About two hours before tight end Darren Waller tried to make a game-winning walk-off touchdown catch for the Giants, he decided to retire.
Waller, who announced his retirement officially in June 2024, shared that he had decided to retire about eight months prior, during a game against the Bills on October 15, 2023.
“It was the first quarter,” Waller explained on “The Side You Don’t See” podcast. “We were executing a counter-lead running play, and I was leading through the gap like a fullback. The play was effective, but after we ran it three times in a row, I sat on the sideline thinking, ‘What am I doing with my life? I’m out here playing fullback, and I don’t even want to do this anymore.’
The game ended in a 14-9 loss for the Giants when Tyrod Taylor’s pass to Waller from the 1-yard line fell incomplete.
The Giants were seeking a penalty flag for defensive pass interference, which would have been the second consecutive one since they were already continuing from an untimed down following a previous defensive pass-interference penalty that had advanced the ball to the 1-yard line.
Waller kept his decision to himself during the game.
“I’m just like looking at the moon,” Waller said. “It’s like early first quarter, second quarter. Nobody else would even really know that I’m thinking this. But I’m on the sideline like, ‘Yup, I’m going to finish this year to the best of my ability, but I’m definitely done playing after this year.’”
Waller’s only touchdown with the Giants came the next week against Washington.
But Waller missed five games later that season with both a hamstring injury and when he was hospitalized after what he described upon retirement as a near-death experience.
He said he had trouble breathing and was “shaking uncontrollably” and “losing consciousness” in his hotel room.
Waller came to the Giants as a recovering drug and alcohol addict who had been suspended by the NFL for substance abuse early in his career. He always has been open about his journey to getting clean.
The former Pro Bowler returned to play the final four games of the 2023 season and publicly deflected questions about his future, but he privately informed the Giants that he was considering retirement in January, as The Post previously reported.
The Giants — who traded a third-round pick in the 2023 draft to the Raiders thinking that they would have multiple seasons of Waller’s services — believed he might change his mind and play again at least as late as March 2024.
Waller told The Post around that same time that he was still undecided.
But the Giants drafted tight end Theo Johnson in April 2024 and Waller’s retirement soon followed.
He is a podcaster and burgeoning rapper in retirement.
