What will you remember about Tavon Austin?

Tavon Austin wasted no time in calling it a career, announcing his retirement from pro football only three years after his most recent NFL game.

The eighth overall pick in the 2013 NFL Draft by the St. Louis Rams, Austin played 75 of his 113 career games with the franchise. He spent two years in Dallas, one in Green Bay, and one in Jacksonville following his career with the Rams, and was last with a team in 2022 when he was on the Buffalo Bills practice squad.

Despite a reputation as a “bust”, Austin did something few other busts do by getting a second contract with the team that drafted him. The Rams signed Austin to a four-year, $42 million deal in 2016 after a career-best season of 907 total yards and nine touchdowns. However, that would also turn out to stay as his best career season and he was released in 2018 after the arrival of Sean McVay ended up meshing better with other types of receivers in 2017.

Austin went from 106 targets and 509 yards in the final year with Jeff Fisher, to 22 targets and 47 yards with McVay.

In fact, Austin didn’t play very often for any coaches after Fisher: He played 731 snaps in 15 games in 2016, then just over 900 snaps over the next five seasons combined.

But as a college player, Austin’s senior season can hardly be compared to any other. Though there are running backs who end up gaining a lot of receiving yards, Austin is one of the few receivers to gain a lot of rushing yards: In 2012 at West Virginia, Austin had 114 catches for 1,289 yards with 12 touchdowns, as well as 643 rushing yards and three touchdowns.

His highlight tape is highly respected.

Ironically, given how their careers started, it is Geno Smith left standing as the last person representing that West Virginia offense. Austin’s Rams teammate Stedman Bailey had 114 catches, 1,622 yards, and 25 receiving touchdowns that same year at West Virginia.

And if anything that Austin did doomed the Rams in terms of drafting Austin in the top-10, it wasn’t his tape, but his 4.34 40-yard dash at the 2013 combine. Which in retrospect, doesn’t even seem that fast anymore (for a player who weighed 174) given the record-setting times we’ve seen at the combine lately.

Seven players ran a 4.34 or faster at the combine this year, including the 4.21 by Xavier Worthy. None of the three receivers, also including Brian Thomas and Adonai Mitchell, were picked in the top-20. In fact, none of the seven were picked in the top-20. In 2022, five receivers ran a 4.34 or faster. None are current stars or were drafted especially high.

But Austin’s time was 12 years ago, so clearly he was on a different playing field.

What will you remember most about Tavon Austin’s football career?