His resignation will not please everyone.
NFL legend Barry Sanders’ reasons for retiring may not satisfy everyone.
He finally gave sports fans the answer they’ve been waiting for since his 1999.
For nearly 25 years, every time someone brought up the name of NFL Hall of Fame running back Barry Sanders, the conversation eventually led him to one question.
Why?
Sanders is second in rushing yards all-time, and when he retired in 1999 he could probably walk into any house in Detroit and enjoy a home-cooked meal.
But the question on everyone’s mind about the career of the greatest player in Detroit Lions history is why he retired in his prime.
The usually quiet Sanders first explained his decision in the Amazon Prime Video documentary “Bye Bye Barry.
” But not until you understand the person.
Most of the 92 minute documentary has nothing to do with his retirement.
Rather, it’s an intimate crash course in his on-field accomplishments, off-field family ties and Sanders’ enormous cultural influence.
Prominent Lions fans Eminem, Jeff Daniels, and Tim Allen get emotional about Sanders’ football accomplishments, even though they’ve never seen a Detroit Lions game.
Just looking at it is enough.
The praise and success behind it.
By the end of this documentary, you’ll likely have the same answer as the millions of sports fans who followed his career.
You’ll notice that the Lions have failed to get past the first round of the playoffs in Sanders’ last seven seasons.
We’re going to see Sanders lose his closest teammates every season.
There’s a look of disappointment on Saunders’ face as he recounts all these moments, and it’s no secret that his late father, William Saunders, felt towards the Lions organization, which he felt was wasting his son’s best years.
You can see the confusion.
Looking at all of this, it’s probably safe to assume that perhaps the greatest running back of all time retired in his prime because he was tired of losing.
And you’re mostly wrong.
On July 27, 1999, Sanders announced his retirement from the NFL via a private fax to the Lions organization.
In his statement he revealed that he knew he would not be able to return to football at the end of the 1998-1999 season.
He explained the reason for his retirement in just one word: “The desire to leave the sport is greater than the desire to stay in the sport.
” No one believed it at the time, but they should have.
.
When asked why his son Nick Sanders left medicine, the NFL legend admitted it was difficult to explain.
He reiterated what he said in his retirement statement in 1999, saying that in his mind, he is ready.
He didn’t blame the Lions’ losing season on his decision to retire, but said the team’s blowout loss in the playoffs and loss in the Super Bowl in his final season played a part in his decision to retire.
His loss of motivation and desire to be the best is the reason why he decided to retire.
The document suggests that Sanders may have considered resigning as early as 1997.
At this point, he witnessed two of his teammates, Mike Utley and Reggie Brown, suffer debilitating spinal injuries that ended their careers as a result of his routine play.
He’s seen it hundreds of times in every game of his career.
The latter injury occurred during the game in which Sanders became the first running back to rush for more than 2,000 yards in a season.
Sportscaster Mark McCormick, a close friend of Sanders, recalled having conversations with Sanders over the holidays about how these injuries had affected him.
“He said, ‘You know, I was thinking of hanging it,'” McCormick recalled.
“He said, ‘It’s really hard to keep doing this.
‘ It’s kind of a challenge.
” Finally, Sanders spends about 10 minutes in the documentary announcing his resignation, but ultimately was simply repeating a declaration made 24 years ago.
You can psychoanalyze his claims until you’re as blue in the face as the color of a Lions jersey, but the fact is that Sanders has lost his love for the sport.
Whether it was his post-football body seeing the dire prediction of a teammate’s injury, or whether he remained loyal to the team he lost to, he had a reason to stick to it.
