Malcolm Jenkins Announces Retirement at 34 Years Old

Two-time All-Pro safety Malcolm Jenkins announced that he is retiring from the NFL on Wednesday on The Pivot Podcast. The full interview can be watched here. 

“I’m excited to announced that after 13 seasons I’m retiring from the game of football,” Jenkins said. “Been a long, long journey but it’s the right time for me to do that transition.”

The 34-year-old was drafted by the Saints with the No. 14 pick in the 2009 draft and won Super Bowl XLIV in his rookie year. He stayed in New Orleans until he signed with Philadelphia as a free agent in ’14. While there, he won Super Bowl LII against the Patriots. Finally, he returned to the Saints in ’20 on a four-year deal but decided to call it a career instead of playing through it. 

The three-time Pro Bowler was as tough as they came. From November 2013 until his retirement Wednesday, he missed just one game due to being on the COVID-19 list. At one point, he played 2,651 straight snaps. He walks away from the game on his own terms. 

“Over the last, really five years, I’ve been building businesses, I’ve been building my own team in order to have that success, to have my own projects, to be able to walk away from the game under my own power,” he said. “And I know that’s a huge blessing. I don’t take that for granted.”

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