Cowboys’ Frederick retires, cites play after nerve disorder
Travis Frederick said he thought he played well at center for the Dallas Cowboys after returning from a nerve disorder that sidelined him for an entire season.
The 2016 All-Pro made it clear Monday it wasn’t good enough.
Frederick retired from the NFL at 29, saying he
“could no longer perform at my highest level” even though he went to his fifth Pro Bowl in his only season after recovering from Guillian-Barré syndrome.
“Each day, I faced a struggle: I could no longer perform at my highest level,” Frederick wrote in a long statement posted on Twitter and released by the team. “Playing ‘well’ is not what I expect of myself and not what my teammates deserve. Because of this, I know my days as a football player are done.”
A first-round pick seven years ago, Frederick missed all of 2018 after getting diagnosed with the auto-immune disease during training camp.
According to the National Institute for Neurological Disorders and Stroke, Guillain-Barré causes the body to attack a network of nerves around the brain and spinal cord. Most people recover from even the most severe cases, which can include temporary paralysis, but some will continue to have some degree of weakness, according to the institute.
Frederick is married with two young children and said the Guillian-Barré diagnosis caused him to rethink his priorities.
“I spent much of that year thinking about both the past and future,” Frederick said. “I realized how fortunate I was to play a game for a living. I realized how fortunate I was to make friends and become teammates with some great men. Most of all, I realized the importance of my family and how much I want to be there for their peaks and valleys as they were for me.”