ESPN: Ryan Ramczyk has been suspended due to injury and surg…

For years, Ryan Ramczyk has been experiencing knee pain. That’s the cost of participating in a physically demanding sport on occasion. However, the New Orleans Saints lineman was able to control the pain the majority of the time.

Prior till recently.

Ramczyk remarked, “It kind of got to the point where I wasn’t able to perform where I was out there.”

Ramczyk has missed the last two games and is likely to miss the next three as well because he hasn’t practiced this week before the Tampa Bay Buccaneers game on Sunday. In a press conference, Ramczyk stated he is keeping options open in case the situation “starts to feel better.” However, that has not yet occurred, and he is unsure of the injury’s prognosis in the long run.

Ramczyk said Thursday he “probably” needs offseason surgery on his knee but doesn’t know “for sure yet.”

“That’s something I’ve thought about,” Ramczyk said, referring to how the knee injury might even affect his life after football. “I think this offseason, (I’m) going to try and get a lot of questions answered and talk to a lot of people and hear a lot of opinions and go from there.”

Ramczyk is three seasons into the five-year, $96 million extension he signed in 2021. If he elects to continue playing, the 29-year-old is set to have a cap hit slightly north of $27 million next season — but that number could easily change if the Saints look to restructure his contract.

At the beginning of his career, Ramczyk was very durable for the Saints. Through his first four years, three of which included All-Pro nods, Ramczyk missed only one game because of an injury.

In 2021, however, Ramczyk missed seven games with a knee injury — but was able to return for the final week of that season. He missed only one game in 2022, and is up to three so far this season. (Ramczyk missed an Oct. 19 loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars with a concussion.)

Speaking to reporters Thursday, Ramczyk said his years-long knee injury wasn’t the result of any particular play but rather “wear and tear” of game after game.

“Kinda just breaking down,” Ramczyk said, later adding, “When your body kinda just shuts down, and you’re not able to perform, you’re not able to do what you need to do, it’s really frustrating. So we’ll see what happens here and just go from there.”