Ohio State Football: What a Career for A.J. Hawk
The former Ohio State linebacker has decided to retire.
After a long and successful career in the NFL, former Ohio State linebacker A.J. Hawk has decided to hang up his cleats. He will retire as a Green Bay Packer, the team he played for 9 of his 11 years in the league.
Hawk was a two-time All-American for Ohio State who made his impact on the football program as a true freshman. Hawk was a key backup on the 2002 BCS National Championship team, and he gave Buckeye fans a preview of coming attractions early on that season.
In just his second game for the Buckeyes, Hawk intercepted a pass and returned it for a touchdown against Kent State. From that point forward it was “Game On”.
He went on to pick off 6 more passes during his Ohio State career while putting up some impressive stats. Hawk recorded 394 tackles with 41 of them for losses, 15.5 sacks and recovered 13 fumbles.
His senior season in 2005, Hawk won the Lombardi Award given to the top linebacker in the country. The following spring, he was chosen by the Green Bay Packers with the 5th pick in the NFL draft.
Hawk had 155 tackles his first year in the league and was named to the Pro Football Writers of America All-Rookie Team. He continued to rack up the numbers for nine seasons in Green Bay. Here are stats as reported by Packers.com:
"Hawk played in 142 of a possible 144 regular-season games with 136 starts in Green Bay, appearing in all 16 contests in eight of his nine seasons with the Packers. In addition to his 1,118 career tackles (798 solo), he registered 19 sacks, nine interceptions, 43 passes defensed, three forced fumbles and five fumble recoveries."
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After a stellar season in 2010, when Hawk registered 134 tackles and had three interceptions, he was invited to the Pro Bowl. He played four more seasons for the Packers before signing with the Cincinnati Bengals in 2015.
He played all 16 games for the Bengals that season but in a limited role. He moved on to Atlanta last year but only appeared in one game for the Falcons.
There comes a point in every player’s career when it’s time to hang up the cleats, but when I heard that A.J. Hawk decided to retire it took me back in time a bit.
You see, it seems like only yesterday I heard about a young athletic linebacker who was making noise in Ohio State’s fall camp and I couldn’t wait to see him play. It only took a couple of games into the 2002 season, when Hawk took that interception in for a score in the Kent State game, to realize what all of the fuss was about.
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That young man from Centerville, Ohio went on to have quite a career didn’t he? He was a member of a National Championship team for Ohio State and a Lombardi Award winner. Then, he was a major contributor on a Super Bowl winning team and became a Pro Bowl player for the Packers. Great job A.J., you lived up to the expectations Buckeye fans had for you, and then some.