Nashville, Tenn. – While the open receiver of Tennessee Titans, Calvin Ridley, goes to the year 2 with the franchise, said he is in a better head space in his life after the injuries and a mental health trip, which included a game suspension, derailed his career.
In a detailed interview with ESPN, he discussed what meant losing football for him, as well as playing through a broken foot in 2020, which he has learned along the way and a detailed look at the game situation that led him to lose the 2022 season.
Ridley is entering its second season with the Titans and is the number 1 receiver of the team. He is one of the five captains voted by his teammates. Ridley has closed the circle since he hit what some would consider that Bottom is.
“The suspension gave me time to rest, physically and mentally stronger improve,” Ridley told ESPN. “After that year, I was ready to return.”
At Ridley's request, the Falcons gave him time far from football. He was able to rehabilitate his foot and take care of his mental health. He also gave him time to connect with the family.
But on this particular trip to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, things took a turn. Ridley spent time with their younger brothers, Riley and Clayton, and that was when his game incident took place. He observed basketball on a Friday night with his brother and some friends who were doing bets in the games through an application.
Ridley joined them and made bets, and turned the university football games the next day. Then Sunday arrived, and Ridley placed bets in the Pittsburgh Steelers and the hawks.
“I downloaded the application sitting there without knowing that I was breaking a rule or something,” said Ridley. “Those were the only two NFL games that I bet.”
The rest of the season would be lost, and in March 2022, the suspension of gambling would decrease.
Before the exchange deadline in the 2022 season, Atlanta would change the ridley suspended to the Jacksonville Jaguars for the sixth round and 2024 conditional selections of fourth round.
“Football has been my job since I was a child,” said Ridley. “That's all I did, man. I never did a job.”
The time outside allowed Ridley to learn to deal with his emotions, and when he finally returned to the playing field, he caught eight passes for 111 yards and a touchdown in his first game. The season ended with 76 receptions for 1,016 yards and eight touchdowns.
The Jaguars tried to bring him back, offering him a contract that averaged around $ 20 million annually. But Ridley decided to prove the free agents market, signing a four -year agreement and $ 92 million with the Titans. An exhausting 3-14 season threw some frustrating moments for Tennessee, but Ridley finished the season with 1,017 yards and four touchdowns in 64 receptions.
“I learned many tools during that process,” Ridley said about those years of tumult. “I still use those things today when it gets difficult. I don't let myself go too far. I will launch the bad thoughts, I will refresh my mind every time I go home.”
Ridley returned to Atlanta earlier this month when the Titans had joint practices with the Falcons. Returning to Falcons facilities in Flowery Branch evoked many emotions for Ridley, augmented when returning to the place where it began.
“It was like, 'Dang, how could it be working so hard to [Falcons] And they simply put me without even trying to protect me or anything? “Ridley said.
Atlanta selected Ridley after a stellar race in Alabama with Selection 26 in the 2018 Draft. After two solid seasons, he exploded for a 1,374 yards race in 2020. It was the highest total ninth of a season in the history of the Falcons franchise. And Ridley did it while playing with what would later be diagnosed like a broken left foot.
The Falcons training personnel initially diagnosed the injury as a bone hematoma during the season, so Ridley resorted to analgesics to remain in the football field. It is what I had done the two previous seasons when I was dealing with bone spur on the same foot. Ridley ended up playing 15 games that season.
In the direction of the OTA in 2021, Ridley knew that something was not well because he could not run, and he felt that something stabbed his foot.
“My foot was in bad condition,” Ridley said. “But I have always been that guy: 'No, I'm fine, I'm going to play. I'm going to keep playing with that.'”
After the previous staff was fired after a 4-12 record, the new chief coach sent Ridley to a specialist in Green Bay, Wisconsin, where it was immediately determined that he had a broken foot. Ridley underwent June surgery and hastened, anxious to assume his new role as a number 1 receiver after the new regime had changed Jones to the Titans.
Ridley has stood out in sport since he was 8 years old, but for the first time, he began to have doubts about “kicking DBS” due to the injured foot.
“If your mental is not good, your trust is no longer there,” said Ridley. “That is what I was trying to tell them.”
To make things worse, Ridley's house was stolen during the opening of the Falcons season against the Philadelphia Eagles. The game was in Atlanta, so Ridley's wife, Dominique, and her 1 -year daughter were not at home. Security images revealed several armed intruders looting the house.
Dominique struggled to sleep at night and couldn't stand it when Ridley wasn't with her at home. Ridley began to feel the “weight of the world in his chest.”
After two games away from home and a game at home, the foot was clearly not improving. Ridley asked for time to heal both mentally and physically. His “mind was in bad condition” of wanting to be at home to protect his family and not be the same caliber of the player.
The team allowed him to lose the game of week 5, a 27-20 victory over the New York Jets in London. That game was followed by goodbye week, giving Ridley two weeks to keep off foot. Ridley returned in week 7 just to catch four passes for 26 yards. After five games, Ridley moved away from football to concentrate on his mental health.
“I never felt like that before,” Ridley said. “Mental health is real.”
The Ridley version that carries the field now for the Titans is in a different place: football is fun for him again. A large part of his emotion comes from the arrival of the rookie field marshal Cam Ward after being the number 1 selection in the Draft.
“I could feel something in me,” said Ridley. “It was like, this child is good and I have to be good. I can't stay behind. I have to be a help. I have to be of great help because it's time to dominate.”
The duo shone in OTA, mini -family and then training camp. Timely, the first end of Ward's preseason was a 27 -yard strike for Ridley on an excavation route against the Bay Buccaneers Tampa.
“That boy to there is different,” Ward said. “I have never launched any receiver who moves and cuts like him. He is one of the five best NFL receptors. I'm lucky to play with him because he will make me look good.”
It was not easy for Ridley, 30, to change things as he did, but the coach of the Titans, Brian Callahan, intervened where he is today.
“There is probably not a guy who practices as hard as [Ridley] On the basis of Snap-To-Snap, “Callahan said Thursday about why Ridley was chosen to be one of the team's captains.” He has really grown in his leadership. In fact, I am really proud of RID and the things he has achieved in that area during the low season. He deserves it, he has earned it and I am glad that his teammates see him in the same way. “
