Patriots Legend Adam Vinatieri Officially Retires From NFL At 48 Years Old

NFL kicker Adam Vinatieri officially retires after 24 long seasons in the NFL. Vinatieri is the all-time scoring leader and he announced his decision Wednesday on the “Pat McAfee Show.”

Vinatiri told McAfee that he will retire by Friday.

The 48-year-old is a three-time Pro Bowl selection and a first-team All-Pro Pick three times. He scored 2,673 points for the New England Patriots and Indianapolis Colts. He played his final 14 seasons with the Colts.

Vinatieri made 29 game-winning kicks in his NFL career. Three of these happened with the Patriots from 1996 to 2005. The NFL legend hit a game-winner in blizzard-like conditions in the 2001 AFC playoffs. Oakland fans were really disappointed back then. Vinatieri hit game-winning field goals in Super Bowl XXXVI and XXXVIII. Fans know that no kicker has more Super Bowl rings than Vinatieri. He won three with the Patriots and one with the Colts.

Former Colts teammate Reggie Wayne took to his social media to pay tribute to the excellent kicker. Wayne said it was a pleasure to witness Vinatieri’s greatness for so many years.

Adam Vinatieri officially retires after a disappointing season

Vinatieri had a disappointing season in 2019, so he didn’t play in 2020. The veteran ended up on injured reserve in December 2019. The knee injury bugged him throughout the entire season.

Indianapolis kept Vinatieri on the roster even though he had a career-low 60% of his field-goal attempts. Vinatieri also missed 14 kicks. This includes eight field goals and six extra points. Two of these misses cost the Colts wins against the Los Angeles Chargers and Pittsburgh Steelers. Three of Vinatieri’s kicks were blocked in 2019. Opponents returned one of the kicks for 63 yards and a touchdown in the game against the Tennessee Titans in Week 13.

In 2019, Vinatieri said that he wouldn’t have waited really long to have his knee surgery if he had to go through it all over again.