Manti Te'o confirms he's done playing football

This might’ve seemed obvious, but Manti Te’o, the ex-Notre Dame great and one-time Heisman finalist, is finished with football.

TMZ caught up to the Te’o as he was passing through the Los Angeles airport. LAX seemed to be the perfect spot to ask him about his football future.

“I’m playing a different game now,” Manti Te’o said. “I’m trying to empower people. Trying to inspire people. That’s the game that I’m playing now, and I’m trying to be the best at that.”

Te’o’s NFL career ended without much fanfare. That was back in 2020, when the league was playing through a pandemic. The Chicago Bears signed him to their practice squad in October, 2020. He was on the active roster for one game. And that was a playoff loss to the Saints. His contract with the Bears expired the day after the loss. No team picked him up.

Still, Manti Te’o was much more than how his career ended. College football fans remember him from his career with the Fighting Irish. As a tenacious middle linebacker, the Hawaii native helped lead Notre Dame to the national championship game against Alabama. He was the best defensive player in the country and even finished as runner-up for the Heisman in 2012. That was the year that Johnny Manziel became the first redshirt freshman to win college football’s most coveted individual award.

But unfortunately for Manti Te’o, he also became known for something other than football. Days after the BCS title game, Deadspin broke a story about Te’o’s deceased girlfriend Lennay Kekua. She never existed, although Te’o believed he was having an online relationship with a woman by that name. The linebacker had been catfished by Naya Tuiasosopo, a man who created a fake online account and used photos of a woman who went to his high school. Lennay had been part of Te’o’s lore in South Bend, his emotional Heisman hook. She’d died of leukemia, he told reporters during the season. At least, he thought she had.

Despite the controversy generated by the catfishing scheme, the Chargers selected Manti Te’o in the second round of the 2013 NFL Draft. By 2016, he was a team captain. He played for the Saints in 2017 and 2018, then ended up with the Bears the next season.

You can watch a documentary called “Untold: The Girlfriend Who Didn’t Exist” about the catfishing story.

Manti Te’o told TMZ: “If my life can be that for people — to show people that, ‘Hey, it may not be sunshine and roses all the time, but if you just keep your head down and keep working and believing in yourself and putting God first, everything will be all right.'”

He said of the documentary specifics: “It’s more of an understanding now. It’s a beautiful thing because all the facts weren’t out there … I’m grateful that people have all the details and that people are able to see everything and that God’s timing is perfect timing. So, everything works out.”

Manti Te’o did find love. He met Jovi, his future wife, in 2015. The two married in August 2020. They now have two children, daughter Hiro and Kyro, a son born earlier this year.

And he has no more plans for football from the NFL to the spring leagues like the XFL and USFL. At 32, it’s more than time to move on from the sport.