{"id":480518,"date":"2024-03-18T17:58:20","date_gmt":"2024-03-18T21:58:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/?post_type=news&#038;p=480518"},"modified":"2024-03-18T17:58:20","modified_gmt":"2024-03-18T21:58:20","slug":"former-dallas-lb-vander-esch-retires-from-nfl","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/news\/former-dallas-lb-vander-esch-retires-from-nfl\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Dallas LB Vander Esch retires from NFL"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Ex-Dallas Cowboys LB <a href=\"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/nfl\/player\/leighton-vander-esch\/\">Leighton Vander Esch<\/a> is retiring after dealing with recurring neck problems in his 6-year career.<\/p>\n<p>A 1<sup>st<\/sup>-round selection in 2018, the linebacker set a Dallas rookie record with 176 tackles and was named to the Pro Bowl, as his &#8220;Wolf Hunter&#8221; nickname was shouted by the team&#8217;s fans. Vander Esch entered the league with questions about his neck and missed time because of neck problems in 2019 and in the past 2 seasons.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Cowboys?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#Cowboys<\/a> starting LB Leighton Vander Esch is medically retiring from football after a six-year career. With 557 tackles in 71 games, Vander Esch was a Pro Bowler before a neck injury ended his career.<\/p>\n<p>Owner Jerry Jones said, \u201cWe\u2019re proud that he wore the star on his helmet.\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/q5t6lHn8cf\" target=\"_blank\">pic.twitter.com\/q5t6lHn8cf<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/RapSheet\/status\/1769771707072397610?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">March 18, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p> <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Leighton had a procedure after missing 7 of the final 9 matches in 2019 and sustained a stinger that caused him to miss the final 4 regular-campaign matches in 2022 but played in the postseason. In the past campaign, he had an awkward collision with <a href=\"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/nfl\/player\/micah-parsons\/\">Micah Parsons<\/a> after being pushed from behind by LT Trent Williams in the 2<sup>nd<\/sup> quarter of Dallas\u2019 Week 5 defeat against the 49ers.<\/p>\n<p>He missed the rest of the season, and his retirement wasn\u2019t unexpected in the league. A few days ago, the organization cut him with a failed physical designation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ex-Dallas Cowboys LB Leighton Vander Esch is retiring after dealing with recurring neck problems in his 6-year career. A 1st-round selection in 2018, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4225,"featured_media":480519,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false},"tags":[17627,17324],"news_category":[16703],"gn_keywords":[18361,22781,17873],"acf":{"announce":"He is retiring from the league after being released from the Cowboys.","video":[]},"rank_math_focus_keyword":"","rank_math_description":"","rank_math_title":"","rank_math_robots":"","rank_math_canonical_url":"","rank_math_facebook_title":"","rank_math_facebook_description":"","rank_math_facebook_image":"","rank_math_twitter_title":"","rank_math_twitter_description":"","rank_math_twitter_image":"","rank_math_snippet_shortcode":"","rank_math_primary_category":"","rankmath_seo":{"focus_keyword":"","description":"","title":"","canonical_url":"","robots":"","facebook":{"title":"","description":"","image":""},"twitter":{"title":"","description":"","image":""}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/480518"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4225"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=480518"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/480518\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":480522,"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/480518\/revisions\/480522"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/480519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=480518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=480518"},{"taxonomy":"news_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news_category?post=480518"},{"taxonomy":"gn_keywords","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/gn_keywords?post=480518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}