Written by Peter King at MMQB
DeMarcus Ware could have kept playing. He was working out, and he was over neck and back ailments that wrecked his 2016 season in Denver. Ware is 34, and he had a $9 million offer on the table for 2017 (he won’t say from which team, but Dallas is a best guess), and he felt he could have the kind of reborn season that would satisfy the football devotee inside of him.
“You go through so much as a player to keep playing—for me lately, the neck injury, the back injury—and then you correct those things,” Ware told The MMQB Tuesday afternoon, a day after he finalized his emotional decision to retire from football.
“And right now as a I stand here, my body feels great. My body feels youthful. There is no question in my mind that I could have played two or three more years. But I’m realistic about it. My body’s good now, but how long will that last? How long can your body hold up at 34, 35, when what you do is likely to hurt yourself?”
In other words, I said, you feel good now, but the way football is, there’s a good chance that something, on some part of the body, would flare up this season, and there’s no way you’d feel this good through an entire season.
“Now you see where I’m coming from,” Ware said. “How many times when I go through a full season do I feel great from start to finish? It’s hard. Football has been great for me. I love football. Always will. Heck yeah, I want to get out there and play. But I can’t let passion overrule my sense. I am walking away with respect. I gave the fans, I gave my family, I gave my teammates, everything I had every game. One hundred percent. One … hundred … percent.”
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