Westbrook: "trying to get ready for ... upcoming season"
Last year was a season that Eagles running back Brian Westbrook would like to forget.
Westbrook, who missed eight games in 2009 due to suffering multiple concussions, admitted on WGFX radio in Nashville yesterday that he wasn't fully healed from his first concussion despite missing all of the medical tests.
"I don't think a lot of people are taking [concussions] as serious as they should be because really it is a life or death thing," Westbrook said (via the Philadelphia Daily News). "The one thing that people have to know about concussions is that if you continue to play with a concussion and you continue to play without being completely healed then you run the risk of not being able to walk and talk and communicate and remember and of course early onset of Alzheimer's . . . as well as dementia."
Despite the concussions, Westbrook said in the interview that he is "trying to get ready for this next upcoming season."
That said, he is owed $7.25 million next season and rookie LeSean McCoy, the team's second-round pick in 2009, is Philadelphia's running back of the future.
So, even if Westbrook decides not to retire, do the Eagles want to pay that much money to a thirty-something running back coming off multiple concussions? I highly doubt it.
Whether or not Westbrook is back in Philadelphia in 2010, one thing is certain. His days as an elite running back (in real life or fantasy football) are over.
