Browns Veteran Reveals Biggest Factor In Potential Retirement

As the 2024 season winds down, veteran guard Joel Bitonio knows he's just two weeks away from coming face-to-face with his own football mortality.

The 11-year veteran will at least talk about retirement this offseason, and decide whether or not his body can endure another grueling season of football, or if it's time to step away for good. For now his focus is on finishes the season strong, despite the fact that the Browns are 3-12 this year, and have nothing to play for in its final two games. Once the season ends, though, Bitonio will take some time to think through his future. So what are the biggest factors he'll weigh in making a decision?

"Truthfully, it's mostly personal, just how my body feels going into another season," Bitonio explained ahead of Week 17. "The game, it's an amazing game, blessed to play it, but it's a stressful game, you put a lot on your body, how are you going to feel in 10 years or 15 years or 20 years? And so we'll just go from there, talk with the family and kind of see where we're at."

Just last week, star edge rusher Myles Garrett taking a bold stance on his own future by making it clear he doesn't want to be part of a rebuild, and asking to see the team's "plan" for the future this offseason. If it doesn't align with Garrett's desire to win now, he kept the door open on playing elsewhere.

Bitonio, who is clearly in the twilight of his career, could take a similar approach to his decision. While he's not necessarily threatening to leave the franchise, at 33, Bitonio does align with Garrett in wanting to prioritize finding a way to win in 2025.

"The goal now, you're in year 11, year 12, you want to try and win games," said Bitonio. "It's hard to go out there and have three wins right now. That's been tough. It's tough on your body. You just don't feel as good on Monday when you lose a game. So it's part of the process and you'd love to hear what the plan is going forward and kind of see where we're at, see how much winning you can do."

Fortunately, Bitonio has a recent example he can reference, where another Browns legend hung them up while the organization navigated a difficult crossroads.

"I don't know specifically with Joe Thomas, but he was in the start-slash middle of a rebuild when he was retiring and I don't know if that played a factor or if he was just done anyway," Bitonio said. "But you see that sometimes with guys where it's like, what do they have coming back and stuff like that. But that's all stuff I'm going to worry about in the offseason."

Fittingly, Thomas and Bitonio spent a handful of years playing right next to each other on Cleveland's offensive line. Bitonio, in many ways, was molded by the Hall of Famer he still considers a close friend. It's a great resource for the six-time Pro Bowler.

Thomas has actually shared a fun anecdote about fellow Hall of Fame QB Peyton Manning urging him to demand a trade out of Cleveland in 2015 to come play with him in Denver. As the story goes, the teams talked about potential trade packages, but the team wasn't too keen on moving the face of their franchise. Thomas also wanted to stay with the Browns, so he did, and as fate would have it, the Broncos went on to win the Super Bowl that season.

Hindsight is always 20/20, but Bitonio knows the "demanding a trade to a contender" route doesn't always work out that way.

"It's hard to pick, who's going to win the Super Bowl this year, you know what I mean?," Bitonio explained. "It's hard to pick a team that needs a left guard that wants to bring you in, that wants to take care of you and you make that decision to be like, 'Hey, we're going to win a Super Bowl here' and quarterback gets hurt or someone gets hurt or you get hurt and then you're like, dang, I just chased the Super Bowl for what purpose? It's easy in hindsight to be like, oh yeah, Joe should have gone to Denver that one year, but you don't know what would've happened when he goes out there and stuff like that. So I think that all that is so hard to decide on. That'd be out of the question for me.

Bitonio may not know what his future holds beyond these next two weeks, but like Thomas, he knows he wants to finish his career as a Cleveland Brown.

"Cleveland gave me a chance and I've been here for 11 years and there's been some losing and things like that, but we've had some moments where we've won and we've had some runs here and those memories are always great for me," he said. "But they've given me so much and I love this organization and what they've done for me and my family and at this point in my career, I just can't see myself putting on a different helmet. It just doesn't make sense to me."