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After nine seasons with three different teams, Darren Waller decided to get away from the NFL after the 2023 season.
He appeared in 12 games with the New York giants in what turned out to be the last year of his NFL career. Last June, Waller admitted in a video posted on his YouTube channel, his “passion” for football “has been fading slowly.”
“I decided to retire from the football game,” he wrote on Instagram. “For God: what a trip, and thank you. We go much further than I could have imagined! So grateful for all the people I have been able to connect and create memories on the way. We still have much more life to live. I amolored to all. Paz.”
Waller was 31 when he decided to leave him.
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Darren Waller of the New York Giants runs to the country (Kevin Sabitus/Getty Images)
When Waller reached the one -year mark of his NFL retirement, the old closed wing shared an idea prior to his surprising decision. Waller said he took a handful of games in his single season with the giants to realize that he was ready to retire.
Darren Waller reflects on divorce and retirement, says he had to “look in the mirror”
“I knew I retired when we played in Buffalo,” Waller said during a recent appearance in the podcast “The Side you don’t see.” “It was a game in which he was really controversial because one of the boys held me at the end, and they didn’t call him.
Darren Waller of the New York giants during the first half of a preseason game against the Carolina Panthers in the Metlife Stadium on August 18, 2023 in East Rutherford, NJ (Sarah Stier/Getty Images)
“It was in the first quarter of the game. We were executing this operating play of the counter advantage, and I am like leading the hole as if it were a fullback, and the play is working. But I feel on the sidelines after a trip where we ran like three times, and I am like, what am I doing with my life here?
The moment had a lasting impact on Waller, who said he sat outside looking at the sky.
The closed wing of the New York giants, Darren Waller, in the tunnel for a game against the Philadelphia Eagles in Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia on December 25, 2023. (Eric Hartline/USA Today Sports)
“I am only looking at the moon, it is at the beginning of the first quarter (or) second quarter, and nobody else would really know that I am thinking about this, but I am on the sidelines like, ‘Yes. I will end this year the best thing I can, but I have definitely finished after this year'”.
The Bills surpassed the giants in the game, celebrating a 14-9 victory.
Waller finished his brief period with giants with 552 reception yards and a touchdown. He had a turbulent season that included a brief hospitalization. He exceeded an injury to the hamstrings in week 8, which made him lose several games.
Far from the countryside, 2024 also marked Waller’s marriage with the WNBA star Kelsey Plum. The two requested divorce in Las Vegas in April 2024.
