MIAMI: Injury-nagged Nigerian defensive end Emmanuel Ogbah was released by the NFL's Miami Dolphins on Friday as the club works to cut salary ahead of the start of the 2024 campaign.
The 30-year-old Ogbah, who was born in Lagos and moved to Texas at age nine, played three seasons for Cleveland and played for Kansas City in their 2019 Super Bowl-winning season before signing with Miami in 2020.
In four seasons with the Dolphins, Ogbah became a fearsome edge rusher and a formidable defender but also battled injuries.
Ogbah made 27 starts and played in 57 games with a total of 114 tackles, 66 of them solo, and 24 quarterback sacks. He intercepted one pass and broke up 19 others while also forcing five fumbles and recovering two.
In 2020 and 2021, he led the Dolphins with nine sacks each season.
Ogbah, who was the 32nd overall pick by Cleveland in the 2016 NFL Draft, suffered a broken foot in the 2017 season, a torn pectoral muscle in 2019 with the Chiefs that kept him out of the Super Bowl, and last year suffered a season-ending triceps injury that required surgery to repair.
In 2022, Ogbah had one sack in nine games and last year, he had 5.5 sacks in 15 contests.
Keeping Ogbah would have meant taking a US$17.7 million salary cap hit for the Dolphins, who save US$13.7 million by releasing him. Even with that, Miami's projected payroll for next season is well above the record US$255.4 million per club announced by the league on Friday.
Teams must have their salaries fit under the cap by March 13, when the new NFL league year begins before free agency signings can start. --AFP
