It's heartening to know that Tyrann Mathieu maintains a good relationship with the Kansas City Chiefs these days, because it's also clear that it could have easily gone another way. Following the end of his three-year tenure with the team, Mathieu could easily be cold toward the team that slighted him after such an excellent run leading a championship-caliber secondary.
Of course, Mathieu is not uninformed about the calculated side of the business. The NFL is often described as an acronym for "not for long" since players are constantly discarded every year before contracts are up. Teams aren't going to reward players for what they did in the past, and making tough calls in the face of emotions are part and parcel of the general manager's role.
For three years, Mathieu was the unquestioned leader of the Chiefs defense, a unit that came together in 2019 under then-new coordinator Steve Spagnuolo. The Chiefs recruited Mathieu to lead his unit, knowing that his versatility, skill set, and leadership were all going to allow Spags to piece together his vision for the defensive backfield.
During that stint, from 2019-21, Mathieu became the heart and soul of the Chiefs' defense. He was a strong civic leader, a well-respected teammate, and a dynamic performer on the field. He made two Pro Bowls and two All-Pro teams in three seasons, and Mathieu and company helped deliver the first Super Bowl in 50 seasons for Chiefs Kingdom.
But in 2021, something shifted. The Chiefs decided to move on from Mathieu, which came as a shock to a player who envisioned himself in Kansas City for the duration of his career. On a recent episode of NFL Spotlight with Ari Meirov, Mathieu opened up about his NFL journey and those chapters before and after K.C. To hear Mathieu tell the story, the Chiefs never even made him an offer to return at any price.
Tyrann Mathieu's look back at how and why he left the Kansas City Chiefs is a revealing look back at a sorrowful chapter for the former safety.
“I was definitely surprised, man, because I was giving my all to that community and to my team," said Mathieu. "We won a lot of games. I played really well, so for them not to even offer me anything like that—it wasn’t reflective of our relationship. That was one of those moments where this is the cold part of the business."
In that offseason, the Chiefs made the switch to Justin Reid, who they signed on a three-year deal in free agency. Reid was in his mid-twenties, five years younger than Mathieu, and was just coming off of his rookie deal with the Houston Texans. But Mathieu said he was waiting well into free agency for only the Chiefs to call him.
"I was trying to just stick around and wait. I literally would not take any calls from any teams. I was literally going to sit and wait for the Chiefs to come back, and they never did, you know? Then, obviously, they signed Justin Reid, you know. So it was kind of like the writing on the wall for me."
Mathieu went on to detail the impact that such a shocking development made on him. Even as he found a new deal in free agency with the New Orleans Saints, which gave him a chance to return to his home of Louisiana, the safety says he was still sorting through the emotions of the rejection and resulting changes.
"But yeah, man, that really did bother me. It stuck with me for almost a year. When I first signed with the Saints, I missed the first seven or eight days of camp. Nobody knew where I was. The Saints knew where I was, but that was me looking in the mirror, saying, ‘What is going on? What did I do wrong?’
"I shouldered a lot of that because I just couldn’t understand it. I didn’t know why. Obviously, I was happy to be able to come back home and play for my hometown team, but in the very same breath, I never thought I was going to leave Kansas City. That really bothered me for a while. It took me a while to get over that.”
Fortunately, it's all water under the bridge for both parties. Mathieu has spoken highly of the Chiefs on his own podcast or in interviews since then. Andy Reid praised him as a player this summer and said he'd be a "tremendous" coach, if Mathieu decided to go that route. Perhaps someday Mathieu will even become a member of the Chiefs Ring of Honor.