WEDNESDAY, 9:44am: Rodgers-Cromartie completed a 180-degree turn on Monday’s comments today, telling Mike Klis of the Denver Post that he’s “definitely not retiring.” According to DRC, he simply meant that he has to start thinking about his post-playing career, since there are no guarantees.
TUESDAY, 10:05am: At Tuesday’s Media Day, Rodgers-Cromartie told reporters, including Gregg Rosenthal of NFL.com (Twitter links) that his retirement talk was misunderstood, adding that if he receives a long-term contract offer this offseason, he’ll take it.
MONDAY, 12:54pm: It doesn’t sound like Peyton Manning has any plans to retire whether or not the Broncos win this weekend’s Super Bowl, but the outcome of the game could affect one of his teammates’ futures. Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie told reporters today that he may retire if Denver beats Seattle on Sunday. “I set a goal of five years. I’ve played six,” Rodgers-Cromartie said, according to NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport (via Twitter).
While Mike Garafalo of FOX Sports 1 tweets that Rodgers-Cromartie sounded almost positive about his intentions to retire, and Lindsay Jones of USA Today (Twitter link) stressed that the Broncos cornerback was definitely serious, the 28-year-old added that his plans aren’t “set in stone” yet, according to Alex Marvez of FOX Sports 1 (Twitter link).
As Rodgers-Cromartie himself noted, he has only played six NFL seasons, so he’ll be hitting unrestricted free agency this winter as a 27-year-old. Coming off a season in which he started 13 games for the AFC champions, he should draw plenty of interest on the open market, so we’ll have to wait and see if he sticks to his retirement plan when teams start calling in March.