Announcement From Nowhere: Ferg Retires

This week, one of the Dolphins locker room leaders, nose tackle Jason Ferguson, announced his retirement from the NFL.

The news was a shock to all that heard, even the players. Only days after Ferguson joined Twitter, and showed his excitement for the oncoming season, Ferg then went on to announce his retirement, which shocked even the players.

Despite conspiracy theories that thought Ferguson retired because of yet another failed drug test, NFL spokesman Greg Aiello says otherwise.  “No, there was no further violation.”

Ferguson had this to say about his retirement.

“You get what you put into this game. I would like to thank my family, the fans and the organizations that I have been a part of for their continued support throughout my career, it’s been an absolute blessing to play this long. I have built a lot of relationships, you develop an extended family playing this game; I would like to thank that extended family, the teammates, the coaches, the support staffs that have all played a part of a great ride.”

The retirement of Big Ferg is yet another blow to the locker room. The Dolphins have lost three past captains this off-season (Joey Porter, Jason Taylor, and now Ferguson), and it is now left up to some of the other guys to pick up the slack and step up to the task.

Ferguson leaving is a huge blow to the teams depth at defensive tackle.

Because Ferguson was suspended for the first eight games of the season for violating the league’s PED policy, the Fins had to switch defensive end Randy Starks over to nose tackle.

Starks served some time at the position last year in short stints, but being the full time guy is a whole different story. Personally, I was looking forward to Ferguson coming back from the suspension fresh, and providing somewhat of a sparkplug for the team in the home stretch of the schedule.

But with the retirement comes a changing of the guard, and perhaps this allows Starks to have the job for the full season without having to look over his shoulder once Ferguson comes back from his suspension.

Starks will have his hands full in his first season as the starting nose tackle, and without Ferguson, our run defense just took a big blow, but it is nothing our front seven, and Mike Nolan cannot handle.