Darren Waller, the tight end who could make linebackers look like they were running with cement shoes, has announced his retirement from the NFL at the tender age of 31. After all, when you’ve had one Pro Bowl appearance, who needs the constant threat of concussions and torn ligaments?

Waller’s decision was driven primarily by a fading passion for the game. And not just any kind of fading passion – the kind that wanes after you've experienced an undefined emergency medical event. The type of event that shakes you to your core and makes you ponder your life choices, kind of like realizing your favorite pizza place went out of business.

Waller revealed that his inexplicable medical scare landed him in the hospital for 3.5 days, which offered ample time for introspection. Being hooked to machines with worried nurses darting near your bed tends to shift one's perspective. Prior to this, he was recording a music video and brushed off his feverish symptoms as maybe a third bout of COVID-19. Clearly, medical wisdom suggests: if it’s not viral deja vu, it must be something you should truly call 911 for.

The situation rapidly deteriorated. Waller recounted shaking uncontrollably, losing consciousness, and losing control over his breath – all the jazz that turns an ordinary day into the perfect membership pass for the "Near-Death Experience" survivor club. Fortunately, emergency services responded, and Waller lived to question every life choice up to that point, just like all of us do daily, minus the need for a hospital stay.

Waller has never hidden from his past struggles, including an overdose in 2017. His journey from the edge of fatal addiction to becoming an advocate for mental health has been nothing short of inspiring. It proves that turning your life around sometimes just requires hitting rock bottom – or, in his case, being sacked by life and getting right back up.

Still, his final season with the New York Giants wasn't exactly the swan song one might hope for. A hamstring injury limited him to just 12 games, and he racked up a modest 52 catches for 552 yards and one lonely touchdown. Even so, the Giants expressed enormous respect for Waller as both a person and a player. Their heartfelt well-wishes must be the sort of genuine affection usually reserved for years of indispensable utility, or at least until you save the team $11.6 million in cap money.

Perhaps the Giants saw this coming, which is why they drafted Penn State's tight end Theo Johnson. You know, always good to have a plan B for your plan A, which in the NFL stands for "Another player who can also get hurt."

Despite everything, Waller holds fond memories of the Giants, thanking them for welcoming him and making him feel like part of the family – which is arguably the warmest code for “looking forward to not seeing those medical bills on my desk.”

Oh, and did we mention that Waller and WNBA star Kelsey Plum got married shortly before his trade to the Giants? Typical of whirlwind sports romances, they divorced after just a year. It seems Waller’s life has had more plot twists than a daytime soap opera.

Ultimately, while Waller’s love for football may have wavered, his knack for introspection in a hospital bed shone brightly. Upon reflecting whether he would have felt fulfilled had that day been his last, he concluded there was more to life beyond the gridiron. And what better time to make such a revelation than after successfully navigating both love, loss, and personal challenges?

So here’s to Darren Waller, who traded touchdowns for wiser life touchdowns, and, in the process, may have found a new calling in amateur experience-surviving. Football’s loss, it seems, is the medical drama community’s gain.

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