Over the weekend one of the craziest stories in a long time happened in the NFL. Star Colts Quarterback Andrew Luck abruptly retired, just two weeks before the NFL regular season was to start. The Colts were primed to be a super bowl contender for a long time, with Andrew Luck at their helm as a perennial all-star, one of the few people that could ever replace Peyton Manning so flawlessly. And now they are the dreaded NFL purgatory, not quite bad enough to get a new QB, but most likely unable to compete for the title. Luck said he was just mentally and physically exhausted from injury after injury and the struggle to come back and perform in a season. Many players have come forward in support, most notably from Rob Gronkowski, another player that was ravaged by injury and also retired early. Both players had possible Hall of Fame, maybe even Greatest of All Time careers that were lost. And with these two high profile retirements, people are speculating that this could be the new normal in the NFL. Football is a dangerous sport, and injuries, life-ruining injuries even, are less than rare. Players have every reason to retire after getting a solid contract before they are hurt beyond repair. Will this become a trend? Will we see player after player retiring after one or two contracts? It makes a lot of sense. But I don't think so. This is not the first player to retire early. Barry Sanders did it, Calvin Johnson did it, Chris Borland did it, and we haven't seen a massive trend in retirements. I think it will become slightly more common place, but I don't think we need to freak out. I don't think we will see a dearth of NFL talent. For every early retirement, we have players like Thomas Davis who battled back from three ACL tears to keep playing. A lot of these guys want enough to support themselves for the rest of their lives, and their children's and if they are lucky, their children's children. Andrew Luck made enough in his relatively short career to do that. 99% of NFL players will not, and need to keep playing. In addition their are those who really cannot stay away from the game no matter what happens. The number of voluntary early retirements are still in the single digits per year, and probably have been for awhile. The numbers may slightly increase, but it's too soon to worry about talent drying up. Injuries are devastating, they are depressing. And safety is something that the League will continue to look into, and something that will continue to be scrutinized at every turn. But the game of football is still the most popular game in America for a reason, and will continue for the foreseeable future.