Buffalo Bills Player Tommy Doyle Forced to Medically Retire at 26

Buffalo Bills offensive lineman Tommy Doyle is walking away from professional football.

Doyle, 26, made the decision to medically retire from the sport after four years in the league, the team announced Friday, February 14. The offensive lineman suffered a leg injury in August 2023 that caused nerve damage. “At this point, with the calendar and the healing process, it looks as though it’s permanent,” Doyle said in a statement published by the team on Friday. “I’m just unable to play football at a high level, and it’s time. When you know you know.”

The lineman also tore his ACL at the beginning of the 2022 season, and the combination of the two injuries has proven to be too much to overcome.

“I was really battling and competing and working to come back from that (ACL) injury, only to be kind of struck with an even more disastrous injury,” Doyle explained. “But at the end of the day, there was a lot of negative emotions and anger…doing a lot of reflecting lately and looking back on it, I’ve learned a lot of valuable lessons from it.”

Doyle, who was drafted by the Bills in fifth round of the 2021 NFL Draft, and went on to play 11 games in his rookie year.

Doyle isn’t the only member of the team who has had his career derailed by unexpected injuries and medical events. In September 2024, teammate Damar Hamlin returned to the Bills’ starting roster less than two years after he collapsed on the field during a Monday Night Football game due to cardiac arrest.

“It’s been such a long journey and a long process,” Hamlin told Us exclusively at the time. “It took me taking it one day at a time. I won’t ever lose sight of that. That’s my approach to the rest of this life journey that I’m on.”

Hamlin also said the entire team was focused. “I think keeping the focus internal and keeping the focus on the process is the main thing,” he added. “Your process will take you as far as you trust it. I’m just deeply embedded in my process one day at a time. I’m committed to it.”

The team made a playoff run this year that ended in a 32-29 defeat at the AFC Championship game against the Kansas City Chiefs in January, and a number of changes could be in the Bill’s future following that loss. Hamlin and teammate Amari Cooper will head into the 2025-26 season as free agents, and James Cook has indicated he will be asking for a contract extension of $15 million before the season begins.