Packers Q&A with Clay Matthews

Former Green Bay Packers outside linebacker Clay Matthews has retired from the NFL. He took part in this interview as part of a promotion for Tide laundry detergent.

Q: What are you up to these days?

A: Man, just raising three kids. I’ve got a 3-, a 5- and a 7-year-old. The level of stress in the household getting the kids off to school, the bedtime routine, it’s more stressful than any game I ever played in my career.

Q: Tell me about superstitions. Are you supposed to wash your lucky jersey?

A: I’m teaming up with Tide this year to tackle superstitions about fans’ lucky jerseys and how they may be lucky but, ultimately, they’re dirty. We need you to wash them and, preferably, with Tide. We’re going to have some fun this year being interactive with the fans.

If you go to my Instagram page, I posted a video asking the fans what they would do to wash their lucky jerseys. You can comment underneath my post and you’ll have a chance to win big prizes. We’re just trying to have some fun this year with Tide and with all the fanbases around the league, trying to get fans involved with their lucky jerseys – no matter whose that is – and ultimately trying to get them washed.

After being in a locker room for so many games, I understand how dirty and smelly these things can get.

Q: When you played, did you have any superstitions?

A: I don’t know if you’d call it superstition or if it was just routine. I was very much a routine guy, whether it was what time I went to sleep, what time I woke up, the order in which I got dressed or stretched or worked out. Very much a routine guy. In the spirit of this message that I’m pushing, they must have all been superstition.

Q: My 10-year-old plays football. How should he get ready?

A: You just eat macaroni and throw your pants on and just roll out to the game. I think it’s a little different when you’ve got 330-pound tackles trying to take your head off. It’s been so long, I forget. Just get there two hours early so you don’t get fined. I think that’s ultimately what you need to do.

Q: What do you miss most about football?

A: Just the day-to-day interaction with the guys – with everyone, really, whether it’s the chefs, the coaches, the staff. It’s so cliché. You miss the locker room but that truly is (what you miss). You don’t get that anymore when you’re talking to your kids. The inappropriate jokes, you can throw political correctness aside and just have fun because you’re all in this for a common goal.

Fortunately, I still have good relationships with a number of guys still on that team as well as the Rams. Whether it’s through text or Instagram or whatnot, just shooting them something quick to keep that relationship going and still feeling like you’re a part of it. That’s the thing that you miss the most.

Obviously, the success and the gameday and this and that but just that everyday interaction, messing with the boys, is something that you can’t replicate when you’re done playing.

Q: I think people will always remember the Super Bowl play, when you forced the fumble to start the fourth quarter to help you win the game. Do you ever go back and watch that stuff? And if you do, does it give you chills? Or are you not one to live in the past?

A: I did relive it, unfortunately, when Kevin Greene passed away. I don’t do a lot of social media but I had seen that clip where Kevin comes up to me at the beginning of the fourth quarter and he pretty much lets me know that Charles (Woodson), who was the undoubted leader of the defense at the time – really, of the team – he was out and it was time to step up and make a play.

For the very next play to have an inkling of what was going to happen, direct a few people around in front of me and make a big play that we went down and scored another touchdown at a time when they were marching and they had some momentum, yeah, it kind of gives you some chills.

But my favorite play is probably the Monday night game – it was Brett Favre and Rodgers up at the Metrodome in 2009. We lost but I stripped Adrian Peterson and ran it back 42 yards for a touchdown and just chucked the ball in the stands. That one was truly memorable for me because I was just trying to keep my head above water at the time.

I wasn’t starting at the time but, naturally, you’re coming into the NFL and you’re just trying not to screw up any plays. To make a play like that that burst me onto the scene, ultimately, sticks out because it embodied where I was going in my career.

Q: You’re retired now. How big of a decision was that because you can still play.

A: It’s funny. For most people in the NFL, they don’t get to make that decision. I feel like I had a say in that. I’m at peace with how my career ended.

Obviously, I felt like I could’ve still played after the 2019 season in L.A. I felt like I was still rolling. I felt really good, I was healthy. I was on a good defensive unit. Ultimately, they decided to go another way and was another veteran casualty.

I had offers to continue playing but this was March 2020 and this was right when COVID really shut everything down. My family and I had just moved back to California and we just had our third child and the kids were starting school. Ultimately, the offers weren’t moving the needle enough to relocate my family or for me to leave my family.

I stayed ready, kind of hoping for an opportunity, but nothing really came to fruition. That was OK. I thought it was pretty telling when the games came on and I enjoyed having a beer and smoking some fatty meats on Sunday as opposed to feeling that anxiety of gameday. I thought that was pretty telling.

I do feel like I could’ve played a few more years and, who knows where I would’ve ended up, but I’m OK with it now. I’ve fallen into this next chapter of my life, which is being a dad and helping my kids out and being at home – well, I was going to say being with my wife more but she probably appreciated that I was out of the house when I was playing. Everything’s good. Everything’s great.