The Life Lessons of Cortland Finnegan, a Pest's Pest

In hockey, there are pests and there are enforcers. There are also other kinds of players, probably, although it's hard to say for certain until the NHL begins its 2015 season in mid-April. At any rate, pests and enforcers are simply two sides of the same coin. It's a coin that, oddly, doesn't seem to have much currency in the other three major sports anymore.

Basketball, for all its Anthony Mason types past and present, has seen fit to regulate contact almost totally out of the game. The NFL has similarly adjusted the rules to handicap defenses whenever the offseason schedule will allow for a break in metaphorically (hell, maybe literally) kicking the league's players while they're down. (Major League Baseball, which has been defunct since 2002, will not be addressed here.)

Despite an utterly wackadoodle 156 percent increase in defensive holding penalties called between 2010 and 2014—a deceptively short period in which Sam Bradford, sans ACL, went from being worth the first pick of the NFL Draft to being worth a 2nd, a 4th, one swing at the Quarterback piñata, and an impact to be named later—it is actually still possible to pester the ever-loving hell out of other players in the NFL, and earn a rep to match. But, outside of the 2013 Dolphins locker room and maybe its 2015 analog, there is a dearth of prominent, shit-talking agitators in today's slick, Macy's gift wrapped, "Official Tire Care Product of" NFL.

There are Sherman and Suh, but they are stars first and heels second. But there was, for all too fleeting a time, Cortland Finnegan. When Finnegan retired on Wednesday, the league lost something like it's 110th-best cornerback, and its apex troll. He will be missed.

It's tempting to remember Finnegan for his breakout role as Speed Bag in 2010's "Houston Texans Shutout," and too easy to forget what led up to it. His counterpart, Andre Johnson, did manage to cobble together nine catches and a touchdown, but was held to just 56 yards total for a season-low 6.2 YPC average. Johnson would finish the game in the locker room after being ejected along with Finnegan, following one of the few legitimately fight-like fights in recent NFL memory. It hardly mattered that his team was winning by 17; Johnson was on tilt, which meant that Finnegan's extracurricular pawing and late hits did their job. When the two teams ran it back in Week 17, the result was, again, one of Johnson's worst games of the year. This time, it was also a Titans victory.

Still, you don't have to leave the AFC South to find evidence that, even at his peak, Finnegan could be torched. Like most sub-six-foot cornerbacks, it wasn't unusual for him to have trouble with taller receivers, but it's hard to argue that the obvious physical disadvantages weren't crucial to the player Finnegan had become. He couldn't truly embody the pest archetype if he were built like a fighter jet and consistently locked down his man. If you want to play the villain, sometimes you have to lose.

On the whole, though, Cortland Finnegan's career was undoubtedly and on balance a victory. Drafted out of Samford with Tom Brady-like regard in the 7th round of 2006's NFL draft, he immediately became a fixture in Tennessee's defensive backfield and special teams units. Finnegan would start 16 games in his second season, and earn Pro Bowl and All-Pro nods in 2008. After that, the Titans defensive efficiency would slip drastically, and with it went any measurable success for the organization as a whole; it's a freefall that continues to this day. It was more than a little surprising when, in 2012, Finnegan followed former Titans coach Jeff Fisher to St. Louis on a deal that guaranteed him $27M—surprising both that Finnegan received such an offer, and that Fisher would give it to him. After just two seasons with the Rams, Finnegan was cut, then signed and cut by Miami in just under a year as well. With that, he bid the league, and Andre Johnson, a farewell.

Jalen Rose has often said that he will never retire because he doesn't think he had a good enough career to justify the pomp and circumstance of an announcement. Even if you think the 42-year-old Rose is holding out hope for a Derek Fisher-like conjuring, he makes a good point: most professional athletes don't quit so much as they expire. They play until the money they can make in the league is less than they can make opening a car dealership, or until teams will no longer have them. But this offseason has been different. More players are retiring, and they're younger than ever. Some are surefire Hall of Famers in the Barry Sanders mold, while others are merely good enough to earn eight-figure guarantees. Most are, for whatever reason, former Titans.

These disparate players all seem to have reached the same realization: that there are diminishing returns for almost everyone that makes a living slamming their heads into things, and that they might be wise to move on while they're still the ones calling the shots. While it's clearly a privilege to retire so early—or, increasingly with respect to many Americans, ever—Rose is wrong when he claims that only the very best players deserve the respect that comes with officially hanging them up.

It isn't disappointing or sad for NFLers to retire before their health forces them to; it's responsible. And since the only thing most fans understand less than high salaries is when the players stop earning them, early retirement means signing up for a lifetime of questions and what-ifs. Accepting this fate is not stupidity. It's courage.

So farewell, Cortland Finnegan, you asshole. You shutdown corner, you bastard. You All-Pro, you incredible fucking pest. Enjoy your time off. Go fishing, sleep late, read a few good books. And don't forget to ice your face.