Although he didn’t hear his name called during the 2024 NFL Draft, former Michigan offensive lineman Trente Jones did ultimately sign with the Green Bay Packers as an undrafted free agent.
Jones spent five seasons with the Wolverines, appearing in 37 career games on the offensive line and 41 overall with 12 starts at right tackle. As a big part of Michigan’s Joe Moore Award winning offensive line, it definitely felt like Jones had a great opportunity at carving out some longevity at the next level.
That changed on Monday night, as Jones announced that he was officially retiring from the game of football. In a video posted to YouTube, Jones explained his decision.
“What can I say, man? It has been an interesting day. I’ll say to start off, honestly, I didn’t really know that this was going to be a turning point in my career. But I did injure my back, and it’s one of those things where it’s like, you either make the decision to keep pushing and possibly get cut – and also hurt your back, or you can try to do this, try to do that, and try to push through it, but end up messing up your back forever. Or, none of those things happen and you play for 10-15 years. And then there could also be the situation where you leave, get your back better, come back, fix your back and then come back, and then play another 10-15 years. But I made the decision to leave football. It’s kind of like a medical retirement, but it is also a situation where I could, in theory, come back to football at some point. But, yeah, it’s been crazy. I appreciate all that you’ve done to support. All that you all have done to talk to me, call me, and hit me up. But I just wanted to put out this little video.”
Obviously Jones left the door open to a potential return to football at some point in the future, but it doesn’t sound like that is something that is very high on the priority list at the moment. Ultimately, Jones opted to take care of his health as opposed to putting it further at risk in the league, and that’s a tough decision that anybody would have to respect.
