He hasn’t played in the NFL in nearly three years, but on Saturday, former longtime NFL defender Ndamukong Suh made it official and announced his retirement.
But Suh had another motivation for announcing this weekend, it was the first anniversary of the death of his father.
“It’s the day I said goodbye to my father, the man who raised me, shaped me, challenged me, and believed in me before I believed in myself,” Suh wrote on social media. “He wasn’t just a dad. He was my idol, my coach, and my anchor. He taught me what it meant to be disciplined, focused, and relentless in everything I do. Every snap I took in football carried his fingerprint. Every time I lined up across from someone, I could hear his voice pushing me, reminding me that I wasn’t just representing myself. I was representing him, my family, my name. Before he passed, he gave me one final piece of advice: ‘It’s time to let football go. You’ve done everything you set out to do. Now it’s time for the next chapter.’”
Suh brought the pain train to Aaron Rodgers 😤
— Sports Illustrated (@SInow) October 18, 2020
(via @thecheckdown)pic.twitter.com/HoiWaewnTn
Suh certainly did more than his fair share in his college and pro career. The monster defensive tackle from Portland, Oregon, almost single-handedly helped Nebraska derail Texas’s run to the national championship game in 2009 by terrorizing Colt McCoy and nearly upsetting the Longhorns in the Big 12 Championship Game.
In the NFL, he picked up right where he left off in college, winning NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year honors as well as being named first team All-Pro in his debut season in Detroit.
Suh brought a nasty streak to the game that earned him several fines and multiple suspensions, including, most notably, when he stepped on the arm of then-Packers QB Aaron Rodgers. However, the suspension for the Rodgers incident was overturned on appeal.
The former Cornhusker earned two more All-Pro selections in Detroit, which he parlayed into a monster contract with the Dolphins that made him the most highly paid defensive player in NFL history at that time.
Suh then bounced around for a bit between the Bucs, Eagles, and Rams, where he appeared in three Super Bowls with each team, putting him in very elite company as only a handful of players who have been to the NFL’s championship game with three different franchises.
In his 13 years in the NFL, Suh accumulated 71.5 sacks and 600 tackles.
