Former Steelers OT Zach Banner Announces Retirement From Football

Former Pittsburgh Steelers OT Zach Banner announced his retirement from football on Sunday. Banner announced via his podcast that he was hanging up his cleats after trying to make a comeback attempt over the last few seasons.

Banner is 32 years old. He last played in 2021 with the Steelers, but he had announced a comeback attempt last year and had various workouts and tryouts with NFL teams over the past few seasons, though they didn’t amount to a signing.

Banner once looked to be a potential long-term starter for the Steelers, but he tore his ACL in the 2020 season opener against the New York Giants and never got fully healthy before he was waived by the Steelers.

Originally a fourth-round pick in the 2017 NFL Draft out of USC by the Indianapolis Colts, Banner also played for the Cleveland Browns in addition to three seasons with the Steelers. In the video announcing his retirement, he called Pittsburgh a “beautiful, amazing city” and praised his time there and the people he worked with in the building.

Banner was released by the Colts ahead of the 2017 season and played just five offensive snaps and 18 special teams snaps with the Browns before coming to Pittsburgh. In his retirement video, he credited Mike Munchak and his veteran teammates for helping him work his way into the tackle rotation with the Steelers.

Banner will retire with 30 games and two starts under his belt. The large majority of those games came with the Steelers, as he played 22 of his 30 career games with Pittsburgh and made his only two starts with the team.

While he may not have wound up signing anywhere after announcing his comeback attempt, it’s commendable that Banner worked as hard as he did to get himself in shape to have teams interested enough for him to workout for them, especially given how long he spent out of the league and the work he had to do to rehab his knee injury. Now, Banner will move on with his life’s work.

He announced that he’s going to be getting into broadcast media upon retirement. Banner has a degree in broadcast journalism. He interned under Colin Cowherd at FOX Sports in college and had a weekly radio spot on 93.7 The Fan while he was in Pittsburgh.

You can watch the full retirement announcement from Banner via his podcast’s YouTube channel below.