Dont’a Hightower has officially announced his retirement from National Football League, after playing for 9 seasons on the field; he wrote a retirement letter to The Players’ Tribune on Tuesday.
“Today, I am officially retiring from the NFL,” Hightower wrote. “I know these announcements always feel bittersweet, but I can’t think of a better story than the one I wrote in New England. A decade, three Super Bowls, two Pro Bowls, and the birth of my son — all playing for one franchise. How many guys have a story like that?
“So this is a happy day for me, and I just wanted to let you all know how much I appreciate you embracing a Southern kid from Lewisburg, Tennessee.”
Hightower has been an essential tackler for the Patriots’ defense, he earned two Pro Bowls to further solidify his ring and generated 569 total tackles, 27 sacks and one career interception. He won two national championships in college at Alabama too.
Before his Pro Bowl 2019 campaign, Hightower opted to sit out the 2020 season because of the COVID-19 pandemic. He came back in 2021, playing 15 games, and earning 64 tackles and 1.5 sacks. In 2022, he did not play.
In Hightower’s first Super Bowl victory over the Seattle Seahawks, as a player for the Patriots, he made of the most unsung plays of the game, tripping Marshawn Lynch at the 1-yard line. The play set up Malcolm Butler’s famous interception to seal the Lombardi Trophy for New England. If not for his tackle, that match would have ended differently.
“When I look at that first ring, I think about the Marshawn tackle,” Hightower wrote of the play.
“When I saw Seattle line up in that I-form, I knew Beast Mode was getting it, and I knew they’d been gashing us with that strong-side lead all game. I knew he was going to walk through a huge hole if I didn’t take a risk. It’s funny how things come full circle because when I was at Alabama, Kirby Smart used to always tell us, ‘Never ever go behind a block unless you’re sure you’re going to make a play.’
“Well, I wasn’t sure. But I figured we had nothing to lose. So I ripped up under Okung and shot my shot. All I saw was Marshawn’s two legs churning, and I just prayed to God that I could clip him up or something. I reached out … and you already know what happened next.”
What happened next was that Dont’a Hightower went ahead to secure the first of the three Super Bowls which he would win later on.
Hightower now joins the Patriots’ all-time greats.
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