Few DTs in the league have a trophy room as shiny as former NFL star Ndamukong Suh. 5x Pro Bowls to 3x First-team All-Pro honors, and a Super Bowl champ (LV) for that matter. Even before he came to the league, he had more trophies to his name than you could count with both hands. And throughout his 13-year reign in the NFL, he has amassed a fortune worthy of his career.

Ndamukong Suh announced his retirement from the NFL on July 12th in a heartfelt post. On the one-year anniversary of his father’s death, Suh took to X and dedicated his football journey to his dad. Suh wrote, “Every snap I took in football carried his fingerprint. Every time I lined up across from someone, I could hear his voice pushing me, reminding me that I wasn’t just representing myself. I was representing him, my family, my name. Before he passed, he gave me one final piece of advice, ‘It’s time to let football go. You’ve done everything you set out to do. Now it’s time for the next chapter.’” And after staying away from the game for two years, he’s hanging up his cleats, with a fortune that would make any veteran DT do a double-take.

Spending 5 seasons with the Lions, Suh then made the move to Miami. After a three-year stint, he then went to Los Angeles for a year. Finding a place with the Bucs for 3 more seasons, Suh joined up with the Eagles in 2022. After the ‘22 season, he took a two year break before deciding to hang up his cleats. Throughout this time, Suh amassed a whopping 600 tackles, 5 forced fumbles, 9 fumble recoveries and even 3 TDs. And through that legacy, he has earned himself a staggering amount through NFL contracts. A sum of $168,165,157 as per Spotrac. Massive, right?

But this amount didn’t come easy. Skirting with free agency multiple times and hopping from franchise to franchise, it was a hard road for Suh. His aggressive playmaking drew side-glances from the league and got him the moniker of “the dirtiest player.” Through the time he finished his second pro season, he has already gotten flagged for 9 fouls. Over the course of his career, though, the flags were lesser as his play-style evolved. But the guy was an absolute menace for opponents, and that’s what made his teams bet on him repeatedly. And the result of those bets was the corpus worth north of a hundred and sixty-eight million. And the journey to that amount was equally impressive and varied.

Ndamukong Suh’s storied NFL contract history

The Lions knew they were betting on a steel wall when they drafted Ndamukong Suh with the second-overall pick back in 2010. The confidence he instilled in his franchise was so great that he went on to sign a massive $68 million, five-year deal. There were $40 million worth of guarantees in his deal, and through his tenure, he amassed a total of $64 million in Detroit. As his 5-year stint ended, the Dolphins snatched him up with an even bigger deal (on paper) in 2015. They signed him to a massive six-year deal worth $114 million, with $60 million guaranteed. But the Dolphins let him go after three seasons to free up the salary cap. Still, Suh managed to get a sweet $60 million out of the three years he spent in Miami. But after Miami, the troubles began for Suh.

After being cut by Miami, Suh found his place in Los Angeles with a $14 million contract for one year in 2018. He notably earned $14.5 million in that year. But the Rams didn’t signal any interest in continuing with the veteran DT, so he hit free agency and got ready for the next chapter. Although he spent three years with the Buccaneers, his future was anything but certain. All three years, he was signed to one-year deals, skirting the edges of free agency. His stint in Tampa Bay got him a total of $27.45 million across three years. In November 2022, Suh then joined up with the Eagles. He appeared in eight games and managed 10 tackles, two QB hits and one sack. The $2 million deal he got from Philadelphia marked the last time he played on the gridiron.

After more than a decade of gridiron glory, Ndamukong Suh finally makes the official decision to hang up his cleats and walk away. Once a nightmare for opponents, now Suh finds a new journey waiting for him. Following the words of his father, we are left to wonder what the “next chapter” in his life would be.