Locker Feared Being Labeled 'Soft'

Maybe Jake Locker was a man ahead of the times.

Had he played in the NFL these days as opposed to a decade ago, it at least seems possible that the former Tennessee Titans quarterback would have lasted longer than he did. The eighth overall selection in the 2011 draft played out his rookie contract and then retired abruptly months before his 26th birthday and just ahead of the start of free agency at least in part – he can now say – to help maintain his mental health.

“If I’m being honest, I felt, like, a responsibility to the organization, to the teammates, to that city – and I felt all of that,” Locker said this week on The Reunion, a Bleacher Report interview series. “I felt like it wasn’t a place that you really could be honest about those things because you’d be criticized for that. You’d be soft. You’d be mentally weak.”

Locker played 30 games and started 23 over his four seasons with Tennessee. He was 9-14 as a starter and threw 27 touchdown passes along with 22 interceptions. He was never part of a playoff team and – just like his successor, Marcus Mariota – dealt with a spate of injuries and never experienced any consistency in his coaching. He had two head coaches and three offensive coordinators.

During that time, he earned $12,586,002 (source: spotrac), which included an initial signing bonus of a little more than $7.6 million.

“I hired a financial advisor, and I really didn’t know what was going on, to be honest,” Locker said. “And I didn’t ask. I didn’t care. It didn’t seem to matter to me. I wanted to be successful on the field.”

Over his time in the NFL, those priorities shifted, as detailed in a 2018 Sports Illustrated profile. In that piece, Locker said ““I was pretending with everybody because I wasn’t authentic with anybody.”

These days, he lives with his family in his hometown of Ferndale, Wash. where he is a businessman and has been an assistant high school football coach, among other things.

Recently, current Titans wide receiver A.J. Brown was celebrated for his revelation that he dealt with a serious mental crisis last season. At one point, he revealed, he even contemplated suicide. A willingness to talk about it, for others to listen and for him to seek the necessary help have gotten him to a much better place this season.

Brown, Tennessee’s leading receiver in each of his first two seasons, is just one high-profile player to speak up abut mental health issues this season. Atlanta wide receiver Calvin Ridley stepped away from his team last month to address issues he faced on that front. Veteran offensive lineman Lane Johnson also has been candid on the topic.

“I agree that that needs to change because I think all of us deal with that in different ways,” Locker said.