It appears the 2021 season will be the first Ryan Kerrigan doesn’t suit up for the Washington Football Team since he was drafted in the first round of the 2011 NFL Draft.
The franchise all-time sack leader appears to acknowledge his time in Washington is over with a “Thank You” post to the team on Instagram.
“I’ll never be able to sum up what these past 10 years have meant to me in an Instagram post, but what I can say is that they have been some of the best of my life. I hope you had as much fun watching me as I did playing for you. Thank you, Washington, for everything,” Kerrigan wrote on the Instagram post.
Kerrigan’s future with Washington became murky when the team drafted Chase Young second overall in 2020 to go alongside 2019 first-round pick Montez Sweat at defensive end.
Last season, the 32-year old Kerrigan played out the final year of a 5-year, $37.5 million contract. He made one start in 2020. It was the first season he did not start at least 12 games. Playing in a limited role behind Young and Sweat, Kerrigan played a career-low 397 defensive snaps, recording 5.5 sacks.
He expressed his desire to start after Washington’s season ended in the playoffs. Kerrigan met with the Cincinnati Bengals in March but a deal was not struck. Speculation suggested he could return to Washington, and if so after the draft.
However, Washington selected two defensive ends in the seventh round of this year’s draft, William Bradley-King out of Baylor and Shaka Toney out of Penn State. Their selections seemingly has sealed the fate of Kerrigan returning to Washington.
Presently, Kerrigan remains a free agent
Through his 10 seasons Kerrigan had many accomplishments. He started 139 consecutive games never missing a start to begin his career until a concussion ended his impressive streak in 2019.
In 2020, he passed Dexter Manley to become Washington’s all-time sack leader. Kerrigan has played 156 games throughout his career, collecting 95.5 sacks. Additionally, he’s had 26 forced fumbles, four fumble recovers and returned all three of his interceptions for touchdowns.
