Former New England Patriots wide receiver Malcolm Mitchell announced his retirement from the game of football earlier this week, a decision that came at the young age of 26.

Mitchell, who last played during the Patriots' stunning comeback win over the Atlanta Falcons in the Super Bowl in February 2017, explained why he retired on Thursday.

“The thing that hurts the most is that it was just so unfortunate. It was out of everyone's control,” Mitchell said, according to Mike Reiss of ESPN.com. “It was just the way it was supposed to be; unfortunately, it's not the way I think everybody wanted it to be. It's definitely not what I wanted.”

Mitchell has dealt with a slew of injury issues over the last two years, and overall, he has undergone 10 surgeries on his knee.

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“I was very patient about it,” he said. “Obviously, there are doctor's notes and stuff that comes into play, like, ‘You'll have arthritis by then. If you keep going, this will be the result.' That was maybe 30 percent of it. But I knew that when I first started having the surgeries. I just evaluated my self-worth off the field, and for a long time it never surpassed what I could do on the field. Then, I think being here doing stuff in the community, it started to shift.”

The Valdosta, Ga. native, who played his collegiate football at the University of Georgia, was originally selected by New England in the fourth round (112th pick overall) of the 2016 NFL Draft.

That season, Mitchell hauled in 32 receptions for 401 yards and four touchdowns.