After 13 seasons and a disappointing ending to a long career with his only team in the NFL, Brian Urlacher has decided to retire.
Urlacher entered the league in the year 2000, and racked up 1,192 career tackles, placing him in the top 20 tacklers of all time. However, his work in the secondary is really what Urlacher will be remembered for.
He finishes his career with 22 interceptions, an exceptional number for a linebacker. In this day and age, linebackers are typically used in the run-stopping and pass-rushing game. But Urlacher could do anything that a coach would need a linebacker to do.
The anchor and face of the Bears defense for the past decade has won a Super Bowl, an NFL Defensive Player of the Year, Defensive Rookie of the Year, and was named to the NFL All-Decade team in the 2000s.
The past accomplishments of Urlacher were irrelevant when it came to the future of the Bears organization. At the end of this season, his long-time NFL team, the Chicago Bears, cut him in order to create cap space. Urlacher was either forced to find a new team or retire, and he made his decision.
“After spending a lot of time this spring thinking about my NFL future, I have made a decision to retire,” Urlacher said via Twitter.
Brian Urlacher helped revolutionize the game today. In 5 years, when eligible for the Hall of Fame, he and fellow linebacker retiree Ray Lewis will be in the Hall of Fame because of what they did to make the linebacker position what it is today.