An old Falcons friend is retiring, Keanu Neal announced after eight seasons in the NFL.
“All the lessons learned through the game has helped mold me into who I am today,” the 29-year-old wrote in a post to Instagram on Sunday.
Selected in the first round of the 2016 draft by Atlanta, Neal appeared in 89 games in his career across those eight seasons with four different clubs — Cowboys, Buccaneers, and Steelers.
He was a critical piece of the Falcons’ defense that helped a historic offense to a Super Bowl appearance in 2016. Everyone will talk about Matt Ryan’s MVP, Kyle Shanahan’s coordinating, and Julio Jones’ heroics. That side of the ball obviously powered the Falcons to the championship game, but the defense helped, playing their best ball at the end of the season.
And there were several youngsters playing massive roles on that defense. Whether it was the 2015 NFL Draft class with Vic Beasley and Grady Jarrett or the 2016 class with Keanu Neal and Deion Jones, that unit helped the Falcons to nearly capture eternal glory. Of course, they also gave up a 25-point lead, but that’s neither here nor there.
Neal was great during his rookie season and even better the following year, in 2017, when he earned Pro Bowl honors and set a career-high of 116 tackles. Since then, it was nothing but crappy hands dealt to Neal.
The former Falcons first-round pick suffered back-to-back season-ending injuries, an ACL in 2018 and an Achilles in 2019. He followed Dan Quinn to Dallas in 2021, making the switch from safety to linebacker, but he returned to the secondary for the final two seasons of his career with the Buccaneers (2022) and Steelers (2023).
Congratulations on one hell of a career, Keanu Neal.
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