re: The Honey Badger announces his retirement from pro football

quote:

---

You mean because the Honey Badger confessed that he had flunked at least 10 drug tests at LSU and stayed on the team?

---

For Spice

quote:

---

Undersized, and honestly he never appeared all that athletic to me(he obviously was pretty athletic relatively speaking)

---

I've always thought he could have been a phenomenal boxer, in the lines of Sugar Ray Leonard or Roy Jones Jr.

His hand speed, hand-eye coordination and reaction time were obscenely good. Defensive players come to hit or wrap up a guy. Some players swipe at the ball. Mathieu could punch it free with a clean hit on the ball, and then catch it in mid-air milliseconds later, and he did that pretty frequently. I've never seen that before, not with Lawrence Taylor (fast strong brute) or any other dominant defender. Not like that year he had at LSU.

quote:

---

TM was the type of player that the term ball hawk was coined for.

---

saying that undercuts what he did.

I've been a huge football fan since the early 80's, seen many great players, many of who had bigger pro careers. I've never seen anyone put on a performance like he did in 2011. There are unbelievable plays that would be a highlight on a Hall of Fame career, singular plays that you'd say "I can't believe anyone could do that". Mathieu had about 6 of them in that year

Highly touted Oregon guy runs a kickoff out, Mathieu flashes past him... and scores. Stripped him practically in stride. Strip and score of a QB, I think Kentucky. Again he doesn't really even break stride.
He made insane plays every damn week that year.