The Saints restructured Ryan Ramczyk‘s contract earlier this offseason, doing so after the accomplished right tackle did not play in 2024. That move was expected to precede a retirement, and the veteran blocker confirmed Thursday (via Instagram) he is done.
A knee injury led to retirement rumors swirling late in 2023, and with 2024 not becoming a bounce-back year for Ramczyk, he will call it quits as a one-team player. Ramczyk retires after spending seven seasons as New Orleans’ right tackle starter. He made 102 starts and earned three All-Pro honors.
Acquired with the pick the Patriots sent to the Saints for Brandin Cooks (No. 32 overall), Ramczyk was part of a draft class that helped reopen a Super Bowl window. The Saints acquired Ramczyk and Marshon Lattimore in the 2017 first round, Marcus Williams in the second and the Alvin Kamara–Alex Anzalone–Trey Hendrickson trio in the third. The team’s fortunes improved immediately, and Ramczyk became a bookend for Drew Brees‘ final batch of contending squads.
Transferring from Division III Wisconsin-Stevens Point, Ramczyk impressed at Wisconsin and surged onto the first-round radar. The Saints paired him with Terron Armstead for five seasons, closing out the Sean Payton era with that tackle tandem excelling. While Armstead battled injuries during this period, Ramczyk proved durable early in his career. Ramczyk missed just one game from 2017-20; that period featured four Saints playoff berths and the team adding three more postseason wins.
This Saints era became known for agonizing near-misses — via the Minneapolis Miracle sequence that involved a Williams misplay and then the infamous missed pass interference call against the Rams that likely denied a Super Bowl LIII berth — but Ramczyk became an important cog and secured a lucrative extension as a result. Late in Payton’s final offseason at the helm, the Saints gave Ramczyk a five-year, $96MM deal that included $43MM at signing. That became an important sequence for Ramczyk, who missed seven games in 2021 and reached a point-of-no-return situation two years later.
Following a 16-start 2022 season, Ramczyk managed to play 12 games in 2023. but his battle with a cartilage defect in his knee proved too much to overcome. The Saints placed Ramczyk on IR to close out the ’23 season, and they moved him to the reserve/PUP list before training camp last year, ending his ’24 campaign before it started. That made the January restructure and Thursday’s retirement unsurprising, but it wraps the career of one of the best O-linemen in Saints history.
Ramczyk, 31 next week, earned first-team All-Pro acclaim in 2019; second-team accolades sandwiched it. Brees closed his career with one of the NFL’s top O-lines protecting him. Two members from that unit remain, with Erik McCoy and Cesar Ruiz still on their second Saints contracts. Armstead signed with the Dolphins in 2022, while Andrus Peat joined the Raiders in 2024. Armstead joins Ramczyk in having retired in April, walking away after 12 seasons (nine in New Orleans).
The Saints are expected to designate Ramczyk a post-June 1 cut to help save money, as the eight-year vet agreed to reduce his 2025 base salary ($18MM) to the veteran minimum. This created $16MM in Saints cap space, and the team will spread out his $23.1MM dead money hit over two offseasons. For his career, Ramczyk earned just more than $69MM. His 101 starts rank eighth in Saints history by an O-lineman; among tackles, only Stan Brock and Hall of Famer Willie Roaf rank ahead of him in career Saints starts.