Not every former Baltimore Raven is headed to East Rutherford.
Longtime tight end Hayden Hurst announced his retirement from the NFL at the age of 32 in a long social media post he shared on the opening day of free agency.
He did not play during the 2025 season after spending the 2024 campaign with the Chargers.
The 32-year-old tight end was a first-round draft pick — No. 25 overall — by former Baltimore coach John Harbaugh in the 2018 NFL Draft.
Hurst added that his retirement is “about a year overdue.”
“It is a blessing how far sports took me in this life,” Hurst wrote Monday. “When I was stuck in a dorm room at 18 years old in Pirate City, thinking my sports career was over, I never thought I’d turn it into a 7 year NFL career but l put my head down and worked. I was determined to make football work after baseball failed me, and I never let anyone tell me I couldn’t do anything.”
Hurst was a former two-sport star, having been selected by the Pirates in the 17th round as a pitcher in the 2012 MLB Draft .
He struggled to gain footing in professional baseball, walking five batters and recording just one out in his lone Minor League Baseball appearance before opting to go to college to play football.
Hurst attended the University of South Carolina and played three highly successful seasons as a tight end, earning first-team All-SEC honors and finishing as a finalist for the John Mackey Award for the top tight end, which was eventually given to future teammate Mark Andrews.
Andrews was also drafted by the Ravens in the 2018 NFL Draft with a third-round pick and eventually won the job in Baltimore, which led to Hurst’s exit.
The former Gamecock lasted just two years in Baltimore before being traded along with a fourth-round pick to the Falcons for second- and fifth-round draft picks.
Hurst had a career year in 2020 when he put up 571 yards and six touchdowns for an Atlanta team that struggled to a 4-12 record behind Matt Ryan, Todd Gurley and an aging Julio Jones.
He also spent seasons with the Bengals in 2022 and the Panthers in 2023.
