Anatomy of a Super Bowl Berth: Tyrann Mathieu, the NFL’s great deceiver

How does Tyrann Mathieu able to guess right so often in seemingly impossible situations? It’s a question the Bills should be pondering.

Since the start of the 2019 season, Patriots cornerback J.C. Jackson leads the league in interceptions with 14. Dolphins cornerback Xavien Howard is tied for second with 11, and the guy he’s tied with is Tyrann Mathieu, the Chiefs’ do-it-all defensive back.

Interceptions are an inaccurate barometer of defensive player performance at the best of times, so let’s dive into Mathieu’s charting stats this season: Per Pro Football Focus, he has 40 catches allowed in 60 targets for 515 yards, 233 yards after the catch, two touchdowns, seven interceptions, and an opponent passer rating of 64.9. In 2019, his first season with the Chiefs after signing a three-year, $42 million contract that has turned out to be one of the NFL’s biggest bargains, Mathieu allowed 64 catches on 96 targets for 517 yards, 299 yards after the catch, two touchdowns, four interceptions, and an opponent passer rating of 69.7.

In five years with the Cardinals and one year with the Texans before he became a Chief, Mathieu had allowed 20 touchdowns to 13 picks, and never allowed an opponent passer rating lower than 77.6. In 2018, his one year with the Texans, Mathieu allowed six touchdowns to two interceptions. So, there’s a lot to the partnership between Mathieu and defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo, and Spagnuolo’s staff. Mostly, it’s the trust that Spagnuolo places in Mathieu to improvise after the snap based on his pre-snap diagnosis. It’s made Mathieu the NFL’s best guesser, and an irreplaceable cog in Kansas City’s defense.

“That’s a good point,” Spagnuolo said last week, when asked if he’s worked to have Mathieu do even more in the Chiefs’ defense in Year 2. “I hadn’t thought about it, but I’d probably say yes, that we have gone a little more beyond because there are some things that we do with him now that I don’t recall us doing in prior places. Really that’s because, first and foremost, him from the chin to the hairline, you’re talking about an intelligent football player that loves it. You know that if you feed something to Tyrann, he’s going to get it and he’s going to know why. In the game of football, we lay out all of these plans and you go from Monday to Saturday and into Sunday, but things change so quick on game day.

“The one thing about Tyrann is you can go over to him and say, ‘Let’s tweak this or do that.’ He knows exactly why and he does it. He’s great to have. A guy like that, we all focus on what he does, the stats, gets interceptions, tackles and the whole thing. To me, one of the greatest things about having a guy like that is he makes the other 10 better. I truly believe that he does that with our unit because of the confidence that they have in him and the communication and plays he’s going to make, etc.”

Now, I could take you through why Mathieu is so great with my own blather, but I’ll turn it over to someone who knows a bit more about coverage than I do — Richard Sherman, who had a lot to say about Mathieu on the latest episode of the Cris Collinsworth Podcast featuring Richard Sherman:

“The Landlord is what he calls himself, and what they call him,” Sherman said. “And rightfully so. He plays… and I hate to say it because it’s cliché and simple, and their games are totally different, but the tenacity and speed he plays with is similar to what Budda [Baker] does in Arizona, and what Tyrann used to do in Arizona. The exception [with Mathieu] is in coverage. He is one of the most instinctual and gambling DBs I’ve ever seen, and he’s usually right. I’d compare him to Ed Reed in that regard, except he’s playing more in the box than single-high safety.

“I saw him one time, and I think they were in a hot-to-two — they were in a pressure, so it was a hot-to-two situation. So, he was taking the special route of 3 over. It was his — that was his responsibility. But he saw the quarterback’s eyes to back to the dig [route] of 2, and he fell off and intercepted the dig at 2.”

I wasn’t able to find that specific play, but Mathieu did something very similar against the Raiders in Week 13 last season. Derek Carr is trying to hit tight end Darren Waller. Mathieu is aligned over receiver Tyrell Williams in the defensive right slot, and he carries Williams through the first half of his deep post. Then, Mathieu breaks from that route and jumps the throw to Waller outside.

Then, there was the pick against Baker Mayfield in the divisional round this season, where Mathieu once again deceived the opposing quarterback as a lurk defender. Of course, when Mathieu lurks, it’s at a different level.

“The other day, he was in a hook when he got his interception, and it looked like they were 2 and he was the middle run-through,” Sherman recalled. “He took his run-through — his responsibility — and he saw the quarterback setting up, and the receiver setting up, and he jumped the… it was a seam, but the receiver curled back up. And it’s just remarkable, because these aren’t the way these plays are drawn up. It’s not like, ‘Oh, man, he’s executing at a high level.’ He’s OVER-executing. He’s creating new plays. When you look on the tape, you’re not going to be able to say, ‘Hey, we’re going to get Tyrann out of position,’ because you don’t know what he’s going to do. You don’t know how he’s going to play it.

“And even last year, when we were getting ready to play him [in Super Bowl LIV], our offensive guys were like, ‘Hey, we don’t know how he’s going to play it. We can’t plan around that.”

The Ed Reed comparison is something Mathieu holds dear, as he explained on Wednesday.

“It’s everything. You’re visualizing obviously certain plays that you can make, certain moments. You just try to put yourself in those situations. I think for me, being from Louisiana, I was really able to watch Ed Reed up close in person and he meant a lot for his football team. So, for me it’s all about continuing to motivate myself, continuing to chase greatness, and I think any time you bring up Ed Reed’s name, he’s usually in a company of his own, so he tends to get my heights set really high.”

It may look random and happenstance, but it isn’t. Not by a long shot. If you want to guess right as a defensive back at the NFL level, you’d better have a plan born out of all the film study you can handle.

“I think a lot of it is really based off that,” Mathieu said when asked this week how much of his five picks in his last six games are the result of tape work. “I don’t think a lot of quarterbacks just really throw the ball at me, I think it’s more schematic and trying to find a way to get the receiver open. But once you’re able to kind of diagnose the route concepts and the patterns, I just try to put myself in a position to make a play.”

Tyrann Mathieu makes it sound elemental, but he has a way of diagnosing and demolishing routes that very few other defensive backs can match. Josh Allen and the Bills should be up nights trying to figure out how to counter it.