Packer Central

Watch: Clay Matthews Talks Retirement, Favorite Plays and More

Former Green Bay Packers star Clay Matthews has retired from the NFL. He covered a wide range of topics in discussing his career on Tuesday.

Bill Huber

Watch: Clay Matthews Talks Retirement, Favorite Plays and More
Watch: Clay Matthews Talks Retirement, Favorite Plays and More /
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GREEN BAY, Wis. – In 10 seasons with the Green Bay Packers, Clay Matthews sacked quarterbacks, played in Pro Bowls, won a Super Bowl and started a family.

Now that he’s retired, Matthews has a different focus.

“Man, just raising three kids,” he said in a Zoom call as part of a Tide detergent promotion. “I’ve got a 3-, a 5- and a 7-year-old. The level of stress in the household getting the kids off to school, the bedtime routine, it’s more stressful than any game I ever played in my career.”

Matthews was the Packers’ first-round draft pick in 2009. Officially, he is the franchise’s career leader with 83.5 sacks. He closed his career with the Los Angeles Rams in 2019, when he added another eight sacks to push his career total to 91.5.

He said he had opportunities to continue his career in 2020 – perhaps with the Packers – but decided to stay with his young family. Sitting down one Sunday to watch a game with a beer and some smoked meat, it was clear to him he made the right decision.

What’s filled the competitive itch?

“Good question,” he said. “I don’t know. It’s staying engaged and busy. You hear about needing to find something to do when you’re done play but, I’ve got to be honest, raising these kids and seeing them off to soccer and karate and dance and whatnot, man, that fills your day. Ultimately, you kind of live vicariously through your kids, even if they’re 5 years old playing soccer. You still coach them up and try to help them out along the way.”

Here is a series of Matthews videos from our 16-minute Zoom call.

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Bill Huber
BILL HUBER

Bill Huber, who has covered the Green Bay Packers since 2008, is the publisher of Packers On SI, a Sports Illustrated channel. E-mail: packwriter2002@yahoo.com History: Huber took over Packer Central in August 2019. Twitter: https://twitter.com/BillHuberNFL Background: Huber graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, where he played on the football team, in 1995. He worked in newspapers in Reedsburg, Wisconsin Dells and Shawano before working at The Green Bay News-Chronicle and Green Bay Press-Gazette from 1998 through 2008. With The News-Chronicle, he won several awards for his commentaries and page design. In 2008, he took over as editor of Packer Report Magazine, which was founded by Hall of Fame linebacker Ray Nitschke, and PackerReport.com. In 2019, he took over the new Sports Illustrated site Packer Central, which he has grown into one of the largest sites in the Sports Illustrated Media Group.

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