FOXBORO — Every boy dreams of running free under a long, arcing pass. No boy dreams of running, jostled and jousted all the way, under a long arcing kickoff. Yet for Matthew Slater, the latter has been a dream job for eight years. A happy life, you see, is the art of compromise.
Slater has become one of the NFL’s most adept coverers of kickoffs and punts, a thankless occupation he’s done so well, despite being barely 200 pounds after a dousing, that he’s been selected to the Pro Bowl the past four seasons. That’s more than half as many times as his father, Hall of Fame right tackle Jackie Slater, who made the trip to Honolulu seven times but it took him 20 years of playing to do it.