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My favorite Matthew Slater story from his 16-year career:
Long before he became the special teams GOAT, this was the time he was the unfortunate goat.
In a late November 2008 home game against the Steelers, Slater had been summoned as a kickoff returner, in part because primary returner Ellis Hobbs had cramps. It was the third quarter and the Steelers had just taken a 13-10 lead after a 14-play, 79-yard drive that chewed up 6:53 of the clock.
The Patriots, at 7-4 with Matt Cassel playing quarterback in place of the injured Tom Brady, needed a sustained drive to complement the defense. A win over the Steelers would have moved them into a first-place tie in the AFC East.
Instead, disaster struck.
Slater muffed the ensuing kickoff, and it looked bad. He misjudged the flight of the ball; it bounced off his chest and hit his foot before the Steelers recovered at the 8-yard line.
Two plays later, the Steelers scored another touchdown against the gassed and stunned Patriots’ D, before scoring 13 more points to race away with a 33-10 victory.
Slater’s muff was one of the turning points of the game in which the Patriots had five turnovers.
Considering special teams was the reason Slater was on the roster, having been selected in the 2008 fifth round out of UCLA, this was the type of miscue that would naturally lead a player in his situation to wonder if his key card to enter the building would still work the next day. He felt he was the reason the Patriots lost to the eventual Super Bowl champion Steelers.
I vividly remember what unfolded in the locker room afterwards.
A large group of reporters had circled around Slater’s locker to see if he might comment on what happened on the game-turning play.
Slater was facing into his locker, perhaps because he didn’t want to show everyone the pain on his face, and answered every question asked of him as reporters stretched their arms around him to pick up the hushed audio.
As this was unfolding, veteran fullback Heath Evans walked by and said something along the lines of, “You don’t have to do that!”
Evans wasn’t necessarily wrong. Players will often depart without answering questions. They might not want to say the wrong thing, preferring to let emotions settle before possibly answering the next day … or avoiding it all together because -- even though you’re a professional and it is part of the job requirement -- it stinks when you’re the goat and have microphones thrust into your face.
That was the first time I realized Matthew Slater, 23 years old at the time, was different.
He was painfully answering in the moment, perhaps because he wasn’t sure he’d be around tomorrow to do so. Accountability mattered to him.
In the ensuing years, Slater would often talk to his teammates – or anyone visiting his locker -- about how he viewed football as a microcosm of life in many ways. He would say there are so many great things about the game, but it doesn’t come without struggle, and response to that adversity reveals true character.
That day might have been Slater’s lowest point in the NFL. And yet it spoke volumes of what he stood for … and the career he would ultimately author.
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