Zak Keefer

zak.keefer@indystar.com

HOUSTON – Pat McAfee is walking away from the Indianapolis Colts at age 29.

No, really. This isn't a joke.

The two-time Pro Bowl punter met with team owner Jim Irsay for more than an hour Monday to inform him of the decision and announced it Wednesday night live on television.

The people’s punter – and very likely the city’s most popular athlete – is retiring from professional football, effective immediately, to work with Barstool Sports, a popular satirical sports website he says will soon open an office in Downtown Indianapolis. McAfee was due nearly $6 million over the next two seasons on the final years of the five-year, $14.5 million contract he signed with the Colts in 2014.

“I’m real excited to turn my obsessive-type focus towards making the world a happier place,” McAfee told IndyStar. While he says he's not sure of what his official title will be, he'll run Barstool's new content-production studio based in Indianapolis.

This was far from a spur-of-the-moment decision. McAfee’s been mulling this for months, years even. It is part physical – McAfee has undergone three knee surgeries in the past four years, including one recently on his kicking knee – and part personal. He is, based on numerous conversations over the past few months, eager for the next chapter in his life.

"My life has been littered with terrible decisions, this is at the top of the list," he joked late Wednesday night outside Kirby Ice House in Houston, home to Barstool Sports live show all week.

He doesn't expect to return to professional football but added he plans on kicking footballs “for fun/videos and such my whole life.”

McAfee said he nearly walked away before the 2016 campaign; he was talked into staying by coach Chuck Pagano and responded with his best season as a pro. He averaged 49.3 gross yards per punt, a franchise record that led the NFL, and was named to his second Pro Bowl in three seasons. McAfee did not participate, though, instead electing to have surgery on his right knee. He has said he played in pain for most of the second half of the season.

McAfee made several trips to New York City in the weeks following the Colts’ season finale to hammer out the deal with Barstool Sports, which was recently acquired by businessman and investor Peter Chernin. A sticking point: McAfee was intent on staying in Indianapolis. Once Barstool decided to open up an office here, he says, he signed on.

READ MORE:

Pat McAfee opens up: 'Failure is completely possible'

5 reasons Pat McAfee is the most popular punter of all time

Reaction to McAfee's retirement: 'His passion for our community drove me'

No small factor in his stunning decision: McAfee has achieved financial security for his family – parents Tim and Sally moved to Indianapolis in 2014. With that taken care of, he felt it was the right time to walk away from football and chase a passion he’s desired for years. McAfee is a successful stand-up comic, and the opportunity with Barstool spoke to his creative interests.

He has spent some of his free time in recent years writing poetry and screenplays. His role at Barstool is expected to be wide-ranging; when it comes to entertainment, there are few things McAfee can’t do.

Despite enjoying his best season as a pro this year, McAfee grew increasingly frustrated with Colts management, particularly former general manager Ryan Grigson. He made his feelings known after Grigson was fired Jan. 21. “Thank God,” was the first tweet McAfee sent, followed by, “Unwarranted arrogance just walked into a brick wall called karma.”

McAfee had been fined by Grigson during the season for a post on Instagram. He posted this quote on the social media site shortly thereafter: “Stop trying to prove your worth to people who don’t value it. Go where you are celebrated not where you are tolerated.”

But Grigson’s firing and Irsay’s subsequent hiring of Chris Ballard to replace him were not enough to keep McAfee in football. He is holding firm in his decision and moving forward with his next chapter.

It all began with a gamble

McAfee’s rise from youth soccer stud to the best punter in professional football reads almost like fiction. It started with a lie to his parents, $100 and a restaurant basement in his native Pittsburgh. Then a high school senior, McAfee told his parents he was sleeping over at a friend’s house, sneaked into a high-stakes poker game and turned that $100 into $1,400 (thank you, pocket jacks). He used that money to buy a plane ticket to Miami, where he wowed college coaches during a showcase for the country’s top prep kickers.

That was enough to get him a scholarship offer from West Virginia.

After four years playing for the Mountaineers, McAfee was swiped with the 222nd pick in the seventh round of the 2009 NFL Draft by then-Colts president Bill Polian. Expecting to kick field goals at the next level, McAfee was stunned when Polian told him he’d become the Colt’s next punter. He ventured to an empty field the next day with his dad and a bag of footballs.



“We had to figure out how to (expletive) punt,” McAfee said later.

Eight years later he leaves the Colts as the finest punter in franchise history, owner of club records in kickoffs (645), kickoff touchbacks (350), punting gross average (46.4) and punting net average (39.8).

McAfee’s departure leaves a void on the field and in the locker room. He was unquestionably one of the game’s top special teams weapons, not only one of its best punters but also a lethal onside kick specialist (he converted three in the 2014 season) with a legitimate arm capable of pulling off the fake (just ask the Pittsburgh Steelers).

A man of many talents

He was the team’s most outsized personality – witty, self-deprecating, hilarious. He became non-stop entertainment. Off the field he established a foundation that aided military veterans, guest starred with friends on “The Bob and Tom Show” and sold out theaters from Evansville to Lafayette for his enormously popular comedy shows.

He has admitted that at one point, his lifelong dream was to become a professional wrestler. He’s donned T-shirts in the Colts’ locker room that honor teammates, like the one he wore this year that read “Jack Does Everything,” an ode to tight end Jack Doyle. He helped sponsor Conor Daly’s ride in last year’s Indianapolis 500.

And that night in October 2010 when he was arrested after that infamous swim in the Broad Ripple canal? McAfee has called it the night that saved his career.

“It completely changed the course of my life, it really did,” he said this season. “I was partying pretty hard right then. I was 21, 22, first time having a little money. I had money and it was awesome ... I was living, living, living. I just carried that into my second (NFL) season. I was going out and having a good time, living pretty hard, pretty reckless.”

After his subsequent arrest and one-game suspension, McAfee immersed himself in his profession. By 2014 he’d earned his first Pro Bowl nod.

In the ensuing years, McAfee, along with kicker Adam Vinatieri and long snapper Matt Overton, formed one of the league’s top kicking units.

Now the Colts must replace one of their top players.

McAfee is walking away from pro football at just 29, very much in the prime of his career, eager to tackle all that comes next.

$100, a lie and a poker club: How Pat McAfee became an NFL punter

Pat McAfee: 'My dream was always to become a professional wrestler'

5 reasons Pat McAfee is the most popular punter of all time

Download the IndyStar Mobile Apps

Call Star reporter Zak Keefer at (317) 444-6134 and follow him on Twitter: @zkeefer.

>See Pat McAfee speak live at this year's Indiana Sports Awards, hosted by IndyStar. Buy tickets here.