"""The real question is not why these four men are all retiring"""
I disagree. NFL players on average retire for very different reasons than Google execs. It may not be the case for the recent retirees but even if you are fully healthy it's really risky to keep playing in the NFL (concussions alone, check health premiums of NFL players etc.). Many players should probably retire earlier. It's a lot better to enjoy less money than to have more money and Alzheimers or the like at age 50.
+it's more likely that NFL players that retire early kind of have a good feeling for how many more high level seasons they could have played. At least I'd think it's easier to judge the capabilities of your body than the capabilities of your mind. (QB's are the exception, I guess Locker could have stayed around as a journeyman for a couple of years and made relatively safe money holding a clipboard). I don't have any evidence but I also suspect some of the surprise early retirements may be ralted to PED use and/or uncertainty if that can be kept up "undetected". At least it's reasonable to think this is the case for a higher %age than in other fields.
tl;dr: apples, oranges. NFL retirement is extremly different from most other forms of retirement. The high level abstraction of "retired but didn't have to" is at least somewhat questionable.
I remember when Tiki Barber, a running back, retired early. He was on a talk show and when they asked him why he retired, he said that being a running back in the NFL was like running full-speed into a brick wall over and over again.
I disagree. NFL players on average retire for very different reasons than Google execs. It may not be the case for the recent retirees but even if you are fully healthy it's really risky to keep playing in the NFL (concussions alone, check health premiums of NFL players etc.). Many players should probably retire earlier. It's a lot better to enjoy less money than to have more money and Alzheimers or the like at age 50.
+it's more likely that NFL players that retire early kind of have a good feeling for how many more high level seasons they could have played. At least I'd think it's easier to judge the capabilities of your body than the capabilities of your mind. (QB's are the exception, I guess Locker could have stayed around as a journeyman for a couple of years and made relatively safe money holding a clipboard). I don't have any evidence but I also suspect some of the surprise early retirements may be ralted to PED use and/or uncertainty if that can be kept up "undetected". At least it's reasonable to think this is the case for a higher %age than in other fields.
tl;dr: apples, oranges. NFL retirement is extremly different from most other forms of retirement. The high level abstraction of "retired but didn't have to" is at least somewhat questionable.