Defensive back Tyrann Mathieu is a changed man. At least, that's what the former Heisman Trophy finalist wants NFL teams to believe. So when Mathieu arrived at the combine this weekend, he was less worried about excelling on the football field and much more intent on convincing coaches and GMs that he won't be a problem child if and when he arrives at the next level.
Following a turbulent 2012 that saw him dismissed from the LSU football team during the summer for failing a drug test and later arrested in October for marijuana possession, Mathieu realizes he almost completely squandered a chance to better his life through football.
Undoubtedly, his off-the-field troubles last year cast him as a troubled kid who is immature at best and self-absorbed and deeply irresponsible at worst. Mathieu realizes his fall from grace cost him a lot.
"Millions," he said Sunday at the NFL Combine in Indianapolis. "But at the end of the day, I'm not focused on money right now. I just want to start playing football again because my whole life I've been playing for free. So to play for a couple hundred thousand dollars, it's still football to me."
So now comes the test for NFL teams aiming to determine whether investing in Mathieu is misguided. If you need a detailed look into why teams might be scared away, visit this Sports Illustrated story from last fall, which not only delivers details of Mathieu's father being imprisoned as a convicted murderer when he was a toddler but also reveals the trappings of the social circles Mathieu found himself in.
Here's a short excerpt:
Late in high school Tyrann and his friends formed a crew called Era Nation, made up of a dozen self-described athletes, rappers and songwriters. Era Nation remained part of Mathieu's life after he moved to LSU, and he stayed tight with the group even as he became nationally famous. Mathieu felt so strongly about Era Nation that Era was part of the handle on his Twitter account (@TM7_Era), which he recently shut down.
Over the last year Mathieu has appeared with his Era Nation buddies in multiple videos online that show them at clubs partying. In another video Mathieu wears a shirt that says, HERE'S TO FEELIN' GOOD ALL THE TIME. One Era Nation member who appears in many of the videos with Mathieu, Samuel Brooks, a rapper who goes by the name of Yung Soop, told SI about Mathieu's marijuana use: "It was a recreational thing. I don't believe he's addicted." Brooks, who was arrested in December 2010 for battery against his mother and later pleaded guilty to a charge of criminal damage, has also tweeted about producing Honey Badger T-shirts. Cordova says that Era Nation has been using Mathieu's celebrity to advance its own agenda. "When Tyrann started doing well, Brooks went around telling people, 'I don't have to do nothing now,' " Cordova says. " 'Tyrann's going to put me on when he goes to the league.' "
