Locked On Colts - Daily Podcast On The Indianapolis Colts - LOCKED ON COLTS -2/2- Pat McAfee (@PatMcAfeeShow) Hangs Up The Boomstick At 29

Episode Date: February 2, 2017

After stealing our hearts for the past several seasons, #PatMcAfee has decided to retire from the #NFL at age 29. The #Colts are now down a punter, but McAfee says he'll remain in Indianapolis. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

That's for my crazy day. My packed commute. All those unread emails in my inbox. But I'm getting stronger, faster, and pushing myself further every day. I don't care if I'm not like everyone else. This punching bag is the best way to end my day. Fearless is knowing yoga isn't your style. That's the power of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Federal Employee Program.

Learn more about our healthy benefits at fepblue.org slash getmore. No, I'm not for sale. You are lockeded On Colts, your daily Indianapolis Colts podcast. Part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. Welcome back to Locked On Colts, ladies and gentlemen. I'm your host, Matt Damley. And a lot of you are waking up to the unexpected news of Pat McAfee retiring from the NFL and the Indianapolis Colts at age 29. I was shocked. Last night kind of took my middle-of-the-week time off there in between writing and doing the show and was just about ready to hit the sack and saw that come across

on my news feed and that he was joining Barstool Sports. So naturally I was a little apprehensive to believe it. And then I went to his Twitter page and ultimately saw what everybody else now knows to be true. I'm shocked. I'm feeling at 29 years old and a punter. It really is just some, it's just very different to see that happen. But he has had some knee surgeries, you know, and stuff like that. He's had some complications with all of that. He's played a little while in the league. It's not like it's his third or fourth year or anything like that, but it's still very shocking. A guy who's very active in the community, very outspoken, you know, obviously as we've, if you didn't know him already, you learned from his reaction with the Ryan Grigson firing. And, you know, Pat's just an overall fantastic guy. He's done a lot for Indiana,

you know, Kokomo when they had the tornadoes come through, he was very active in trying to get them some help. And he always has done stuff for military members and so on and so forth. He's just been a great guy and a great leader for the community on the Indianapolis Colts. And his, you know, his, I'll tell you what, I'll just read you his story. And this is what he wrote on his Twitter. So if you guys have a chance to get there and read that, or if you haven't had a chance to get there and read that, I'll go ahead and read that to you real quick. On April 26, 2009, with pick number 222, Bill Pullian drafted me to become a member of the Indianapolis Colts. I remember that day like it was yesterday. It was awesome to finally

say I had made it to the NFL and that I had a chance to make a great living to help my family out. What I didn't know or expect was the fact that I was drafted to a state filled with the best humans on earth. I don't say that lightly either. I mean literally the best humans on earth. On October 20th, 2010, my entire life changed. I went from being an anonymous punter for the team that Peyton Manning played on to a guy who had gotten drunk, embarrassed his family, and thought the entire dream opportunity was gone. I was depressed from the embarrassment. I lost 15 pounds in two weeks because I couldn't eat. I'd puke up everything because my stomach knew that I had let everyone down. But what followed is the reason I am forever indebted to the state of Indiana.

I started receiving tweets and letters and conversations in random stores from Hoosiers telling me that I'm their guy and everything's all good. When I was in my darkest moment, really questioning everything, Indiana lifted me up and made me know that I was a completely welcome in the great Hoosier State. Since that moment, I've tried to repay all of you, both on the field and off the field. I didn't take my newfound platform lightly, and I hope you all saw that. These past couple years I've got to travel around the state whether for comedy or philanthropic events and I've learned that the Hoosier hospitality is a real thing. From North Vernon to Evansville to Fort Wayne and South Bend and all the towns in between I found and interacted with nothing but amazing humans. My love for the state convinced

my mom and dad to move to Indiana from Pittsburgh, a city in which they were born and raised in. They now own a business in Indianapolis and are happy as hell to be productive members of this community. I'm writing all this to tell you that at some point my money, my punting career with the Colts was going to end and I was going to have to transition into a new profession. Well, that day has officially come. I was offered an opportunity to join a media powerhouse, Barstool Sports. They reached out to me and said, quote, When you're done with football, we'd like to chat about the possibility of you joining our family. Staring down my third knee surgery in four years, with more surgeries certain for the future,

I started listening to their offer. They wanted me to move to New York to join their headquarters in Manhattan. I refused. I told them I can't leave Indianapolis. I will never leave Indianapolis. So they came back and said, sounds good. What if we give you your own headquarters in downtown Indianapolis? I was ecstatic. So I decided that an opportunity like this with a company that is blowing up was the perfect next chapter of my life. I understand some people might be upset about the fact that I won't be kicking balls on fourth downs for the Colts anymore, and I can understand that, but please know that I'm very excited about the future

and the spotlight I will be able to place on Indianapolis. I'll have a fully functioning radio and TV studio in the center of downtown for content that will be aired on the Barstool platform, which receives millions and millions and millions of unique hits monthly. It's about time the world sees why Indianapolis is everybody's new favorite city when they visit. Could I have played a couple more years? I think so, but I know that to be great in the NFL, which is what my teammates and Colts Nation deserves, I have to focus completely on kicking balls. I'm at the point now where I want to shift my obsessive-like focus to making a world a happier and hopefully a better place. I love Indiana and I'm excited to show the world why. Thank you so much for everything. I'll continue to repay you for the rest of my life. Cheers, Pat McAfee. P.S. I'll be a Colts fan forever. Jim Irsay is one of the best humans on earth. He and I chatted about this for Pat McAfee. he did nothing but support me. He's given me tons of advice and ideas, and most importantly,

his friendship. I'll cherish that forever. I was lucky to be a Colt, but I'm blessed to be a Hoosier forever. So you can obviously see the impact that not only the Colts organization, but the state of Indiana has had on Pat McAfee's life, just the way that Pat has made an impact on ours. Now, specifically, I've only met Pat a couple times. Typically, it was with interviews, never really on a personal level or anything like that. But I do remember when I took my son to, I believe it was the Rams game in 2014, and the Colts were getting blown out, obviously. It was not a good game. So we won't talk about that part of it. But at halftime, there was the military part where some kids come out

with either one of their family members or one of their parents or just whatever. And they talk about this or that. And, you know, somebody surprises them. Well, what the deal was, is that they were getting like a new car. I think that they were just getting them a new car because they didn't have a car. It wasn't working well. And their dad was overseas and they couldn't afford one basically because he was their income, you know? And, and so, uh, Pat bought them a new car. They rolled it out onto the field and their dad stepped out and of course you know the hug the reunion and stuff it honest to god brought tears to my eyes yeah i think that that goes without saying that that is one of the most human elements of excitement and uh something that just constantly

makes you know pulls at your heartstrings all the time. And when you see that happen and you see these family members just ecstatic to see their mother or father or son or sister or brother or daughter or whoever it is. Every time that, I mean, that just, you know, it makes it impossible not for your eyes to water just a little bit. And Pat did that constantly. So that he's going to, you know, barstool sports, I think that's interesting. I think it's very interesting. But on the other hand, the Colts in the reality of the situation, now we don't have a punter. Now we don't have a really, really excellent part of

the community who's also part of the Indianapolis Colts heading up, you know, the fourth down army, so to speak. And it's going to be different. You know, when is Vinatieri going to retire? He may also retire. We don't, I don't know that one way or the other. It presents a hole for the Indianapolis Colts. Pat's always been a very good punter. And now the Colts have one way or another have to deal with that as well. So, and we, you know, to be honest with you, you know, if you want to say that Pat wasn't a top three or four punter or something like that throughout his career, that's fine. But he was still a top eight to nine punter at the least every year. He is also going to make it extremely hard for this Indianapolis Colts team to be able to trust somebody to punt. How many times have you guys seen punters shank them off the end

of their foot? Pat's done that a couple times. I've seen it a lot more from a lot more punters. So there's a hole in this Indianapolis Colts roster now, a large one. And in fact, uh, I don't, you know, that doesn't mean that they need to go spend a crazy draft capital or a ton of free agency money or anything like that on a punter, but it doesn't mean that they need to fill that void because he's always been as much as people uh understand that Andrew Luck was uh or is the the largest part of this Indianapolis Colts roster Pat McAfee was a huge part of it too because when the offense couldn't get going and the defense was terrible Pat McAfee was the one who had to switch the field position. So this is, um, and you know, it's, it's heartfelt so to speak, because not only is he 29, but you understand knee surgeries. It's not

like the guys running around tackling people often, but knee surgeries are not fun. I've had two myself. He's had three. I'm sure that the training itself is hard on that, you know, uh, for, to be a punter. He's not a guy who just goes out there on Sundays. He works out. He does his training. He trains with the team and does all that. So it's understandable. I'm not happy about it.

I'm really not. I legitimately feel like somebody broke up with me, but they're just way too nice to be pissed off at them, you know, and then you kind of just learn to accept it and, and move on. And then you, you give them the cliche, I just want you to be happy. You know, uh, there's a lot of things that this makes how there's a lot of different ways this makes me feel, but first and foremost, I'm glad that he didn't go out extremely injured, you know, some way that it wasn't up to him anymore. It was up to his, you know, his body or

some sort of an injury kept him from playing. But on the other hand, we see a guy leave what we consider to be way too early from the profession. He was very good and very integral part of the community and was a huge part in a lot of people's lives, offering tickets, the military, like I said, so on and so forth. So this is a difficult one to swallow, I think, for a lot of people, especially anybody who's been around the Indianapolis Colts or around the city of Indianapolis. And it's a great city. Pat's made it better. He'll continue to stay here, and I think it'll be interesting to see where he goes from here. So that's all we're going to do today. We're going to come up with a Super Bowl preview on our next show,

and that will be it for the week after that. So this is just kind of some not breaking news anymore, but in the past 12 to 14 hours, we've learned that Pat McAfee will retire at age 29, and the Colts no longer have a punter. So thank you for joining me. Subscribe to the podcast. Give me a rating and review on iTunes.

Thank you guys all so much for your Twitter interactions and just everything all involved. You guys have been fantastic. I appreciate you guys listening every day. You guys are a big part of my life as well because I depend on you, and you depend on me to come in here every day and feed your ears with whatever I've got to spew out of my mouth. I appreciate it.

Thank you guys again, and I'll talk to you tomorrow right here on Locked on Colts. You are locked on Colts. You are Locked on Colts, your daily podcast on the Indianapolis Colts, part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day.