Former top tackle Jake Long announces retirement

Former Dolphins first-round pick Jake Long announced his retirement on Monday after an illustrious nine-year career marred by injuries toward the end.

• Long made an immediate impact on the field as a rookie, finishing the 2008 season ranked 11th among all offensive tackles with an overall grade of 86.9.
• In terms of overall grade, Long graded out as a top-20 tackle (with two appearances in the top-three) in each of his first four seasons. Long’s highest single-season grade came over 1,074 snaps in 2010; he finished that season ranked second among all offensive tackles with a 91.7 overall grade.
• Over that four-year stretch, Long was arguably the most dominant pass-protecting offensive lineman in all of football. Long ranked within the top-25 in terms of pass-blocking efficiency (a rating that measures pressure allowed on a per-snap basis with weighting toward sacks allowed) in each of those four seasons and in both the 2009 and 2010 seasons he led all tackles with PBEs of 97.8 and 97.2, respectively.
• Long suffered a series of injuries starting in 2011. That season saw Long put up the lowest grade of his career to that point, despite still finishing within the top-20 tackles. In 2012, he was held to under 800 snaps for the first time of his career. He bounced back in 2013, finishing that year with an 85.0 overall grade (15th) over 975 snaps for the (then) St. Louis Rams before tearing an ACL in 2014 that limited him to just 15 games over what would be his final three seasons.