As receiver Brandon Marshall enters his 11th NFL season, he has applied a loose expiration date to his career. Specifically, he’ll quit playing before he feels like he should be wearing a ski mask.
“Some players, they know they don’t got it anymore and their heart is not in it, and they still take the money,” Marshall said this week, via Darryl Slater of NJ.com, adding that Marshall doesn’t “like to steal.”
“That’s taking advantage of your team,” Marshall said. “I get that it’s a business and get everything you want, but you’ve still got to hold yourself accountable and be accountable to your teammates. When I no longer have it, I’ll walk away.”
So when will the letters preceding the "-ing” will switch from e-a-r-n to s-t-e-a-l?
“I don’t know,” Marshall said. “I just know that I still love it. It is tough when you’ve never been to the playoffs, and you’ve just got to have mental toughness to continue to pick yourself up and fight. The hard part, when you get older, it’s all mental. It’s not about: Can you still do it?
“It takes longer to warm up. You have to go through an extensive process to recover. And it’s the guys that commit to that process, are the ones that are able to go from playing at a high level at 30, into their mid-30s, and even in their late 30s. So that’s what I’m understanding now.
“But God has blessed me to be 6-5, 230 pounds, so even when I can’t run anymore, I can be a red-zone threat. I know that’s worth something. Touchdowns are worth a lot of money. So maybe that’s my plan when I hit my mid-30s, is to come in in the red zone.”
It will be a little easier for Marshall to walk away because he’s already on track to enter the sports media’s green zone. Smart, personable, and insightful, Marshall already has earned an Emmy nomination for his work on Showtime’s Inside the NFL.
When he does, it’ll be interesting to see whether he’ll be willing to call out the guys whom he thinks are stealing money by sticking around football longer than they should.
