Former Oakland Raiders and Houston Texans punter Shane Lechler announced that he has retired after 18 NFL seasons.
A former Texans teammate of Lechler’s, J.J. Watt, was the first to reveal news as he took to Instagram to post a picture at Lechler’s retirement party. It was later confirmed by NFL Network.
He spent his first 13 seasons with the Raiders organization after being drafted in the fifth round in 2000 out of Texas A&M before finishing out the last five years of his career with the Texans. He last played in 2017 as he sat the 2018 season out after being cut by Houston.
In his time with the Raiders, Lechler missed just two total games while being named a Pro Bowler seven times and All-Pro six times. Along with kicker Sebastian Janikowski, the Raiders were widely known to have the best special teams unit in the NFL for the better part of a decade.
As it currently stands, former Raiders punter Ray Guy is the only punter in NFL history to be enshrined at the NFL Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio.
Lechler is the NFL’s all-time leader in yards per punt and total punting yards though, so he will likely be joining Guy a few years down the road.
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