Nearly one full year ago the Miami Dolphins signed linebacker Lawrence Timmons to a two year, $12 million contract of which $11 million was reportedly fully guaranteed. Timmons, however, isn’t expected to see the second-year of that contract as Armando Salguero of the Miami Herald reported on Thursday that the Dolphins will officially inform the linebacker’s agent of his release in the next five days.
Timmons, who will turn 32 in May, registered 84 total tackles in the 14 games that he played for the Dolphins in 2017. He missed one game as a result of him going AWOL from the team’s hotel in Los Angeles the morning of a game and was ultimately tracked down at the airport getting ready to board a flight to Pennsylvania to go see family. He was suspended by the Dolphins for his actions and that resulted in him missing another game before finally being reinstated.
According to Salguero, Timmons played hard and prepared well in 2017 and that’s not a bit surprising. However, he also reports that the Dolphins coaching staff noticed in late October that the veteran linebacker was starting to slow down and that by late November he looked “spent.” That resulted in Timmons being rested some on passing downs and even some early downs, per the report. Salguero says he was told by one team source that Timmons had “slowed down” significantly.
Assuming Timmons winds up being released in the next few days, you can bet there will be several fans of the Pittsburgh Steelers wondering if the linebacker might ultimately sign back with the team that selected him originally in the first round of the 2007 NFL Draft out of Florida State. If the Steelers do somehow wind up having interest in bringing Timmons back, one has to think it would only be for the NFL veteran minimum.
The Steelers have brought back veteran former players in the past such as cornerback William Gay, linebacker Larry Foote, linebacker James Harrison and wide receiver Antwaan Randle El, just to name a few. While Timmons will always be one of my all-time favorite Steelers because of the way he handled himself both on and off the field, I’m not in favor of him returning to Pittsburgh for one final season. His best days are clearly far behind now and the Steelers need to get younger, not older, at the inside linebacker position with Ryan Shazier sidelined indefinitely.
