ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — On the first day of school, the new kid gets picked on.
Maybe he trips and falls and the class giggles. But the new kid has fortitude. Whatever it means to have mental toughness, the kid has it. He strives to get better and better, gains confidence and in a few weeks is one of the coolest kids in school.
If Broncos rookie Damarri Mathis is not this new kid, he’s lived his story. In his first-ever NFL start, Mathis was picked on by Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert. He drew not one, not two, but four pass interference penalties in the game. The first one or two may have been legit. The third and fourth P.I.'s were so ridiculous, it seemed as if the referees were picking on him, too, for no other reason than he was the new kid.
“Yeah, I felt like that, too, but I don’t let that affect my play,’’ Mathis said this week in a sit-down interview with 9NEWS. “I just keep playing.”
Know how many pass interference penalties Mathis has picked up in his next six starts? None. Zero. It’s not only that you need a short memory to play cornerback, you need mental toughness.
Mentally and physically, they don’t make cornerbacks any tougher than Mathis.
“It was rough,’’ Mathis said of his first start in Los Angeles in relief of the injured Ronald Darby. “We lost so that’s always tough, but as for my individual performance, just knowing a lot of those calls could have gone the other way with my technique. But the main thing was playing hard, being confident in my play and continuing to put that on film.”
The next game against the Jets? There was no picking on Mathis. The Jets won but Mathis more than held his own and he has ever since.
“I want to prove that I fixed it,’’ he said. “That I can come out and play with the best of them and play at a high level coming in as a young guy.”
What pops out about Mathis’ play is he’s a cornerback who likes to tackle. Not all cornerbacks do. Mathis does. Even though he didn’t play a defensive snap in two games earlier this year and got in for only three plays in another, Mathis is the Denver D’s fourth-leading tackler with 48.
“I pride myself in that,’’ Mathis said. “Growing up, I’ve always been a tough kid. That’s what I try to put in my game.’’
Tough kid?
“In Little League I always loved to tackle,’’ he said. “I didn’t even play flag football. I went straight to pads. And that was by my choice.”
He grew up in Lakeland, Fla., the spring training home of Major League Baseball’s Detroit Tigers. Basketball was his first sport – his mom, Hope Hamilton, was a former basketball star who served as his coach in his youth. But he started playing football when he was 8 years old.
“You’ve got Tiger Town there but people know Polk County is big in football,’’ he said.
He spent five years at Pitt, sandwiching his two upperclassmen starting years with a season-missing shoulder injury during the COVID season of 2020. It helped him finish his degree with a double-major in communication and justice.
Projected to go anywhere from the end of the third round to the middle of the fourth, Mathis was selected 10 picks into the fourth round by the Broncos.
“I’m not going to lie -- I was a little surprised,’’ Mathis said of the Broncos’ selection. “I did have a couple meetings with them but I had a couple meetings with a lot of people.’’
His said his biggest adjustment to pro ball has been expanded responsibilities.
“Coming from Pitt we were strictly a man, press quarters team,’’ Mathis said. “Coming here, being able to mix it. Playing off, that was a big adjustment too, but I’m getting it each week.”
The Chiefs are next. The 3-9 Broncos play the 9-3 Kansas City Chiefs today at Empower Field at Mile High. The Chiefs don’t have the best receiver in the league anymore in Tyreek Hill. But they have some good ones in JuJu Smith-Schuster, Marquez Valdes-Scantling and Mecole Hardman.
And as former Broncos cornerback Champ Bailey liked to say when asked which receivers were the toughest to cover – it’s more about the quarterback than it is the receiver. And the Chiefs have the league’s best quarterback in Patrick Mahomes II.
“A real efficient offense,’’ Mathis said. “Arguably one of the best quarterbacks in the league. It’s going to be a challenge and we look to take that challenge. Like you said, they’ve got good receivers but I feel like we’ve got good DBs so it’s going to be an interesting matchup and it’s going to be fun getting after it.”
It’s been a difficult season for the Broncos, who are already assured of a sixth consecutive losing season even though they have five games to play. But Mathis, after a rough first start, has emerged as one of the Broncos' better young players. He’ll play tough again Sunday against the Chiefs, even though the oddsmakers don’t give his team much chance of winning.
“Everybody’s still good, high in spirits,’’ Mathis said. “Every game we go into we expect to win, so that doesn’t change. Every week we approach with the same mindset. We know if we play to the best of our abilities we’re going to come out with the win. It just hasn’t been going in our favor. But we’re still going to do what we need to do to get ready.”
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