One heated moment on the football field can change everything. For former Miami Dolphins safety Cedric Thompson, a physical altercation with teammate Jarvis Landry during his rookie season was a moment he believes helped send his NFL career in the wrong direction.
“In 2015, I was drafted by the Miami Dolphins. By 2017, I was kicked out of the league,” Thompson said on his YouTube channel. “The NFL didn’t cut me. I cut myself, fought my own teammate… One day at practice, me and Jarvis [Landry] got into a fight. We were doing this drill where he had to come and block me, and we had to hit. I had to shut him off and tackle the ball carrier. He did not take it well on how we collided, and we started fighting, and they covered the whole thing.”
The incident dates back to the 2015 season. Fresh off his collegiate career representing the University of Minnesota Golden Gophers from 2011 to 2014, Cedric Thompson was drafted by the Miami Dolphins in the fifth round.
However, just a few months later, during a training drill, Thompson found himself in a troublesome situation that no rookie may wish to be part of, at least in their first season.
The Dolphins were already in the 2015 regular season. However, on October 5, 2015, Miami fired head coach Joe Philbin following a 1–3 start to the season. As a result, tight ends coach Dan Campbell was named interim head coach, and he immediately promised to make practices intense and physical to change the team’s culture.
Since the high-profile coaching change, national media and camera crews have heavily monitored the practice field. That is when, during a physical, full-contact blocking drill that week, star WR Jarvis Landry was assigned to block the rookie, Cedric Thompson.
Thompson shed Landry’s block with aggressive force to make a tackle on the ball carrier. However, he seemed irritated by the rookie’s extra physical effort. As a result, Landry retaliated. To that end, the exchange erupted into a helmet-swinging fistfight right in front of the active media cameras.
It became an incident that left a detrimental impact on Thompson and Landry’s reputation. But just a few days later, the flak against the rookie amplified.
During another team period, Thompson went too hard into a pile and accidentally injured the ankle of wide receiver DeVante Parker, who was the Dolphins’ prized 2015 first-round draft pick.
Even though Cedric Thompson was drafted by Miami, he was never part of the main roster like Jarvis Landry and DeVante Parker. After spending his time with the Dolphins as a practice squad member, Thompson joined the New England Patriots in January 2016.
Following that, Thompson kept jumping ships from New England to the Minnesota Vikings (2016-2017), then to the Cincinnati Bengals (2017), but he never received an opportunity to play a single NFL season.
By the end of the 2017 season, Thompson felt the need to transition to a different venture rather than battling for an NFL game appearance. Hence, in May 2018, he announced his retirement.
According to Thompson, his physical brawl with Landry and public argument with his head coach at Miami, Joe Philbin, once resulted in his early NFL exit.
Meanwhile, Jarvis Landry continued his NFL career, but abruptly left playing following the 2022 season with 7,870 receiving yards and 38 touchdowns under his belt.