There’s some unfortunate health news to report on former Seattle Seahawks punter Jon Ryan.
Speaking on Michael Ball’s Growing the Game with Ballsy podcast, Ryan revealed that he’s been diagnosed with skin cancer.
“It’s a scare – when you get a call that you have some type of cancer, especially in my family,” Ryan said (via Global News). “My father passed away from cancer, my mother had thyroid cancer when she was younger.”
According to Ryan, he discovered a mark on his neck that eventually grew back even bigger and was determined to be cancerous.
“It’s one of those things you have to be so careful about. If I hadn’t gone to the dermatologist – it just looked like a little dry spot on my neck,” Ryan said. “I was supposed to have surgery last week to remove the spot, but the coronavirus had that cancelled.”
If there’s good news to be had here, it’s evidently a slow-moving cancer so his doctor is “very confident” that he can wait until the COVID-19 pandemic slows down to perform the operation.
Ryan was the Seahawks’ punter from 2008-2017, becoming one of the most popular figures on the team. His greatest moment in a Seattle uniform wasn’t a punt, but rather a fake field goal touchdown pass to Garry Gilliam that sparked the comeback in the 2014 NFC Championship Game. The team parted ways with the 38-year-old in the 2018 offseason, drafting Michael Dickson as his replacement.
After sitting out the 2018 season, Ryan returned to his native Canada to play for his hometown Saskatchewan Roughriders, and re-signed for the 2020 season. While we weren’t looking, he dusted off his fake field goal passing skills in CFL action, but this play was called back due to a penalty.
@JonRyan9 you beautiful being.
— Saskatchewan Roughriders (@sskroughriders) July 20, 2019
The old fake FG attempt!!! pic.twitter.com/55Saq56vIL
I think I can speak on behalf of everyone by wishing Jon the best. The prognosis might be optimistic but cancer of any sort sucks, and hopefully he has a full recovery when he does get surgery.