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Jon Ryan has officially retired as a member of the Seattle Seahawks.
On Tuesday, the 42-year-old Regina product signed a one-day contract with the NFL club so he could mark the end of his career with the team he won a Super Bowl with in 2014.
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Ryan punted the ball a record 770 times for the Seahawks from 2008 to 2017, setting several team records along the way.
His most memorable play came in the 2015 NFC Championship when the Seahawks were trailing 16-0 in the third quarter against the Green Bay Packers.
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As Seattle lined up for the field goal, Ryan, the holder, took the snap and ran to the left side before heaving the ball to Garry Gilliam in the endzone for the touchdown. The play helped spark Seattle to the comeback victory en route to their second straight Super Bowl appearance. The Seahawks lost to the New England Patriots that year.
Before suiting up for the Seahawks, the University of Regina product began his professional career as a member of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in the CFL.
He then made the move to the NFL with the Green Bay Packers in 2006 before signing with Seattle two years later.
After being let go by Seattle in 2018, Ryan tried out for the Buffalo Bills before deciding to come back to Canada the following season and sign with his hometown Saskatchewan Roughriders in 2019.
Ryan played two seasons with the Riders, while being named a West Division all-star in his first year. After not being re-signed by the Riders, the veteran had a brief stint in Hamilton before finishing his professional career with the Edmonton Elks in 2022.
“I played 19 years of pro football, five teams, two different countries, two different leagues, but the best part of my career was playing (in Seattle) for those 10 years,” Ryan told Seahawks.com. “It meant so much to me, I feel like I really found myself here. It was a big part of my life going from 26 to 36 in one place. And just the way the fans treated me here is the No. 1 thing. When you retire from football you’re going to miss the boys, but I can call up the boys any time, they’re going to be there. You’re going to miss football, but I can take a bag of balls to the park and kick them around any time. But you can never recreate the 12s. That feeling of walking on the field, of running out of the tunnel, it’s something that no matter what you do the rest of your life, you’ll never recreate. So the best situation for me was if I could just walk away as a Seahawk, and that’s what they’re allowing me to do today.”
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