Jermichael Finley was having his best game of the season the day his career ended. The Packers tight end caught his fifth pass to go over 70 yards in a Week 7 game against the Browns in 2013. But when he turned up field, he got popped by Cleveland safety Tashaun Gipson and went numb.
Finley was diagnosed with a spinal cord contusion and never made it back to the NFL after that. On Tuesday, he opened up to The Players’ Tribune about his career-ending neck injury and concussions, his retirement at 27 in 2014, and his path to recovery.
What people may not remember about the end of Finley’s career is four weeks earlier, he suffered a concussion during a game in Cincinnati. What he remembers about the play is harrowing:
When I stood up, my body felt like it was on fire and everything looked blurry, like I was underwater. I looked to our sideline, and all I could see was my teammates’ yellow pants. No feet, no jerseys, no heads. Just bright yellow pants. It was like everybody had been decapitated. I tried to walk towards them, but I only made it a few steps before I went back to the ground. The trainers came out and helped me off the field, took me into the locker room, diagnosed me with a concussion and then took my helmet away. I was done for the day.
Out of all the scary imagery in that paragraph, what strikes me the most is “done for the day.” Finley and the coaching staff didn’t see his injury as something with long-term consequences. Or not even long-term, but just something that could still be an issue after the game ended.
Fortunately, the Packers at least had a bye week, so Finley got some time off. But then he was back out on the field the following week with six receptions in a win over the Lions.
Saints quarterback Drew Brees spoke last week on The Dan Patrick Show about a “gray area” where NFL players hate leaving a game for any reason, even a potentially dangerous injury like a concussion. Finley described how even a plea from his son to quit football couldn’t quiet his competitive spirit:
“Daddy,” he said. “I don’t want you to play football anymore.”
I pictured my five-year-old son watching me on TV stumbling around, not even able to walk off the field under my own power. I pictured him crying to his mom, asking if his daddy was gonna be O.K. The whole thing hit me pretty hard.
But I’m a football player. So after the bye, which was the following week, I was back on the field. Nothing was gonna stop me from coming back — not even a plea from my son.
I’m not saying that to sound tough. That’s just how football players are wired. When you’re in the NFL, you sacrifice everything to play the game. Then, when you’re on the ground after a big hit and you can’t move, you think, Why do I do this to myself?
While Finley says he suffered five concussions during his football life going back to college, the injury that ended his career was the spinal cord contusion he suffered against the Browns. And after his retirement, his situation only worsened.
Finley became easily agitated and often forgetful, growing “more isolated and more distant” from his family and friends. Eventually, he realized he was depressed:
So I was depressed because I felt like my identity as a football player had been taken away from me, I was lonely because I felt abandoned by the game and my friends, and I had anxiety because my entire future felt like an empty calendar that I had to fill up somehow.
[…]
And the same way I would have never run to a trainer after a big hit and asked to be checked out for a concussion, I wasn’t gonna call somebody for help. I was gonna own my shit and work it out myself.
Fortunately, Finley’s wife, Courtney, eventually convinced him to attend a neurological clinic to get evaluated and receive therapy, which he described as “resetting his brain.” And that’s where, finally, Finley’s story takes a beautiful turn:
I spent 30 days in that clinic, then I went home to Texas to be with Courtney for the birth of our fourth child — another boy. I sat in a hospital room with a brand-new baby in my arms, and I felt like a brand-new man myself. I was sleeping better. I wasn’t so irritable. I was talking to people again. I wasn’t forgetting my dadgum wallet at the restaurant anymore.
I was back to my old self … maybe even better.
Finley finished his career catching 223 passes for 2,785 yards and 20 touchdowns during six seasons with the Packers. To inject some structure and meaning into his life again, he started teaching football camps where he lives in Texas.
He’s become a success story, but only because the NFL’s bar for success is so low. Celebrating that Finley might be in pain forever from career-ending injuries, but at least he has a way to deal with that pain, feels like something of an oxymoron. But the fact that he sought help and is now in a significantly better place is hopefully a lesson more NFL players can learn from.
