Has Joey Bosa played his last NFL Game?
The ferocious free-agent defensive end and former third-overall draft pick has remained unsigned since playing for the Buffalo Bills in 2025.
And when asked about the 30-year-old’s future last month, Bosa’s brother Nick admitted he’d been playing golf and probably wasn’t ‘thinking too much about football.’
Now, ESPN’s Adam Schefter has followed with his own revelation, saying that Joey might be done with the game altogether.
‘It is more likely than not that Joey Bosa has played his last NFL down,’ Schefter said on his podcast.
Although Schefter admitted Joey could be coaxed into playing alongside his brother in San Francisco, he indicated that it’s far more likely that he retires from the NFL.
Joey Bosa of the Los Angeles Chargers and AFC is introduced prior to the 2025 NFL Pro Bowl Games at Camping World Stadium on February 2, 2025
ALthough he is best remembered for his time in LA, Bosa played with the Bills last season
‘Now, again, could a situation like the 49ers come along that entices him enough to come out and play again?’ Schefter asked rhetorically. ‘Yeah, absolutely. We saw it happen last year with Philip Rivers [and the Indianapolis Colts], so you never know when a player is fully done and when he’s not done.
‘But the fact of the matter is, I think if the Niners wanted to pair those two together, it probably would have happened already,’ Schefter continued. ‘I think if Joey Bosa wanted to play football, it probably would have happened already.’
Sons of former NFL defensive end John Bosa, Nick and Joey both attended Ohio State before ranking among the top players at the position in the pros. But after recording 10.5 sacks for the Los Angeles Chargers in 2021, Joey has yet to accumulate more than 6.5 in any one season as he’s battled a string of injuries.
Even while appearing in 15 games in 2025, Joey managed just five sacks for the season.
Nick, meanwhile, says he is on track to recover from his latest knee surgery and expects to be at training camp next month.
‘It was rough early on, obviously,’ Nick said in May. ‘You just want to be able to play, especially how good things were going for the defense and me personally. I felt I was at a pretty high level to start the year. Then as you start out wanting to quit, never play again and never put your body in that position again. Then slowly you realize that you love this game and you want to get back to it. I never doubted that I could get back to where I am.’
