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Stampeders' Jon Cornish leaning towards retirement due to head injuries

Todd Korol / REUTERS

Jon Cornish knew he wasn't going to play in the Grey Cup six weeks ago when he suffered his second concussion in two years.

While the veteran Calgary Stampeders running back hasn't officially confirmed he's retiring, he sounds like a man who has moved on from football due to the number of head injuries he's sustained over a colourful nine-year career.

"The decision was made at the end of last season,” Cornish told the Calgary Herald's Ian Busby. “If I suffered another concussion I would take the same process, allow myself to get fully recovered and then come back to play.

“The problem was when I suffered the concussion, I only had six weeks until the Grey Cup. Could I play in the Grey Cup? I might but it would be unfair to my teammates. I knew I wasn't going to come back this season."

It's an all-too-familiar path for Cornish, given a year ago he underwent the same issues.

In the 2014 opener against the Montreal Alouettes, he was chopped with a forearm to the head, which rendered him unconscious. Though, he would return to lead the league in rushing - while only playing nine games - and led the Stampeders to a Grey Cup.

A year later, he's only appeared in nine games again, but this time he doesn't anticipate coming back in such heroic fashion.

Although he says he has no regrets for how things played out, Cornish, the three-time Most Outstanding Canadian and 2013 Most Outstanding Player knows that first concussion altered his path in life.

“I break my hand and then I get another concussion," he said. "This has defined my last two years ... that hit. Unfortunately.”

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