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TEMPE, Ariz. -- While the Arizona Cardinals are trying to determine if they should pay versatile Tyrann Mathieu as a safety or a cornerback, Cardinals fans just want to know if the Honey Badger will be ready for the season opener on Sept. 11 against the visiting Patriots. Mathieu, coming off his second torn ACL injury in three years, won't rule out being in the lineup for that prime-time Sunday night game. But he also is realistic just five months removed from surgery.
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"If I'm 90 percent, then I don't necessarily want to go out there," Mathieu said. "But if I'm 100 percent, I definitely want to be out there. I've already shown who I am and what I am, so my main objective is to come back that same person.
"If I can't come back as that same person, maybe I should wait until I am that person again."
Mathieu, 24, has been running and back-peddling at "about 70 percent," he said, with no issues for a while now and is getting ready to start cutting and changing directions. He isn't participating in OTAs and it remains unclear how much he will be able to do when training camp opens in late July.
By then, however, it's thought he will have agreed to a multi-year contract extension. Negotiations between the team and Mathieu's agent, Tom Condon, have been ongoing and if there's a hangup, it's about whether the Cardinals should pay him like a cornerback or a safety.
The Cardinals consider him a safety and amid reports they might make him the highest-paid one in the league, it likely will net Mathieu more than $10 million per season with up to nearly $25 million in guaranteed money.
"I just want to get paid as a top defender," Mathieu told ESPN. "I don't want to be slotted as a corner or a safety because I'm not Patrick Peterson and I'm not Earl Thomas. I'm kind of different than both of those guys, but I still have the same type of impact on the game as those guys do. I just want to be paid as a top defender and however that looks on paper, that's what I want."
