Welcome to Deadspin’s The Sports Nihilist, where all is for naught and we are but accidental jolts of electrified meat stuck to the surface of a rock in an indifferent universe. Fuck you.
Tyreek Hill “shocked” the sports world Thursday by announcing that he plans to retire at the end of his current contract. My first reaction was to yell bullshit like someone just claimed to have put four 4’s on the pile, but my next reaction was, who cares? Think about every time you’ve ever logged onto LinkedIn — so like those five instances — and seen someone start a post with, “Some personal news… ” How quickly do you skip to the next item? Do you even read past the personal news?
Maybe once or twice but fool me into reading a retirement post three times, and my selective caring kicks in. Congratulations on no longer having to work, Greg, now provide me with some fucking cake so there’s a reason to stick around until the end of the day. The going away banner shouldn’t read “Happy retirement!” It should say, “What’re you going to do now, jackass? Golf and watch the clock until it reaches an acceptable time to have a G&T?”
Normally, I have to lean into the absurdity of these Sports Nihilist columns to really make them read like satire because hot-take culture has normalized the insane, but not today. Today I can assuredly say, I don’t give a fuck about Hill’s expiration date. I’d be more interested in what he had to say if this wasn’t the 15,000th time he’s given us a “headline” since leaving Kansas City. Stop being bitter about Travis Kelce getting picked over you, and grow up. It’s not our fault Tua Tagovailoa is Patrick Mahomes with a porcelain jaw.
Hill can give all the reasons he wants for announcing his retirement early, but we all know he desires kitsch gifts and ceremonies. How much cheetah print apparel is too much? The most egregious part of farewell tours is that the fans don’t even get a free sweet treat. If we have to watch Albert Pujols sit in his fifth wheelchair in as many cities, the onlookers should at least be rewarded with doughnuts or cookies or Cracker Jacks.
Spare me retirement parties and all other vanity projects
Retirement parties are to me what weddings are to single women in their 30s. It’s just a procession of envy that makes me wish I was up there, taking that big step into the next stage of my life. Only instead of a life partner, it’s the right to be an utterly irredeemable and blatant leech on society. I’m not going to do any consulting, and hopefully I won’t have children asking me for advice, because I don’t want to bestow my outlook upon them. Telling your offspring to “Believe in nothing” is a morbid thing to do, and I’d rather they found out how meaningless life is the old-fashioned way — by living it every fucking day.
Really, a retirement party is one of the last checkmarks you reach before the welcome release of death. What’s left? The birth of your grandchildren? Milestone birthdays that come with gag gifts of Depends until they are no longer funny? Most of these athletes are scared shitless to step away from the game because their usefulness is gone.
And that’s what we’re really shocked by with Hill. Oh my god, he’s going to quit before the ravages of professional football turn him into a shell of the dynamic wide receiver he once was? The nerve! While the loss of an entertainer is the only reason to care, there is any number of speedy receivers more than willing to take his head trauma.
The only benefit of this news is that I won’t look like an idiot at the 2026 fantasy draft party. No one wants to be the guy who takes the retired player. Even if you pick Tom Brady with the last pick of next year’s draft just to be cheeky, you still suck and aren’t that smart or special.
I wish we could just stop caring about sports figures once they quit. We already talk about them in the past tense when they do, so let’s just take the next logical step and treat them like they’re dead. How is it any different from now? We see Vince Carter dunk in a suit and act as if George Washington crawled out of the dirt and started hacking away at a cherry tree.
So in summary, I’d like to say “Bye, Felicia” to Tyreek Hill and any other athlete hinting at retirement. Go out like a real man and just stop showing up to work one day. Somebody will notice that you’re gone, but I don’t know why you cared what Clark in accounting thought of you in the first place.