Kevin Kolb is done with football after, um, earning nearly $30 million (!!!) to make 21 career starts [UPDATE: article says $40 million but I believe it’s wrong]. He suffered at least four concussions over his short career.

This is what life was like for Kolb, according to an excellent story on Buffalo News:

For eight months, Kevin Kolb wasn’t Kevin Kolb. He was somebody else. Concussion No. 4 changed him. At night, he’d stare at the ceiling for four hours straight. His sleep cycle was warped beyond repair. In the morning, he’d brush his teeth in front of the mirror and see a cloud form around his face. Forget coffee. One cup spiraled him into a “whole different realm.” When people spoke to Kolb, he couldn’t digest the information. His short- term memory? Shot. Worst of all, his vision could blur at any moment. “Almost like you’re drunk,” Kolb said, “like everything is fuzzy all the way around you.” And that nearly killed him one day in Western New York. After yet another sleepless night, four weeks after that concussion in Buffalo’s 2013 exhibition game against Washington, Kolb drove toward the team facility in Orchard Park from his residence in Lakeview. Suddenly, without even knowing, Kolb began veering into the middle of the road as another car approached him head-on at 50, 55 miles an hour.

“We would’ve hit each other had not I… he reacted, honestly. He reacted. I didn’t react.”

Kolb immediately pulled to the side of the road to catch his breath and collect his thoughts.

He never played another NFL snap.

…

Three weeks ago, Bills president Russ Brandon actually sent Kolb a text message checking in. The support from Buffalo, he said, was through the roof. Johnson agrees. Owner Ralph Wilson actually sent him to a specialist in Florida.

But asked how much players are educated about CTE, Kolb admits “not very much at all.” He couldn’t remember a trainer, a doctor, a coach, anyone in Philadelphia, Arizona or Buffalo informing players of the disease.

It’s on everyone, he repeats, to fix this.

He can still remember Green Bay’s Clay Matthews burying him into the turf for Concussion No. 1 and seeing Michael Vick run away with his job.

“It was supposed to be ‘my team,’ ” Kolb said. “I could see it falling apart in front of my eyes. Of course, I’m going to try to go out there and play.”

Until, well, he couldn’t.

Excellent read here. And though that screenshot of Kolb is an all-timer, it marked the start of an awful few years for the young quarterback.