BALTIMORE _ Two years before Marshal Yanda started one last dominant season in a career worthy of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, the Ravens guard said he was "put on notice." It was the injuries _ big and small, treatable and not, all starting to compound.
In 2016, he'd torn a labrum. In 2017, he'd fractured an ankle. He'd made it through 2018 mostly unscathed, but he knew by then that his age, sooner than later, would catch up to him.
"I watched guys, as they got older, lose a little bit more each year," Yanda said. "By the end, they were almost like a liability. In the back of my mind, I never wanted to be like that."
So on Wednesday, the Ravens' greatest-ever guard, already down 45 pounds from his end-of-season playing weight, already looking forward to a life back home in Iowa with his wife and three children, announced that he was retiring after 13 NFL seasons in Baltimore. Even at 35, few linemen last season had been more impressive.
Ravens coach John Harbaugh, sitting to Yanda's left at a news conference inside the team's facility, said the eight-time Pro Bowl selection and seven-time All-Pro honoree was a first-ballot Hall of Fame player. General manager Eric DeCosta, sitting to Yanda's right, announced that Yanda would be inducted into the team's Ring of Honor. Executive vice president Ozzie Newsome said he'd embodied what it meant to "play like a Raven."
In an auditorium overflowing with former and current Ravens, coaching staff members and assistants, with story after story, Yanda's football life came alive.
