Matthew Slater may be done playing football, but it appears he’ll still have a presence with the New England Patriots at Gillette Stadium.
Slater was captured in a snapshot by the team with a bible in his hand as players returned for voluntary workouts on Monday, and according to Jabril Peppers, Slater will be around as an “advisor” to the club.
The former Patriot spoke to the Boston Globe’s Christopher Price over the weekend in a recent podcast, and during the interview it sounded like Slater was interested in potentially remaining around the team in Foxboro. He revealed that bit of information when Price mentioned that he spoke to his former teammate, Kevin O’Connell, back at the scouting combine, about his thoughts on new Patriots head coach, Jerod Mayo. However, O’Connell, on his own accord, apparently offered up that he felt Slater might also be a great future head coach.
Slater said that while he didn’t have a desire to be a head coach, he did hint that he had hoped to have a future role in some form with the team.
“Look, I love the game of football. I love everything that it entails and as I transition into this next phase of my life, certainly, I’d love to be involved how ever I can in a way that makes sense for my family and I,” said Slater. “But I think about culture building, pouring into young men, and sharing the experience that I had as a player with the next generation. Now, that may not be as a coach. I’m not aspiring to be a head coach like those two guys, but maybe that’s as a member of a staff or in some type of supportive role. So I’m very much open to that, and we’ll just see what the future holds.”
Apparently, now we know.
Slater was at LEGOLAND in New York over the weekend with his family for the “Pros of Play’ initiative, joining Giants receiver Parris Cambell Jr. and Eagles defensive end, Brandon Graham. The goal with that initiative was to invite parents to commit to spending their time off with their families this summer, with the hope to obviously get them to spend it at the park.
Slater said that it’s been ‘bittersweet’ being away from football. The former special teams standout talked about what it was like to empty his locker, and said that his number one goal in retirement was to spend more time with his family and especially his children. That’s where Slater said he’s shifted his focus since the 2023 season came to an end.
“I have had a chance to clean out my locker,” said Slater. “I went in there probably the week after the season and I took everything out, and it was a bit strange.”
“To spend sixteen years in one place, you accumulate a lot of things. I had a lot of junk in that locker. To be able to clean it out, I took two of my sons in there with me, it was bittersweet.”
“Certainly very thankful for the journey that I had. All good things come to an end, and I’m looking forward to the next chapter.”
(The above appeared in this morning’s daily Patriots news and notes column.)
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Ian Logue is a Seacoast native and owner and senior writer for PatsFans.com, an independent media site covering the New England Patriots and has been running this site in one form or another since 1997.
