Quotes from Chris Borland

My breadth of football experience, my injury history, and my all-or-nothing goal to become one of the best linebackers in the NFL, combined with all I'd been learning about the game's neurological effects on the brain, convinced me I'd be wise in choosing another career.

I've thought about what I could accomplish in football, but when you read about Mike Webster and Dave Duerson and Ray Easterling, you read all these stories, and to be the type of player I want to be in football, I think I'd have to take on some risks that, as a person, I don't want to take on.

A generation of men really built the NFL and gave guys like me a shot, and a lot of these guys are left out in the cold by the league and forgotten.

There are Hall of Famers at 5'11'' and 5'9''.

My height might be a disadvantage in some parts of my game, but it is a big advantage in rushing the passer.

The idea that just the basis of the game, repetitive hits, could bring on a cascade of issues later in life, that was - it changed the game for me.

I would never call myself anti-football. I think I'm pro-information, pro-people making informed individual choices, pro-health, so for that reason, personally, I'm apathetic towards football. But at the same time, I think we can retain some civility, and I understand why people support and love it.

Football is inherently dangerous, and that will never change.

During the course of a 16-game season, everybody, in the end, is injured. It's almost as if pieces just get broken off, and you give up pieces or an appendage every year.

I loved playing in the Big Ten, where it's three yards and a cloud of dust.

The men and women that are hired to take care of players' health, their salaries are paid by the team. Before games, you would see team docs and trainers, and they're every bit as as excited to, say, beat the Raiders as you are; their emotions are tied up in it.

I think flag football is a great alternative, and it's a great game in its own right. It's a wonderful alternative. You can develop all of the skills and athleticism and glean the lessons you can from contact football through playing flag.

I don't do interviews without a collared shirt.

I think I'm connected to this issue in some capacity, football and brain damage. So carving out a way to address it tactfully is important to me no matter what I go on to do.

The act of riding a bicycle isn't causing brain trauma. Yeah, you could fall, but that's if something goes wrong. Everything could go right in football, and it's still dangerous.

One healthy thing I'd like for players to know, whether they're active or former, is you likely can't replicate the thrill of playing before 100,000 people and big hits and making that much money. We can get ourselves into trouble trying to.

Obviously, football and soccer seem to clash a lot, but soccer was great for me. It's a game that you play with triangles. You make a pass thinking that the person you pass the ball to is going to make the next pass.

I was a history undergrad, and there's some things I could do in academics or business.

I enjoyed playing, and I've got a full and happy life now, so it's not like I'm looking back longingly at my time in football.

The 49ers drafted me assuming I wanted to play more than one year. At the time, I did, too. Things changed. They didn't deserve to be undercut. And I didn't want that to happen.

I think it's unfair to punish players for inherent faults in the game.

If I was a marginal guy or a practice squad player or a career-long special teamer, you take a hell of a lot less hits in those roles.

I just don't want to get in a situation where I'm negotiating my health for money.

I just want to live a long healthy life, and I don't want to have any neurological diseases or die younger than I would otherwise.