The Seattle Seahawks signed punter Jon Ryan to a one-day deal, allowing him to retire from football while remaining a member of the team for which he spent 10 of his 12 NFL seasons.
Ryan, 42, played for the Seahawks from 2008 to 2017, including a Super Bowl XLVIII triumph over the Denver Broncos in 2013. Ryan held the majority of Seattle’s career punting records until he was released at the end of the 2017 season, including punts (770), yards (34,492), and punts downed within the 20-yard line (276).
He also held the record for career average (44.8) and net punting average (38.7), both of which were recently beaten by Michael Dickson within his first five years in the NFL.
“I played 19 years of pro football, five teams, two different countries, two different leagues, but the best part of my career was playing here for those 10 years,” Ryan said in an interview with Seahawks.com. “It meant so much to me; I feel like I’ve truly found myself here. Going from 26 to 36 in one location was a significant milestone in my life. And the way the fans treated me here is the most important thing.”
Ryan began his punting career in the Canadian Football League with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in 2004-05, before heading to the NFL with the Green Bay Packers in 2007. After two years with the Packers, Ryan joined the Seahawks, where he spent the next decade punting during the team’s most successful period.
One of Ryan’s most memorable moments in Seattle did not include punting the ball. In the 2014 NFC Championship game against the Green Bay Packers, Ryan delivered a 19-yard touchdown throw to Garry Gilliam on a fake field goal call late in the third quarter, helping Seattle overcome a 16-0 hole and advance to the Super Bowl for the second consecutive year.
“When you retire from football, you’re going to miss the boys, but I can call them up at any time; they’ll be there. You’re going to miss football, but I can take a bag of balls to the park and kick them around whenever. “But you can never replicate the 12s,” Ryan remarked. “That feeling of walking on the field and running out of the tunnel is something you will never be able to reproduce no matter what you do for the rest of your life. So the best position for me was to just walk away as a Seahawk, which is what they’re enabling me to do today.”
After a brief stint with the Buffalo Bills during the offseason, Ryan elected to return to the CFL to punt for his native Saskatchewan Roughriders. He played three seasons for the Regina Roughriders before finishing his career with the Edmonton Elks in 2022.
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