TallySaint

Perennial Pro Bowl tackle Roaf retires

Adam Schefter By Adam Schefter
NFL Analyst




(July 28, 2006) -- Eleven-time Pro-Bowl selection and future Hall-of-Fame offensive tackle Willie Roaf intends to retire, his agent Peter Schaffer confirmed this morning.

"He's retiring to spend more time with his family," said Schaffer, adding that Roaf is now in Pine Bluff, Ark., celebrating his son's birthday this weekend.

Roaf also has battled knee and hamstring injuries that have left him hobbling and wondering whether he could play at the same level he always had. At training camp last summer, Roaf told NFL Network he expected the 2005 season to be his last, but the offensive tackle clearly wavered in his thinking before deciding he had enough in recent weeks.

Roaf's decision is a big blow to the Kansas City Chiefs and what typically has been football's best offensive line. It already had lost right tackle John Welbourn to retirement and now has lost Roaf, leaving the Chiefs to patch up a unit that has dominated in recent years.

Now, when the Chiefs assemble for their first training camp practice this afternoon, Jordan Black will line up as Kansas City's starting left tackle and free-agent acquisition Kyle Turley will line up as the team's starting right tackle.

A Chiefs spokesman said Roaf's decision did not surprise them. The Chiefs knew that Roaf was on a year-to-year basis when they traded for him in 2002. Now that year has come, Schaffer said, and Roaf is done.

It also marks the second successive day an offensive lineman has made some of the biggest news of the day. On July 27, Cleveland center LeCharles Bentley, the face of the Browns free-agent class, ruptured his Achilles' tendon on the team's first contact play of training camp. Bentley will miss the 2006 season.


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8)

My Guardian Angel wears a hard hat.

DJLengai

http://www.nfl.com/nflnetwork/story/9575606

Willie Roaf has retired from KC so everyone banking on LJ as the top rusher this year may want to think it over. Richardson and now both OTs are gone so that running attack is still going to be good, but not dominant like it has been. I'm sad to see Roaf go. He's a great player and did excellent for us. It is interesting that a much lighter Turley is now the RT. I wish him well too. Man, Roaf and Bentley gone..that's weird. Seems like all of our great linemen are in the news and none of them are our problem. Nice it's not us having to deal with these losses.

papz

Jordan Black is more than capable of filling in. He's not ProBowler, but he's proven to be better than average as a starter. KC is like Denver, just plug anyone in there and they'll perform. They both have great schemes for running the football.

spkb25

good luck big willie. he had a great career

hagan714

Read some where when the big guy goes into the hall he will be a saint. could not think of a better man to put the first saints jersey in the hall than him. Sign him to a contract so he can retire a saint. Honor him at the Atlanta game and retire the jersey. Now that would be perfect.

neugey

Hopefully this retirement is all a hoax and he just really wants to return to Louisiana and finish his career w/ the Saints.

TallySaint

The ESPN ticker on the bottom of the screens said intends, too.


No tellin' what's going on in KC.


$$$?






8)

TallySaint

"I guess they want me to reconsider," Roaf told The Kansas City Star. "[But] I'm solid on retiring and going back to school."


Team officials have been able in the past to dissuade Roaf from walking away from the game, but their efforts apparently were not persuasive enough this time.




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8)

BoudinSandwich

All props to Willie Roaf. He's one of the best to ever play in his position. If I were to pick an ultimate offensive line, there's no doubt that he'd be a starter on it. He had a great career and I can't wait until they induct him into the HoF.

patdog

Do he go into the a hall of fame as a Chief or a Saint?