Jacksonville, Fla. , jaguar receiver Calvin Ridley He said he gambled on football when he was sad and angry, calling it “silly” and “the worst mistake of his life”.
Ridley said in a Piece posted on The Players’ Tribune that he was not in a good place after leaving atlanta falcons To focus on his mental health when he downloaded a gambling app, deposited $1,500, and placed bets on NBA and NFL games, including the Falcons.
“I just f—ed up. Period.” Ridley wrote. “In a dark moment, I made a stupid mistake. I wasn’t trying to cheat the game. That’s what I want to make clear. At that time, I had been away from the team for about a month. I just I was just so sad and angry, and the days were so long. I was just looking for anything to take my mind off things and make the day go by faster.”
Ridley said he lost his joy for football and his journey up to that point began playing through a foot injury for the entire 2020 season, when he caught 90 passes for 1,374 yards. Ridley said he was told he had a bone bruise and took painkiller injections to play and then learned he had a broken bone in his foot when he saw a specialist two months before the start of the 2021 season. Saw.
Ridley said he underwent surgery and arrived at training camp feeling drained mentally. He still needed painkillers to play and was unable to spend quality time with his daughter because all he could do was lie in a dark room.
As his anxiety grew, Ridley wrote, and it got worse when he returned home after the Falcons’ season opener to find that his house had been broken into by burglars. Security footage showed five or six armed men in the house and it scared him and traumatized his wife, he wrote.
Ridley wrote, “That’s when I really began to feel the weight of the world on my chest.” “I still don’t have words for what I was feeling. It felt like I was being attacked – but by something almost invisible. It felt like someone was stabbing me in the chest 24/7 what i can’t see”
Ridley said he tried to continue playing Hurt but wanted to be at home with his wife and daughter. He didn’t want to travel to London for a Falcons game. new york jets on October 7, and he told the team he needed help. That’s when he started talking to a therapist.
Ridley said being called before NFL investigators in November 2021 for questioning about the bet was “probably the worst day of his life.”
“… whenever people ask, ‘What were you thinking?’ The only answer I can give is, ‘I wasn’t,'” Ridley wrote. ‘When you are depressed, you are not thinking of the future. You’re just trying to get through the day.”
Ridley said it was too bad for him, but says he now feels mentally and physically stronger than ever and he is looking forward to getting back in the game – and expecting big things with the Jaguars. are doing.
“In the name of my daughter, if I’m healthy? trevor lawrence, I’m giving Jacksonville 1,400 yards a season, period,” he wrote.