Tyrann Mathieu has not lived up to the five-year, $62.5MM extension he signed with the Cardinals. And the team has now asked the former All-Pro to renegotiate his deal.
During a visit to NFL Network headquarters, Mathieu and his agent confirmed (via Gregg Rosenthal of NFL.com, on Twitter) he’s been asked to take a pay cut. This comes after the Cardinals explored trading Mathieu, Dan Graziano of ESPN.com tweets.
Ian Rapoport of NFL.com notes (via Twitter) this request was likely to mean a significant pay reduction based on what his role on Arizona’s new defense, which will be run by Al Holcomb. Mathieu played each of his five seasons in James Bettcher‘s scheme.
Mathieu said he would be open to a restructure, but an outright pay cut isn’t sitting well with him, per Rosenthal (on Twitter).
Mathieu is slated to count $14.1MM on the Cardinals’ 2018 payroll. The Cards were previously undecided on picking up the $5MM roster bonus due on March 14, and now it looks like they will do if the sixth-year defender accepts a pay decrease. He’s still owed $18.75MM in guarantees. The Cardinals cutting Mathieu would tag them with a $9.3MM dead-money hit.
An All-Pro safety and dynamic slot defender during the 2015 season, Mathieu has struggled to stay healthy during his career. He played in 10 games during the 2016 season, going down after an ACL tear ended his ’15 campaign. Mathieu also suffered a severe knee injury as a rookie. He bounced back to play 16 games last season, but he wasn’t in his best form. Categorizing the Honey Badger as a cornerback, Pro Football Focus slotted him as the No. 61 corner in 2017 in 1,055 snaps.
There’s a reasonable chance Mathieu balks here and becomes a free agent. Set to turn 26 in May, the LSU product would be in line to become a sought-after commodity on the open market and be one of the better members of a deep defensive back contingent set to be available.
Don’t pay them if you don’t got the money!! It would be so easy to know who the real good GMs are in the league if money was guaranteed. Guys out here building hypothetical teams and able to cut them as soon as anything goes wrong. If this were the NBA, good luck ever competing again to teams with injuries or poorly spent money.
They have the money they just don’t think he’s worth it
But they did when they gave him the contract. Live by the money you spend, they shouldn’t get second chances to do contracts like that
If contracts were fully guaranteed either the league would have to raise the cap significantly or use a soft cap/hard cap system (like the NBA does). Keeping a straight hard cap (like the NHL does) would promote more parity in the league, but not many players would make it to a third contract since NFL players tend to have shorter careers. It would also be tougher to do a straight hard cap because injuries combined with fully guaranteed contracts would create cap chaos for teams during the seasonz I agree that the real good GMs would shine at that point as they’d work the cap better. You would likely see AAV of contracts go down (before naturally rising again due to inflation) as well if contracts became fully guaranteed.
See ya later. Budda Baker is Honey Badger 2.0
He needs to work with them. I understand it’s not fair the way NFL can use its players,but ya know what they know this before they start playing and no we’re does it say they have to play. They can take there college degree and do something else. But he needs to know he isn’t getting no where close to 11 million on the open market he has way to much risk. Basically he has played 2 seasons out of 6 it’s crazy. So he should work with them and if they offer him 5 a year run with it.