Walter Thurmond, the former strong safety for the Philadelphia Eagles has confirmed that he will be retiring from the NFL. With this announcement, Thurmond has become the latest NFL player to retire at an early age.
At 28 years old, it seems Thurmond is only in the prime of his NFL career. He officially joined the league in 2010 after he was drafted by the Seattle Seahawks during the fourth round. He then transferred to the New York Giants in 2014 before setting with the Eagles last year.
However, after the 2015 season ended, Thurmond became a free agent but did not have a hard time finding a new time. In fact, majority of the offers he received as a free agent were over $4 million a year.
But, in a surprising move, Thurmond turned down these offers, which led various sources to speculate that he might be considering retiring. Then, just yesterday, ESPN conformed that Thurmond has decided to retire early. This was according to a text message sent by the athlete to the Philadelphia Daily News.
According to ESPN's Adam Schefter, Thurmond no longer wants to play in the NFL and is seriously considering to take on a different career path. The insider, however, did not mention what other opportunities Thurmond is thinking of pursuing.
But, according to NFL.com, another reason behind his decision to retirement was his frustrations with his NFL career. As noted by the sports new site, Thurmond was frustrated for spending a lot of time being on injured reserve.
Because of this, the athlete began to think that maybe he can no longer play at the same level as he did before. In addition, Thurmond reportedly said that he's already happy with how much money he has made playing in the NFL.
Yahoo! Sports noted that the Thurmond's concerns about the correlation of concussions and professional sports may have also played a role in influencing his decision. According to the site, during the time he announced his retirement, many of his posts on Twitter were about the effects of concussions on the brain and notable athletes who had conditions related to this matter.
