re: Name the player who was more exciting than the Honey Badger in the last 40 years

To be fair, I'll give Mathieu the edge over Peterson. main reason was, Peterson was boring to watch on defense most of the game; nobody threw near him. Same with Claiborne, Webster, etc... Mathieu was the most exciting DB because he was such a ballhawk.

Since his latest folly, the shame is the wasted talent. While he was playing, I always thought the shame was that he wasn't big enough to be a linebacker.

There's no arguing that Mathieu made more big plays than Michael Brooks, Trev Faulk or any of our great linebackers. He was someone who disrupted a gameplan, but not someone who opponents gameplanned around (other than "watch out and try not to fumble!").

The couple games we saw Ron Brooks play his spot, it seemed clear the tackles etc were a result of the scheme, if you could find a similar body. The fumbles were all Mathieu.

Kennison, Kinchen, Faulk, Holliday, Skyler Green- all were at least as dangerous as Mathieu as return guys.

Mathieu takes the edge with most, by seeming to create at least one turnover per game on defense.

Somewhere, Dinardo and Tepper must have argued about Mathieu the last couple seasons.
Tepper: see, that's what I meant by drop linebacker!
Dinardo: shut up Lou. You tried putting a big, slow guy there. Mathieu proves you need a quick, fast scatback with the instincts of a linebacker.
Tepper: well, maybe we could have tried Faulk or Herb Tyler...
Dinardo: oh, just shut up

1 kevin faulk

Chad Jones

Alexander the Great