How Jurrell Casey Knew It Was Time to Retire

Sleeping in, skipping workouts convinced the five-time Tennessee Titans Pro Bowl defensive lineman that his time had come to call it a career.

NASHVILLE – It was not a calendar that told Jurrell Casey that it was time to retire from the NFL. Never mind that more than a decade had passed since the Tennessee Titans selected him in the third round (77th overall) in the 2011 NFL Draft or that his 32nd birthday was not far off, which would make him an old man by professional football standards.

It was a clock. Specifically, the clock to the side of his bed.

Too often in recent months Casey saw 7 a.m. on that particular timepiece. That was far from the norm.

“My wife used to have to tell me, ‘Stay in bed. Take a nap. Just relax a little bit,’” he said. “I’d [normally] be up at six o’clock in the morning. When I’m sitting there at seven, I knew something was going wrong.

“… Get up, go workout. Somedays, don’t go workout. Once I started doing that, I knew my love for the game was starting to dwindle.”

It was those relatively late mornings that set Casey on the path toward Thursday, when he formally announced his retirement as an NFL player. His 10-year career (nine with the Titans, one with the Denver Broncos) consisted of 142 games played with 140 starts, five Pro Bowl appearances and one AFC Defensive Player of the Week award. Five times he was ranked among the NFL’s top 100 players, as voted on by his peers (he peaked at No. 66 in 2018).

Three times in a five-year stretch from 2013-17, he played at least 80 percent of Tennessee’s total defensive snaps, and one of the other two (2015), he logged 78 percent of the snaps. Much of the time he was on the field, he faced double teams from opposing offensive lines, which means the wear and tear he endured likely exceeded the number of plays.

His 51 sacks rank second to Jevon Kearse’s 52 for the most by a Titans player since the start of the 1999 season. Six times he was a team captain and twice he was the franchise’s Walter Payton Man of the Year nominee. By any measure, he rates as one of the best players in franchise history.

Tennessee traded him to the Broncos in 2020, and he played three games for that team before he sustained a season-ending – ultimately, a career-ending – injury.

“On behalf of our entire organization, I congratulate him on a fantastic career, and we will always consider him part of the Titans family,” Tennessee’s controlling owner Amy Adams Strunk said in a release. “I look forward to seeing what is next for him because I know that no matter what is in store, he will continue to make those around him better.”

The fact that he could no longer give his best is why Casey is on to whatever comes next.

Eventually during the offseason, he dragged himself out of bed and got serious about his training. Or at least he tried. He did not get the physical response that he expected, which only caused him to question further whether he ought to extend his career.

“The body’s just not driving the same,” he said. “I’d go out there, try to do certain things, try to move around, try to run, try to go and just have free time. The body’s not moving the same and clicking the same way, and there was no way I was going to go put bad film on tape just to collect a couple dollars.

“That’s not my style, not my thing. If I can’t give you everything I can give … then I don’t need to be out there.”

That is not to say there was no one who wanted to see him out there. He did not name any specifically, but Casey said he received interest and contract offers from multiple teams that believed he could be an asset to their defensive fronts.

Ultimately, he was happy to tell them all no.

“I’m nowhere near sad,” Casey said. “There’s not one bit of sadness in me at all. I made the decision on my own. That was the blessing of it all. I could have been hurt and no team ever wanted me. But I was able to sit around, take in a couple of offers and see what people were offering.

“I said to my wife, ‘We’re not going to do it. We’re going to go rock out and do something else.’ … It was a feeling that I always wanted to have, to make sure I was walking away from this game of my own accord.”