DETROIT — Beloved Detroit Lions offensive lineman Dan Skipper introduced his NFL retirement Thursday by means of his Instagram account.
Skipper went from an undrafted journeyman lineman to a cult hero in Detroit as a sixth lineman, even scoring a 9-yard landing reception in 2024 towards the Buffalo Payments. He joined Taylor Decker and Scott Conover as the one offensive linemen in Lions historical past to provide a landing reception.
A training profession could possibly be on the horizon, Skipper mentioned in his submit.
“24 years of placing on pads and a helmet each fall. This 12 months I will commerce that out to pursue a profession on the opposite facet in teaching,” Skipper wrote on Instagram. “The recollections and experiences that the NFL has introduced me and my household are laborious to place into phrases. Grateful for each individual that has been aside of my journey.
“It is time for me to ‘report’ as retired. (Sorry I needed to do it one final time!)”
A supply advised ESPN’s Adam Schefter on Thursday that Skipper is volunteering as an offensive line coach for this 12 months’s East-West Shrine Bowl. Skipper will probably be working with the East group.
The 31-year-old logged 9 seasons within the NFL after being signed by the Dallas Cowboys as an undrafted free agent in 2017. Along with his follow squad stint in Dallas, he appeared in video games with the Lions and Houston Texans.
Skipper had acknowledged that he was contemplating retirement resulting from again points following Detroit’s 19-16 win over Chicago within the regular-season finale, as he shed tears throughout his postgame media availability with reporters.
The followers in Detroit would cheer for Skipper each time he reported as eligible because the Lions’ sixth offensive lineman for his or her jumbo package deal throughout dwelling video games at Ford Area after a controversial loss in Dallas on Saturday, Dec. 30, 2023, that may turn into referred to as the “Dan Skipper recreation.”
In a decent battle versus the Cowboys, officers dominated that Decker, the Lions’ beginning left deal with, did not report as an eligible receiver whereas Skipper did and a possible game-winning 2-point conversion catch by Decker was negated.
Skipper advised ESPN that he’ll go to his grave swearing the Lions did every part they had been imagined to do at that second, however he was eternally grateful for the followers.
“It simply goes to indicate that whenever you roll with Detroit, there isn’t any place higher to be. It is a kind of actually particular locations that has been overwhelmed down and regarded as a sure method, however you get right here and it isn’t like that,” Skipper advised ESPN in December. “I believe when folks come, they’re all the time simply so shocked that it’s what it’s. That is the folks, that is the issues that this place has finished, and it is modified a lot. At this level, folks speak s— and I am like, ‘Present up’ and so they see it is a candy place. This group, we attempt to embody what this metropolis’s about.”
