NFL (49ers) Off Season : Patrick Willis Retirement??
This development has caught me by surprise and I’m a little disappointed in Patrick Willis. When he left the Rams game last October, the message he was sending was: I’ll be back after the Bye Week. Then, out of nowhere, he opted for season-ending surgery to repair the toe. Why? Because apparently it had been hurt for years and, in his own words, he had “five or six more great years” left in him, and wanted to get healthy for them. Okay, sounds good. But then the next time we hear from him it’s to announce his retirement?? How one goes from 5-6 great years to retirement is beyond me. Either he was over-optimistic in October/November, and reality just struck, or something is up — it doesn’t make any sense, to me.
Especially, with the only thing that I have seen/heard from him since this apparent story broke is him – big smile and all – on some sort of exercise machine. Which is a weird activity to be doing on the eve of your retirement announcement.
Anyway, it feels like the everyman equivalent would be going into your job, that you’ve had for many, many years, and requesting time off for surgery — okay, the boss says, and you’re out for a couple of weeks or however long it’s supposed to take. Then, out of the blue, calling in to announce that you’re not coming back. That’s where the disappointment, for me, comes into play. I like Patrick Willis and he’s been great for us, no doubt, but if this toe injury was a potential career-ending injury, then I wish he would have been more upfront about it.
I guess we will find out tomorrow if he is announcing his retirement, or if this is just something that he’s contemplating. Hopefully, he comes back because — presuming that Aldon stays out of trouble (like I think that he will) and Bowman also comes back — we would have a scary-good LB unit with him in the lineup. Patrick Willis, even at 75% health is still a lot better than most other LBs. We will know more tomorrow, I guess. #GoNiners
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