The point of Tyrann Mathieu, the KC Chiefs safety and agent of change extraordinaire
Del Lee doesn’t remember the first time he saw the man he considers almost like a son do the celebration he’s since made famous. Lee just knows it happened this season, that he laughed, and that he knew exactly what Chiefs safety Tyrann Mathieu meant when he pointed to his head after making a play.
“Too smart,” Lee said. “I just thought, ‘Wow, he’s being vocal about it now.’”
Lee first saw Mathieu play 13 years ago, as a freshman at New Orleans’ St. Augustine High School. Lee was Mathieu’s first coach there and has probably watched Mathieu play more snaps in more places than anyone else on the planet — from junior varsity to varsity to LSU to Arizona to Houston and now Kansas City. Never, not once, had Mathieu ever pointed to his head in celebration.
Now it’s a regular scene, and the reason for it says so much about how Mathieu has become perhaps the single greatest change agent for a Chiefs season that is now one win from the franchise’s first Super Bowl in 50 years.
Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes is the team’s best player, and arguably the league’s best player. But the difference between this team and last year’s is on the defense, the biggest difference between this defense and last year’s is the secondary, and the biggest difference between this secondary and last year’s is Mathieu.
He has effectively rescued a group that a year ago had become beaten down physically, but especially mentally. Fractures existed in their trust, in their confidence. The Chiefs gave Mathieu a $42 million contract in free agency to change that.
He has, and done it not just with play that earned him first-team All-Pro recognition but with such response and command that defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo often uses him to spread messages and knowledge throughout the locker room.
You can see most of what you need to see in one snap from the Chiefs’ AFC Divisional Round win over Houston. One snap that was so nondescript statistically Mathieu earned no official recognition and so outrageous visually that the clip has been viewed more than 1 million times on Twitter.
Mathieu fakes a blitz, drops to his left to cover Texans quarterback Deshaun Watson’s first read, then sprints to his right to cover the second read, then sprints back the other way to force the scramble out of bounds.
You can hear what the Chiefs paid for, and what they built much of their defensive resurgence around, when Mathieu is shown the play this week and asked to describe what he saw.
‘What is he doing? Then, Oh, great job!’
The call was a mix of man and zone coverage, with Mathieu responsible for the area he knew from study would be occupied by tight end Darren Fells, lined up in the slot to Watson’s right.
This is where Mathieu’s brain does a thousand computations in a blink: Fells would likely run one of two routes from that spot, either vertical or sitting down closer to the line of scrimmage.
The pre-snap look set up well for a quick throw, and the B-gap on the offense’s left side was open, so Mathieu lined up there to fake a blitz. At the snap, Mathieu sprints back and to his left toward Fells. When the route went short, Mathieu knew the others would too, so he followed Watson’s eyes to the other side of the field to cover that route, too.
“Spags gives me the ability to show like I’m blitzing sometimes because he believes I can get to my coverage and it won’t affect the play,” Mathieu said. “He lets me disguise. So I just wanted to show (blitz) and really pop out hoping that (Watson) would not see me, thinking it was a blitz.
“That’s why initially I went down to kind of make it seem like nobody was over (Fells). But in reality, I had (Fells) the whole time.”
It’s an absurd load for one man to carry, or at least it would be absurd if Mathieu didn’t carry it so well. He “definitely” wants to coach in college or the NFL when he’s done playing, and thinks experience at different positions is an advantage both now and later.
Mathieu is a gifted athlete, even by NFL standards, but most of his value is in his brain. He’s done this all season, perhaps most notably when film study showed him that a specific formation in a specific part of the field meant he could break off his man’s post route to intercept an out route against the Raiders.
In the playoff game against the Texans, he did the same thing — no interception this time — on a different route combination but similar concept.
“I give him free rein because he feels the game,” Spagnuolo said. “There’s some things during the game, it’s like, ‘What is he doing?’ Then, ‘Oh, great job!’ Because he’s not doing it exactly the way you drew it up, and yet he has a feel and a keen instinct.”
Mathieu has always had that in him. It’s part of why he was a Heisman Trophy finalist as a sophomore at LSU, and how in seven years he’s earned a reputation as one of the NFL’s best safeties.
But he’s never made a habit of being so visible about all of this, with the pointing to his head, usually done as he stares at the opposing team’s sideline — often directly at their offensive coordinator.
“I think it’s the team he’s on,” Lee said. “It’s trusting everybody around him. He feels more relaxed in that team setting to be able to vocalize what it is he wants to do or be.”
That’s part of it. But Mathieu says there’s more.
‘I’m thinking about y’all’
Mathieu’s description of the play took a minute, give or take, a streamlined version of how he came to fake one thing, cover two receivers and then chase the quarterback out of bounds all on one snap. And the words are so matter-of-fact I don’t know how else to respond.
You know that’s not normal, right?
Mathieu laughed, and then explained some more.
“That’s a lot of ball talk, a lot of watching tape,” he said. “I feel every route concept. I can see every route concept, whether I’m playing low or high, because I’ve played all over the field. So throughout the week, I’m not just studying the slot receivers. I’m studying the offensive coordinator.”
The pointing, then, is a message. Yes, he does feel more freedom here than he has in the past, when he was progressing and rehabbing from injuries in Arizona and then in Houston last season on what everyone understood was a bet-on-yourself one-year contract. The bag is secure, as the kids say, and so too, now, is Mathieu’s place.
But the point is about more than financial security. He thinks his style is so unconventional — he can look like a user on a video game the way he covers different spots — that some believe he’s just guessing.
He wants them to know different.
“I take my job serious,” he said. “I’m pretty smart. It’s more just me being more vocal about it, letting people know, letting offensive coordinators know: ‘I’m thinking about y’all that night before when I go to sleep.’ I feel like I’ve played enough football to verbalize that. Before, when I was a younger guy, you’re still seeing new things. I feel like now I have this playbook of things I’ve seen and it’s like ingrained in my memory.”
There is at least one more reason he points to his head. Think about this: You’re on the other side and you’ve watched hours of film and designed an attack to keep up with Mahomes and you have the perfect play for the perfect moment and it’s about to work exactly how you planned ... and then this damned safety leaves his own responsibility to ruin it all.
Then, when it’s over, he turns to you and points to his head?
That has to be the most aggravating sight imaginable.
“Gotta be,” Mathieu said. “But in the (Week 17) Chargers game, I’d turn to do it and everybody on the sideline was doing it back to me. So, you know some of the players like it. Then the coaches are like, ‘Damn.’”
This story was originally published January 17, 2020 at 5:00 AM.