Fitzgerald enters Hall of Fame, rejects 'retired'
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- Larry Fitzgerald is being enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame on Saturday in Canton, Ohio, at age 42.
- Fitzgerald last played in 2020 after 17 seasons, all with the Arizona Cardinals, and has never formally or officially stepped away from the game.
- Fitzgerald said a conversation between his grandfather and John Stroger, a longtime Chicago commissioner, stuck with him: "retirement killing more people in our country than anything."
- Fitzgerald framed retirement not as a stop but as "transitioning into different phases, especially as an athlete," and said there is "no retirement in sight."
- Fitzgerald acknowledged he considered leaving the Cardinals at one point but never seriously pursued it, saying "I loved where I was at" and questioned whether joining a "super team" elsewhere would have felt the same.
Why it matters: Fitzgerald's refusal to formally retire sets his 17-year, one-franchise Cardinals career apart from the modern norm of farewell tours and retirement press conferences, leaving Arizona with a rare all-time icon who simply walked away — while his enshrinement remarks push back against the idea that post-career life means stopping entirely.
