The Dallas Cowboys drafted guard Zack Martin with the 16th overall pick in the 2014 NFL Draft.
That may not seem like that long ago, but blink and you'll realize that Martin has now been in the league for 10 seasons and he's heading into his 11th. And what a wonderful career it has been so far for the 6-foot-4, 315-pound stone wall out of Notre Dame.
He's played every single snap of his career with the Cowboys, earning nine Pro Bowl appearances and seven All-Pro nods.
He's been great, to say the least, but football is a sport that gets tough to play in your 30s — even for the greats. Martin is only 33, but that's long in the tooth for gritty offensive linemen like him.
Too long in the tooth, though?
IMartin isn't ruling out the possibility that 2024 could be his final season.
“I’m not saying 100 percent, but I think it’s definitely in the realm of possibilities,” Martin told "The Dallas Morning News" when asked about the 2024 season being his last in the league.
It's worth pointing out that Martin's contract does run through the 2025 season with Dallas, but at this juncture of his Hall of Fame career, money likely doesn't matter as much as whether or not his body can hold up for two more seasons.
One has to imagine Dallas' ability (or lack thereof) to make a run at the Super Bowl could also play a role in what Martin decides, but for now, he's clear that he's only focusing on that journey and nothing else.
"And that’s one thing I don’t want to do," he said. "For myself, I don’t want to be thinking, ‘Oh, this is it. This is it.’ I want to stay in the moment, and I want to play the best that I can play at this point and be the best right guard this team needs on a weekly basis. And then after the season, we’ll figure out what’s going on.”
