Longtime NFL defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh has officially announced his retirement in a social media post.
Suh was one of the most dominant defensive linemen of the 2010s, earning five Pro Bowls and three first-team All-Pro selections across his 13-year career. He finished one game shy of 200 regular-season appearances and recorded 600 total tackles, 71.5 sacks, and 130 tackles.
Suh revealed that his father passed away exactly one year ago, inspiring him to seek out a post-football career hosting “No Free Lunch,” a podcast with The Athletic focused on business and finance. He hopes to use his platform to help athletes and young entrepreneurs.
Suh had a stellar career at the University of Nebraska, including a monstrous senior year in 2009 with 12.5 sacks and 21 tackles for loss. He won the Nagurski and Bednarik Awards as the best defensive player in college football, was named a unanimous All-American and finished fourth in Heisman voting.
He was then selected by the Lions with the No. 2 pick in the 2010 NFL Draft and burst onto the pro scene with 10.0 sacks as a rookie, earning him the Defensive Rookie of the Year Award along with Pro Bowl and first-team All-Pro honors. He never reached double-digit sacks again, but remained a fierce disruptor on the interior with three more Pro Bowls and three more All-Pro nods in Detroit.
Suh was one of the biggest prizes of free agency in 2015 and ultimately signed a massive six-year, $114M contract with the Dolphins. $19M per year may not seem like much relative to the modern interior defensive line market, but it represented a whopping 13.3% of the 2015 salary cap. Adjusted to the 2025 cap, Suh’s APY would be over $37M, by far the highest-paid DT in the league, per OverTheCap.
However, after 36.0 sacks and 66 tackles for loss in five years with the Lions, Suh only had 14.5 sacks and 23 tackles for loss in his first three years in Miami. He was released in 2018 and signed with the Rams for one seasons before a three-year stint in Tampa Bay. His time with the Buccaneers featured a resurgence in play (12.0 sacks across 2020 and 2021) and his first and only championship in Super Bowl LV.
Suh then joined the Eagles partway through the 2022 season and even appeared in Super Bowl LVI, but has not played since. He received interest from the Ravens and the Dolphins during the 2023 season, but no deal came to fruition.
Suh finishes his career with just over $168M in total earnings. He was already been named to the Hall of Fame All-2010s team and will have a chance at being inducted in five years. His candidacy, along with other modern DTs like Fletcher Cox, Geno Atkins and Cameron Heyward, will be an interesting litmus test for the position’s Hall of Fame standards.
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