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Sports Daily: Mendenhall Retires, Bashes Commercialization

01:03 PM - March 10, 2014 by RaychelSnr

He's not a household superstar name, but he may become the new trend in the life of NFL players.

Rashard Mendenhall -- at the ripe age of 26 -- has decided to hang up his cleats and retire from the NFL. Citing a desire to pursue other passions in life as well as a distaste for the image-driven league, Mendenhall articulated his stance well through an article on Huffingtonpost.com:

Quote:

"My older brother coaches football at the high-school and youth level. One day he called me and said, "These kids don't want to work hard. All they wanna do is look cool, celebrate after plays, and get more followers on Instagram!" I told him that they might actually have it figured out."

Sound Off: Do you relate with Rashard Mendenhall? Has the image-oriented and commercialized aspect of the NFL damaged your love of football?

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Member Comments

# 1 UH53 @ 03/10/14 02:18 PM

Respect Rashad! Very profound and well said!

# 2 Syce @ 03/10/14 04:42 PM

i agree. they really should put a rule in for celebrations for touch downs in the game, its pretty sad that players will actually Practice celebrations for when they do touch down.

# 3 tbook24 @ 03/10/14 05:11 PM

sounds like a filed often injured first round draft pick that never lived up to his promise. he wasnt playing thats why he retired. he stayed hurt had maybe one partial good season

# 4 mestevo @ 03/10/14 05:31 PM

Player reaches ceiling, sees end of career, turns to internet.

I agree w/ PFT's summary, was probably looking at a 715k non-guaranteed backup role next season.

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com...-retire-at-26/

# 5 NDAlum @ 03/10/14 11:45 PM

Ok so he is basically the most perfect human being on the planet. Got it.

# 6 OSUFan_88 @ 03/11/14 12:07 AM

Actual scumbag and loser.

Good riddance to his dumb ***.

# 7 Jr. @ 03/11/14 12:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by NDAlum


	Ok so he is basically the most perfect human being on the planet. Got it.

So he says he doesn't want to play because the game doesn't seem the same as the one he grew up loving and that he has other interests he wants to explore while he still can, and all of a sudden he's portraying himself as better than everyone else?

Quote:

Originally Posted by OSUFan_88


	Actual scumbag and loser. Good riddance to his dumb ***.

Where does this come from? I did some quick searching but couldn't find anything that spoke to him being a bad person.

# 8 kehlis @ 03/11/14 12:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by OSUFan_88


	Actual scumbag and loser. Good riddance to his dumb ***.

This is the kind of guy we are calling a scumbag and a loser these days?

# 9 NDAlum @ 03/11/14 12:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jr.


	So he says he doesn't want to play because the game doesn't seem the same as the one he grew up loving and that he has other interests he wants to explore while he still can, and all of a sudden he's portraying himself as better than everyone else?

In my opinion he sounded arrogant in his article. Not really anything to debate about. Just my perception of that piece.

# 10 Lukin4 @ 03/11/14 05:28 AM

Wow, a football player that actually has a life outside the sport, understands the bigger picture and knows what his priorities in life are, and people are going to bash him for that???

# 11 TreyIM2 @ 03/11/14 06:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by NDAlum


	In my opinion he sounded arrogant in his article. Not really anything to debate about. Just my perception of that piece.

My opinion is that your perception is off...way off. U sound like the typical person who gets defensive about everything, even when it's positive, and is always subconsciously looking between the lines for something negative. And a few others up here seem to have that same mentality. Grew up around too many like that and unfortunately still have a few friends like that. Smh....

At any rate, I like how he seems to be a well thought person, especially coming from a league of immature, ignorant and uneducated sounding players who seemed to only go to school to become pro football players and not much else. Definitely refreshing to read. If he actually verbalizes as well as he writes, he should have a bright future ahead of him, post football. Good luck to him.

# 12 OSUFan_88 @ 03/11/14 08:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jr.


	Where does this come from? I did some quick searching but couldn't find anything that spoke to him being a bad person.

Try searching Mendenhall 9/11.

I maintain that he is a loser and a scumbag.

# 13 mestevo @ 03/11/14 09:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FaceMask


	I hope to someday live in a world where people can have a different point of view without being demonized for it. Unfortunately, based on what I see of people in this world, there isn't a rocket ship that can travel that far yet to find it.

lol? Didn't you now just do the same thing to the people you disagree with that you're accusing them of doing?

Some of you are so eager to white knight someone it seems. This story is akin to that bitter guy at work writing an email to the entire company his last day on the job.

This isn't the first topic has been outspoken about either, may want to read his previous public opinions which are why some will respond the way they will.

Sent from my SM-N900V using Tapatalk

# 14 TripleCrown9 @ 03/11/14 10:06 AM

Meanwhile Baron Batch, a one time teammate of Mendenhall, has also retired from football, and is a painter, volunteer, and motivational speaker. Just last week, 3 of his paintings raised 10,000 dollars for a charity.

But nobody talks about that lol.

# 15 ubernoob @ 03/11/14 10:44 AM

Average player who can't hack it anymore tries to keep his celebrity status going by ripping "commercialization of the game" while promoting himself enjoying "old school values" in a public forum like we should honestly give a **** what he says about it. Pot, meet kettle.

I won't say he's a bad person because I don't know him on a personal level. I can say he's an idiot, though, for some of the things already noted here I won't go over.

# 16 CM Hooe @ 03/11/14 10:54 AM

I don't fault Mendenhall for leaving the game with his body still intact, and I don't fault him for pursuing other things; he has a wide variety of interests and is by all accounts a reasonably intelligent man (notwithstanding some comments he made which can't be discussed here).

That said, the NFL was getting ready to move on from Mendenhall just as well; given that he was benched in Arizona this season for Andre Ellington, I don't know if he'd have been able to find a spot this upcoming season anyway. He certainly wouldn't get a contract for anything beyond a one-year deal to be a RB2 at this point.

# 17 Yeah...THAT Guy @ 03/11/14 12:03 PM

Agreed that this could just be his way of having an excuse to retire when he otherwise might not have been picked up anyways, but I guess I just don't understand why people always have to assume the worst. Personally, I don't have a problem with anything that he's said that's been mentioned in this thread. Sounds to me like he's just wired differently than your typical athlete.

# 18 blackceasar @ 03/11/14 01:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lukin4


	Wow, a football player that actually has a life outside the sport, understands the bigger picture and knows what his priorities in life are, and people are going to bash him for that???

Ladanian Tomlinson has a life outside of the sport, yet he's probably going to be a first ballot hall of famer. Marshal Faulk could have probably played 2-3 more seasons as a legit number 1 RB on several teams.

Mendenhall was a first round draft pick that never lived up to it. Mediocre' RB at best who maybe showed flashes of greatness one or two games a season in his first 2 seasons in the NFL. Lets keep it real here and not be so neieve. While none of us will ever know his true intentions or motivation, if someone told me I had to bet my salary on this dude and how he played this out I would say that if he had been rushing for 1200+ yards a season every season, wasn't injury ridden and getting shown up by backs coming in taken in the mid-round he'd still be playing.

It's the whole dump her before she dumps you to save face routine. He dumped the NFL before the NFL dumped him. He wasn't going to have a significant role on any team moving forward and thats IF he were invited to a training camp only to probably be cut during a team's pre-season. This way he looks like one of those "good for you" guys when in reality he's a "you were a bust and already out of the NFL" guys.

Let's not kid ourselves here. If he had been offered a 6 year contract extension worth 75 million million with 28 million guaranteed this off season, he would be suiting up, and celebrating in the endzone just like everyone else.

# 19 blackceasar @ 03/11/14 01:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yeah...THAT Guy


	Agreed that this could just be his way of having an excuse to retire when he otherwise might not have been picked up anyways, but I guess I just don't understand why people always have to assume the worst. Personally, I don't have a problem with anything that he's said that's been mentioned in this thread. Sounds to me like he's just wired differently than your typical athlete.

True but money talks. Look at Ricky Williams when he first retired and said he just wasn't into football anymore, wanted to go "find himself" bla bla bla.. next thing you know he realizes what child support payments look like for him. Next thing you know, he's "rediscovered" his love for the NFL. Sure people might assume the worst, but if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck.. it's probably a duck.

When's the last time you've seen a player so young in his career but super talented just hang it up like 5-8 years before you'd expect him to? Tell me the last time you've seen it happen. I'm not talking about some serious injury. I'm talking about bonafide pro bowler/all star dudes in their mid to early 20's deciding to "hang it up" for a higher calling/ground. lol.

Let's get real here. Adrian Peterson wasn't going to hang it up at 26 years old with the career and money he was making.

Kobe Bryant.. oh yeah.. I'm sure he contemplated retirement at 24 (even after like 6-7 years in the league)

Sure you might see like a Robert Smith hang it up later in his career when there's still gas left in the tank, but he hung it up when he was still a number 1 RB on a pretty decent team.

Mendenhall has been an average to below average back at best pretty much his entire short lived career... for him its EASY to just hang it up, and then make a statement....

# 20 Kaiser Wilhelm @ 03/11/14 01:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by NDAlum


	In my opinion he sounded arrogant in his article. Not really anything to debate about. Just my perception of that piece.

That is just the Huffington Post. Their "journalism," if one can even call it that, is atrocious. Their articles usually have a smug attitude towards them because it's more of a blog than an actual news outlet.

Whenever I see something from Huffington Post, I make sure to down a salt shaker before reading.

As to the topic of the article, good for him. He made a smart PR move and who is to say what he is saying isn't a deeply held belief? It may be both. As for him being a bad guy, nothing he said about 9/11 makes him a scumbag or dirtbag. If that is your criteria, you must have a very dark outlook on the world.

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