KISSIMMEE, Fla. – Patriots special teams captain Matthew Slater has taken retirement off the table and hopes to continue playing football in 2020.



As an impending free agent, Slater just needs to maintain employment to keep that goal alive. It’s hardly a crazy stretch of the imagination to believe Slater and the Pats can extend their 12-year marriage and get this all resolved in relatively easy fashion.



“I definitely feel like my family and I thought about it a lot,” Slater told The Athletic on Wednesday after the AFC’s first Pro Bowl practice. “I still love to play and want to continue to play. I guess as of now, I want to keep playing. We just have to see how things go from here. There are a lot of things up in the air that I don’t know, but I’m going to approach it as though I’m preparing to play next year. We’ll kind of go from there. That’s where we’re at.”



Slater alluded to...