This isn’t news to the thousands of New Orleans Saints fans who have already preordered his jersey, but Tyrann Mathieu hasn’t made an official decision on which number he’ll be wearing in front of his hometown. He’s spent the summer so far in No. 32, which he’s worn at other stops in the NFL, and it’s got a special meaning to him — add three and two and you’ll get five, representing his grandmother’s Fifth Ward community. He’s said before that he’d like to wear No. 5 outright, and now he’s closer to that opportunity.
Once Mathieu makes that decision final, jerseys will head to the printers and rush out to waiting fans. Choosing NO. 32 instead was a nice compromise with the NFL’s restrictive jersey number rules limiting who could rep single digits, but now that this is behind us Mathieu can finally wear the No. 5 jersey he’s wanted all along (as opposed to the No. 7 he starred in at LSU, which Taysom Hill won’t be eager to give up, having chosen it back in 2016 at BYU to honor his late brother). Well, that would be the case, if Andy Dalton hadn’t taken it sooner.
Now, you’d think it would be easy to tell Dalton to come off that No. 5 so Mathieu’s new jersey can soar to the top of NFL sales charts. But it’s not that easy. Right now there isn’t another number that Dalton, a quarterback, would be eligible for. Everything from Nos. 1 to 19 has already been claimed, with two exceptions that won’t ever be issued again in New Orleans: Archie Manning’s No. 8 and Drew Brees’ No. 9. The Saints haven’t officially retired either jersey, but they’re not in circulation, either. They certainly won’t dust off one of them for circumstances like these.
