:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/22092771/20130116_kkt_al2_644.0.jpg)
Most Ravens fans remember the four weeks or so that linebacker Rolando McClain was involved with Baltimore.
On April 12th, 2013, linebacker Rolando McClain passed his physical and signed a contract with the Baltimore Ravens. He was arrested just ten days after the signing, April 22nd, for disorderly conduct and resisting arrest.
The arrest was one of many arrests on the 23-year old's record, which is what ended his career in Oakland so quickly. The Ravens were being good people, attempting to give a troubled football player a last shot at redemption. Unfortunately for him, he messed the entire thing up by this arrest, and he figured that out rather quickly.
On May 15th, Rolando McClain officially announced his retirement from the NFL at age 23.
Most people wondered why exactly he retired from the NFL and in an interview by ESPN.com's Seth Wickersham, McClain explains why.
McClain said that when he was signed to a 5-year/$40 million contract with $23 million guaranteed by the Oakland Raiders, people came out of the woodwork asking him for money. They told him that he wouldn't be where he was right now if it hadn't of been for them.
After they told him that, he spent a total of $600,000 over six months to take care of these people that didn't deserve a penny of his money.
Once he became mentally and financially drained, he began to dislike the game of football. He hated it more and more every day, and the money requests from people in his hometown of Decatur, Alabama just kept piling up.
He was worried that the constant frustration would lead him to do something horrible.
"I was feeling like Aaron Hernandez or something," McClain told Wickersham. "Like I just wanted to kill somebody."
These feelings of possibly doing something horrible, like Aaron Hernandez, led him to leave the Ravens and the NFL overall.
Rolando McClain is currently taking classes at the University of Alabama and is working towards a degree in family financial planning. He is also working to stay in football shape.
McClain says that he will "probably" attempt to come back into the NFL next season. If he succeeds in doing so, the Baltimore Ravens own the rights to him.
We will see what happens, but for the moment, let's all hope McClain gets his life back on track. Football is a game, but frustration and troubled activity is life. If he does return to the Ravens next season, it will be interesting to see if he can stay out of trouble and show his talents as a football player on the playing field.