Shaquil Barrett has surprisingly announced his retirement from the NFL. The move came shortly before the start of the Miami Dolphins training camp and hits the Florida team hard.
The two-time Super Bowl winner of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Denver Broncos had only joined the Dolphins as a free agent for the upcoming season and was supposed to take on one of the edge positions where Miami had recently been badly hit by injuries. Instead, he announced his departure at the weekend.
“I’m ready to put my full focus on my wife and kids and help them achieve their dreams,” the 31-year-old wrote on Instagram. “I’ve been thinking about this for quite a while now and it’s never been clearer to me than it is now.”
This move comes just over a year after the tragic death of his then two-year-old daughter Arrayah, who drowned in the family pool in April 2023. Barrett subsequently returned to action for the 2023 season, recording 4.5 sacks and 52 tackles in 16 games.
Barrett had only signed a one-year contract with the Dolphins in March after the Buccaneers released him for cap reasons. Barrett spent five seasons with the Buccaneers and helped win the Super Bowl in Tom Brady’s first season with the team in 2020. He has a total of 45 sacks in 70 games for the Bucs since 2019.
Originally an undrafted free agent by the Broncos in 2015, he won his first Super Bowl in his first season – quarterback Peyton Manning’s last – albeit as a rotation player in a then-dominant defense. In nine years in the NFL, he totaled 59 sacks in 131 games.
This step is a problem for the Dolphins, as key players Jaelan Phillips and Bradley Chubb are starting camp on the Physically Unable to Perform list and it is unclear whether they will be fit for the start of the season in early September. Emmanuel Ogbah and Andrew Van Ginkel were also released – the latter has since signed with the Minnesota Vikings. Accordingly, rookies Chop Robinson and Mo Kamara are currently the team’s only healthy edge rushers.
Meanwhile, on Sunday, rumors emerged that the Dolphins had contacted Ogbah to discuss a possible return.
Source: www.sport.de
