On Aug. 25, 2019, one of the most shocking stories in the history of football broke. After an illustrious career, Andrew Luck, coming up on what many thought would be a Super Bowl contending year for the Indianapolis Colts, retired—effective immediately.

Luck battled injuries his whole career. He had to sit out an entire year in 2017 to get over a shoulder injury, and he was tired of putting himself through all the pain. At the time of his retirement, Luck was dealing with a calf strain.

“I felt stuck and the only way out of it is to no longer play football,” Luck said in a press conference announcing his retirement. “It’s taken my joy away from the game.”

After the news broke, Luck was booed by many Colts fans while at Lucas Oil Stadium after a practice.

Looking back as someone who has watched Andrew Luck from the beginning, it makes perfect sense for him to retire. He fought through a lot of pain, and a lot of times when your mind and body agree rationally it is time to quit, and you feel as if you have no joy anymore, it is time to quit.

As a Colts fan myself, this news was hard to take, but I do not think any rational fan should be mad at Andrew Luck for this. As anyone that watches or plays football knows, it is a dangerous sport. Hundreds of injuries occur every year, many that are life changing. A Boston University study published by the American Medical Association, for example, shows CTE, a degenerative brain disease, was found in the brains of 99 percent of a sample of NFL players. Additionally, 91 percent of collegiate football players and 21 percent of high school players in the sample showed mild to severe CTE pathology.

Even though Luck did not deal with head injuries as often as other types of injuries, this shows how dangerous the sport is. Nobody should feel anger towards Andrew Luck, considering we should all care about the person he is, not just the football player. He did not enjoy playing the sport anymore, so why put himself through more harm? Many people, if faced with this much harm from a job, would look in a different direction. So knowing all of this, there is no reason for Luck to have vitriol towards him.

Colts fans should look back on the great quarterback’s time in the league with joy and remember all the great moments he had. Luck made the best decision for himself, and deserves every second of gratitude because he was not just a great football player, but is a great man whose opinion is worth believing.