“If I couldn’t find a house in Mandeville, I wouldn’t have come home.”
Tyrann Mathieu leans forward at his desk, elbows set. The words come out with a calm intensity—the kind that makes opposing quarterbacks flinch. Silent, then sudden.
“Because, you know,” he continues, “I was doing well. I had overcome all my setbacks and adversities. But I'm conscious that, at any given moment, it could flip. A long time ago, I realized there are things I can’t control, but some I can.”
“Growing up in New Orleans,” he adds, “we never came out here unless I had a baseball game. But I always thought, ‘If I make it, I’ll live in Mandeville.’”
A Sanctuary Fit for a Saint
Tyrann’s meteoric career is familiar to fans: the rise, the redemption, the return.
But few see the man behind the myth—the version not caught on camera. The father hanging out with his kids. The pool player lining up shots with his uncle. The adrenaline junkie tearing down the Tchefuncte River, pushing 80 on a jet ski like it’s nothing.
Blink and you’ll miss the side street to Tyrann’s home—a narrow path swallowed by swamp and cypress trees. The house sits deep in Beau Chêne, past the gravel, past the gators.
The road dead-ends at an ivy-covered gate, and when it opens, the house emerges like a Louisiana secret—more sanctuary than status symbol. A place to disappear when the world won’t let you. Here, the noise fades. The game slows down. And that’s just how Tyrann likes it.
“I feel like I’m on my own little island,” he says. “Once you leave that gate, it’s chaos. But in here? It’s peace.”
Walk through the door and it’s clear that an NFL star lives here. Soaring ceilings. Football memorabilia. The kind of space you’d expect from a legend who once answered to “Honey Badger.”
“That was my sophomore year when the Honey Badger name stuck,” Tyrann says. “But the year before, my nickname was Tyrannosaurus Rex. And I just couldn’t understand how I went from one of the baddest creatures in the world to a honey badger.”
Now in his third season with the Saints, Tyrann remains one of the league’s most instinctive safeties—Super Bowl champ, three-time Pro Bowler, two-time All-Pro. A decade in, and he’s still playing like he sees the field in slow motion.
But that’s not the story the house tells. The real throughline?
“It’s about love,” Tyrann says. “I open up my house to family—uncles, cousins. If anybody needs a place to stay, they stay here. I’ve got more than enough room for them.”
Birthday dinners. Backyard cookouts. Late-night laughs that spill into morning. This is where it all happens.
“My brothers are in the back right now. And my Daddy,” Tyrann says, “he’s here too. He was down 30 years. Just got released—October 5th, 2023. He’s home now.”
I ask how his father’s doing.
“He had cancer—beat the prostate part. But it started leaking into his lungs.”
The sentence just sits there. No spin. No softening. Just truth.
“Growing up, I heard a lot of stories about my biological father,” Tyrann says. “Just how good in sports he was. I was always trying to be like him, one-up him even, because he was famous, especially in the neighborhood. Everybody knew him—called him by his nickname and stuff. I just wanted him to know, ‘Your son is out here doing something.’”
The Quiet Power of a Grandmother
Tyrann leads us through his home, past photos of friends and family—some living, some lost too soon. Mid-staircase, one portrait hangs above the rest.
“That’s my favorite,” he says.
The woman in the portrait, his grandmother, never had a driver’s license or a job. She lived in a shotgun double, supported by the government.
“She didn’t have much,” he says. “But man, she had respect. Everybody loved her. I used to wonder, ‘Why do people listen to her like that?’”
It wasn’t what she had, Tyrann later learned—it’s what she gave.
“As I got older,” he says, “I realized people respected her because she was always willing to give a hand.”
Upstairs, beside a wall of sneakers, Tyrann reveals a tattoo of his grandmother, inked to his ribs.
“Grams takes the cake,” he says. “She’s one of my biggest heroes. I hope I got that from her—just always willing to help.”
Her influence wasn’t just emotional. It was spiritual.
“I was blessed,” he says. “I like to think I grew up in church. My family was Catholic, but my best friends were Baptist, so I kind of had the best of both worlds. I’d go to Catholic church then Baptist—and that was like a party.”
Tyrann didn’t grow up in one place. Born in the 5th Ward, raised mostly in the 7th, with stretches out in the East—his childhood moved like a survival map through New Orleans. “I didn’t have a traditional childhood,” he says. “I didn't grow up with my mom.”
He lived with his grandparents during his early years, then life shifted again. When Tyrann was five, his grandfather died, and his grandmother sent him to live with his aunt and uncle.
“That was probably the best decision she ever made,” he says. “She saw thirty years into the future. She was a prophet.”
“I’ve always had faith to lean on,” he says. “I remember leaving my grandmother’s house—how much I cried. Even though I knew it was probably better for me. She told me, ‘Just keep the faith. It’s going to work out.’”
Tyrann still carries that faith. A gift passed down to him like a handoff in traffic, clean and quiet, but everything riding on it.
“When I don’t know what else to do,” he says, “I know I can do that—keep the faith.”
From the 7th Ward to the Superdome
Stability came with routine. Tyrann’s aunt was a nurse and his uncle drove for UPS. Their kids played sports. There were bedtimes, calendars, practices. Around then—five, maybe six—he scored his first touchdown.
“I felt like that’s what I was supposed to be doing,” he says. “First time I touched the ball, it was a touchdown. I’ll never forget that, man.”
There’s no bitterness in how he talks about childhood—just fuel. Whatever was missing Tyrann replaced with momentum.
By LSU, that fuel had turned to fire. He wasn’t the biggest player on the field, but Tyrann always found the ball—stripping it, chasing it, flipping momentum with a solid hit or a timely return.
He wasn’t just a New Orleans kid with something to prove anymore. He was national. A viral clip. A walking highlight. At nineteen, he was on Heisman watch lists. At twenty, on the cover of Sports Illustrated.
Fame moved fast. Pressure hit harder. But Tyrann didn’t fold—he recalibrated.
The Long Work of Becoming
“If you tackled me today,” I ask, mostly joking, “where would I feel it tomorrow?”
“In your neck,” he says, deadpan. “People don’t know how physical football is. You play knowing you won’t move right for a week, but I still love it.”
The hits don’t just come on Sundays. They pile up quietly, Monday to Saturday. Film study. Weight sessions. Recovery. Repeat. It’s not glamorous. It’s not viral. It’s work. The long, unflashy kind that makes people think it comes easy.
But not all recovery was physical. His mental work started the day everything collapsed.
“From therapy to yoga, meditation,” Tyrann says. “You name it, I’ve tried it. When I got kicked out of LSU, nobody was more heartbroken than me. I was depressed.”
Walking back to his apartment after meeting with Les Miles, he saw half the team waiting, some in tears.
“That’s when it hit me,” he recounts. “I must’ve been a good dude. A good teammate.”
Asked how he didn’t let that experience break him, Tyrann shrugs.
“I just knew what I wanted. I didn’t want my family to struggle. I wanted them to see more than New Orleans.”
Tyrann wasn’t broken—just in need of better tools. One therapist, an 80-year-old woman in Arizona, helped him see that.
“What did she give you?” I ask.
“Perspective,” he says. “I’ve carried survivor’s guilt my whole life. I’ve had it better than most of my family. I brought that weight with me, but she reminded me—‘Your life isn’t that heavy.’”
A Legacy of Love
These days, Tyrann splits his time between grinding in the gym and pouring into the next generation through his Heart of a Badger Youth Camp.
He’s still chasing a Super Bowl victory in New Orleans. But the bigger dream?
“I’d love to win another championship,” he says. “But more than that, I want to leave the kids something they can hold on to.”
He pulls out his phone. “You’re the first to see this,” he says.
On the screen is a 3D rendering of the upcoming neighborhood complex he has slated for the heart of the 7th Ward—right off St. Bernard Avenue, blocks from where he used to play ball as a kid. The center will be a hub for youth and community. Tutoring. Tech labs. Green rooms. A pool where kids can learn to swim. A place to belong, to thrive.
“This is what I’ve been working on,” he says. “One of the big reasons I came home.”
The name’s still undecided—maybe the Mathieu Family Center—but the mission is set: a legacy of love.
His annual summer camp is evolving too, a full-day experience now with high school 7-on-7 games, water slides, and a back-to-school giveaway. “A whole day of fun,” he says, grinning. “I always look forward to that.”
Asked what message he has for kids, Tyrann lights up.
“‘Figure out what you want,’” he says. “Most of us don’t stop long enough to ask ourselves that. ‘Then find a mentor.’ That’s the step too many skip. But mentors save you time, mistakes. And asking for help? That’s not weakness. That’s wisdom.”
Return of the King
Tyrann’s house holds all of it. The wins. The scars. The parts of the story that never made the headlines. Here, behind quiet gates and shaded streets, the man once known as “Honey Badger” is evolving into something greater. Not just a name. Not just a stat line. But a legacy in motion.
“He’s never been the dude to say, ‘Hey, good game,’” Tyrann says of his biological father. “But he’s always been the guy to say, ‘Man, you’re a good father.’”
And maybe that’s what this season is about—not the roar of the crowd, but the hard work of becoming. A son. A father. A foundation. A future.
From Arizona to Houston to Kansas City and finally back to New Orleans by way of Mandeville—Tyrann has returned. Not just to the city, but to himself. The Saint has come full circle—like the haloed chair he’s sitting in when the shutter snaps.
He’s not chasing a name. He’s chasing a legacy. And he’s laying a foundation that all of us can be proud to build on.