MARCH 15, 12:06pm: Thurmond is leaning toward retirement at this point, a league source tells Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk. According to Florio, the free agent safety has received offers in the range of $4MM (presumably per year), but he’s closer to calling it a career than signing a new deal.
MARCH 11, 11:06pm: Despite coming off a strong first season as a safety, defensive back Walter Thurmond hasn’t generated much free agent buzz this week. Per Les Bowen of the Philadelphia Daily News, the lack of news related to Thurmond may not be due to a lack of interest from teams — Bowen hears from multiple team sources that the 28-year-old may be contemplating retirement, something that Jordan Raanan of NJ.com has also heard (Twitter link).
According to Bowen, Thurmond sent a text message asking, “Who started that rumor?” when contacted about the possibility of retirement. However, he didn’t respond when asked if he wanted to deny it.
[RELATED: Eagles sign Rodney McLeod]
Thurmond, who joined the Eagles a year ago as a cornerback, ended up starting 16 games for the first time in his career while also playing safety for the first time. He excelled at the new position, picking up 71 tackles, three interceptions, two sacks, and two forced fumbles. Pro Football Focus’ grades backed up his solid stat line, as he ranked 26th out of 88 qualified safeties.
Still, as Bowen details, Thurmond has interests outside of football – including filmmaking – and has talked in the past about having to reconsider his NFL future if he suffers another serious injury, so there’s no guarantee that he wants to keep playing for several more seasons.
If Thurmond does continue his playing career, there may not be a spot for him in Philadelphia anymore. The Eagles signed Rodney McLeod earlier this week to pair with the recently-extended Malcolm Jenkins at safety.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Come to Pittsburgh
Why so you can use him like you did with Boykin? Lmfao