New Orleans Saints defensive end Kenyon Coleman (99) during morning training camp practice at the team training facility. Mandatory Credit: Derick E. Hingle-USA TODAY Sports
New Orleans Saints veteran 3-4 defensive end Kenyon Coleman plans to hang up his spikes at the age of 34, and the news isn’t surprising. Coleman missed the entire 2013 season with a torn pectoral that he suffered in training camp, and he wasn’t expected to be re-signed by the team either. ESPN NFL Nation’s Mike Triplett was informed of Coleman’s likely retirement by his agent Jordan Woy, and the run-stuffing DE would walk away from the game having accomplished a solid amount.
While Coleman never put up big stats, he did a solid job of doing the dirty work. The 3-4 defensive end position is arguably the most under-appreciated in football, and he did a great job of filling out that role for the Cleveland Browns and Dallas Cowboys. His best season on the stat sheet came in 2007 with the New York Jets when he recorded 83 tackles and 1.5 sacks, and he once recorded four sacks while with the Cowboys.
His retirement isn’t set in stone yet, but it would be surprising for him to back out on his plan. The 12-year pro was a fifth-round pick by the Oakland Raiders out of UCLA in the 2002 NFL Draft, but he never did anything for the Raiders as a rookie due to the play of others at the position on the roster and was traded to the Cowboys for a seventh-round pick. He quickly found his footing in Dallas and his career finally took off in 2006 as a fifth-year pro in Big D.
He spent one season with the Raiders, six seasons with the Cowboys in two separate stints, a season with the Saints despite never appearing in a game, two seasons with the Jets (the most successful of his career), and two seasons with the Browns.