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Chance to work with Jets QB Sam Darnold helped push Ryan Kalil's return to NFL

FLORHAM PARK, N.J. — Ryan Kalil would like to apologize.

The Jets newest center wouldn’t say to whom, specifically. But very generally, he wanted "to apologize to anyone publicly or behind closed doors that I criticized for retiring and coming back,” he said.

“I get it now.”

It was all very tongue and cheek, but it’s also absolutely true that when the Panthers season ended in January, Kalil was ready to hang it up. He headed west, to California, started living the quiet life in Hermosa Beach, and began to settle into the world of the 34-year-old retiree.