Subsequent to being out of the NFL beginning around 2019, defensive end Shane Ray is back in the league, signing with the Bison Bills in the wake of giving a shot at the team’s rookie minicamp on Friday and Saturday.
Ray, who hails from Missouri, was selected 23rd overall by the Denver Broncos in the 2015 draft. He spent four seasons with the Broncos. He started 15 of his 49 games and had 14 sacks, 94 tackles, and 33 quarterback hits in his career. He was on the Broncos team that won Super Bowl 50, constraining a mishandle in the game. Ray underwent a left wrist injury and subsequent surgeries beginning in 2017.
“Words can’t describe the emotions I’m feeling right now. So many tears, sleepless nights, depression, everything that comes with losing the game. So many days of having nothing but hope while fighting an uphill battle,” Ray wrote Saturday on his Instagram account.
Ray, 29, added there were “times that I thought maybe I should give up, but I wouldn’t be me if I folded” and that “even in my darkest moments I believed in myself. I believed in my preparation. I believed that I would have another opportunity even if the world didn’t believe.”
In the offseason of 2019, Ray signed with the Baltimore Ravens, but he was cut at the end of training camp. He had six sacks while playing for the Toronto Argonauts of the Canadian Football League in 2021 and 2022. Ray will reunite with former Broncos teammate Von Miller when he joins the Bills.
The Bills likewise signed former UCF running back Isaiah Bowser and linebacker Travin Howard – – a 2018 seventh-round pick by the Rams who played in 29 games with Los Angeles – – after newbie minicamp tryouts.