NFL player taking a break to ‘focus on my mental wellbeing’

Atlanta Falcons wide receiver Calvin Ridley announced Sunday that he is taking a break from football to focus on his mental health.

“These past few weeks have been very challenging and as much as I’d like to be on the field competing with my teammates, I need to step away from football at this time and focus on my mental wellbeing,” Ridley wrote in a tweeted statement. “This will help me be the best version of myself now and in the future.”

Ridley, 26, missed Sunday’s game, in which the Falcons hosted the Carolina Panthers. The Falcons lost 19-13. He had also missed a game earlier in the month.

But Ridley had attended every practice before Sunday’s game and a community event held by the team, ESPN reported. When he spoke with the media on Oct. 21, he mentioned a personal issue but declined to go into detail.

“I want to thank my teammates, the entire Atlanta Falcons organization, our great fans, my friends, and my family for all their support during this time,” Ridley wrote in his tweet.

Athletes have become increasingly vocal about the importance of mental health.

Gymnast Simone Biles told reporters during the Summer Olympics that there’s “more to life than gymnastics” after pulling out of several of the competitions.

Before the team finals, Biles wrote in an Instagram post that she sometimes feels she has “the weight of the world” on her shoulders.

And tennis star Naomi Osaka in May withdrew from the French Open after clashing with officials over her opting to skip news conferences to focus on her mental health. She withdrew weeks later from Wimbledon, too. “Perhaps we should give athletes the right to take a mental break from media scrutiny on a rare occasion without being subject to strict sanctions,” Osaka wrote in a column for Time magazine.

Cleveland Cavaliers basketball player Kevin Love founded the Kevin Love Fund in 2018 to help people focus on prioritizing their mental well-being. Love has been open about battling anxiety and depression and going to therapy as a professional athlete, including experiencing a panic attack during a game against the Atlanta Hawks in 2017.

Swimming phenom Michael Phelps is also a vocal mental health advocate after revealing in 2018 that he has struggled with depression and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD.