The Steelers will play in London on Sunday, and safety Ryan Clark doesn’t have a problem with that. But he’d have a big problem with an NFL franchise relocating to London.
In fact, Clark said on ESPN that if he played for a team that moved to London, that would be the end of his NFL career.
“I’d retire. I’d definitely retire,” Clark said.
Clark said he doesn’t see how an NFL team in London could compete, and doesn’t see why any NFL player would want to play there.
“That team would be asked to travel eight weeks of the season extremely far away,” he said. “It would be extremely tough to ask. I don’t know if guys want to relocate their families, have their families educated in London, have their families relocate to London. It just seems like a hard deal for players to do. I can’t see unrestricted top notch top caliber free agents wanting to go to London to play football.”
Clark isn’t the first to express such feelings. Bengals offensive lineman Andrew Whitworth said last year that he, too, would quit before playing in London. Attracting free agents will be a major problem for an NFL team in London, when and if the NFL moves a team there.