The long-time starting center JC Tretter revealed on Thursday morning that he is hanging up his cleats after eight seasons in the NFL, but will remain in his role as the President of the NFL Player’s Association.
Tretter, who turned 31 after the 2021 season, announced the decision on Twitter, saying that he’s leaving the game on his own terms but is excited to continue representing the players in his role with the NFLPA.
Drafted by the Green Bay Packers in the fourth round of the 2014 NFL Draft, Tretter was an excellent backup center at Lambeau field, starting 10 games in three seasons before joining the Cleveland Browns in free agency in 2017. There, he flourished and became one of the NFL’s premier centers.
Tretter was an established run-blocker and one of the best pass-blockers in the game during his time with the Browns, allowing a total of just six sacks in five seasons and earning a pass-blocking grade of over 80.0 every year. He became the epitome of reliability, consistency, and toughness, missing just one game – due to COVID in 2021 – during his Browns career.
Despite his availability on gameday, and his consistently exceptional performances, Tretter battled nagging knee injuries with Cleveland, which affected how much he could practice – something that likely factored into his decision-making process over the last few months.
Realistically, Tretter likely received a handful of phone calls this offseason from interested teams. There was speculation that the Tampa Bay Buccaneers would reach out to Tretter after their starting center, Ryan Jensen, went down with a season-ending injury on the first day of training camp. And Tretter’s former team, the Browns, probably considered bringing their former anchor back into the building as well after Nick Harris suffered an unfortunate season-ending injury of his own against the Jacksonville Jaguars in the first preseason game.
It’s highly likely that Tretter’s performances would have been just as impressive in 2022. He’s still only 31 years old, not particularly old for an offensive lineman, and would still be one of the best players at his position. He finished second in run-block win rate and third in pass-block win rate in 2021, per ESPN. A sign of his continued dominance at the position.
Instead, Tretter made the conscious decision to retire at the top of his game or “on his own terms”, as he put it. For many players, the unfortunate reality is that they’re forced to retire due to injury or due to a stark decline in play. Tretter took that decision into his own hands while he still felt good and you can only commend him for that.
Now, all of his energy goes into being the President of the NFLPA, something he has done since 2020, and was elected for a second term shortly after being released by the Browns. In his first term, Tretter helped navigate the union through two seasons affected by COVID-19 and helped agree to a new collective bargaining agreement that included an extra regular season game, higher minimum salaries, and improved benefits for current and former players.
If Tretter can continue to impact the game of football as the NFLPA’s President half as well as he did while on the field, then the union will be in very good hands for the foreseeable future.
-Thomas Valentine
Twitter: @tvalentinesport
Photo: Erik Drost. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.