Recently, the NFL has been hit with a spate of early retirements, as first-year players like A.J. Tarpley and mid-career stars like Marshawn Lynch and Calvin Johnson, have called it quits even when it seemed there was plenty of tread left on their tires. For 31-year-old Kansas City Chiefs defensive end Mike DeVito, that's not the case.
DeVito announced his retirement from the NFL in an incredibly honest letter published Monday.
"9 years ago I was sitting in a locker at the New York Jets training facility at Hofstra University waiting to hear the words 'DeVito grab your playbook the general manager wants to see you,'" DeVito wrote. "I had already seen a dozen players more talented than I was get released and figured I had to be next. That never came...until now. But it didn't come from a guy in personnel or a coach, it was my wife. 'It's over, baby. Time to hang up the cleats.' She was voicing what I already knew in my heart; it was time to move on from football."
As DeVito notes, he spent nine years as member of the National Football League, split between the Chiefs and the team he grew up rooting for, the Jets.
An undrafted free agent out of Maine, DeVito was certainly justified in his expectation of receiving a visit from "The Turk" following that first training camp. But DeVito survived cutdown day in 2007 and has since gone on to become a steady, block-occupying presence along both the New York and, most recently, the Kansas City front.
Unfortunately, injuries cost DeVito more and more time on the field, as he has not appeared in a full 16-game slate since 2012, his final season with the Jets.
DeVito missed two games in 2013 and three games this past season. He also missed every game but one in 2014 when he and fellow veteran Chief defender Derrick Johnson suffered dual Achilles tears.
DeVito wasn't a flashy player as his statistical production can attest - he finishes his career with 250 tackles, 5.5 sacks and 6 forced fumbles - but he was the kind of selfless teammate that allows NFL defenses to thrive. His versatility also allowed coaches to use DeVito in a variety of ways and landed him on Pro Football Focus' list of the best defensive ends in the game over the 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013 seasons.
And while DeVito lauded the game that brought him so much as part of his goodbye letter, he also made clear his belief that there are, and always will be, more important things than football.
"The last lesson I learned on this journey didn't come from football but instead from my wife Jessie and my son Rocco," DeVito wrote. "The last lesson is vitally important but its application is very difficult. This last lesson is the reason why I have made the decision to move on from football. It is this; there are more important things in life than football. As hard as it is to say goodbye to the game that has made me the man I am, I cannot wait for the second half of this journey through life, loving Jessie more and more every day and watching my son Rocco start a journey of his own."
