Though it did not come as much of a surprise, it was still a sad moment when the Detroit Lions announced they were parting ways with offensive lineman, T.J. Lang.
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After all, Lang was born in Ferndale and spent his college days at Eastern Michigan University and he made it clear that he wanted to be part of the Lions when they finally broke through and won a Super Bowl.
Lang recently spoke publically for the first time since being released by the Lions when he joined Bruce Murray and Brady Quinn on the SiriusXM Blitz. and he talked about contemplating retirement or continuing to play football.
“I’m at that point now where I’m not committed to either playing or retiring,” Lang told Bruce Murray and Brady Quinn on the SiriusXM Blitz. “Really, it’s just kind of taking a day by day, and you know what? If I if I do get a chance to play again, great. If I don’t, I think I’m content with that. I think I’m proud of what I’ve done over the 10-year span. And I’m just trying to take it slow and figure it out. But either way I go, I think I’ll be all right. I’ve had a good run.
“We’ve been getting a couple phone calls, but we haven’t even really started to talk with anybody yet because I think my agent knows that I’m kind of teetering a little bit on what’s going to happen. Like I told him, I said, ‘Don’t try to lead anybody on because I’m not committed either way to doing this. I don’t want a team to kind of waste some time and resources into figuring me out. If they got other options, tell them to go with it.’”
“I had a good, open line of communication with with the Lions,” he said. “We were very interactive with each other about where we were heading. I think we ended that relationship on really, really good terms. And right now I’m kind of at the point where it’s a little bit tough because I’m sitting here thinking in my head, ‘I think I can still play at a high level.’
“But when you come off of a season like I did last year (where he suffered head, back and neck injuries that eventually landed him on the injured-reserve list), it really starts to sink in that you start to think, ‘I don’t know if I want to go through that again. That was really hard, that was really tough.’ Not only on me, but my family watching me go through all that stuff. So you kind of take some time just the weigh it out.”
“I want to kind of figure out to see if I have a plan set in place because the last thing I want to do is just say, ‘I’m done with it’ and then, in a couple months, I’m just going crazy because I don’t have anything lined up,” he said. “I want to make sure I’ve got all my ducks in order before I am ready to take a step away.”
