NFL Player quits at halftime and retires

[Stump89]

I just saw an article stating Bills cornerback Vontae Davis pulled himself from the game earlier today and decided to retire at halftime.  Disrespectful to teammates and coaches? Probably.  The right decision for a player who said he doesn't have it anymore? Probably.  I can see both sides of the argument here. Curious to hear any thoughts on this.

 

[LLC]

I don’t know all the details but I think waiting until the game was over to do it would have been better.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Stump89]

https://syndication.bleacherreport.com/amp/2796047-vontae-davis-quit-bills-retired-at-halftime-vs-chargers-lorenzo-alexander-says.amp.html

This is the original article I saw.

[Bloodwood87]

Crazy. It blows me away he would do it in the middle of the game.

[Ken Gargett]

3 hours ago, Stump89 said:

I just saw an article stating Bills cornerback Vontae Davis pulled himself from the game earlier today and decided to retire at halftime.  Disrespectful to teammates and coaches? Probably.  The right decision for a player who said he doesn't have it anymore? Probably.  I can see both sides of the argument here. Curious to hear any thoughts on this.

 

the right decision? not probably. definitely not.

unbelievably poor. most certainly disrespectful. finish the game or at the very least, tell your coach and team that you are not up to it and at least support them from the sideline but do not just walk out of the stadium. he couldn't hang around another 90 minutes? there is no version of this where this bloke deserves a shred of respect from anyone. retire at the end of the game? fair enough. not during. 

the act of a grub. 

[El Presidente]

31 minutes ago, Ken Gargett said:

the act of a grub. 

or mentally unstable 

[Lomey]

I think he owed it to his teammates to finish the game.

[Ken Gargett]

Just now, El Presidente said:

or mentally unstable 

maybe. but this sounds like a deliberate decision, designed to make a point. whatever it might be. if he did have mental issues then surely there would have been evidence of it before this moment. everything i read suggested he had is decided he'd had enough, and if so, fair enough to retire (although better to have done it earlier). but have the decency to hold on, even if only on the sideline, for another half. 

a bi like that rower, sally lie-down. 

[luckme10]

Some of best quotes from Vontae Davis' Twitter Account:

"Never quit. Use each setback, each disappointment as a cue to push on ahead with more determination than ever before."

"The people who Succeed in life are those who don't QUIT..........." 

"Successful people keep moving. They make mistakes along the way, but they never quit."

[shlomo]

This isn't Band of Brothers. It's the NFL, and it is all business. Davis did what he felt is best for himself for whatever reason. Happy trails man, hope you enjoy retirement.

[Stump89]

6 hours ago, Ken Gargett said:

the right decision? not probably. definitely not.

Also didnt help that the Bills were getting absolutely waxed by halftime, but he should have at least finished the game. 

[TNT009]

Well, he will get what he wants.. He won't play another down and no-one will hire him to be an analyst or commentator. No credibility and no-one will ever trust him again! Good thing this wasn't a military unit!

[ElJavi76]

Being a Bills fan... Of course this would happen on this team. They can't stop anything nor will this offense amount to much of anything. To me that's what the players think of the management. If the players respected the hierarchy nothing like this would ever take place. 

I'm with some of the others... Take yourself out of the game if you feel you can't produce. Stick it out and then announce after the game. Instead you make it about yourself. To get this very strange exit from the league. Total spectacle. Selfish. His teammates didn't even want to comment on it. That's how disrespectful this was. The Bills' woes continue. 

[MoeFOH]

Unless there was a physical injury or total mental collapse, then surely you have to finish the game, announce afterwards. Did either of those things happen? I don't know. If they did, the announcement to retire still should have come later. Never seen or heard of anything like this before. 

[MasterShake72]

What people forget is that this is a game that shortens lives. They make good money to make that sacrifice but these guys are looking at what...15 less years then the rest of the population? If Vontae thought even for a second that he didn't have it or felt he was playing timidly or scared, then thats when bad shit happens. Was it handled in the best way by retiring at halftime...probably not, but who knows what was going through his head at the time. I don't feel I'm in a position to question the decisions of guys whose entire lives could change in the blink of an eye on a routine play.

[kuma]

Yeah we have a bunch knuckle heads who to want to have that 5 min.'s of fame.  One to many shots to the head!

[tomj]

Oh to be a Bills fan so very hard but I stick by my team. I think he should have waited until after the game to retire.

[CaskStrength]

It's not a good look, but once he's made up his mind, there is no good outcome.  The options were basically:

• Finish the game, knowing you've mentally checked out.  This isn't fair to his teammates and is a danger to his own safety to play with that mindset.
• Leave the building, telling your teammates.  More professional, but potentially causes a pretty big distraction.
• Stay on the sideline, with his teammates knowing why he isn't playing.  Even more distracting to be sitting next to a quitter
• What he did.  Incredibly unprofessional, but caused less of an in-game disturbance than him making the announcement to his teammates.

Given his play in the first half, he wasn't going to give a solid effort in the second half anyway.  Hopefully Buffalo's management takes this as a wake-up call and starts turning things around.

[Ericbrobes]

I had never heard of anything like that before...

[Stump89]

4 minutes ago, CaskStrength said:

It's not a good look, but once he's made up his mind, there is no good outcome.  The options were basically:

• Finish the game, knowing you've mentally checked out.  This isn't fair to his teammates and is a danger to his own safety to play with that mindset.
• Leave the building, telling your teammates.  More professional, but potentially causes a pretty big distraction.
• Stay on the sideline, with his teammates knowing why he isn't playing.  Even more distracting to be sitting next to a quitter
• What he did.  Incredibly unprofessional, but caused less of an in-game disturbance than him making the announcement to his teammates.

Given his play in the first half, he wasn't going to give a solid effort in the second half anyway.  Hopefully Buffalo's management takes this as a wake-up call and starts turning things around.

All good points there. Hard to imagine why, if he really didn't have it in him to play, he wouldn't have realized it in the offseason or at least by the end of training camp.

[BTWheezy]

On 9/17/2018 at 5:58 PM, CaskStrength said:

It's not a good look, but once he's made up his mind, there is no good outcome.  The options were basically:

• Finish the game, knowing you've mentally checked out.  This isn't fair to his teammates and is a danger to his own safety to play with that mindset.
• Leave the building, telling your teammates.  More professional, but potentially causes a pretty big distraction.
• Stay on the sideline, with his teammates knowing why he isn't playing.  Even more distracting to be sitting next to a quitter
• What he did.  Incredibly unprofessional, but caused less of an in-game disturbance than him making the announcement to his teammates.

Given his play in the first half, he wasn't going to give a solid effort in the second half anyway.  Hopefully Buffalo's management takes this as a wake-up call and starts turning things around.

One more option:

Return to the field, and play like it’s the last 30 minutes of your career.  Leave it all out there one last time, because this is it!  Oh, and don’t forget that  you’ll never make that much money for 30 min. of work ever again.

I wonder if he’s already regretting his decision...

[CaskStrength]

1 hour ago, BTWheezy said:

One more option:

Return to the field, and play like it’s the last 30 minutes of your career.  Leave it all out there one last time, because this is it!  Oh, and don’t forget that  you’ll never make that much money for 30 min. of work ever again.

I wonder if he’s already regretting his decision...

Easy to say, harder to do when your heart isn't in it and you're risking permanent injury.  Sucks he made the decision he did, but I understand where he was coming from.

[SignalJoe]

[MasterShake72]

16 hours ago, BTWheezy said:

One more option:

Return to the field, and play like it’s the last 30 minutes of your career.  Leave it all out there one last time, because this is it!  Oh, and don’t forget that  you’ll never make that much money for 30 min. of work ever again.

I wonder if he’s already regretting his decision...

Lol, leave it all out there? This isn't the last game of your high school or college career where you are playing for pride. The NFL is, first and foremost, a business...a fact that everyone seems to forget. Healthy players get cut, coaches get fired, players who have sustained career altering or ending injuries are cut at the end of the season (without having to pay them a single dime extra) and thats all just part of the business of the NFL. And btw, Vontae Davis had a 10 year career, and at one point was regarded as a top 5 corner in the league. He was a first round draft pick and a pro-bowler and because of all that he has around $50 mil in career earnings. I think he'll be just fine money-wise.

[BinBin]

He’s had it.....this massacres....bullshit