Jim Brown retired at the height of his career in 1966 because he was fed up with the NFL life. Hollywood offered opportunities, glamor and control over his future. The NFL offered $1,500-per-week fines for missing training camp and the drudgery of absorbing hundreds of hits per year for a penny-pinching boss. Brown decided to finish The Dirty Dozen instead of heeding Art Modell's beck-and-call. The rest is history.Barry Sanders retired at his peak in 1998 because he had lost the "drive, determination and enjoyment" for football, in his own words. Always a bit of an eccentric—private, introverted and notoriously frugal—Sanders didn't like what he saw from the rebuilding Detroit Lions and suddenly vanished from the NFL.
Ricky Williams retired after a 1,372-yard season in 2003, later calling the decision the "most positive thing" he had done with his life. Dogged by the NFL for failed marijuana tests and haunted by a social anxiety disorder that made locker room interviews a constant source of misery, he studied holistic medicine for a year instead of enduring 400 tackles by hostile opponents. He returned to the NFL for a series of on-again, off-again seasons between suspensions and injuries, always with one foot and part of his heart in India, or anywhere else he could be his introspective self instead of a battering ram for hire.There have been others. Tiki Barber left the NFL after a 1,662-yard 2006 season when television news magazines promised an opportunity to be about more than handoffs. Robert Smith, who quit the Ohio State football team as a collegian because he preferred to concentrate on his studies, retired after rushing for over 1,500 yards in 2000 because he understood the toll football took on his body, and bec
ause his passions were elsewhere. "It wasn't just about playing in the NFL," Smith said. "It provided me the freedom to study the world in a way most people don't have the opportunity to do."
Marshawn Lynch may be planning to retire at the height of his career at the conclusion of this season. If so, he will be in both elite and familiar company. Lynch will be among the quiet, private, complex, defiant men, and philosophical men, who turned their backs on riches to escape life as a high-profile plow horse.
Good for Lynch if he hangs up the spikes after the season. If he hates NFL life as much as he appears to, he shouldn't make himself miserable for the money.
The Lynch retirement rumor is almost pure speculation. NFL Network's Ian Rapoport cited "sources with direct knowledge of Lynch's thinking" as saying the running back is "weighing the possibility." Lynch himself does not speak to reporters unless the barrel of a six-figure fine is placed at his head. I have never pursued him for an interview, even during the clamor of Super Bowl week last winter, because I am not eager to speak to anyone willing to spend $100,000 to avoid me.
Source http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2293280-retiring-on-top-may-be-whats-best-for-marshawn-lynch
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