After missing all of the 2022 season with a knee injury he suffered in training camp, Bucs center Ryan Jensen will now miss the entire 2023 season as well. In an interview on the broadcast of the team’s preseason matchup with Baltimore on Saturday night, Tampa Bay general manager Jason Licht announced that Jensen will be placed on injured reserve, ending his season before it could even begin.

NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport later reported that the issue with Jensen’s knee is so serious that he has likely played his last down in the NFL.

After Forgoing Surgery, Ryan Jensen Made A Quick Return To The Field

Bucs QB Tom Brady and C Ryan Jensen – Photo by: Cliff Welch/PR

Jensen injured his knee on the second day of training camp last August, and the nature of his injury remained mysterious throughout the season. Head coach Todd Bowles declined to give much in the way of clarity, and it wasn’t even clear whether the 2021 Pro Bowl center had surgery. As it turned out, that clarity didn’t come until after he made a seemingly miraculous return to the field in the Bucs’ Wild Card matchup with the Cowboys.

Jensen made it back and started in Tampa Bay’s 31-14 loss to Dallas, and it was a big moment for him personally to be part of what would be Tom Brady’s final NFL game. After that game, he talked with reporters in the locker room for the first time since his injury. It was then that he revealed the extent of his injury and confirmed that he opted not to have surgery.

“It was a pretty severe injury, ” Jensen said. “Which a lot of people I know were confused why I didn’t have surgery. I ended up tearing my MCL, my ACL, my PCL, I flipped my meniscus, I had a fracture and I had another little bone chip thing. It was a major injury. I was as fortunate as I could be with the way injury happened where I didn’t have to have surgery and it was able to heal on it’s own. Yeah, five months and trying to come back off of that, it was – some call it dumb, but I’m a football player and football players play football.”

Ryan Jensen Never Fully Made It Back During Bucs Training Camp

Bucs C Ryan Jensen – Photo by: Cliff Welch/PR

After returning in that playoff loss to the Cowboys, Ryan Jensen seemed primed to return as the Bucs’ starting center for the 2023 season. But his training camp never really got off the ground, as he followed a one day on, one day off type of schedule. And even on the days that he practiced, he only participated in individual drills.

Jensen participated in one-on-one drills on one occasion, but only took a few reps. He never returned to full team drills, and that’s why it was no surprise that he didn’t suit up for the Bucs’ preseason opener against the Steelers on Aug. 11. But when he didn’t practice the following week and wasn’t with the team in New Jersey for joint practices or Week 2 of the preseason, something appeared to be amiss.

Todd Bowles continued to refer to everything being “status quo” with Jensen. The 32-year-old unsurprisingly didn’t suit up for Saturday’s preseason finale against the Ravens, and then Jason Licht cleared up the entire situation with a bombshell announcement on the game broadcast.

With Ryan Jensen out, Robert Hainsey will step in at center once again after starting all 17 regular season games last season. Hainsey has taken first-team reps with the Bucs offense throughout all of training camp and the preseason, and he started Saturday’s preseason finale with the full starting offensive line.