If you thought Detroit Lions left tackle Taylor Decker was battling through injuries this year, buddy, you don\u2019t know the half of it.<\/p>\n
After the Lions\u2019 final game of the 2025 season\u2014a gritty, last-second win over the Chicago Bears\u2014Decker was going through a lot of emotions in the locker room. Clearly, he was thinking about the possibility of this being the last game of his 10-year career\u2014all spent with the Lions. While he continues to maintain that he\u2019s not in the right emotional space to make a big decision like that, he also painstakingly went through every detail of how much of a physical struggle this 2025 season was.<\/p>\n
Decker had offseason surgery on his shoulder, hoping to enter the season healthy and strong. But almost immediately, the shoulder was bothering him again. It forced him to miss a few games early, but it was something that never went away, despite Decker devoting most of every game week to rehab in order to feel just good enough to play.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m in treatment before meetings every day,\u201d Decker explained. \u201cA lot of times during practice (too), because I couldn\u2019t get to the point where I was able to practice a lot. In there with Austin (White), our PT (physical therapist), to be able to try and just do some things that add strength and things like that.<\/p>\n
\u201cProbably had six or seven different types\u2014not different types\u2014but different injections. Steroid injections, PRP injections, gel injections, all sorts of things like that. I\u2019d see an acupuncturist a couple times a week. I\u2019d try to spend four to five hours a week in the hyperbaric chamber. I tried to do a red-light bed every day for 20 to 30 minutes. And then I would be doing stuff at home with a direct stim machine at night after I got home and put my kids to sleep. I\u2019m probably up doing stuff once my kids were asleep until about 9:30, and then I gotta go to bed and wake up at 6 to just do it all over again.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut it was what was necessary, and it was what I was willing to do.\u201c<\/p>\n
Decker\u2019s thoughts then immediately turned to his family, with thoughts of retirement creeping in.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt asked a lot of my wife,\u201d Decker said before taking a long pause, tearing up. \u201cAnd it was selfish of me, but it was what was required to fulfill the expectations of my job. That\u2019s not something that I\u2019m\u2014if that\u2019s what my future is going to be to continue to play\u2014that\u2019s not something I\u2019m willing to do. Because I\u2019m not willing to put my family through it. I\u2019m not willing to be distant and not be a present father, because your kids are only little once, and, God willing, we have more. I want to be able to play with them. I want to be able to throw the ball with them. I mean, I can\u2019t throw a football right now. No way.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut could I (play in 2026), given the right set of circumstances? Maybe. But I need to go through that process,\u201d Decker said.<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t expect a decision from Decker right away, as he\u2019ll take some time to get away from the emotions of the moment, likely consult medical professionals about the path forward, and then make an informed decision\u2014whenever that may be.<\/p>\n
You can see some of Decker\u2019s emotional moments in the locker room below:<\/p>\n
And here is the most Taylor Decker quote I\u2019ve ever seen:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you thought Detroit Lions left tackle Taylor Decker was battling through injuries this year, buddy, you don\u2019t…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":595706,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[153,1889,7,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-655290","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-detroit-lions-news","9":"tag-detroit-lions-quotes","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-nfl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115841218588253765","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=655290"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655290\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/595706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=655290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=655290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=655290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}