Vince Wilfork: ‘I’m 50-50’ about retirement

Vince Wilfork isn’t sure if he’s finished with football. The veteran nose tackle has yet to announce his retirement, and is holding off because he still might want to continue playing.

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SiriusXM Editor
June 16, 2017

Vince Wilfork isn’t sure if he’s finished with football.

The veteran nose tackle has yet to announce his retirement, and is holding off because he still might want to continue playing.

‘I’m not going to rush it’

Wilfork, who spent the past two seasons with the Houston Texans after an 11-year run with the New England Patriots, doesn’t have a timetable on when he’ll make a decision.

“Mentally, I’m where I’ve been all this while, I’m 50-50,” Wilfork told Bruce Murray and James Lofton on the SiriusXM Blitz. “Because … I don’t want to rush that decision because that’s a big decision to make. Because I don’t want to be retired and really not, and I don’t want to be playing and I’m really not into it. So that’s why I’m just taking the time now just to figure out, ‘Is it something I want to continue to do or not?’ And I’m not going to rush it. I’m just going to let everything play out and see how I feel.

‘If I decide to call it quits, I’m calling it quits’

“Now, when I do make a decision, it’ll be a decision that I’m going to stick with it. I won’t be one of those ones that’s retired, not retired, no. If I decide to call it quits, I’m calling it quits. If I don’t, I’m going full fledged into what I’ve been doing for all these years.”

Wilfork won’t even offer a guess as to when he might make up his mind.

‘Camp now is like ‘Camp Cupcake”

“I mean, one of these days, I’ll get up and say, ‘OK, I want to play,’ or, ‘I don’t want to play,’ and it’s like, ‘OK, it’s official,'” he said. “I’m not doing this because I want to miss training camp or miss preseason, because to be honest with you, those things are so easy now. I mean, it’s not like it was 10-11-12 years ago. Camp now is like ‘Camp Cupcake.’ You’re only in pads for 10 days. I mean, it’s so different now, so anybody that thinks I’m missing because I want to miss training camp or preseason, man, that is baloney.”

What might persuade him to play? If he feels the urge to play the closer he gets to the season.

‘You’ll know when you’re ready to call it quits’

“It’s just one of those things that’ll click with me, and I truly believe that,” Wilfork said. “Anybody that I talked to who retired said, ‘You will know. You’ll know when you’re ready to call it quits or you want continue to play. Right now, I’m on the fence.”


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