In January 2012, in the days before the NFC Championship game, a reporter asked Frank Gore, then in the middle of his seventh season (and third Pro Bowl offer), if he remembered the backs taken before him in 2005. NFL project.
Gore said he could, then went on to list the names one by one.
“First was Ronnie Brown, second was Cedric Benson, Cadillac Williams, then JJ Arrington, then the boy who went to Carolina from Louisville, [Eric] Shelton, then me.
Gore, who officially retired at the age of 39 on Thursday, highlighted the metaphorical chip on his shoulder that kept his NFL longevity intact, knowing the roster is now full of players who have retired from the NFL or will soon be included. their way. But it was also an invitation to the psyche that carried him almost another decade later, despite the heavy workload of one of the most violent and weak positions in football.
Gore was deeply interested in sports. He was deeply interested in the fact that he worked harder than anyone else. He was more connected to the game than many of us are connected to the inner workings of our own lives. He was a running version of Tom Brady without the marketing of a plant-based diet. Instead of flexibility and healthy fats, this was the second workout at sunset every day on an old ball field near his house for most of the 20 years. It was a completely old school, perhaps with no relation to science, except for the fact that he knew in his own mind that it set him apart from other players, regardless of age. That’s all that matters.
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On the day he officially says goodbye – who knows, by the way, if he doesn’t come out of the boxing ring again to take careers from his son Frank Jr., in 2023? – Gore is definitely less known than some of the NFL opposed the Iron Men. We wonder why? While this is not a critique of Brady, wouldn’t it be fair to assume that over the next 50 years of the NFL, given all the advances we’ve seen in medical science, player health and safety, and offensive game planning, that can we see another quarterback performing skillfully in his mid-40s?
We will never see another Frank Gore again. Only this should win him a place in the Hall of Fame of professional football.
Gore was the type of player who surprised people in his last years simply with his desire to endure, to continue. There is a chance that the team will sign it now, simply because of the built-in value of having other players watch it work. Gore’s climb to 16,000 yards (Gore is third of all time after Barry Sanders and Walter Payton) was not beautiful after he left Jim Harbo and the 49ers. He clung to Chuck Pagano’s last years in Indianapolis and the Dolphins, who passed 7-9. Gore had his first winning season in 2019 after seven years in the league with the Bills. That’s almost three times the average life expectancy of a quarterback in the NFL.
Gore did not have a pre-prepared list of his success to complement the most difficult and vulnerable years of his career. He took on broadcasts from Sam Darnold in road games, trailing by 17 points in the fourth quarter, stabbing his body 5’9 “in a midfielder a year or two younger than Gor’s son in an era defined by the fantastic football star. it made him think more thoughtlessly for those who hadn’t been forced to watch the slimming moments of Sunday’s fourth CBS game at 1 p.m. It was unsexy football, but it proved Gore’s point of view. It’s much easier to wonder why Brady is still doing what he’s doing, with Mike Evans, Chris Godwin and Rob Gronkowski pulling passes and a talented defense waiting on the sidelines to end the game. join Jets 2020.
He loved a game he almost never loved, so he retired as one of the greatest players in NFL history. Not in college after he broke his ACL twice. He is not in the draft after being passed 64 times. Not in the weakening moments of his career, signing one after another contract for the veteran’s minimum and no promises outside the obligation to clean. It is safe to assume, given everything we know about football now, given the player’s ability to enter the broadcasting booth and earn enough money in a year to buy a small chain from the Caribbean, that Gore is the last of his kind. That alone is worth remembering.
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