Former Cincinnati Bengals first-round pick John Ross announced his retirement from the NFL following the 2021 season. But that retirement did not last long as Ross quickly realized he made a mistake and was not ready to walk away from the game.
John Ross decided last season to attempt a return to the NFL, and now he’s back with the Philadelphia Eagles trying to earn a spot on their roster.
“Literally the day I retired, I knew it was a mistake,” Ross said according to NBCSportsPhiladelphia.com.
Ross struggled during his first few seasons in the league but it sounds like he needed the time away from football to reset and re-evaluate his identity.
“When you get to a point where you feel like you’re at your lowest, you get to see everything for what it is,” Ross said. “And then you get to kind of look around and see your surroundings. I can tell you that my environment wasn’t great. So you gotta kind of hone [in] and pay attention to what matters to you and what’s real. I got to see my son every single day and I think that changed my life. It just let me know that I don’t have anything to worry about. I’m blessed and I have everything in front of me. I’m young, I feel young, I haven’t played that much football. I just got to a point where I was sitting there thinking, every single day, ‘How do I change my mentality? How do I change my mindset?’”
Ross is a long shot to make the Eagles’ final roster, but it sounds like he’s eager to show what he can do.
