As Chiefs’ Tyrann Mathieu returns to New Orleans, he stands at pinnacle of NFL career
To take you “way, way, way back,” as Chiefs safety Tyrann Mathieu put it on Thursday, in 2013 the then-Arizona Cardinal plucked the first interception of his NFL career when last he played in his hometown of New Orleans.
Even on a day he remembered his emotions surging, even on a day he had 10 tackles and a pick in the end zone off future Pro Football Hall of Fame quarterback Drew Brees, Mathieu was more conscious of the plays on which he was beaten in a 31-7 loss than he was of being presented a ball to commemorate the moment.
“It’s just a regular football. We lost,” he said after the game, according to NOLA.com. “It doesn’t mean anything.”
As it happens, though, it has plenty of meaning in a broader context:
As Mathieu and the Chiefs (12-1) prepare to play the Saints (10-3) on Sunday in the Superdome, that flashback stands for a glimpse of so much more ahead for Mathieu as he seeks to emerge triumphant on just his second NFL trip home.
“This time around, hopefully I can make enough plays to kind of help my team win,” he said Wednesday.
If his recent trend (four interceptions in the last three games) and typical embrace of the big moment are any indication, you can pretty much count on that.
Moreover, you might also expect that because at age 28 Mathieu seems in the prime of his career and getting better yet.
Not just because he already has a personal season-best six interceptions and is second on the team in tackles but also because of what he continues to summon forth around him.
And ever since, too.
“He’s a safety valve for me, no pun intended,” Spagnuolo said Wednesday.
That’s because Mathieu is such a perfect blend of “cerebral” and impassioned. He’s the consummate teammate and the guy who does so many little things, Spagnuolo said, “that go unnoticed.”
Including on the plays that get noticed, like his most recent interception last Sunday in Miami.
In a sense, that play crystallized everything about Mathieu, a voracious proponent of film study.
That enhances his instincts and hones his ability to anticipate and makes it all seem like a simple knack for it. But it’s not luck or happenstance that he so often arrives in the right place at the right time.
Beyond the endless study and preparation, there is the simple matter of the motor, too.
Case in point, his interception of Tua Tagovailoa minutes before halftime against the Dolphins with the Chiefs trailing 10-7 — a play that Spagnuolo called an “example of what he’s all about.”
With the Dolphins facing third and 7 at their own 37-yard line, Mathieu had man coverage against the tight end and hovered just a few yards off the line of scrimmage. But when the tight end stayed in to block, the man who says his antennae are always up retreated … and was in full sprint by the time Tagovailoa’s pass was coming down around the Chiefs’ 20.
“My natural instinct is to go help one of my buddies,” he said.
So when teammate Rashad Fenton and Miami’s Jakeem Grant jousted for the ball and it “kind of just popped up in the air,” as Mathieu put it, he swooped in for the interception that set in motion the go-ahead touchdown in what would become a 33-27 Chiefs win.
“If he’s not the relentless, playing-fast kind of guy that he is, he doesn’t make that interception because he’s not back there,” Spagnuolo said, later adding, “Instead of just kind of floating to the ball where the ball was thrown, he was humping it and he got the interception.”
He also got up jawing at a Dolphins offensive lineman who piled on late, seemingly the inspiration for this postgame post on Twitter: “If you see me fighting a bear, help the bear. #EveryPlayCount.”
Not that Mathieu actually would fight a bear, considering that just the night before he was recognized by PETA for efforts on its behalf ... including last year spending 20 minutes in a freezer to illustrate the dangers of leaving dogs outside in the winter.
In fact, he was only too happy to take up in their defense.
“Defending is my kind of my thing, after all,” he said Saturday night. “PETA, thank you for this honor.”
Just another one hauled in this year by Mathieu, who a year ago was insistent that he had dropped eight interceptions along the way.
Loosely defined as some of those drops might have been, it said something important about him that he sets the standard so high and keeps grasping for it.
It says something more that he’s somehow coming closer to reaching it, year by year.
When he was asked Sunday after the game about the difference between purported drops last season and his recent streak, Mathieu laughed and said, “Just trying to look it in, man.”
Same as he’ll try to do on Sunday and seems to with all his opportunities these days, both at the peak of his career and yet seemingly with so much ahead as he goes back to where he started.