The only drawback of this outstanding player was that he neglected his health to a great extent, which took a toll on him. Not only a number of injuries. He had several surgeries, including a shoulder one, but he also had a torn ACL.
However, he finally decided to give his body a well-deserved rest. He lives at Kentucky as a coach of a middle school football team and then had restarted a football program at Sayre School in Lexington.
Sailing Smooth
But it was not all smooth for Kitna; he had a rough phase in four games in 2008. He had started as a doomed member of the Detroit Lions that finished the season 0-16. But the world knows him as a fighter as he always, in his 14-year-long career, bounced back from a backup to a starting position.
Kitna finally announced his retirement in 2011, but that never marked an end to his football career. He came back to Tacoma and took up the job of a coach at Lincoln High School. He continued with this for three years and then became a coach at Waxahachie High School in Texas.
Chad Pennington
How important it is to stay healthy can be understood in the best way if you look at Pennington's career graph! An all-around athlete and an outstanding quarterback, this man’s career was cut short only due to the fact that he did not care to look after his health. His time in the field, from 2000-2008, promised the world a great bout of talent, but the people never got to see much of him outside the New York Jets and Miami Dolphins.
Back in 2002, Pennington showed himself to the world as the Jets starting quarterback. He had so much potential that he could turn around a 1-4 team to 9-7, eventually turning them into playoffs. But in the very next season, he had a fatal accident that gave him a rotator cuff injury. He had to go through surgery twice since he again got badly injured in the cuffs in the following season. The man made a phenomenal comeback in 2006, which gave him the title of the Comeback Player of the Year. Though he had a not-so-good 2007 outing, the Dolphins signed him, and he passed for a sensational 67.4 completion percentage. All of this earned him a place in the MVP discussion, and Pennington is the only man who has received the Comeback Player of the Year twice.
Vinny Testaverde
Testaverde is known to everyone as the true Iron Man. He had an incredible start in his college career with the Miami Hurricanes and then went on to get selected by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers as No. 1 overall in the 1987 NFL Draft. His career had a kick in the very beginning, something that many players do not have the luck to experience.
Would you believe it if you knew that Testaverde had a span of twenty-one years on the field? Yes, it is that unfathomable! The veteran player achieved his first Pro Bowl selection at his 10th year in the league. He was thirty-three years old at that time and was in his 1st year with the Baltimore Ravens. Two years down the line, he had his second selection again in 1998 during his first year with the New York Jets.
The Final Countdown
Testaverde's career has been promising, so much so that during his final season with the Carolina Panthers, he took charge when Jake Delhomme got injured, and he did this at the shocking age of forty-four!
After his retirement, Testaverde went back to the place where he initiated his football career - Florida. Vincent, his son, played in the football team of Tampa’s Jesuit High School, where he became a coach after his retirement. Apart from that, Testaverde has never been much in the limelight after his career was over.