New Orleans Saints safety Tyrann Mathieu has been nominated as the Saints’ representative for the Art Rooney Sportsmanship Award.
This is still a relatively new award, being created in 2014. There’s only been 10 award winners and two of them are former Saints players. Drew Brees received the award in 2018, while Teddy Bridgewater was the award’s recipient in 2020. At that time, however, Bridgewater had moved on to the Carolina Panthers.
This award is similar to the Walter Payton Man of the Year award in the sense that it is based on character, not statistics. The criteria for the award is on-field sportsmanship, fair play, respect for the game and opponents and integrity in competition.
Mathieu is one of the Saints biggest leaders and most respected players in the league, so his inclusion here is no surprise. The next step is to be selected by four former players as one of the NFC’s finalists. If he is able to get that far, his fate remains in the hands of active players.