Report: Jamaal Charles to Sign Contract, Retire with Chiefs After 11 NFL Seasons
Wesley Hitt/Getty Images
Jamaal Charles is set to sign a one-day contract with the Kansas City Chiefs before he retires from the NFL, according to 610 Sports Radio in Kansas City on Tuesday.
The 32-year-old appeared in two games for the Jacksonville Jaguars in 2018, rushing for seven yards on six attempts.
The two-time All-Pro was never the same after persistent knee injuries wreaked havoc on his agility and speed.
Charles’ knee issues date back to 2011, when he played in two games for the Chiefs before he tore his left ACL and missed the rest of the season.
He returned as strong as ever, reaching the Pro Bowl three years in a row from 2012 to 2014, totaling 3,829 rushing yards and 26 touchdowns during that span.
Another major setback came in October 2015, when he tore his right ACL, wiping out the remainder of his campaign after he appeared in five games.
Charles’ recovery from knee surgery kept him out until Week 4 in 2016. He rushed for 40 yards on 12 carries in three games before he suffered yet another knee injury. The Chiefs placed him on injured reserve on Nov. 1, and he underwent a second surgery to repair the damage.
He remained relatively healthy in 2017 and 2018 yet was playing well below the standard he had set. And there was little reason to expect anything different were he to return for 2019 or beyond.
During an 11-year career with the Chiefs, Denver Broncos and Jaguars, Charles rushed for 7,563 yards and 44 touchdowns, while catching 310 passes for 2,593 yards and 20 scores.
It’s a shame to see Charles’ career end in such uninspiring fashion, because he was one of the best running backs in the league during his prime. He leaves still having averaged 5.4 yards per carry over his career, the fourth-most of all time:
Field Yates @FieldYates
NFL’s all-time yards per carry leader (minimum 750 career attempts):
1. Michael Vick: 7.0
2. Randall Cunningham: 6.4
3. Marion Motley: 5.7
4. Jamaal Charles: 5.4
5. Jim Brown: 5.2Congrats to Charles on a great career. https://t.co/qbnOKGgMZR
The Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, may be the next step for Charles.
Terrell Davis is a two-time Super Bowl champion, the 1998 MVP and one of seven running backs in league history who ran for 2,000 yards in a season.
The bulk of the former Broncos star’s work came in his first four seasons. He suffered a knee injury in 1999 and ran for 1,194 yards in his final three years. As a result, he sits only 55th on the NFL’s all-time rushing list (7,607 yards).
Despite that, Davis was rightfully enshrined as a Hall of Famer in 2017.
Even before Davis, Hall of Fame voters have been forgiving to running backs whose careers were derailed by injury before. Gale Sayers was effectively limited to a five-year stretch of dominance in the 1960s but received the call to the Hall of Fame in 1977.
Charles has the body of work to at least enter into the HOF discussion when he’s eligible.
from Daily Trends Hunter http://bit.ly/2ZILDUQ
Comments
Post a Comment