Welcome to Deadspin’s The Sports Nihilist, where everything is nihilistic and we are accidental jumbles of electrified flesh glued to the surface of a rock in an indifferent universe. fuck you.
Tyreek Hill “surprised” the sports world on Thursday Announcing that he plans to retire at the end of his current contract, My first reaction was to shout nonsense like someone claimed to hit four fours in a pile, but my next reaction was, who cares? Think about every time you’ve logged on to LinkedIn – like in those five examples – and seen someone start a post with “Some personal news…”, how quickly do you move on to the next item? Do you read personalized news too?
Maybe once or twice, but fool me into reading a retirement post three times, and my selective caregiving begins. Congratulations on not working anymore, Greg, now get me some fucking cake so I have a reason to stay up until the end of the day. On the going away banner “Happy retirement!” Should not have been written. It should say, “What are you going to do now, asshole? Keep golfing and watching the clock until it’s an acceptable time for a G&T?”
g/o media can get commission
Normally, I have to cower at the absurdity of these sports nihilist columns to actually read them as satire because hot-tech culture has normalized craziness, but not today. Today I can say for sure, I don’t care about Hill’s expiration date. I’d be more interested in what he had to say if it wasn’t the 15,000th time he “headlined” us after leaving Kansas City, Stop being bitter about Travis Kelce getting over you, and grow up. It’s not our fault Tua Tagovailoa is Patrick Mahomes with a porcelain jaw.
Hill can give all sorts of reasons for announcing his retirement early, but we all know he wishes Kitsch gifts and celebrations. How much cheetah print clothing is too much? The craziest part of farewell tours is that the fans don’t even get free sweets. If we’re going to see Albert Pujols in his fifth wheelchair in as many cities, the audience should at least be rewarded with donuts or cookies or Cracker Jacks.
leave the retirement party and all other vanity projects to me
Retirement parties to me are 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 phase of my life. The society has the right to be completely irredeemable and coercive leech, rather than just a life partner. I’m not going to do any consulting, and I hope my kids don’t ask me for advice, because I don’t want to tell them my point of view. Telling your child to “don’t believe in anything” is a sick thing, and I want them to learn how meaningless life is the old fashioned way – by living it every fucking day.
In fact, a retirement party is one of the last checkmarks you reach before death’s welcome release. What’s left Birth of your grandson? Milestone birthdays that come with gag gifts, depending on when they’re not funny anymore? Most of these athletes are scared to withdraw from the sport because they have outlived their usefulness.
And we’re really shocked by Hill. Oh my god, is he going to leave before the waste of professional football turns him into a shell of a dynamic wide receiver? Vein! While an entertainer’s loss is the only reason to care, there are more quick recipients than there are people willing to take a blow to his head.
The only takeaway from this news is that I won’t look like an idiot at the 2026 Fantasy Draft party. Nobody wants to be the guy who takes on a 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 he’s not smart or special.
I wish we would stop caring about sports statistics when they leave the game. When they do we already talk about them in the past tense, so let’s take the next logical step and treat them as if they were dead. How is it different from now? We see Vince Carter dunking in a suit and acting like George Washington crawling through the dirt to start plucking cherry trees.
So in short, I’d like to say “goodbye, Felicia” to Tyreek Hill and any other athletes hinting at retirement. Go out like a real man and just stop coming to work for a day. Somebody will know you’re gone, but I don’t know why you care what the accounting clarks think of you.