Ever since his abrupt retirement, Jacksonville Jaguars linebacker Telvin Smith has been under-the-radar, but he finally made a public appearance in the Jacksonville area Friday. With local high schools William M. Raines High and Trinity Christian Academy facing off against each other in battle on the gridiron, Smith was spotted checking out the action on the sidelines by Action Sports Jax reporter Marcel Robinson, who was lucky enough to briefly interact with the retired linebacker.
In short, he’s doing fine but seemingly doesn’t have returning to the field on his mind at the moment.
Smith, 28, announced that he’d be stepping away from football back in May via Instagram to “get (his) world in order” and give time back to his family and health. In June, Smith took to social media to post a picture of a fine the team hit him with for $88,650 due to missing the team’s mandatory three-day minicamp. He had a caption at the bottom of the post to vent his frustration but didn’t add any additional details about his absence other than what was already known.
“Oh y’all thght it was a game!!!,” Smith captioned the Instagram post with. “You say you wanna sit & get ya life right. . . they say nah [intentionally misspelled expletive] you pay me!!! It’s still love!!”
Afterward, in July, the team placed him on their reserve/retired list. Since, he’s occasionally popped up on social media with a video post or two but hasn’t given out further details on his decision to sit the season out.
Smith retired with 586 career tackles to his name along with 7.5 sacks, nine interceptions, five forced fumbles and three touchdowns. He was also a Pro Bowler in 2017 alongside teammates A.J. Bouye, Jalen Ramsey (at the time), Calais Campbell, Malik Jackson and Yannick Ngakoue.
