Clay Matthews, OLB

backrow

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Clay is having a great rookie campaign and is (along with Cushing) a top candidate for a Defensive RotY. He is already an all time record holder for sacks in a rookie campaign for Packers franchise with 10 (and had a blatant one, with a strip and recovery taken away on a bad call in his last game.

vote for Clay for week 15 top rook!

claymatthews.jpg
 

icsept

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He got my vote. The website has six black faces across the top of the screen - I don't recognize any of them. I guess that's the face of the NFL's future.
 

Don Wassall

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Check out what Kevin Greene has to say:

Green Bay Packers have great expectations for second-year outside linebacker Clay Matthews

After his rookie season, Clay Matthews already ranks as probably the Green Bay Packers' second-best defensive player, behind only cornerback Charles Woodson.

The No. 26 pick overall in the 2009 draft started 13 games at right outside linebacker, finished with 10 sacks and was third in the voting for NFL defensive rookie of the year.<BR itxt="1"><BR itxt="1">Now the Packers are looking for more from a player they think could be special.<BR itxt="1"><BR itxt="1">"(Matthews) is the most complete outside linebacker that I have seen,"Â￾ said Kevin Greene, the Packers' outside linebackers coach and the No. 3 sacker in NFL history. "I'm friends with (all-time great outside linebackers) Lawrence Taylor, with Rickey Jackson, (Derrick) Thomas was a friend. (Matthews) has that ability. He has that fluid athleticism (in coverage) coupled with physicality coupled with a natural instinct to rush the passer. So he's physical at the point of attack, he has a great skill set concerning rushing the passer, and he's completely fluid in pass coverage and the things we ask him to do, more than I ever could have been."Â￾<BR itxt="1"><BR itxt="1">Hitting on the Matthews pick was especially huge for the Packers because of his position â€" outside linebackers are the key playmakers in defensive coordinator Dom Capers' scheme and responsible for providing a good share of the pass rush. The Packers didn't have any ready-made 3-4 outside linebackers from their previous scheme when they made the change last year, and the move of Aaron Kampman to outside linebacker from 4-3 defensive end provided only modest results opposite Matthews.<BR itxt="1"><BR itxt="1">But after that strong rookie season, Matthews can count on being more of a focal point for opposing offensive coordinators, who will try to find ways to minimize his impact with increased chip blocks, double teams and rollouts or moving pockets away from his side.<BR itxt="1"><BR itxt="1">The Packers nevertheless expect the same or better production from Matthews, and are likely to need it. In the biggest surprise of their offseason, they not only didn't sign a free-agent outside linebacker to push second-year pro Brad Jones for the starting job opposite Matthews, they also didn't draft one.<BR itxt="1"><BR itxt="1">full article: http://packersnews.greenbaypressgazette.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100728/PKR01/100728151/Packers-by-Position-Great-expectations-for-MatthewsEdited by: Don Wassall
 

whiteathlete33

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The news just keeps getting better and better for Clay Matthews.




pixel.gif


After further film review, the NFL has credited Packers OLB Clay Matthews with three Week 1 sacks.
<div ="s_pNewsTextMain">
He was initially credited with two. Three marks a career high for the
2009 first-round pick. Along with Mario Williams, Brian Urlacher, and
LaRon Landry, Matthews was among the NFL's most dominant defenders
during Week 1.
</div>
 

Mighty Joe

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White rush linebackers did well in week 1 Mathews,Kampmann and Laboy all had dominating performances.Hopefully Jarett Johnson,Trevor Scott and Studebaker can have good seasons aswell.If these guys can stay injury free they should prove to be among the best if not the best in the league at this position.
 

Patrick

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There is a special on Clay right now on the ESPN pre season show. He was a walk on in college - big shocker.
 

snow

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whats even worse is probably the only reason why he was allowed to walk on and given a chance to prove himself at USC is because of his dad.
Edited by: snow
 

Patrick

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I recently read that 50% of white WRs in college are walk ons while only 5% of black WRs are, now I don't know if thats true but looking at guys like Matthews, Welker, Woodhead one has to wonder how good talent evaluators are at their jobs.
I mean Christ, no disrespect to Cushing but if he wasn't roided up Matthews would have won the rookie of the year - and this guy almost wasn't given a chance to play college football? How is that even possible?
 

backrow

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he has 8.5 sacks on the year, on pace for at least 19!

last season he had 10.

26-Clay-Matthews-sack-celebration1.jpg
Edited by: backrow
 

qj

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Matthews went out of the game yesterday and the Packers just fizzled.
 

jaxvid

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backrow said:
he has 8.5 sacks on the year, on pace for at least 19!

last season he had 10.

26-Clay-Matthews-sack-celebration1.jpg

That's a hellava picture!
 

celticdb15

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If Matthews continues his dominant play, he could make it back to back years that a Packer player has won Defensive MVP(Charles Woodson last year). Give Kevin Greene and Dom Capers credit for utilizing their personel to perfection!
 

ToughJ.Riggins

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One of my friends stated that "Clay Matthews is Brian Cushing without steroids, but you can never be 100% certain about a player this bulk and this dominant who played at the same school"...I retorted back, "you cannot be 100% certain about Cushing being a user either, he passed a lie detector test and there is something called over-trained athlete syndrome which could have made him fail the test for inflated testosterone levels. I never hear you mention black guys who failed tests like Shawn Merriman etc"...He retorts back- "well I know you usually have a bias toward white players"...I retorted back- I know you said Peyton Hillis was a FB and Woodhead was a fringe NFL player- so who is "usually" correct? Are there other "fringe" white tailbacks that could be successful DI or NFL players if given a "CHANCE". Check out Nile Knapp on Youtube! He retorts back "Nile" lol, why are you plugging a black tailback as dark as an oil spill in the "Nile" to strengthen your case!
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Colonel_Reb

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Yeah Bart, that was a cool clip. Now if he'd just get a haircut. I really like the part when he said "I've got some speed!"
 

foobar75

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Colonel_Reb said:
Yeah Bart, that was a cool clip. Now if he'd just get a haircut. I really like the part when he said "I've got some speed!" 

Thanks for sharing that link! Clay Matthews is indeed a beast and lots of fun to watch. He owned Winston Justice last Sunday, and they had to switch to another tackle, which didn't help all that much. I'm hoping for another big game from him in Atlanta.

Colonel_Reb, I'm going to respectfully disagree on the hair thing.
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I really don't care how a man wears his hair, and my own has always been cut short since I was a kid. But with Matthews, that long blond hair, combined with the rest of his physique and style of play make him one of those ultimate alphas, a true Viking who strikes fear in all the (mostly black) offensive players on the other side. It makes him stand out more, and having a white player garnering attention like that is a good thing, IMO.
 

backrow

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it's funny how it's mostly blonde white players that wear their hair long in the NFL in a true Viking fashion.
 

JReb1

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Clay Matthews reminds me of a prime Lawrence Taylor. I wonder how their combine stats compare because I think Clay might be a little faster than LT was.
 
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backrow said:
it's funny how it's mostly blonde white players that wear their hair long in the NFL in a true Viking fashion.

His younger brother has dark hair but wears it in the same way. Pretty funny indeed. I never thought it was weird to see white LBs or O or D linemen with long hair, but it seems weird to see QBs and receivers do it.
 

foobar75

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Here's an excellent article on the Matthews Clan. They should be a model to all white families. Get married, assume the traditional roles of father and mother, and have lots of children. The bonus is to make sure as many of them as possible play in the NFL!
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(BTW, after that excellent ESPN article talking about Danny Woodhead's roots/family, this is the second MSM piece on yet another white NFL player. It's great to see this.)

For Matthews Clan, N.F.L. Is All in the Family
15matthews-web3-articleLarge.jpg


Brodie Matthews may or may not become part of an unprecedented fourth generation of N.F.L. players from his family. He is only 2 months old.

Clay Matthews Sr. was the first to play in the N.F.L. "We're going to try to get him something a little more noble than running into somebody for a living,"Â￾ said his grandfather, Clay Matthews Jr.

No family has infiltrated the league the way the Matthewses have. They might be considered the Mannings for the head-knocking set. For now, five Matthews men have played in the N.F.L., bridging three generations and including the current linebacker Clay Matthews III, whose Packers (11-6) will take the field against the Falcons (13-3) on Saturday in an N.F.C. divisional playoff game. More may be on the way shortly. Odds are decent that Brodie will join them in 2033 or so.

"You know, there's a Lord in the world that blesses you sometimes,"Â￾ said Clay Matthews Sr., a defensive lineman for the San Francisco 49ers in the 1950s.

The patriarch cannot quite explain how it is that four of his progeny followed him to the N.F.L., but he believes the numbers will grow. When Matthews Sr. was born 82 years ago, he weighed 10 pounds 4 ounces, he said, same as his newly arrived great-grandson.

"Are you asking me if it's something I did?"Â￾ he said. "No, it's nothing I did. I'm just thankful to have them."Â￾

Matthews Sr. and his late wife, Daisy, had five children. Among them were Clay Matthews Jr. and Bruce Matthews, who each played 19 seasons in the N.F.L. and combined to reach 18 Pro Bowls. Clay Jr. played linebacker, mostly for the Cleveland Browns. Bruce was an offensive lineman for the Houston Oilers and Tennessee Titans. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2007.

Each of those sons spawned another N.F.L. player roughly in his own mold. Clay Matthews III is in his second year with the Packers. One of the game's best players â€" on Thursday he was named the N.F.L.'s defensive player of the year by Sporting News â€" Matthews III is recognized for his tirelessness on the field and the stringy hair that hangs from his helmet.

On the other side of the family, Bruce Matthews's burly batch of Texas linemen includes Kevin, an undrafted rookie this season who made the Titans and started their last game at center.

According to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, only two other families have had three generations of N.F.L. players, but neither had five family members play in the league. Only the Nessers had more family members in the league than the Matthews family, with six brothers playing in the early 1920s â€" five for the Columbus Panhandles in 1921, the year before the American Professional Football Association was renamed the N.F.L.

Reinforcements could be on the way. Clay Matthews III's brother Casey was a starting linebacker for Oregon in this week's Bowl Championship Series title game against Auburn, and is expected to be chosen in April's N.F.L. draft. Casey Matthews forced the fumble by quarterback Cam Newton that allowed Oregon to tie the score with two and a half minutes left.

Among their cousins, Kevin Matthews's brother Jake started most of last season at right tackle as a true freshman at Texas A&M. Another brother, Mike, is in high school and is being heavily recruited. The youngest boy, 11-year-old Luke, "is probably going to be the biggest one,"Â￾ his father said.

It seems that at this rate, in five or six generations, every N.F.L. team might have a few Matthewses on the roster.

"I guess once we get going on something, we're hard-headed enough to keep doing it,"Â￾ Clay Matthews Jr. said. "Maybe there's something wrong with us."Â￾

About a year ago, Casey Matthews told his father that he wanted to pursue an N.F.L. career when he finished at Oregon.

"I said, ‘You realize all that entails and the odds of making it, don't you?' "Â￾ Matthews Jr. said.

For a Matthews boy, it's about 1 in 2.

Clay Matthews Sr. played football at Georgia Tech in the late 1940s. The son of the longtime boxing coach at The Citadel, H. L. Matthews, who was known as Matty, Clay Matthews was also a boxer, a wrestler and a diver. He was big for his time â€" about 6 feet 3 inches, 220 pounds.

He was a 25th-round draft choice of the Los Angeles Rams in 1949. Before he heard that news, Matthews was traded to San Francisco. His career was interrupted by the Korean War, and Matthews became a paratrooper for the Army's 82nd Airborne Division. In 1953, he returned to the 49ers for three more seasons.

Matthews grew eager to get on with a business career. He worked up the corporate ladder and eventually became president of Bell & Howell, the camera and projector manufacturer.

His five children (besides Clay Jr. and Bruce, five years younger, the family included a daughter and twin boys) never knew their father as an N.F.L. player. But they knew him as someone who encouraged competition, and often got on the floor to teach wrestling moves or climbed on the diving board to teach dives.

"It was, ‘Go out there and play, give it your best shot,' "Â￾ said Bruce Matthews, now 49 and an offensive assistant coach for the Houston Texans. "That was his main thing: Once you start something, you don't quit it. He goes, ‘If you ever go out there and half-step or give it less than your best effort, I'll come and yank you out.' "Â￾

Clay Matthews Jr., left, and his brother Bruce, the second generation of Matthews, watching the final minutes of a game in 2000.

Casey Matthews played linebacker for Oregon in the national championship game Monday night and will probably be drafted. Speaking from his home in Agoura Hills, Calif., Clay Matthews Jr., 54 and working as an assistant high school coach, recalled similar mantras.

"My dad was very clear,"Â￾ he said. " ‘You guys can do whatever you want, and I'll be proud of you. But whatever you're going to do, apply yourself, be responsible, show up and do it like you mean it.' "Â￾

Football was the sport that grabbed hold. Clay Jr. starred at Southern California. Bruce followed him there. Both became first-round N.F.L. draft picks. Clay Jr. made four Pro Bowls in the 1980s and played 278 N.F.L. games. Bruce made 292 starts, a league record for a nonkicker until Brett Favre broke it this season. He was named to 14 Pro Bowls and was a seven-time first-team All-Pro.

Each married and had large families. Clay and his wife, Leslie, lived in California and had five children: Jennifer, Kyle (Brodie's father, who played safety at Southern California), Brian, Clay and Casey.

Bruce and his wife, Carrie, settled near Houston and had an even larger family â€" seven children â€" Steven, Kevin, Marilyn, Jake, Mike, Luke and Gwen.

Clay Matthews Jr. said that Clay III and Casey are "much better"Â￾ linebackers than he was. Bruce Matthews said that his football-playing boys are more diligent than he was.

"I used to think that was the cool part, to go work out with them,"Â￾ Bruce Matthews said. "Now it's like, I don't want to go work out with them. They work out too hard and lift too much weight."Â￾

For now, it is Clay Matthews III who garners most of the attention. He was a walk-on at Southern California who bulked up and blossomed into a first-round draft choice. Almost instantly, he was one of the league's top players.

"It's fun to continue on this legacy of players that have excelled in the N.F.L.,"Â￾ Matthews III said.

Now he will try to help the Packers win a Super Bowl â€" a championship that has eluded the family over the generations.

Among those who will be watching Saturday night will be Clay Matthews Sr., remarried and living in Sugar Land, Tex., outside Houston. He said he would have to double-check the television schedule.

"I have so many who play,"Â￾ he said, "I'm not sure when the games are going to come on."Â￾
 
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The fact that they have so many white children must enrage the anti-Whites.
 
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