The big thing that guys get problems with when they get older in the league is they find out that it's not the Sundays that are tough. Instead, it's the other days of the week that drives them away. It's the sitting in meeting after meeting after meeting, like one long version of the movie "Groundhog Day." That's what drives them away. It's that whole monotony of the repetition.

If playing in the NFL was solely about Sundays, there would be a ton of guys who would still be playing — like Michael Strahan, Jerome Bettis, John Lynch (now a FOX analyst), Dan Marino — and the list would go on and on. I've talked to a bunch of guys who retired (Marcus Allen is another example), and that's what did it for them.

So, basically, when athletes get into their thirties, they can't stand the day to day drudgery of mindless staff meetings, micromanagement and endlessly trying to justify to someone why they did what they did.  That's when they take their piles of money and go home or to TV.

Wouldn't that be nice if that applied to all of us?  Who among us has done a cartwheel knowing that today is the day for the big staff meeting?  How many of us enjoy some guy who is no more qualified to evaluate our performance than my dogs, evaluating your  performance?  How many of us wish we could say "screw you" and jet off to an island when the boss tells us we need to work on the weekend and like it?

This is why when professional athletes complain about their contracts or their working conditions or not getting enough PT, I laugh.  Because even if you are an entry level player, you are still making a lot more than I am.  And if you invest it well, by the time you play six or seven years, you can retire.  Perhaps I'll even take your order when I am 65.