Super Bowl 50 hero Malik Jackson announces his retirement

Malik Jackson hadn’t played in a game since Jan. 3, 2022. Yet despite sitting out the 2022 season, he still officially remained a free agent. When he made a fill-in appearance on NFL Network’s Good Morning Football this week, his co-hosts helpfully referred to him as a free agent.

“I appreciated the free-agency tag. Made me feel good,” Jackson said on the show.

But the truth?

“Yeah, I’m done,” he said.

And with those words Friday morning, Jackson’s 10-year career in the NFL ended.

He ended up playing 10 seasons for four teams.

“Ten to 12 years was my goal,” Jackson said on Good Morning Football.

🚨 Malik Jackson has some breaking news… 🚨#Done pic.twitter.com/KTf85niLIt

— Good Morning Football (@gmfb) July 14, 2023

His last snaps came for the Cleveland Browns in 2021. But he also played a pair of seasons for the Philadelphia Eagles and three for the Jacksonville Jaguars, where he was part of a ferocious defense that came within a Tom Brady comeback of playing in Super Bowl LII.

But the first chapter of his career was his most memorable: four seasons with the Denver Broncos that saw him emerge from a raw, hair-on-fire rookie into one of the game’s best interior pass rushers. By 2015, Jackson and fellow 2012 pick Derek Wolfe became a dominant duo.

Generating pressure from the interior, they locked quarterbacks into the pocket, setting up edge rushers Von Miller, DeMarcus Ware, Shaquil Barrett and Shane Ray for 28 sacks in 2015. Jackson and Wolfe each had 5.5 sacks of their own.

Jackson’s Broncos career culminated with a recovery of a Von Miller forced fumble in Super Bowl 50. It was a right-place, right-time moment … but the constant penetration of the Broncos’ perfect-storm front seven made it possible. It launched the Broncos to a 24-10 win over the Carolina Panthers.

But by then, the die was already cast for Jackson’s departure. With a cap crunch and a slew of expiring contracts, contract negotiations to keep some players went on during that season. Wolfe signed a four-year extension during the playoffs. Jackson, meanwhile, went into free agency and signed a 6-year contract with Jacksonville.

Jackson’s career-high tally of 8 sacks came in 2017 with Jacksonville. That year also saw his only Pro Bowl appearance. His two highest single-season sack totals came with the Jaguars.

He played three years of that deal, pocketing $45 million before Jacksonville made him a cap casualty in 2019. He subsequently signed a 3-year contract with the Eagles; he earned $20 million there before they parted ways with him after 2020.

A single season in Cleveland followed. No team signed him in the following year.

“I was able to get to a point where I did OK, did pretty well for myself,” Jackson said. “I think I just did enough. I have a daughter, and I need to go home, and I just want to be with her and start living life.”

But the football life he lived was sensational. And in a championship Broncos season, he became an indispensable part of the title-winning equation.

Not too bad for a fifth-round pick.

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