Titans offensive lineman Saahdiq Charles retires from football

Tennessee Titans offensive lineman Saahdiq Charles is retiring from football ahead of the 2024 NFL season. On Tuesday, the Titans announced they have placed the former LSU Tigers star on the Reserve/Retired list.

Charles has recently missed several practices for personal reasons, according to head coach Brian Callahan. He informed the team that he was walking away from football. The news comes a few months after Charles signed a contract with the Titans. Before joining Tennessee, Charles spent the last four seasons with the Washington Commanders.

In 2020, the Commanders selected Charles in the fourth round of the draft. In his career, the 25-year-old played in 35 games with 18 starts on the offensive line. Before the start of the 2023 season, Ron Rivera, the head of the Commanders at the time, talked about health being the biggest obstacle for Charles in terms of being a starter.

“Well, first and foremost, we always know Saahdiq had the skillset to do it,” Rivera said, per Yahoo Sports. “He’s gotta stay healthy. That’s probably the biggest thing right now for him. I mean, that always seemed to be the issue. If you go back and look at the times he’s played, um, something has come up whether it’s been the calf, it’s been the ankle, the shoulder. You just hope that he stays healthy because he has the skillset. He’s got the physical makeup, and again, it’s just a matter of being able to stay healthy, I believe.”

Saahdiq Charles had an interesting final season at LSU

While attending LSU, Charles helped the Tigers win the national title as he protected Joe Burrow. However, he also missed six games that year due to disciplinary reasons. After the 2019 season, Charles declared for the draft, and NFL analyst Lance Zierlein had some interesting things to say about him in his scouting report.

“Charles is a plus-athlete with good bend and agility but the lack of core strength could linger as a concern early in his career,” Zierlein wrote. “He needs to play with better snap quickness and body control to help him control both the first and second phases of run blocks. He’s not a waist-bender, but he does play too far forward in both run and pass blocking and defenders took advantage of that. Charles has a corral mentality in his pass sets even though he shows decent sustain and mirror once he gets locked in.”