Titans LB Kamerion Wimbley announced his retirement from the NFL after 9 seasons in the league.  A retirement, once processed, is treated identical to a player release for salary cap purposes. He was sceheduled to count for $4.45 million against the Titans salary cap, but will now see that number reduce to $3.6 million. The $3.6 million is attributed to the remaining prorated money from a  $9 million signing bonus received in 2012 when he signed with Tennessee as a free agent.

Wimbley’s best season in the NFL was probably his first when nabbed 11 sacks for the Browns as a rookie in 2006.  The Browns traded Wimbley to Oakland after he had just 15.5 sacks over the next three seasons and Oakland proved to be a great destination for him. In his contract season Wimbley would sack the QB 9 times, which led to the Raiders using their franchise tag on him. wimbley leveraged that into a contract that guaranteed him $11.5 million. Wimbley lasted just one year on that contract before he was released.

Wimbley quickly signed with the Titans, earning another $11.5 million in the first year of that deal. He accepted a paycut in 2014 after two years of rather mediocre play that resulted in 9 sacks and 24 tackles in two years.  With the signing of Brian Orakpo it was likely that Wimbley’s role would have further diminished which I guess could have helped lead to the retirement decision. Regardless Wimbley did a pretty impressive job of using a first round draft status and some flashes of greatness to land himself some pretty good contracts in his NFL career.