Brian Urlacher, Patrick Willis and Ray Lewis. When you think of the great middle linebackers of our era, those three come to mind. They were game-changing players who are headed to the hall of fame.
With all three recently retired, the National Football League looks to the the next generation of great linebackers. Luke Kuechly, NaVorro Bowman and Kiko Alonso all look to follow in the footsteps of some of the greatest defensive players to play the game.
It is a shame that former Wisconsin and San Francisco 49ers linebacker Chris Borland won’t have the opportunity to join them.
It is not a shame that Borland is choosing his personal health over a sport that led to two players who played his same position to commit suicide in 2012 and many more to have debilitating physical issues. I applaud him for valuing his life more than a game.
All that being said, the 49ers and the NFL will be missing one of their brightest young players. Borland played in 14 games and started eight of them, accumulating 107 tackles with two interceptions, five passes defended and one sack.
Those numbers seem impressive on their own. Add some context to them, and you’ve got a historic season. 100 of those 107 tackles came in his eight starts. I’m no math major, but if he had started all 16 games, he would have been on pace for 200 tackles.
The NFL didn’t start tracking player tackles consistently until 1994, although the numbers recorded are still considered unofficial to this day. Since ‘94, the unofficial record for most tackles in a season is 184, coming in 1997 by Ray Lewis.
Maybe Borland would not have been able to maintain his pace over a whole 16-start season, but it would not have been out of the question for him to break the record, or at least come darn close to it.
All of this, in his first season in the NFL. Making a bunch of tackles doesn’t prove that a player is a good linebacker though. Playing in the middle of a defense like the 49ers’ can put a guy like Borland in a good position to make tackles. But it’s not just the quantity that’s astounding—it’s the quality.
ProFootballFocus tracks “run stops,” which they define as “solo defensive tackles made which constitute an offensive failure.” Basically, this covers tackles for a loss and tackles that stop runners for little or no gain.
Chris Borland led the NFL, by far, in percentage of run defense snaps where he was responsible for a stop. Of his 202 run defense snaps, he caused a stop on 43 of them, good for 21.3 percent. The next highest player was Cowboys’ linebacker Rolando McClain at 15.2 percent.
Not only was Borland putting up top-tier tackle numbers, but those tackles were having direct, positive impacts for his defense. The tape backs his numbers up. He flew to the ball, he filled his lanes and he was respectable when dropping back in coverage.
In one remarkable season, Borland proved he could play at the level of the next generation of great linebackers, and then he walked away. One season was enough for him to determine that the sport wasn’t worth the risk.
He is the fifth notable player under the age of 30 to retire from the NFL this offseason. Some members of the media see this starting a trend. But for every Chris Borland you have a Chris Conte, who told WBBM “My life will revolve around football to some point, but I'd rather have the experience of playing and, who knows, die 10, 15 years earlier than not be able to play in the NFL and live a long life.”
There are thousands of players who would do anything to have the chance to do what Borland is walking away from. He is absolutely doing the right thing for his life, but this isn’t going to mark the beginning of the end for the NFL. So many players train their whole lives to live their dream of playing football professionally, and they tend to irrationally ignore the consequences, like Conte.
Football is still growing at an incredible pace and the money continues to flow in. Second and third tier players, even extremely promising ones like Borland, retiring isn’t going to stop that. The league will continue to ignore, avoid and talk around their concussion issues, and fans will continue to support them. Until the fans take a legitimate stance against them (not going to happen) or top players like Aaron Rodgers and J.J. Watt call it quits, nothing is going to change.
We may see more players like Chris Borland wisely hang up their cleats early, but the only thing the NFL is going to lose is potential Brian Urlachers and Ray Lewises. And for every Borland that leaves, there will continue to be dozens of players lining up to take his spot, and the NFL won’t have to change a thing so long as the money keeps flowing and the stars keep playing.
