Kansas City Chiefs’ Tyrann Mathieu honors the game in own way at Super Bowl media day
Even funneled through Zoom videos because of the pandemic, Monday still was the primary media day for the Super Bowl.
So just as it was for every other participant, the 45 minutes of questions for Chiefs’ safety Tyrann Mathieu came in a random pattern from all over the globe, including via reporters from Brazil and Denmark and Ireland.
Even so, a pattern emerged in Mathieu’s responses:
The man who puts such a premium on being a great teammate, perhaps takes more pride in that than his game itself, reflected a broader love for the game as he gushed over many of the adversaries he’ll face when the Chiefs play Tampa Bay in Super Bowl LV Sunday in Tampa.
Some he’s known forever, like running back Leonard Fournette, who followed Mathieu at St. Augustine High in New Orleans and Louisiana State — where each wore the No. 7 jersey so esteemed in recent LSU history. Fournette was bigger than him back in the day, bigger than he is now, Mathieu said with a laugh, “but at the end of the day he knows I’m the big brother.”
Forty or 50 years from now, he added, they’ll be laughing together reminiscing about this moment.
Then there are those he’s known since being drafted by the Arizona Cardinals in 2013, when current Tampa Bay coach Bruce Arians, offensive coordinator Byron Leftwich, defensive coordinator Todd Bowls, cornerbacks coach Kevin Ross (a Chiefs Hall of Famer) and others now in Tampa were coaching there.
He’ll always remember Arians fondly for being one of the first people to really believe in him, and he smiled as he recalled long talks about the intricacies of football with Leftwich in the sauna. The group, he said, was like father and uncles to him.
And speaking of older men he admires … Mathieu relished speaking about 43-year-old Tampa Bay quarterback Tom Brady.
A skeptic might dismiss that as gamesmanship. But Mathieu was so effusive it would be hard for anyone listening to think it less than sincere.
Asked who the greatest quarterback in the history of the game was, Mathieu said Brady was an “easy answer.”
He called his play “almost like poetry in motion,” noting such nuances as how Brady can move or freeze a defender with his eyes and his uncanny accompanying ability to “always know where to go with the football.”
Moreover, he is inspired by Brady’s consistent excellence, with success upon success upon success along the way to his 10th Super Bowl appearance with six previous victories. In contrast to the idea that “most guys win and they get comfortable” or start “showboating,” Mathieu said, Brady wins … and gets back to work.
Told that Brady had raved about him earlier in the day, including saying “I really love him as a player,” Mathieu called it “a proud moment.”
“I mean, listen, I think that’s why you play the game,” said Mathieu, who intercepted Brady in the Chiefs’ regular-season win at Tampa. “You play the game for respect from your coaches, your team and then also your opponents as well.”
Something Mathieu has earned not just with his play, and all he does off the field, but for how he honors his opponents, too.