He hasn’t played for the team since 2005, when Big Ted said “Hey, you’re no good anymore, you’re out of here!”, but Ryan Longwell is nonetheless retiring as a member of the Green Bay Packers.
The team announced that Longwell, who’s 38 and also the greatest kicker in Minnesota Vikings history next to Gary Anderson and his missed field goal in that one NFC Championship game, has decided to hang it up. And he’s decided to hang it up as a member of the Packers.
So suck balls, Minnesota!
Longwell is the all-time leading scorer in Packers history with 964 points. That’s also the most points scored by anyone in the NFL during Longwell’s tenure with the team (1997-2005).
This guy is a sure-fire Packers Hall of Famer, even though he played for that other shitbag organization to the left. I mean, if Don Chandler can get in, then Longwell is a shoo-in even if he had killed your mother — which is pretty much the same as willfully playing for the Vikings.
And he did the right thing by coming back.
And yeah, we don’t hold that much of a grudge against Longwell for playing for the Vikings as we do against a certain former Packers quarterback. That’s because Longwell is a kicker! A totally inconsequential position on a football team! So go over there and kick all the field goals you want, kicky!
Just come back and pledge your allegiance to the Packers when you’re done not winning championships in Minnesota.
In addition to being the Packers all-time leading scorer, which is no small feat, Longwell also holds franchise records for field goals (226), field-goal percentage (81.6, 226/277), extra points (376), 100-point seasons (eight) and consecutive games scoring (144).
A lot of people forget — because they’ve been forced to watch Mason Crosby — that the Packers had one of the best kickers in the league at one time.
You know, a guy who hit more than 60-some percent of his kicks. This motherfucker hit 80.
80! Auto-fucking-matic!
Remember what that was like?
And perhaps just as impressive was this. Longwell was undrafted out of Cal. That same year the Packers drafted Penn State’s Brett Conway in the third round — one of Ron Wolf’s few terrible decisions. They ended up keeping both Conway — because they wasted a third-round pick on him — and Longwell — because he totally outperformed Conway in the preseason — on the roster that season.
The next year, Longwell whooped Conway’s ass again and Conway was the fuck out of town.
I once asked Wolf what acquisition he was most proud of, other than Brett Favre and Reggie White. His answer: finding Ryan Longwell.