As former LSU defensive back/kick returner Tyrann Mathieu prepares for his crack at the NFL, teams want to know if he’s off pot.
“They bring it up constantly,” Mathieu told Bobby Hebert and Deke Bellavia of WWL, via SportsRadioInterviews.com. “It’s really about, they ask me, ‘Why couldn’t you stop and why didn’t you want to stop?’ . . . Those are the toughest ones. Those are the ones that you have to be most honest about. For me, the same thing I just told you, I didn’t want to stop. I just didn’t want to reach out for help. I thought what I was doing was OK, but it’s not.”
Teams are asking the question because teams can’t afford to waste a draft pick on a guy who can’t or won’t choose football over marijuana. Mathieu has a track record of doing the opposite.
We’ve constantly heard over the years that most teams generally don’t care about players smoking marijuana. Teams specifically care about players smoking marijuana when getting caught smoking marijuana will get them suspended.
Unlike performance-enhancing drugs, to which the NFL applies a one-strike attitude, players can test positive for marijuana multiple times before being suspended. When faced with the reality that one more positive will trigger a suspension, that’s when players need to clearly and unequivocally choose football.
Mathieu is doing everything he can to persuade people he’s choosing football. The question is whether a team will trust him.