Cardinals’ Mike Leach calls it a career after 16 years

The Arizona Cardinals can add another task to their already long list of offseason priorities, a task they have not addressed since the 2009 season.

Signing a new long snapper.

Mike Leach has announced his retirement via Twitter letter to Cardinals fans, and spoke with Doug and Wolf on Arizona Sports 98.7 FM Thursday to talk about his decision.

“I feel good. Yesterday was a mixed bag of emotions to be honest with you,” Leach said. “It’s sad to finally make that decision and say you’re going to step away, but the downpour of support and best wishes we got from people we know, people we’ve played with 15 years ago and fans that we’ve never met before was overwhelming for Julie and I.”

After signing with Arizona in 2009, Leach was recognized for his work in the community, being named the Cardinals Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year in 2010.

“We take so much from our time here in the NFL and especially here in Arizona.”

Heading into the 2015 season, Leach had appeared in 200 consecutive regular season games, becoming the 17th active player to achieve that milestone. That streak ranked as the longest among active NFL long snappers. With so many games played, Leach wanted to make sure he left on his terms, not due to injury.

“As you get closer to the end, you start evaluating things, and I just felt the time was right,” Leach said. “I got through the season again relatively unscathed, couple kinks and bruises. I said in the letter I wanted to do it on my terms before they came to me and said, ‘hey, you just can’t get it done anymore, we need to make a change’, or like I said worse to get that one injury that makes me quit, and may affect me for the rest of my life.”

Leach spent the last seven seasons of his 16-year career with the Cardinals, but he never imagined being in the NFL for this long.

“I remember looking at the guys that were four and five years deep back in my first year going, ‘man, if I can just get to four or five years, that would be unbelievable, I can’t even imagine that’,” Leach said. “Now to sit there and think 16 years, it’s hard to believe for a guy who was really looking to find a position, was I a tight end, was I a fullback, was I a punter coming out? Then to find this long snapping thing, I was fortunate to bend over and snap a ball and the right person was watching. I had ability to do it, work at it, found a way to get better at it and 16 years later, it was a good run.”

Any NFL player would be more than happy to end with a 16-year career, and Leach insists he won’t try to extend it.

“No comeback for me yet, I talked to Brett Favre about it and he told me how to do it if I should do it, but I’m not there yet.”