{"id":816167,"date":"2026-03-17T00:25:29","date_gmt":"2026-03-17T00:25:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/816167\/"},"modified":"2026-03-17T00:25:29","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T00:25:29","slug":"former-steelers-cornerback-announces-retirement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/816167\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Steelers Cornerback Announces Retirement"},"content":{"rendered":"

Steelers News<\/a><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"SteelersPittsburgh Steelers cornerback Darius Slay during a game against the Chicago Bears on Nov. 23, 2025 — Ed Thompson \/ Steelers Now\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

After 13 years in the NFL, former Pittsburgh Steelers cornerback Darius Slay<\/a> has called it a career. The All-Pro CB revealed the news via social media on Monday.<\/p>\n

\u201cDear football, I wanna thank you for all you\u2019ve done for me. I\u2019ve been blessed to play the game I loved since I was 5yrs old for an amazing 13yrs at the highest level. Football was my peace, my joy, my everything. This game put me in a position to help take care of my family and loved ones and I\u2019m forever grateful,\u201d Slay wrote. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to say goodbye, but God has a new chapter for me and I\u2019m ready to turn the page and start my new journey. To all my BigPlay fans, I will always appreciate the love and support y\u2019all have given to me. I couldn\u2019t have done it without you. Just A kid from Brunswick, GA with BIG dreams\u2026\u270a\ud83c\udffd
BigPlay on and off the field! We Out.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Steelers mutually parted ways with Slay in early December this past season. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a little mutual decision, man,\u201d Slay said<\/a> on the \u201cSpeakeasy\u201d podcast. \u201cMe and [Mike Tomlin] chopped it up. We just thought that was what\u2019s best for us. Much respect to Mike T. and that organization. It just didn\u2019t pan out as it needed to be. It was all good, though. No bad blood with it. He\u2019s a great dude, great coach. He did me the right way, and 13 years in, we had a great understanding.\u201d<\/p>\n

Slay was claimed off waivers by the Buffalo Bills. However, he never reported to Buffalo. <\/p>\n

While some had speculated that the 34-year-old was hoping to land back in Philadelphia, he said it was completely a personal decision.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been missing out a lot of my kids\u2019 activities. Shoot man, mostly it\u2019s a family decision kind of to it. We\u2019ll just see how it goes, though,\u201d Slay continued. \u201cI\u2019m not saying 1,000 [percent], but your boy is on that borderline sitting here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Slay was brought to Pittsburgh in 2025 with the anticipation of him being a starting cornerback for the Steelers, but he lost that role, and even lost his slot on the active roster in November.<\/p>\n

Slay spent the five previous seasons with the Eagles as a starting outside cornerback. He started 14 games for Philly last regular season, plus another four on the Eagles\u2019 run to their\u00a0Super Bowl LIX championship<\/a>. He finished the regular season with 49 tackles, three tackles for loss, 13 passes defended and one forced fumble. Slay also had an interception in the Eagles\u2019 Wild Card win over the Green Bay Packers.<\/p>\n

Slay came to the Eagles in 2020, when current Steelers assistant general manager\u00a0Andy Weidl<\/a>\u00a0was the Philadelphia vice president of player personnel.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Before his time with Philly, Slay spent seven seasons with the Detroit Lions, who selected him out of Mississippi State in the second round of the 2013 NFL Draft. Slay has been a six-time Pro Bowler and was a first-team All-Pro with the Lions in 2017, when he led the NFL in interceptions.<\/p>\n

Aaron Becker contributed.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMentioned In This Article: Darius Slay<\/a> Philadelphia Eagles<\/a> Pittsburgh Steelers<\/a> Steelers<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Steelers News Pittsburgh Steelers cornerback Darius Slay during a game against the Chicago Bears on Nov. 23, 2025…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":816168,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2055],"tags":[9313,7,6,109,520,57,2360,426],"class_list":["post-816167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh-steelers","tag-darius-slay","tag-football","tag-nfl","tag-philadelphia-eagles","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-steelers","tag-pittsburghsteelers","tag-steelers"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116241678652405140","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/816167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=816167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/816167\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/816168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=816167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=816167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=816167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}