Ex-Saints Tyrann Mathieu To Receive Special Honor

The New Orleans Saints lost a key piece this summer as three-time Pro Bowler and three-time All-Pro Tyrann Mathieu surprisingly announced his retirement after 12 seasons in the National Football League.

The last three were as a member of the Saints. His retirement came somewhat as a surprise. The reason for this was that at one point early in the offseason when trade rumors were growing, Mathieu made it clear that he wasn't going to get moved and restructured his deal in order to seemingly make that happen.

But, life happens. Mathieu revealed that the reason why he decided to hang up his cleats was to spend more time around his family.

"Well, I think to be honest, that's been a conversation that I've kind of had really going into the last couple of seasons," Mathieu said. "I think the older I got, the more challenging and harder it became to leave my kids. At first, it was all cool, like I get the weekend off, you know what I mean. But, then once you get to a certain age, once you begin to experience different parts of life, I think priorities shift. I think the thing that meant the most to me at 22, they don't really mean the most to me at 33. I think my kids are a big part of that. It's funny because I think the only one who is kind of upset with me is my daughter. She's like 5..."

Former Saints star Tyrann Mathieu set to be honored by New Orleans