
Through two weeks, the National Football League’s best story is former Buffalo Bill Vontae Davis taking his lunchpail and walking off the job at halftime. It is one of the few things regular folks can relate to when it comes to sports because it isn’t about money or physical stature – it’s about just having had enough.
All Sunday and Monday, people have told stories about just walking off a job they could no longer endure – whether it was on Day One or later in life, whether it was the work or the boss. That an NFL player had the brass to do it right in the middle of a shift only makes it more relatable.
More relatable, to be sure, than the Le’Veon Bell holdout in Pittsburgh, which is about money and longevity, or the latest Josh Gordon subplot, in which he was essentially fired for being late and bogus-ing up an excuse. Even more relatable than Ryan Fitzpatrick looking like Pirate Number Two in every swashbuckler movie since the beginning of cinema.
Davis left work for a very simple reason. He didn’t want to do it any more. He wasn’t doing it for financial gain. He wasn’t doing it to complain about playing time. He just hit “E” at a very inconvenient time.
Not that leaving your mates in a lurch is ever noble; his fellow Bills are quite miffed that he chucked it all in at halftime as opposed to Sunday night or Monday morning, and they have a right to be. This is not meant as praise for Davis’ method of departure. In two hours, he could have fulfilled his duty completely.
But we also can’t know how much the idea of playing even another down repelled him. We are just now learning about the mental grind athletes go through, and how corrosive it can be even to the best of them. We just know that we’ve all been there, wanting to chuck it all in mid-meeting.
Davis’ decision, timing or no, is relatable to civilian life in a way that almost no other details of the athlete’s life are. It’s the ultimate in “I just can’t do this any more,” and that’s a feeling most people have had from time to time. Sometimes it comes from a veteran after 40 years’ service. Sometimes it comes on the first orientation meeting. It can happen any time, but it does happen.
And that’s the only point here. On a certain level, we get this. We don’t have to admire it – that, we will leave to your individual consciences and tavern opinions – but we get it.
Davis presumably knows what he is losing – money, a level of fame, the camaraderie of his teammates – and has weighed what he is trying to gain – peace of mind, and a minimally better chance at a happy post-career quality of life. Football is hard work at any price, and those who aren’t all-in to the myths and realities of the gig really are better off getting out.
So judge Vontae Davis as you must, but on the assumption that all he is after here is longterm personal satisfaction, he’s done the right thing for him, and we all have fantasized about that at one point or another.
Vontae Davis, in sum, is us, and we are Vontae Davis. Or we will be at some point. Now what’s more relatable than that?
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