Peter Henry Metzelaars (born May 24, 1960) is a former

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...

tight end The tight end (TE) is a position in American football, arena football, and Canadian football, on the offense. The tight end is often a hybrid position with the characteristics and roles of both an offensive lineman and a wide receiver. Like ...

who played for the

Seattle Seahawks The Seattle Seahawks are a professional American football team based in Seattle. The Seahawks compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) West, which they rejoined in 2002 as ...

Buffalo Bills The Buffalo Bills are a professional American football team based in the Buffalo metropolitan area. The Bills compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) East division. ...

Carolina Panthers The Carolina Panthers are a professional American football team based in Charlotte, North Carolina. The Panthers compete in the National Football League (NFL), as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) South division. T ...

, and

Detroit Lions The Detroit Lions are a professional American football team based in Detroit. The Lions compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) North Division. The team play their home games at Ford ...

in a sixteen-year career in the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...

. Following his playing career, Metzelaars became a coach.

High school and college

Metzelaars played high school football at

Portage Central High School Portage Central High School (PCHS) is a high school in Portage, Michigan. History The high school has resided in 3 separate building over its history. History 1922-1949 The building of the original high school building was completed in 1922 as Po ...

Portage, Michigan Portage is a city in Kalamazoo County, Michigan, Kalamazoo County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 46,292 in the United States Census, 2010, 2010 census. It is the smaller of the two main cities included in the Kalamazoo–Por ...

, and played college football at

Wabash College Wabash College is a private liberal arts men's college in Crawfordsville, Indiana. Founded in 1832 by several Dartmouth College graduates and Midwestern leaders, it enrolls nearly 900 students. The college offers an undergraduate liberal arts cur ...

, graduating from Wabash in 1982. While at Wabash, he played for an undefeated football team, while also leading the basketball team to the NCAA Division III national championship as a senior and being named the tournament's Most Outstanding Player. During his senior year, he earned

Academic All-American The Academic All-America program is a student-athlete recognition program. The program selects an honorary sports team composed of the most outstanding student-athletes of a specific season for positions in various sports—who in turn are giv ...

honors In football, he was coached by

Stan Parrish Stanley Paul Parrish (September 20, 1946 – April 3, 2022) was an American football coach and player. He was the head coach at Ball State University from 2009 to 2010. Parrish was previously the head coach at Wabash College, Kansas State and M ...

and in basketball coached by legendary basketball coach Mac Petty.

NFL career

Metzelaars was taken in the 3rd round with the 75th pick by

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

in the

1982 NFL Draft The 1982 NFL draft was the procedure by which National Football League teams selected amateur college football players. It is officially known as the NFL Annual Player Selection Meeting. The draft was held April 27–28, 1982, at the New York She ...

. He played for three seasons in Seattle before being traded to the Bills in 1985. When

Jim Kelly James Edward Kelly (born February 14, 1960) is a former American football quarterback who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 11 seasons with the Buffalo Bills. He also spent two seasons with the Houston Gamblers of the United State ...

joined the Bills in 1986, Metzelaars became a productive part of the offense. He played with the Bills in their 4

Super Bowl The Super Bowl is the annual final playoff game of the National Football League (NFL) to determine the league champion. It has served as the final game of every NFL season since 1966, replacing the NFL Championship Game. Since 2022, the game ...

losses from 1990 to 1993, and scored a touchdown in

Super Bowl XXVI Super Bowl XXVI was an American football game between the National Football Conference (NFC) champion Washington Redskins and the American Football Conference (AFC) champion Buffalo Bills to decide the National Football League (NFL) champion ...

. Metzelaars' best season was in 1993, when he caught 68 passes for 609 yards and 4 touchdowns. Metzelaars was not re-signed by the Bills after the 1994 season. He then signed a three-year, $2.4 million deal with the

. He caught the first touchdown pass in Carolina franchise history, but only played one season for them. He finished his career by playing two seasons for the

, starting in 17 of the 31 games he appeared in while splitting time with David Sloan. The Lions offensive coordinator in 1996 was Tom Moore. Metzelaars would go on to work alongside Moore later in their careers. Metzelaars finished his 16 NFL seasons with 383 receptions for 3,686 yards and 29

touchdown A touchdown (abbreviated as TD) is a scoring play in gridiron football. Whether running, passing, returning a kickoff or punt, or recovering a turnover, a team scores a touchdown by advancing the ball into the opponent's end zone. In Ameri ...

s in 235 games. At the time of his retirement, his 235 games were the most ever played by a tight end in NFL history.

Coaching

After retiring, Metzelaars moved into the coaching ranks as the

offensive coordinator An offensive coordinator is a member of the coaching staff of an American football or Canadian football team who is in charge of the team's offense. Generally, along with the defensive coordinator and the special teams coordinator, this coach re ...

Charlotte Christian School Charlotte Christian School is a private, college preparatory, non-denominational Christian school for grades K–12. It is located in Charlotte, North Carolina. History In 1950, D.L. Pointdexter McClenny began a ministry at Calvary Presb ...

from 1998 to 2002. In 2003, Metzelaars joined

Wingate University Wingate University is a private Baptist university with campuses in Wingate, Charlotte, and Hendersonville, North Carolina. It is affiliated with the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina (Southern Baptist Convention). The university enroll ...

as an assistant offensive coach but also coached in

NFL Europe NFL Europe League (simply called NFL Europe and known in its final season as NFL Europa League) was a professional American football league that functioned as the developmental minor league of the National Football League (NFL). Originally f ...

with

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during the off-season. He also was an intern with the

Indianapolis Colts The Indianapolis Colts are a professional American football team based in Indianapolis. The Colts compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) South division. Since the 2008 ...

during their 2003 training camp, assisting with the tight ends under

Tom Moore. In 2004, Metzelaars joined the Colts staff full-time as the offensive quality control coach. After reaching four Super Bowls with the

as a player, he finally won a

ring Ring may refer to: * Ring (jewellery), a round band, usually made of metal, worn as ornamental jewelry * To make a sound with a bell, and the sound made by a bell :(hence) to initiate a telephone connection Arts, entertainment and media Film and ...

with the Colts' triumph in

Super Bowl XLI Super Bowl XLI was an American football game played between the American Football Conference (AFC) champion Indianapolis Colts and the National Football Conference (NFC) champion Chicago Bears to decide the National Football League (NFL) champio ...

. In 2012, Metzelaars joined the Buffalo Bills staff full-time as the tight ends coach. He, along with the entire Bills coaching staff, was dismissed on December 31, 2012. On January 24, 2014 Metzelaars became tight ends coach for the

San Diego Chargers The San Diego Chargers were a professional American football team that played in San Diego from 1961 until the end of the 2016 season, before relocating to Los Angeles, where the franchise had played its inaugural 1960 season. The team is now ...

, replacing Jason Michael who left to be offensive coordinator for the

Tennessee Titans The Tennessee Titans are a professional American football team based in Nashville, Tennessee. The Titans compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the American Football Conference (AFC) South division, and play their h ...

. He was reunited with former Buffalo Bills teammate

Frank Reich Frank Michael Reich Jr. (; ; born December 4, 1961) is an American football coach and former quarterback who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 14 seasons, primarily with the Buffalo Bills. He played college football at Maryland a ...

, who was promoted to be the Chargers' new offensive coordinator. In 2018, Metzelaars became the offensive line coach for the

Atlanta Legends The Atlanta Legends were a professional American football franchise based in Atlanta, Georgia, and one of the eight members of the Alliance of American Football (AAF), which played one season from February 2019 to April 2019. They played their h ...

of the newly formed

Alliance of American Football The Alliance of American Football (AAF) was a professional American football minor league. The AAF consisted of eight centrally owned and operated teams in the southern and western United States, seven of which were located in metropolitan are ...

. In 2023 he joined the Helevetic Guards in the European League of football as Special Teams Coordinator and Tight Ends Coach.

Personal life

Metzelaars and his wife, Barbara, have two sons: Anthony and Jonathan. In 2011, Metzelaars was inducted into the Academic All-American Hall of Fame.

References

External links

San Diego Chargers profile
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Metzelaars, Pete 1960 births Living people American football tight ends American men's basketball players Atlanta Legends coaches Buffalo Bills players Buffalo Bills coaches Carolina Panthers players Detroit Lions players High school football coaches in North Carolina Indianapolis Colts coaches People from Portage, Michigan People from Three Rivers, Michigan Players of American football from Michigan San Diego Chargers coaches Seattle Seahawks players Wabash Little Giants basketball players Wabash Little Giants football players Wingate Bulldogs football coaches Ed Block Courage Award recipients European League of Football coaches