2013 NFL Draft: Tyrann Mathieu Hopeful NFL Wills Speak With Him at Senior Bowl
By Josh Hill
Tyrann Mathieu has had a wild and insane ride leading up to the 2013 Senior Bowl this upcoming Saturday. But while he’s made decisions in the past that have greatly impacted his life — one of which was declaring for the NFL Draft– right now Mathieu is all about the future and that’s a future he hopes includes the NFL.
He’s not participating in the Senior Bowl on Saturday but he will be attending the practices leading up to it and he’s hoping NFL teams speak with him while he’s there. Mathieu spoke with the Associated Press and said while he’d love to move away from his past as quickly as possible, he’s not expecting anyone to trust him anytime soon.
”I’m not really looking forward to people trusting me today or tomorrow,” Mathieu said. “Trust takes time, especially when you’ve done a lot of things for people not to be able to trust you. It may take two years. It may take five years, it may take until I’m 30 years old for people to start trusting Tyrann again. But the truth is, I’m doing the right things and just looking forward to being a football player.”
Had Mathieu not become involved with drugs, something that got him kicked out of LSU, he may be entering this year’s draft as a first round prospect. However due to the fact he hasn’t played football since August and didn’t play a down of regular season football for the Tigers — or for anyone else — this season, Mathieu’s stock has dropped to that of a mid-round pick.
He sounds like the whole ordeal has changed him, if only slightly. Hopefully this isn’t an act being on for the cameras so NFL teams will be fooled as well. Maybe it’s the soft side of me, the one that remembers Todd Marinovich, Ryan Leaf, Chris Herren, Len Bias or any of the numerous other potentially great athletes who had their careers derailed by drugs, that has me rooting for “Honey Badger”.
Only time will tell if Mathieu has changed his ways, but this is the first the national media is hearing of him in quite some time, and that bodes very well for his recovery.