no desire to make another run at a prolonged NFL career.
“If you’re not 100% mind, body and soul ready for the grind, then you need to retire because you owe it to your teammates, you owe it to yourself to be a hundred percent committed in everything that entails,” Weddle said.
“Especially as an older guy, you’re much more in a leadership position trying to help the young guys while also preparing to still give it your all on the field. It becomes such a mental grind as you get older.”
Current Job: Amazon Prime NFL analyst, “Fitz & Whit” podcast Playing career: 16 seasons (11 in Cincinnati, 5 in Los Angeles [Rams])
After signing with the Rams in 2017, 12 years into his NFL career and at age 35, most offseasons would begin the same way, with a reporter questioning whether Whitworth had plans to retire or would continue on to another season.
Toward the end of the 2018 season, the retirement speculation hit a crescendo as the Rams made a Super Bowl run, potentially providing Whitworth the chance to earn a ring and go out on top.
Whitworth relied on the advice of Hockey Hall of Famer Wayne Gretzky, whom he ran into at a golf club in Los Angeles. “One thing I would tell you, make them rip that damn jersey off your back,” Whitworth recalled Gretzky telling him.
“After we lost the Super Bowl, I was just like, ‘Man, you know what? I’m just going to ride this thing out until I just flat-out feel like I can’t go anymore.”
His conversation with Gretzky, a four-time Stanley Cup champion who played 20 seasons and retired at 38, left an impact.