Tyrann Mathieu to NFL: I’ve Changed
By Mike Dyce
Jan 19, 2013; New Orleans, LA, USA; Former LSU Tigers cornerback Tyrann Mathieu watches courtside during the second half of a game between the New Orleans Hornets and the Golden State Warriors at the New Orleans Arena. The Warriors defeated the Hornets 116-112. Mandatory Credit: Derick E. Hingle-USA TODAY Sports
Tyrann Mathieu missed an entire college season due to off field issues, but that hasn’t stopped him from pursuing his dream of an NFL career. But while teams are skeptical of the “honey badger,” he wants to assure NFL teams that they don’t need to worry about him. Sometimes you have to be humbled to chance and that’s what happened to Tyrann Mathieu.
“It’s just about being humble and taking everything one day at a time and … and embracing the process,” Mathieu said on WWL in New Orleans, via Sports Radio Interviews. “That’s been the biggest thing for me, just about me being honest, me addressing my issues, but also about me wanting to move forward in my professional career and just play football. I think everything’s kind of coming together now. It kind of started off as a big old puzzle, didn’t know what was going to happen, but now I think everything is coming back to life.”
But through that journey he has found out what he wants out of life, and how to go about getting it.
“I think back to my career at LSU, I didn’t want to stay out of trouble. I didn’t want to do the right things. I wanted to get high,” Mathieu said. “Now it’s a different approach; I’m looking at it a different way. It’s not a mind game. It’s really about what I want to do … and how I want my life to be going forward. It’s been a roller coaster, man.”
But the hardest part of the whole experience is NFL teams asking personal questions about his life.
“It’s the marijuana. They bring it up constantly. It’s really about, they ask me: Why couldn’t you stop and why didn’t you want to stop? … Those are the toughest ones. Those are the ones that you have to be most honest about. For me, the same thing I just told you, I didn’t want to stop. I just didn’t want to reach out for help.”
“I thought what I was doing was OK, but it’s not.”