Former Cleveland Browns running back Trent Richardson is transitioning to coaching a decade after his NFL career ended.
Richardson, 33, has been hired as the running backs coach at Ramsay High School in Birmingham, Alabama, the school announced Friday.
“We would like to welcome Coach Richardson,” the Ramsay Football Twitter account said in a statement. The Rams finished the 2023 season with a 12-3 record, ending the season with a 21-14 loss to Gulf Shores in the Alabama 5A state championship game in December 2023.
Ramsay football head coach Ronnie Jackson said he was connected to Richardson through one of his team’s players.
“(The player’s) dad is really, really good friends with Trent,” Jackson said, according to AL.com. “And Trent was like it’s a good thing he was offered because he’s been getting offers for the last four or five years, and the only reason he hasn’t been taking it is because his daughters were graduating and he wanted to be there for his kids.”
Richardson, a former collegiate star at the University of Alabama, was drafted by the Browns with the third overall pick in the 2012 NFL Draft. The 5-foot-9, 228-pounder had an impressive rookie campaign for the Browns in 2012, rushing for 950 yards and 11 touchdowns while also making 51 receptions for 367 yards and one touchdown.
However, after rushing for just 105 yards on 31 carries through the first two games of the 2013 NFL season, Richardson was traded to the Indianapolis Colts for a 2014 first round draft pick.
Richardson struggled to find his footing with the Colts, averaging just 2.9 yards per carry on 157 attempts, totaling 458 rushing yards in 14 games. The following season in 2014, Richardson started 12 of 15 games, but rushed for only 519 yards on 159 attempts, good for an average of 3.3 yards per carry.
Richardson was released by the Colts in March 2015 and signed with the then-Oakland Raiders, but never appeared in a game for the team. He signed with the Baltimore Ravens in April 2016, but soon after was placed on the Physically Unable to Perform list before being released by the Ravens in August 2016.
For his three-year NFL career, Richardson recorded 614 rushing attempts for 2,032 yards (3.3 yards per carry) and 17 touchdowns, along with 113 catches for 912 yards and two touchdowns, in 46 games, including 37 starts.
