Sebastian Vollmer Reportedly Released by Patriots

The New England Patriots released offensive tackle Sebastian Vollmer on Friday, according to Field Yates of ESPN.

Jeff Howe of the Boston Herald and Tom Pelissero of USA Today initially reported the move was coming on Thursday.

Vollmer would have been a free agent this offseason but spent the entire 2016 on the physically unable to perform list, so the final year of his contract rolls over to 2017, as Pelissero noted.

Howe added that retirement is a possibility for Vollmer, whose "hip is in bad shape." Ian Rapoport of NFL.com also reported that the veteran tackle was considering retirement (h/t Chris Wesseling of NFL.com).

Vollmer, 32, started 80 of 88 games after being drafted in the second round for the Patriots in 2009. But he was something of a developmental project coming into the league, and head coach Bill Belichick acknowledged that the team reached on him.

"He should have been a fourth- or fifth-round pick, by the film, by his performance," he noted in Michael Holley's book, War Room, per Wesseling. "But you saw him as [an] ascending player and he had rare size, and there were a lot of things that you had to fix and all that. But it was clear that the league liked him. ... We just said, 'Look, we really want this guy. This is too high to pick him, but if we wait we might not get him.'"

He rewarded the Patriots for the gamble, becoming one of the better right tackles in football before hip and shoulder issues kept him sidelined for the entirety of the 2016 season. 

Meanwhile, the Patriots have committed to right tackle Marcus Cannon, signing him to a five-year, $32.5 million contract extension in November 2016. That made Vollmer and his $2.25 million cap hit next season, per OverTheCap.com, expendable.