After seven seasons and a Super Bowl victory, Ali Marpet has decided to hang up his spikes.
The 28-year-old (now former) Buccaneers’ offensive lineman made the announcement on Sunday, reportedly due to health concerns.
Come next season, the Bucs’ offense will look much different from the one that helped win Super Bowl LV, as Tom Brady retired this offseason after an unprecedented 22-year career, and offensive linemen Ryan Jensen and Alex Cappa are slated to enter free agency, along with receiver Chris Godwin, tight end Rob Gronkowski, and running back Leonard Fournette.
Marpet’s move isn’t the first time an NFL player decided to retire at a young age: the Colts QB Andrew Luck is also packing it in.
Luck, 29, said that an abundance of injuries and rehab led to his difficult decision to retire in 2019 after only 86 regular-season games. After not missing a game during his first three seasons, Luck missed nine games in 2015 (shoulder, lacerated kidney, partially torn abdominal muscle).
After playing in pain throughout 2016, he missed all of 2017 after needing multiple surgeries to repair his injured shoulder.
Luck returned in 2018 to enjoy one of his finest seasons while guiding the Colts to the second round of the playoffs. Luck earned NFL Comeback Player of the Year honors, but, after sustaining two more injuries that offseason, he decided to honor a promise he made to himself in 2016 that he would not go through another season of injury unknowns.
“I’ve been stuck in this process,” Luck said at his retirement press conference. “I haven’t been able to live the life I want to live. It’s taken the joy out of this game … the only way forward for me is to remove myself from football. This is not an easy decision. It’s the hardest decision of my life. But it is the right decision for me.”
