Former Patriots LB Ja'Whaun Bentley Clarifies Retirement Status

Former New England Patriots linebacker Ja'Whaun Bentley wants you to know that his playing career is far from over.

The former team captain, who spent seven seasons with New England, took to social media this week to announce that he is in fact not retired from the NFL -- "NOT Retired," he wrote on X.

Bentley was in the league for a brief time in 2025, having a short stint with the Pittsburgh Steelers' practice squad, before being cut in early October. He's been a free agent ever since.

NOT Retired
— JB (@NVBentley33) January 12, 2026

Bentley was drafted in the fifth round of the 2018 NFL Draft out of Purdue, and quickly made an impact with New England. He suffered a season-ending injury early into his rookie season and was sidelined for the team's Super Bowl LIII run. In the seasons that followed, Bentley became one of New England's most sure-fire tacklers and on-field leaders. In 2024, he was named a captain for the third time before a pectoral injury prematurely ended his season in the second game of the year against Seattle.

In March, after the Patriots hired Mike Vrabel to be the team's new head coach, Bentley was released just one year after donning the captain patch. The linebacker was replaced on the roster with some players familiar with Vrabel's defensive scheme, and it was a signal that the old Patriots regime was on their way out.

Ja'Whaun Bentley Was With The Patriots From 2018 To 2024

"Those were all individual decisions," Vrabel told reporters at the time of Bentley's release. "The captaincy is not a four-year term, it’s not an eight-year term. It’s a year-to-year term. Every player has to prove themselves each and every day to the football team. There were some veteran players that have done a lot of great things. It was just individual decisions. Some of those other players went and moved on to another football team. Some, we had decisions that we made. So, it’s just all part of the roster construction."

He was on the open market until September, when the Steelers signed him to their practice squad ahead of their upcoming clash with New England.

New England Patriots linebacker Ja'Whaun Bentley (8) runs onto the field before the NFL game between the Cincinnati Bengals and the New England Patriots at Paycor Stadium in Cincinnati on Sunday, Sept. 8, 2024. | Albert Cesare/The Enquirer / USA TODAY NETWORK

"I went down early last year, second drive of Week 2. If anything, you just think about all the hard work you did getting up to that point, so when you hit that, it's kind of like a damn kind of thing. But at the end of the day, work is nothing new to me," Bentley said after signing with Pittsburgh. "I was looking to put one day in front of the other and obviously got a fresh start here. So excited to do that. Excited to meet all the guys, meet all the coaches, and just had some fun with this thing."

Though most practice squad players don't travel to road games, when the Steelers made the trip to Gillette Stadium to face the Patriots in Week 3, Bentley was spotted pregame. It was a happy homecoming for Bentley, as his Steelers beat his former team 21-14 in a game that had major playoff implications for two eventual postseason-bound teams.

Bentley will not have another shot to watch his two past squads do battle again, as the Steelers fell to the Houston Texans 30-6 in the AFC Wild Card.

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