Matthew Slater, who announced his retirement on Tuesday and spent his entire 16-year career playing for the New England Patriots, is quite possibly the only player in existence to which all three of the following apply:
- The accolades: five first-team All-Pros, three second-team All-Pros, 10 Pro Bowls, the Bart Starr Award, and the Art Rooney Award, not to mention there Super Bowl wins — tells you all you need to know
- His Pro Football Reference stat page looks like an intern accidentally hit Ctrl-Alt-Delete, and
- Both of the above statements only make sense if you were lucky enough to be born at the exact point in time to watch Slater play the game of football.