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Former Georgia WR Chris Conley retires from NFL to attend film school
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Former Georgia wide receiver Chris Conley is leaving football after 10 years in the NFL and going back to Athens to pursue a different dream.
On Saturday, Conley announced on his Instagram page that he was retiring from the NFL.
“When I was a kid, I wrote down a set of goals. On that list was ‘Play 10 years in the NFL,'” Conley wrote on social media. “Now that this goal has been accomplished, it’s time to set sights on something new.”
NFL.com insider Ian Rapoport reported later Saturday morning that Conley will attend film school at Georgia with the hopes of becoming a filmmaker, according to his agent, Jonathan Perzley.
After 4 seasons at Georgia from 2011-14, during which he caught 112 passes for 1,938 yards and 20 touchdowns, Conley started a winding journey in the NFL that lasted a decade. He was selected in the third round of the 2015 NFL Draft by the Kansas City Chiefs. He went on to spend time with the Jacksonville Jaguars, Houston Texans, and Tennessee Titans before playing the past 2 seasons with the San Francisco 49ers.
As it turned out, those would be his final seasons in the NFL for the wide receiver who was born in faraway Adana, Turkey.
“The past 10 years have been a dream. Getting the opportunity to play in the league was an honor and whether it was catching touchdowns or blocking for them, I truly gave it my all,” Conley wrote. “See you in the next dream.”
Conley’s best statistical season in the NFL came in 2019 with Jacksonville, when he had 47 catches for 775 yards and 5 touchdowns. Those were all career-high numbers.
Cory Nightingale, a former sportswriter and sports editor at the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, is a South Florida-based freelance writer who covers Alabama for SaturdayDownSouth.com.
