Former Ravens linebacker Zach Orr's comeback attempt has come to an end.
Orr announced Friday via The Players Tribune that he will no longer play in the NFL after flirting this summer with the idea of returning.
He initially retired from football in January 2017 after an MRI that was supposed to look at a herniated disk revealed a congenital spine and neck defect. He was told by a doctor then that he should stop playing immediately because his C1 vertebra wasn't fully grown, but about 80 percent of its normal size. Orr was told it could "explode," and he'd die on the spot.
"The doctor left the room and it was just me, my agent and my dad. Neither of them had said a word since the doctor had come in. I asked them, 'You guys O.K.?' They looked at each other, and then my dad said, 'Are you O.K.?'" Orr wrote. "'I don't know,' I said. 'I've been playing football my whole life, and I've never had a problem. But if the doctor feels this way, and he's telling me I should stop playing or I might die on the field, then I can't go out there and play, can I?' They both just looked at me. I guess I'm done.'"
Orr retired then, with only one medical opinion in his pocket. Though he'd seen several doctors, he wrote, he had only one official opinion.
He was asked repeatedly why he got just one, but the doctor who registered the first opinion was a Ravens doctor, so Orr trusted him, he wrote. But the idea of a second opinion intrigued him.
With scant hope, Orr started to get the "itch," when Ravens OTAs and camps began. That itch propelled Orr to question his retirement and initial medical opinion. That's when he met Seth Russell, a former Baylor player who had been told to retire but visited a doctor in West Virginia.
"So he sought additional opinions, and after visiting a few doctors, he got some that said he could continue playing. He came back and played last season at Baylor, and now he's currently a free agent looking to continue his career in the NFL," Orr wrote. "After telling me his story, he told me about a doctor in West Virginia. So I went there to visit Seth's spine specialist ... just to see what he would say."
The doctor told Orr that the C1 vertebra was indeed undersized but that the body had created a "cushion" to protect the insufficiency. He had a shot to return, possibly, and he wanted to be a Raven, despite the retirement giving him unrestricted-free-agent status.
"I said in my retirement press conference that if there was any way I could come back, I would," Orr wrote. "Now I felt like there was a way. So at the beginning of June, almost five months after I had retired, I called [Ravens GM] Ozzie Newsome."
Newsome told Orr that he wanted him to be a Raven again, too, but in order to make that happen, Orr had to pass a physical. But he got bad news again.
"Of course. This was going to be the biggest hurdle I'd face in my comeback," Orr wrote. "So the Ravens flew me up to Baltimore for a workout and a physical. But at the end of the day, their doctors stood by their initial decision and said they couldn't clear me to play - not with my spinal condition. They said it was too big a risk, both for them and for me."
Afterward, Orr announced he was coming out of retirement in hopes of signing with another team, and he sat out to find another football home. But it was not to be.
"I visited five more teams and I interviewed with another 11 over the phone," Orr wrote. "Some teams looked at my C-1 and said that it was too big a risk and wouldn't clear me. Others looked at my C-1 and said that it wasn't a big concern, but that they were concerned about my herniated disc. I could have spinal fusion surgery to fix the herniated disc, but fused vertebrae would put increased pressure on my C-1, which was already weak. So they wouldn't clear me, either."
Then doctors noticed spots on his spinal cord from the herniated disk, and that was it. Those spots could lead to more spinal damage.
"Six teams in person, 11 more over the phone - that's 17 teams, more than half the league - and I couldn't get one to give me the green light," Orr wrote. "Because at the end of the day, my spine was too jacked up. And no team wants to be the one that has a player die on the field."
With that, Orr faced the truth: There was no return in his future, hence his second retirement.
"Today, I'm officially retiring from professional football ... again. And I'm even more at peace this time around because the teams have spoken," he wrote. "If there was any way I could come back, I would. Now, I know that's not possible."