Calvin Ridley sheds light on struggles and sad exit from Atlanta Falcons

It isn’t easy for anyone to talk about personal things, even athletes, but we should all be praising former Atlanta Falcons wide receiver, Calvin Ridley, for having the courage to talk about his crazy past few years.

We all knew that he took a mental health break back in 2021 and was subsequently caught gambling on games, but we didn’t know much beyond that—until now.

Former Atlanta Falcons WR Calvin Ridley sheds light on his struggles during NFL career

This is really heartbreaking to hear about but former Atlanta Falcons receiver Calvin Ridley was not doing well, even when he was doing well on the field. He may have had a 1,300-yard season but it was through all sorts of pain that no one could see.

He wrote a letter in The Players’ Tribune that detailed many things that explain what happened in 2021. We knew about the mental health break, we knew about the gambling, we knew about his house getting robbed, and we know about the trade, but there was so much more than that. You will have to read it all to get the full story but we will highlight some parts here.

He details how he played most of the 2020 season on a broken foot that he didn’t know was broken until the new trainer sent him to a different specialist. As we know, the NFL is a cruel business that will do anything to keep its players on the field.

"My plan was to get through another season with pills and shots. Do my job. Grit it out. I suited up Week 1 a shell of myself, but I played."

Then his house was robbed during an Atlanta Falcons game and luckily his family wasn’t in the home at the time.

"But then we watched the security footage, and we saw about five or six guys come in with guns drawn. If you have a child, that’s your worst nightmare. My wife was traumatized. She couldn’t sleep at night. She couldn’t stand me being out of the house."

He detailed his upbringing and how rough it was as he had to spend much of it in a foster home. Then he goes on to explain what happened when he placed bets on games.

"I wasn’t trying to cheat the game. That’s the thing I want to make clear. At the time, I had been completely away from the team for about a month. I was still just so depressed and angry, and the days were so long. I was looking for anything to take my mind off of things and make the day go by faster. One day, I saw a TV commercial for a betting app, and for whatever reason, I downloaded it on my phone. I deposited like $1,500 total, literally just for something to do. I was going to bet like $200 on some NBA games that night, but then I just added a bunch more games to a parlay. I put the Falcons in on it. I was just doing it to root on my boys, basically. I didn’t have any inside information. I wasn’t even talking to anybody on the team at the time. I was totally off the grid."

And he wraps it up by saying how excited he is to be in Jacksonville and how much he appreciates his time in Atlanta with the Falcons.

"I want to make it clear that I don’t have a bad word to say about the Falcons or the city of Atlanta. That’s still my second home, and where my daughter was born. I tried to give y’all everything I had, until the wheels came off. It’s all love, forever."

It seems like the best is yet to come for Calvin Ridley as he finally is out of the darkness and focused on football which has been the one constant during his lifetime. If he can put up 1,300 yards with a broken foot and serious mental health issues, then what in the world is he going to do fully healthy, both physically and mentally? We should be glad the Falcons traded him to an AFC team.

"I know I have a debt to pay back to the game. But when y’all talk about the name Calvin Ridley in 10, 20, 30 years … I’m gonna make sure it rings out for the right reasons."

We should be rooting for the former Atlanta Falcons WR again and quit the judgment. The number of jokes out there about him is simply cruel and undeserving.