Last August, Indianapolis Colts franchise quarterback Andrew Luck fought back tears as he told a room full of reporters that he hadn’t “been able to live the life I want live” because of football and said the joy had been taken away from the game.
A few days later, Rob Gronkowski spoke publicly about why he decided to retire from football in March for the first time. “I wasn’t in the right place.” said the three-time Super Bowl winner. “Football was making me depressed and I didn’t like it. I was losing this joy of living. I really was.
The optics of two of the NFL’s most recognizable stars, both just 30 years old, talking about the mental toll football takes on their enjoyment of life was shocking.
In a sport like football, it’s common for players to be forced to retire due to physical issues, but the mental issues that cause players to voluntarily give up the game – and the millions of dollars they would be paid for playing there – are something new.
Where is it?
“If you start losing stars, it becomes a conversation,” Arizona Cardinals safety Justin Pugh told InsideHook. “How long have we been losing players from the practice squad? Guys who aren’t quarterbacks or who aren’t Rob Gronkowski? You know what I mean? We didn’t make any changes when these guys leave because they’re not stars. All of a sudden, a few stars start admitting and saying that things are happening to them, and suddenly it’s a conversation. This is something I really wish had been discussed a long time ago.
Kyler Murray throws the ball while getting blocks from Justin Pugh. (Norm/Getty Room)
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According to Pugh, a first-round draft pick from Syracuse who is playing his seventh season in the NFL, the mental health of NFL players is a topic that deserves to be discussed both inside and outside the locker room and has been ignored for too long.
“We need to have an open dialogue where guys aren’t afraid to come forward and say, ‘Look, I have problems.’ I am anxious. I’m depressed about this game. It takes… To take Rob Gronkowski at his word, it takes the joy out of the game for me,” Pugh told InsideHook. “This is the conversation that needs to happen. I don’t care how much money you spend on something. The stigma needs to change and talking about it with you will help to do that. Me talking to you about it, Rob Gronkowski talking about it. These things will help change the stigma.
And, although the NFL and NFLPA reached an agreement in May requiring each team to retain the services of a behavioral health clinician whose job is to support the emotional and mental health and well-being of players, the stigma persists.
“Sometimes it’s former players who say, ‘Oh, these new kids are soft,’ and so on,” Pugh says. “To that, I always say, ‘Former players are killing themselves right now.’ Literally punching holes in their chests rather than tackling the issue of mental health. So when guys like to make a joke or say that this new generation is soft… I’d much rather be gentle and deal with the issues by question rather than keeping them hidden and killing myself or overdosing while trying to self-medicate.
Pugh learned firsthand how important it can be to deal with the mental side of professional football after dropping four sacks in a nationally televised game against the arch-rival Eagles as he was a member of the Giants.
If we don’t recognize that this is a problem, we’re going to lose more and more guys.
Even though it was only his second season in the league, Pugh became depressed because he thought his NFL career was over. He was wrong – but that was because he got help from a life coach, not an NFL coach.
“I ended up working with this group called The Handel group from New York and we talked about mental conditioning and how your mind is like a highway, I guess,” Pugh says. “There is a multi-lane highway. You have your social life, you have your financial life, you have your professional life, you have your family life, and so on. It’s about clearing the way so you can perform at a high level. It’s not about having problems off the field or not having that mental clutter and clarity that helps you perform at a high level and helps you be mentally tough. I’m still not where I want to be. I always get anxious before matches. I’m still nervous even though I know I’m one of the best in the league and there’s a reason I’m a starter in the NFL. I still have doubts that maybe I’m not good enough or something. You just keep fighting against it constantly.
Pugh was fortunate to find help when he needed it, but he was also open to taking it — for some guys in the NFL, that’s not the case.
“A lot of areas that NFL guys grow in, you can’t show weakness,” Pugh says. “They come from these horrible regions where if you show any weakness, you will get eaten alive. It definitely breaks years and years of conditioning and shows that, if you open up a little, this world has so many great things it can offer you. I don’t know how we can change that. As a country, I know we could benefit from a little more empathy.
The NFL could also be more empathetic if it wants to avoid seeing more stars follow players like Luck and Gronkowski into retirement at an early age.
“If we don’t recognize that this is a problem, we’re going to lose more and more guys,” Pugh said. “Off the top of my head, I can think of a handful of guys, who if they had a little more mental preparation and physical conditioning, they would still be playing in the NFL or wouldn’t have as much trouble finding a job as they did .
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