For the past four months, Martellus Bennett has been on the fence about possibly retiring. It appears that he has finally made his decision. 

The former Patriots tight end sent out a tweet Friday announcing to the world that he's "moving on from the world of football."

The announcement is surprising, but only because it appeared that Bennett had already decided he was going to play this season. 

In February, NFL.com reported that Bennett had made the decision to return for 2018. Bennett had been mulling retirement since at least October, when he took to Instagram to announce that he would "likely" retire after the 2017 season. It's possible that he was going to return, but then changed his mind after being cut by the Patriots on March 7. 

Bennett is retiring after a mostly successful 10-year career in the NFL. After being selected by the Cowboys in the second round of the 2008 NFL Draft, the tight end spent four seasons in Dallas before signing a one-year deal with the Giants in 2012. After one season in New York, he signed with the Bears, where he played the most impressive football of his career. In 2014, Bennett was voted to the Pro Bowl after tallying a career-high 90 receptions for 916 yards. 

Despite that success, Bennett only lasted one more season in Chicago and he was traded to the Patriots before the 2016 season. In 2016, Bennett played a key role on a Patriots team that went on to win the Super Bowl. In New England's 34-28 win over the Falcons, Bennett caught five passes for 62 yards. 

Bennett will probably be hoping that that's what most people remember from his career, because he had a rough 2017 that included battling the Packers over the right to keep his signing bonus. After Green Bay cut Bennett in November, the Patriots claimed him off of waivers and he ended up playing just 24 snaps for the Patriots before he was placed on injured reserve. 

The tight end will finish his career with 433 catches for 4,573 yards and 30 touchdowns. 

Now that he's retired, it looks like Bennett will likely be spending most of his free time creating work for his Imagination Agency, which is a multimedia production company he founded that creates content for children. The 31-year-old released his first children's book in 2016. 

"It's a long process from picking out the paper to making sure the ink is right, from creating characters to editing the story, but bringing those ideas to fruition is one thing," Bennett said at the time when talking about the book. "A lot of people have ideas, but completing ideas is something that is very rare, so I'm very excited about that. ... When I started the company, I just wanted to make things and tell stories, so whether it's films, cartoons, apps, books, I just like to make stuff. I have all these stories that need to be told."

Bennett made his retirement decision on the same day that his brother, Michael, was indicted on a felony charge in Houston. Michael was charged with causing injury to the elderly for an incident that took place at Super Bowl LI. Michael was at the game to celebrate Martellus.