Cardinals ask Tyrann Mathieu to take pay cut

In an interview with NFL.com, Arizona Cardinals safety Tyrann Mathieu revealed that the organization has asked him to take a pay cut. The team has until March 14th to pick up an option in Mathieu’s contract that guarentee’s $19 million over the next two seasons, but it seems like they will be after the safety for a cheaper salary than that.

This comes hot off a cryptic tweet by Mathieu suggesting just as much. While it’s not known if he’ll take the cut or the Cardinals will cave, Mathieu indicates that he thinks he can do well on the open market.

New Orleans Saints players have already started lobbying for Mathieu to come back to his home state of Louisiana. He also has former coordinators in Todd Bowles and James Bettcher coaching in New York if he wanted system familiarity.

Given that the 49ers have more safeties than they know what to do with, and are most likely going to have to offload Eric Reid as a victim of circumstance, a play for Mathieu might not be in the cards.

But if Mathieu becomes available, do the 49ers go add to their already solid group of safeties?