Ndamukong Suh: 3 potential landing spots for the former Lions defensive tackle

2. Retirement

Now that we’ve crossed into June, even if Suh seemingly should have some suitors, it’s quite possible there just isn’t a fit out there for him to play a 13th NFL season.

With career earnings of nearly $166.2 million (according to Spotrac), Suh could decided to retire and focus on his interests outside of football. He certainly doesn’t need the money, even if there are no real indications the physical pounding of 12 seasons has impacted his effectiveness on the field all that much.

If he were to call it quits, the Hall of Fame debate around Suh would start. An at-times controversial start to his career when he played for the Lions, as he crossed the line to dirty play, will follow him into that conversation and impact his candidacy. But let’s leave that aside.

Suh has 70.5 career sacks right now, which is top-100 all-time and top-20 among active players, with five career Pro Bowl selections and the aforementioned three First Team All-Pro honors. A Super Bowl ring and an appearance in a second Super Bowl is helpful to his Hall of Fame resume in a sense, but his statistics and accolades may fall just short of Canton induction for some.

Suh registers 12th among defensive tackles on Pro Football Reference’s Hall of Fame Monitor with a score (84.38) actually well short of the average Hall of Fame defensive tackle (109.90). One more season, and another handful of sacks or so, probably won’t impact that “score” very much.

There are no indications Suh wants to retire instead of signing with a team right now, especially when it seems he still has something in the tank. But calling it a career knowing he could still play seems more likely for Suh than “leaving it all on the field”, and being the proverbial last to know he’s done three years from now.