Frank Gore is leaving the door open to playing another season in the NFL.
Gore, 37, was noncommittal on his future in football Monday. An impending free agent, another season would be his 17th in the league.
“I still have fun playing the game of football, but I haven’t made a decision yet,” Gore said, per team reporter Eric Allen. Gore added that he will spend time with his family during the offseason before coming to a decision per The AP’s Dennis Waszak.
As Gore weighs his future, he also knows that the decision is not entirely his. He recently acknowledged that teams may not want a running back his age, especially since he’s no longer producing at a Hall of Fame rate.
“I’ve got to be real with myself, how teams think about my age,” Gore said in late November. “They might not want a 38-year-old running back on the team.”
Gore became the third running back in NFL history to rush for 16,000 career rushing yards in 2020. He ran for 653 yards and two touchdowns in 15 games in his first and likely only season in New York.
The future Hall of Fame back has been in the NFL since 2005, when he was drafted by the San Francisco 49ers. Gore spent 10 years in San Francisco before joining the Colts in 2015. He was in Indianapolis for three seasons and then joined the Dolphins and Bills for one season each.
Gore is third on the NFL’s all-time rushing list behind Walter Payton and Emmitt Smith. He’s 726 rushing yards behind Payton for No. 2 all-time and 2,355 rushing yards behind Smith for the top spot. It is somewhat within the realm of possibility for Gore to move ahead of Payton if he decides to keep playing, though moving up the list seems unlikely even if another season comes to fruition.
It’s hard to imagine another coach would use Gore as frequently as Adam Gase did this season — 187 carries — but hey, anything is possible.
“I said this a long time ago: Never doubt Frank Gore,” the Jets’ ex-head coach said last Friday. “Whatever he wants to do, just don’t doubt him. If he decides he wants to play football again, I would love to see him play as long as he can play.”
