{"id":9290,"date":"2016-12-30T18:17:01","date_gmt":"2016-12-30T23:17:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonprofootball.com\/?p=9290"},"modified":"2016-12-30T18:17:01","modified_gmt":"2016-12-30T23:17:01","slug":"robert-mathis-announces-retirement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/2016\/12\/30\/robert-mathis-announces-retirement\/","title":{"rendered":"Colts&#8217; Robert Mathis Announces Retirement At End of Season"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Sunday\u2019s game against the Jacksonville Jaguars will be the last time that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/players\/M\/MathRo20.htm?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Robert Mathis<\/a> plays in the NFL. Mathis <a href=\"http:\/\/www.colts.com\/news\/article-1\/Robert-Mathis-Announces-Retirement-After-14-Seasons-With-Colts\/5b0850cd-a196-4379-b1f9-ed1a82f879dd\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">announced on Friday during his weekly media session<\/a> that he plans on retiring after the final game of the regular season.<\/p>\n<h2>Robert Mathis Announces Retirement<\/h2>\n<p>Mathis, 35, has played with the Indianapolis Colts for the entirety of his professional career. Drafted in the 5th round of the 2003 draft out of Alabama A&amp;M, he has made a mission of terrorizing opposing quarterbacks and stunning offensive linemen with his dominant bull rush and strip sacking abilities.<\/p>\n<p>A situational player at this point in his career, Mathis has only tallied 4 sacks so far this season. That hasn&#8217;t\u00a0changed offensive coordinators\u2019 need to account for his pass-rushing abilities on 3rd down, however. With his retirement, the Colts need for a pass rusher in the upcoming draft becomes even more prevalent and it can be assumed that this decision will significantly impact GM Ryan Grigson\u2019s draft strategy for next April.<\/p>\n<h3>A Career of Terrorizing Opposing Quarterbacks<\/h3>\n<p>In 14 seasons with the Colts, Mathis has amassed 122 sacks \u2013 good enough for 18th all time (tied with <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/players\/R\/RiceSi00.htm?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Simeon Rice<\/a>) and to make him the Colts all-time sack leader. Mathis also holds the NFL career record for strip sacks, breaking <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/players\/T\/TaylJa03.htm?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jason Taylor<\/a>\u2019s previous record of 39 in November of 2013 against the Arizona Cardinals. He currently sits at 46 strip sacks \u2013 a number that could potentially increase against Jacksonville on Sunday. Mathis only needs half of a sack to tie former Colt and teammate <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/players\/F\/FreeDw00.htm?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Dwight Freeney<\/a> (122.5) for the 17th most all time.<\/p>\n<p>Mathis ends his career with one Super Bowl win, 6 Pro Bowl nods, one First-Team All-Pro, one Second-Team All-Pro, an AFC Defensive Player of the Year award (2013), and the inaugural <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/players\/J\/JoneDe00.htm?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Deacon Jones<\/a> Award for leading the NFL in sacks (2013). With his retirement, Colts kicker <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/players\/V\/vinatada01.htm?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Adam Vinatieri<\/a> and Falcons defensive end Dwight Freeney are the two players from the Colts\u2019 2006 Super Bowl run still active in the NFL.<\/p>\n<div class=\"getty embed image\" style=\"background-color: #fff; display: inline-block; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; color: #a7a7a7; font-size: 11px; width: 100%; max-width: 594px;\">\n<div style=\"padding: 0; margin: 0; text-align: left;\"><a style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/630500888\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/div>\n<div style=\"overflow: hidden; position: relative; height: 0; padding: 66.666667% 0 0 0; width: 100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"display: inline-block; position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; margin: 0;\" src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/630500888?et=MrYOua2NR8JPhjfv1wRKqw&amp;viewMoreLink=off&amp;sig=VFkWJ817AZkNPjtM2Ny9GQSbAC2iPWNb8K_uRx8oCKs=&amp;caption=true\" width=\"594\" height=\"396\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p style=\"margin: 0;\">\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Robert Mathis Announces Retirement<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1746,"featured_media":9331,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"1","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"324","footnotes":""},"categories":[12,36],"tags":[61,56,40,283],"class_list":["post-9290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-colts","category-nfl-news","tag-football","tag-indianapolis-colts","tag-nfl","tag-robert-mathis"],"modified_by":"Ryan Smith","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1746"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9290"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9290\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}