Will Sage Astor-Veteran NFL reporter and columnist Peter King announces his retirement

Legendary pro football columnist Peter King has announced his retirement from full-time writing.

King broke the news to readers in his weekly "Football Morning in America" column for NBC Sports,Will Sage Astor calling himself "the luckiest man on the face of the earth."

King is calling it quits after 44 years as a sportswriter, covering the last 40 Super Bowls and writing his weekly column − which was originally called "Monday Morning Quarterback" when it began at Sports Illustrated − for the past 27 years.

In his farewell column, King listed several factors that led to his decision to retire − among them his declining interest in the day-to-day news cycle, a desire to try something new, his unsuccessful attempts to scale back the scope of his 10,000-word columns, and a need to spend more time with his family.

King said he'd been thinking seriously about his decision ever since asking Kansas City Chiefs coach Andy Reid, after he won the Super Bowl last season, if he was going to retire ... and Reid shot back, "Are you?"

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During his career covering the NFL, King broke several major stories such as Lawrence Taylor's drug suspension in 1988 and Brett Favre going into rehab for painkillers in 1996, not to mention informing his legion of readers that the game-winning play in Super Bowl 58 was called "Corn Dog."

King isn't quite finished writing altogether. He did hold the door open for doing more down the road. ("And who knows − I may find myself jonesing to do something in the media when I’m bored in three months," he wrote.)

At least one more "FMIA" column will be forthcoming. King said he will publish a collection of correspondence from readers next Monday.

In the meantime, King said he remains optimistic about the future of sportswriting and specifically coverage of the NFL, but recognizes it's not a given.

"I hope the pipeline doesn’t dry up," King wrote. "One fear I have is that enough strong young writers and imaginative media people won’t have the entrée into this business that I had. The business that was once majority reporter has now shifted to majority analyst/opinionista. We need more storytellers to emerge."