Playing for the Jets led to Robby Anderson “losing my love” for football.
“I just wasn’t genuinely happy there all the time,” Anderson said in an interview with the Charlotte Observer.
The 27-year-old wide receiver spent four losing seasons with the Jets before signing a two-year, $12 million guaranteed contract with the Carolina Panthers last spring.
“I definitely think that was one of the best decisions I made all in all,” Anderson said following a season in which he broke out for a team-high 95 receptions and career-high 1,096 receiving yards.
The Jets could have used that production — their receivers combined for 3,115 receiving yards, second-worst in the NFL behind the Ravens.
Anderson finished with three receiving touchdowns and another on the ground, but the Panthers, like the Jets, missed the playoffs.
Signed by the Jets as an undrafted free agent out of Temple in 2016, the beginning of Anderson’s professional career was overshadowed by trouble off the field. He was arrested twice in a nine-month period spanning 2017 to 2018 and faced a slew of charges, including four felonies. All charges except for a reckless driving misdemeanor (six months’ probation) were dismissed by authorities.
Anderson eventually became the Jets’ No. 1 option in a mediocre receiver corps, but said there were days in New York when “I wouldn’t even want to go to the building. … And in Carolina, it just felt like a new breath of air for me and I just [felt] at a real peace, I felt comfortable. Like I actually liked Charlotte. I was excited to go to work.”
Anderson added, “I started to look myself in the mirror more, take more ownership of things, and not look at the actual situation I was in. And that’s when I started seeing a lot of personal growth outside of just football and being more happy outside of football, and starting to find more peace.”
He was the second former Jet in recent months to lament his time with the team.
“Bro, I fought depression in New York,” Seahawks safety Jamal Adams said on the “All Things Covered” podcast in November. “And I’m man enough to say it. I came home after a tough loss and just sat in my room in the dark — no phone, no TV. [My dad] hated to see me like that. It killed my pops so much. … He was calling my agent at the time and saying, ‘Hey man, I don’t like seeing my son like this. I need him out of this situation.’ It took a toll on my life outside of football.”
Adams, who also called the Jets a “laughingstock,” had a dramatic falling out with the team last offseason, when management chose not to extend his contract ahead of schedule to make him the highest-paid safety in the league at over $14.6 million per year.