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If you're confident in your skills, I'd try opening up the clamshell/main housing to see if something obvious has happened. I don't know how these work, but I imagine it has a large clocksping inside the reel that keeps tension on the cord. My bet is that the cord has come off it's reel somehow, or the clocksping broke.
I finally wrangled an answer out of him and found out he didn't say anything to me about it because he didn't have anything to add that you hadn't already tried or that someone else hadn't already suggested. I'm really sorry he couldn't help!
What's the current state? Still same or have you made any progress figuring out what's broken?
What happens when you pull the cord out further? Does it return back to a set point? Do you still feel some level of draw-back from it or is it completely loose?
It's dumb, but have you checked the deeper down part for knots?
I've found this manual of your rower online and it has a great exploded drawing that shows all the parts! https://www.manualowl.com/m/ProForm/440r-Rower/Manual/404817?page=23#manual
Number 77, the spool is probably a very obvious part to suspect, but it very well might be one of the #5 small pulleys.. just the cord slipping off of those and getting jammed in the side might look very similar to your issue (and might happen when the cord gets janked in a weird direction somehow)
Can you give the rower a shake and try to figure out whether the flywheel on the inside moves at all? Also listen for smaller rattles while you shake it - if one of the bearings like 71, 74 or 75 got fucked like another commenter suggested, you'd definitely hear little metal balls inside.
Though honestly I'm not super convinced that that's the case, I've had a ball bearing break on an office chair wheel recently, and while it definitely was very hard to move, it didn't block completely so I can't imagine that one broken bearing could really cause that much resistance.
@GorbinOutOverHere@hexbear.net a rower comrade of yours needs help
I'm really sorry, for some reason the app I use doesn't tell me when I've gotten tagged in something, only directly replied to, and I only just happened to get on the web interface and see this. I'm going to run it by my husband this morning.
Did you ask in r/rower (etc)? It's worthwhile to ask a question in multiple subs if you can because there's no shortage of assholes who insta-downvote just because they can.
I can't help more because I have a different brand and the mechanism is entirely different.
