Newly retired Denver Broncos' guard John Moffitt looks forward to not having to carry that 319-pound bulk around

"Everybody, they just don't get it and they think it's crazy. But I think what I was doing is crazy."

-- now-former NFL offensive lineman John Moffitt,
in a phone interview with the Associated Press

by Ken

Two observations about the sudden retirement of Denver Broncos third-year guard John Moffitt:

• It may be that the writings of the Dalai Lama and Noam Chomsky are not conducive to an NFL player's gung-ho attitude.

• The head that the Sporting News at least put on the AP report, "John Moffitt walks away from NFL, $1 million," is problematic.

As if the Denver Broncos didn't have enough troubles, with head coach John Fox put out of commission by his sudden heart surgery, now comes the phone call from his home in Seattle in which Moffitt, acquired from the Seattle Marriners in preseason after he failed to win a starting guard position there, informs them that he isn't returning to the team following its bye week -- or to professional football.

"I just really thought about it and decided I'm not happy. I'm not happy at all," Moffitt told The Associated Press in a phone interview from Seattle. "And I think it's really madness to risk your body, risk your well-being and risk your happiness for money."

Moffitt insists that "anytime I played this game, I gave my heart to it and I'm a person that does thing with his heart," but that "I don't care about the Super Bowl" anymore. "I don't need the Super Bowl experience. I played in great stadiums and I played against great players. And I had that experience and it's enough."

The AP report is filled with numbers. We're told that the Broncos, after putting Moffitt on the reserve/left team list Tuesday, "when they activated center J. D. Walton from the physically unable to perform list . . . have five days to formally release Moffitt, who left more than $1 million on the table, including about $312,500 for the remainder of this season and $752,500 in non-guaranteed salary in 2014," from the "four-year contract for nearly $3 million" he signed "after Seattle made him the 75th overall draft pick in 2011." We're told too that he "made about $1.8 million before taxes in his 2½ seasons in the NFL."

The problem with those numbers is that non-guaranteed salary for next season, the final season of his four-year contract. It's kind of hard to "walk away from" nonguaranteed money because nonguaranteed money in the NFL isn't money. It's talk. What that $752,500 means is that if when the time comes we still want you, we'll consider paying you as much as $752,500, or maybe we won't -- why do you think we pay all those lawyers?"

Moffitt says he's not grumbly over limited playing time with the Broncos. (He only played in two games this season.) He says there are more important things to him than the money he's passing up.

"I've saved enough. It's not like I'm sitting here and I'm a millionaire," he said. "That's what I kind of realized. I'm sitting here and I got to this point and I was like, what is the number that you need? How much do you really need? What do you want in life? And I decided that I don't really need to be a millionaire.

"I just want to be happy. And I find that people that have the least in life are sometimes the happiest. And I don't have the least in life. I have enough in life. And I won't sacrifice my health for that."

Ah, won't sacrifice his health, eh? We all know how violent playing the NFL has become, with those bodies growing bigger and stronger and faster every year, all aimed at each other in collision mode. It's not a prescription for good health.

Although Moffitt never had a history of concussions, he acknowledged all the blows he sustained in practices and games concerned him.

"I'm not trying to be the poster boy for 'Oh, I thought I should leave because of concussions.' I'm just saying, it's a valid point," Moffitt said. "I love the game and I respect the game and everybody who plays it knows what they risk and I knew what I risked when I played, and I'm no longer willing to risk it."

And then comes the kicker: "Moffitt majored in sociology at Wisconsin and said his world view was really shaped over the last couple of years when he began studying the writings of the Dalai Lama and Noam Chomsky."

As for the future, Moffitt says --

he's looking forward to speaking his mind on the radio and in podcasts he's going to produce. He said he has plenty of opinions to share on everything from philosophy to politics, although he has less to say about sports.

How interested the world will be in those non-sports opinions remains to be said.

But one plan he has seem likely to be realized. He "wants to go on a diet now that he doesn't have to maintain his 319-pound physique."

Moffitt says of his football life that he's "thankful for the whole experience.

Moffitt said he'll miss playing in games and goofing around with the guys, but he's glad the rest of his NFL life is over.

"Once you tear away all the illusions of it, it's hard work. And it's dangerous work. And you're away from your family. And it's not good for families. It's very tough on families," he said.

Moffitt is also glad to leave the league on his terms.

"I'm ready to go to work and start doing other things right now," Moffitt said. "So, it's a smoother transition and I'm still young enough to start a career and my body's healthy and I'm good. I look at it as a great start to life, you know?"

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