New York Jets OL Cameron Clark retires at 24 (Report)

New York Jets OL Cameron Clark’s NFL career comes to an early end

According to ESPN’s Rich Cimini, New York Jets offensive lineman Cameron Clark has retired from football at the age of 24 years old.

Unfortunate news: Cam Clark, a 2020 fourth-round pick, has to call it a career due to an injury, ESPN has learned. #Jets https://t.co/bVjd45vphJ

— Rich Cimini (@RichCimini) February 2, 2022

Clark’s agent, Alan Herman, told ESPN, “Based on the advice of Dr. Andrew Hecht, a prominent orthopedic surgeon at Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York, Cameron will not be able to continue to play football for the New York Jets.”

Cimini writes that Clark was told “he would risk paralysis if he continued to play.”

Clark suffered a serious injury at the Jets’ training facility in Florham Park, N.J. during a practice on Aug. 3, 2021. After lying motionless for several minutes, he was eventually taken to a local hospital. Clark was diagnosed with what the team called a spinal cord contusion, costing him the entirety of the 2021 season.

New York drafted Clark out of Charlotte with the 129th overall pick in the fourth round of the 2020 draft. A dominant left tackle over four years with the 49ers, Clark was projected to transition to the guard position in the NFL. Unfortunately, the 6-foot-4, 308-pounder never got to play a regular-season or preseason snap in the pros.

Clark had developed tremendously throughout his football career to reach the NFL. He was only a two-star recruit out of Ben L. Smith High School in Greensboro, N.C., and was ranked by 247Sports as the nation’s 242nd-ranked offensive tackle in the 2015 recruiting class.

After redshirting his freshman season at Charlotte, Clark cracked the starting lineup by the end of his redshirt freshman year. He ended up becoming the school’s all-time leader in games played with 49, according to the university’s official website.