NFL teams started the 2024 preseason schedule this week, and Carson Tinker wasn’t on a league roster. But the Alabama alumnus has been in that situation before and still handled the long snapping for an NFL team during the season.

But that won’t happen this year: Tinker announced his retirement from the NFL on Sunday via social media.

“Eleven years ago, one of my favorite coaches encouraged me to commit myself to an ‘impossible’ goal,” Tinker wrote. “Through wins and losses, injuries, championships, rejections and opportunities that only God could make happen, I was able to achieve my impossible goal of 10 seasons in the NFL.

“Today, with a full heart, I want to officially call it a career.

“Thank you to Annie and Hootie who followed me all over this country, my teammates who inspired me to be the best version of myself, my coaches who taught me lessons I will carry with me forever, fans, trainers, cafeteria, eq(uipment), turf guys, janitors, anyone else I’ve met along the way, I hop you know who you are and I hope to tell you again in person, thank you!

“Thank you, football. I gave this game everything I had, and it gave my family and me more than I could’ve ever dreamed of.”

Last season, Tinker handled the snapping for the Los Angeles Rams during their final four regular-season games and a playoff contest after regular snapper Alex Ward had sustained a stinger in the Rams’ 37-31 overtime loss to the Baltimore Ravens on Dec. 10.

That brought Tinker’s career total to 99 regular-season and two playoff games.