Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Fond Farewell
Coatesville’s Derrick Morgan retires on his own terms after nine NFL seasons with Titans
NASHVILLE, TENN. >> Tennessee defensive lineman Derrick Morgan says he’s retiring after playing nine NFL seasons for five head coaches.
Morgan announced his decision Monday on social media and with a post on The Players’ Tribune website.
“My mom put me in football when I was nine years old because I was getting to that age where kids start acting up and getting into trouble,” Morgan wrote in the Players’ Tribune. “She was a single mother, and I was basically a latchkey kid. I’d wake up in the morning, and she’d already be gone for work. When I got home from school, she’d still be gone. Football was a way to make sure I was occupied when she wasn’t there, and for me to burn off all that troublemaking kid energy I had.”
He wrote that he had a strong indication 2018 would be his final season and that he always wanted to leave the game on his own terms. Morgan says he is thankful to say he accomplished both goals.
“When I was growing up in Coatesville, Pennsylvania, my mom never talked about college,” Morgan wrote in his post. “It was all about finishing high school. The plan was for me to get good grades, graduate … then get a job and go to work. That’s what she’d done. It’s what her parents had done. It’s what most people in our neighborhood did. That was the model.
“She always preached hard work, no matter what,” he wrote. “I believed in it then, and I believe in it now.”
The 16th pick overall out of Georgia Tech in 2010, Morgan spent his entire career with Tennessee. He started 106 of 118 games and had 44½ sacks playing defensive and outside linebacker. He had a sack in his lone playoff game, the Titans’ wildcard win in Kansas City in January 2018.
“...my junior year, I started getting recognition on the football field, and the whole plan changed,” Morgan wrote. “My mind opened up to a much bigger dream. Something that could potentially deliver me from my circumstances.
“College football ... So I put all my effort into that pursuit. And once I achieved that goal and I arrived on campus at Georgia Tech, I looked even further ahead, and my focus became NFL or bust. I studied just enough to stay eligible, and I devoted the rest of my time to football.”
Morgan says he sees this as a transition as he works to create more opportunities for the underserved and overlooked.