As long as the competitive fire is burning and there is mutual interest, the decision to continue to keep playing is an easy one for Jon Ryan.
On Sunday, the former University of Regina Ram signed a deal with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, marking his third stop in the CFL.
The wheels have been in motion leading up to Ryan’s return in the CFL. The punter noted a month before the season began, a couple of teams inquired on his availability, but he declined at the time as he felt he hadn’t fully recovered from his ankle injury that suffered at the end of the 2021 season.
With an extended rehabilitation into the regular season, Ryan has since recovered from the injury and was able to sign with the Tiger-Cats.
Even with a winless record, Hamilton is very much in the thick of the Eastern Divisional race with Montreal and Toronto leading the the way with one win apiece, Ottawa is also looking for their first win of the year. The 40 year old is looking forward to joining the Ti-Cats for the stretch drive.
“I think they’re a heck of lot better than a 0-4 team, they really should be at least 2-2, and the way things are in the East right now, we’re 0-4 and we’re one game out of first place.”
It wasn’t a fairytale ending for the Regina product with the Roughriders, but he still felt like he got to live out a dream playing with his hometown team.
Following his stop with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, Ryan spent time in the NFL with the Green Bay Packers and the Seattle Seahawks before returning home to play with the Saskatchewan Roughriders.
Part of the offseason training program for the former Rider saw him work with John Carney, a kicker who had a lengthy career including with the NFL’s New Orleans Saints and San Diego Chargers. Ryan said that Carney helped him restore the power into his kicking.
He added that the former NFL kicker was able to help him with his knowledge of the kicking game.
“He’s such a student of the game, he’s put so much time, so much work into it, so many guys, he’s worked with so many different NFL punters, he just knows so much about it.”
While things didn’t go as plan with the Riders, it wasn’t enough to deter the punter from calling it a career, Ryan says as he long he loves the game he plans on playing.
“I just absolutely love playing football,” said the punter, he added “I can’t very well walk away when I’m still being asked to play and I love it this much, it doesn’t make sense to me.”
Ryan plans on enjoying every single one of his playing days until it’s finally over.
“As my dad would always say, you can go back to school someday, you can go back to work someday, but you can never go back to football, embrace it and squeeze every drop of life out of it, that’s what I’ve been doing.”
You can hear Ryan’s interview with Michael Ball on Monday’s edition of the SportsCage.
