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Larry Fitzgerald's potential retirement a hot topic, except to Fitzgerald

frank schwab
Senior writer

When great players reach a certain age, retirement questions are inevitable. We don’t want them to go, but we’re curious when it might happen.

The retirement questions have started for Arizona Cardinals receiver Larry Fitzgerald, and the curiosity will be there until the 33-year-old calls it quits. But Fitzgerald has a plan for retirement … questions.

Fitzgerald said he’ll address his future in training camp, and he won’t address it anymore after that according to ESPN.com. Presumably Fitzgerald has a plan for retirement too, but he hasn’t divulged that and isn’t going to let the questions continue all year. The regular questions about potential retirement get annoying, he said.

“Oh yeah, oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yup, it does,” Fitzgerald told ESPN.com. “Everybody wants to know what the future holds, but nobody knows what the future holds. I don’t know what it holds.”

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It wouldn’t be a surprise if Fitzgerald is entering his final season. Maybe he’ll announce during camp that he plans to play one more year and retire (or maybe he’ll keep his true plan a secret all season, and just won’t answer questions about it). He’ll turn 34 before Week 1, though he is coming off his second straight 100-catch, 1,000-yard season. If he wants to keep playing after this season, the Cardinals would presumably love to have him back.

There were rumors that 2016 would be Fitzgerald’s last season, but he’ll be back again in 2017. Unless Fitzgerald says during his one press conference addressing his future that he plans to play one more year and retire, there will be speculation all year that 2017 will be Fitzgerald’s final NFL season. But that speculation won’t come from Fitzgerald. He’s not spending all season answering questions about what will happen when this season is done.

Larry Fitzgerald said he'll address his future plans only once this year. (AP)
Larry Fitzgerald said he’ll address his future plans only once this year. (AP)

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Frank Schwab is the editor of Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at shutdown.corner@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!

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