I don’t think Patriots beat writers (legit ones) are necessarily lying, even though he might not retire. Many of these players strongly conseider it annually. We don’t know what their physical and mental health is like from this sport, and they’re in a dilemma where they have a ton of money to retire but would also be leaving a ton of money on the table.
We hear about injuries and surgeries and have kind of normalized them as fans, but these really do suck and hospitals/rehab become such a big part of their lives…that was Andrew Luck’s point about this.
I imagine this retirement “consideration” report would be applicable to many players, but it just doesn’t become an actual story or tweet most times.