JC Tretter Is Retiring from Football
Josh Frey
|
After much speculation about whether or not the Minnesota Vikings could sign center JC Tretter as their Garrett Bradbury replacement on the offensive line, we have a definitive answer from the man himself. JC Tretter has retired from football via an announcement on social media Thursday morning. The center spent nine years in the league.
After being drafted in the fourth round of the 2013 NFL Draft by the Green Bay Packers, Tretter spent much of his early NFL career as a backup. He started just 10 games for the Packers from 2014-16.
Everything changed when Tretter went to Cleveland to play with the Browns. He signed with them in 2017 and played the rest of his career there. He missed just one game in his entire five-year tenure with Cleveland, starting 80 of a possible 81 regular season games.
In that time, Tretter emerged as one of the best centers in all of football, hence why so many Vikings fans were hoping he would sign in Minnesota. Here are his PFF grades from that span:
- 2017: 69.1
- 2018: 76.9
- 2019: 72.0
- 2020: 77.1
- 2021: 78.7
Despite his production, Tretter was never named to a Pro Bowl or as an All-Pro during his career. The Browns released him early in the offseason as a way to save $8.25 million in salary cap space. In all likelihood, his multitude of lingering knee injuries over the years played a role in this decision as well as Tretter’s eventual decision to retire.
[brid autoplay=”true” video=”1082490″ player=”26281″ title=”Players%20with%20Do%20or%20Die%20Stakes%20in%20Vikings%20Last%20Preseason%20Game” duration=”1216″ description=”Josh Frey stops by for his weekly spot to define do or die players for the Vikings in the final preseason game of 2022.” uploaddate=”2022-08-24″ thumbnailurl=”https://cdn.brid.tv/live/partners/19439/snapshot/1082490_th_1661361241.jpg” contentUrl=”//cdn.brid.tv/live/partners/19439/sd/1082490.mp4″ width=”16″ height=”9″]
In addition to Tretter’s on-field performance, his presence in the league has been vital as the NFLPA’s president. It seems that this work will continue as he says in his retirement announcement that he “looks forward to doubling down” in this aspect of his work.
As for the Vikings, they never truly seemed interested in acquiring Tretter as the backup plan for Bradbury. They reportedly “never returned his call” after Tretter expressed interest in playing in Minnesota.
We’ll see if that means the Vikings have another plan, but perhaps they think Bradbury can be the starter. As of now, Austin Schlottmann looks impressive in preseason. Chris Reed also took snaps as the backup center during camp before suffering an elbow injury. While Tretter’s retirement means he is officially off the board, he never may have been truly “on the board” for Minnesota.