San Francisco 49ers: NFL impact of Chris Borland’s retirement

By Brian Spaen | Mar 17, 2015

A dismal offseason for the San Francisco 49ers was treated with another huge blow on Monday night.

Linebacker Chris Borland, who was just a rookie last season, retires from the NFL at the age of 24. While it impacts the 49ers greatly, this news isn’t all just about them. Borland’s retirement may have started a new trend that could impact the NFL’s future.

One of the players that helped made Patrick Willis‘ retirement less painful was Borland. The 5’11”, 248-pound defender recorded 107 total tackles (84 solo), five pass deflections, two interceptions, and a fumble recovery. He stepped in for Willis when the seven-time Pro Bowler (who retired last week) was injured against the St. Louis Rams last October. Roughly a month after Willis’ injury, he was declared out for the remainder of the season.

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Borland shined, but now the player that was supposed to be the next great linebacker for the 49ers will retire for similar reasons that Willis did — health concerns. Specifically concussions. Here’s a quote from what Borland told ESPN’s Mark Fainaru-Wada and Steve Fainaru.

"“I feel largely the same, as sharp as I’ve ever been, for me it’s wanting to be proactive,” said Borland. “I’m concerned that if you wait till you have symptoms, it’s too late. … There are a lot of unknowns. I can’t claim that X will happen. I just want to live a long healthy life, and I don’t want to have any neurological diseases or die younger than I would otherwise.”"

Plenty of 49ers fans will chalk this up to another failure in the offseason and blame Jed York and/or Trent Baalke. There’s certainly a lot to blame to throw at them for San Francisco dissolving this much after being a Super Bowl contender just a year ago.

However, this isn’t one of those cases. Borland isn’t just quitting because of a bleak situation with the 49ers. It’s one thing to get away from the drama, but there’s also 31 other opportunities for him if that was the issue.

Instead, Borland’s retirement brings up a question that many of us should start pondering – will it begin the demise of the NFL as we know it?

Don’t mistake that for the other question of is the NFL doomed with head trauma concerns. No, America’s professional football league will never go away. There’s too many prospects that will want to play football for that to happen. For every one person like Borland that’s making a second decision on playing, there’s hundreds of others that will gladly risk not being able to turn a doorknob at the age of 40 to cash in on a huge paycheck.

August 24, 2014; Santa Clara, CA, USA; San Francisco 49ers inside linebacker Patrick Willis (52) during the third quarter against the San Diego Chargers at Levi

However, multiple players retiring at the age of 30 or below this offseason does raise the question on the impact of quality in the NFL. Over time, if players do continue leaving the game, that will also get more kids and their parents to rethink their position on playing the sport. In turn, some athletes that have tremendous talent will be playing in other sports.

It’s not going to happen overnight, but if this trend continues to build, we will see the impact in quality of play on the field. Football being played 20 years from now won’t be at the level it’s being played at today. Hits won’t be as hard, catches won’t be as acrobatic, and highlights won’t be as memorable.

Will any of that impact the public viewing audience? Or will they simply not care about the impact of quality and the sports juggernaut will continue to grow? The early prognosis doesn’t seem likely. Despite people continuing the understand the danger involved in football, popularity continues to surge with record TV ratings.

Borland figured it wasn’t worth it after just one season in the NFL and joins other talented players that could have had great careers. Now that these kind of players are leaving, it will be interesting to see what the trickle-down effect is.

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