Grant Mattos

Grant Mattos

Date of birth	(1981-03-12) March 12, 1981
Place of birth	Mountain View, California
Career information
Position(s)	WR
Height	6 ft 2 in (188 cm)
Weight	220 lb (100 kg)
US college	Southern California
Career stats
Playing stats at CBS.com Playing stats at DatabaseFootball.com

Grant Logan Mattos (born March 12, 1981) is known as a former National Football League wide receiver and special teams player who played for 3 different teams over a 4-year career, one of the top receivers for future #1 draft pick and NFL star QB Carson Palmer at USC, and as a major contender who came very close to winning on the twenty-second season of the American television program Survivor: Redemption Island (it is believed either one of then close friend and eventual winner Rob Mariano voting out Natalie Tenerelli instead of Grant at the Final 5, or Ashley not narrowly winning the Final 5 immunity challenge would have led to Grant winning Survivor this season).

He went to Saint Francis High School in Mountain View, CA.

College career

Mattos played college football at the University of Southern California after transferring from Foothill College in Los Altos Hills, California and graduated in 2003. There he played wide receiver for future #1 overall NFL draft pick Carson Palmer who was said on Grant "He has awesome hands and he doesn't drop anything. He's a lot like (ex-USC receiver) Matt Nickels. Only he has more potential. He's bigger and stronger and capable of more." He was also part of the USC Orange Bowl victory in his Senior Season.

Professional career

After college, Mattos played for the San Diego Chargers, followed by the Denver Broncos. Mattos was last signed with the Tennessee Titans. His making it to the NFL at all was a major underdog success story, considering he had not even been initially recruited by a major college. He spent most of his NFL career as a practice squad player, but did also play 6 official games with the Chargers.

Survivor Redemption Island

At the time of Survivor, Mattos worked as a Yoga instructor and listed largemouth bass fishing, surfing, and writing as his hobbies. He admitted to not being a fan of Survivor prior to auditioning in 2010, but became interested after talking with former contestant Natalie Bolton. He would thus enter the show with very limited experienced and knowledge for a typical Survivor contestant.

He quickly became one of the leaders and key strategists of the Ometepe tribe, and formed a close friendship and strong alliance with the eventual winner Rob Mariano, and also had loyal game allies at various points in Matt Elrod (Wyatt Nash), Andrea Boehlke, Ashley Underwood, Phillip Sheppard, and Natalie Tenerelli. His friendly and likeable demeanor made him very popular with both his own tribemates and the opposing Zapatera tribe, but would also make him a large target late in the game, with all others, including his own closest friends and allies, fearing his likeability in a potential jury vote.

The Ometepe tribe hit the merge with the slight numbers advantage, in large part due to Grant's prowess in physical challenges, and then used their numerical edge to wipe out both Matt (back from Redemption Island after an early blindside) and the Zapatera tribe one by one, in order of most threatening to least. The crucial escape came in the final 12 when Grant and Rob were together able to convince an unsuspecting Matt to vote for Steve who he thought the Ometepe tribe was voting out, allowing Grant as the Zapatera tribe's main target to narrowly survive with 5 votes against to Matt's 6. The swing vote was Andrea, who was close with both Matt and Grant, and had considered flipping with Matt to aling with Mike, and her vote against Matt kept Grant in the game and from being sent to Redemption Island. From there he would not again be in serious danger until again very near the end. He would stay loyal to his Ometepe alliance, eliminating his good friend Mike Chiesl 6-5 with his vote instead of Phillip Sheppard next, and contributing to the Pagoning of all the Zapateras. Grant would be warned by both Ralph Kiser and Steve Wright of Rob Mariano's betray of Lex van den Berghe on Survivor All Stars in an attempt to swing him and others from the Ometepe side, and unknowing to Grant would be a foreshadowing of things to come.

He continued to be a challenge force and very strong overall social player, and having reached the final 5 being both a large immunity and jury threat, seemed to have a major possibility of winning the game. However, on Day 35 after Ashley Underwood (Markwood), the intended target, won the Immunity/Reward Challenge, he was blindsided and sent to Redemption Island, as he was deemed by Rob and the other Ometepes as a much bigger threat to win a final jury vote than any of the other remaining 4- Natalie Tenerelli, Phillip Sheppard, Ashley Underwood, or eventual winner Rob Mariano. Rob would cast the deciding vote to eliminate Grant, ultimately voting against Grant instead of against his other closest ally Natalie Tenerelli to decide which was eliminated. Natalie had also been considered by Rob due to her potential girls alliance with Ashley Underwood, but Rob ultimately decided Grant as the much bigger jury and challenge threat of the two, was still the bigger risk to keep, especially not being certain at this point if he could win any hypothetical final that didn't include both Phillip and Natalie. There was major fear too amongst Rob and the whole Ometepe tribe of potentially having 2 out of the 3 biggest jury and challenge threats-Matt Elrod, Mike Chiesl, and Grant, still in the game should Grant stay, and Mike or Matt then win their way back in the upcoming Redemption Island Duel. Grant's challenge prowess was feared by Rob going forward, as he knew he could be in danger of being voted out himself if he did not win the final immunities, especially if Grant the only remaining bigger threat was safe.

Despite the many valid reasons for his vote off, Grant was both shocked and deeply hurt by this turn of events, as he had been Rob's closest friend in the game and a strong and loyal game ally also, and had placed a lot of trust and belief in their alliance and promise to go to the finals together. He also felt he had formed close relationships and bonds with all 4 other remaining Ometepe members, and felt that they owed much of their position as the final people in the game to his efforts in the team challenges early in the game, but all had nonetheless unanimously agreed to vote him out. Rob had made him feel out of any danger that evening before Tribal Council, debating voting out either Phillip or Natalie with Grant, and Grant had thought a final plan was set for Rob, Phillip, and himself to vote out Natalie. However Rob after having already instructed Natalie and Ashley to vote for Grant, and with Grant now voting for Natalie, determined before Tribal Council that he and Phillip would also vote against Grant instead of against Natalie, thus eliminating him.

On Day 36, he had one final chance to get back in and win the game, and competed in the Redemption Island final duel against Andrea Boehlke, Matt Elrod and Mike Chiesl, where he was the first one to fall and became the 5th member of the jury, thus dropping his official final position from 5th to 8th, despite being the 5th last to be voted out of the game. He felt the ride to Ponderosa together with his very good friends Mike and Matt, after all 3 were jointly eliminated from the game, was perhaps the high point of his whole journey, and helped to lift his spirits again the day after having been betrayed and blindsided by Rob and his Ometepe tribe.

Despite the painful betrayal, Grant would be 1 of 8 jury members to vote for Rob Mariano to win the game, feeling like most of the jury that neither Natalie Tenerelli (who received 0 jury votes) or Phillip Sheppard (who received the lone non Rob jury vote) were able to make any real case either during the game, or at Final Tribal Council, to being worthy of the million dollar prize. He was also satisfied enough with Rob's Final Tribal answer that he voted Grant out since he knew he would have lost a jury vote against him, to give him his vote for the million, even if it did not repair the damage to their personal relationship. He was also pleased with Natalie Tenerelli's response that she voted him out instead of voting against Rob or Phillip since he was a huge threat, and very well liked by the jury, but he said to have favored Rob's stronger game play in his vote. His closest personal friends while on Survivor Redemption Island itself were Rob Mariano, Matt Elrod, Mike Chiesl, Andrea Boehlke, and Natalie Tenerelli, and his closest Redemption Island contestant friendships post game have been Matt Elrod (now actor Wyatt Nash), Mike Chiesl, Julie Wolfe, and Natalie Tenerelli.

In a post Survivor interview in 2014 Andrea Boehlke reinforces the certainty that Grant would have easily won a jury vote against anyone from the entire Ometepe tribe, except for possibly Matt due to all of Matt's extra time on Redemption Island with jury members.

Post Survivor

On the Reunion show, Mattos confirmed that following his return from competing in Survivor, he married actress Christina Cox. They now have one daughter named Flynn. She was born on December 30, 2013.

Grant had also ended any further attempts at salvaging his friendship with Rob several months before the Reunion show (but several months after taping of the Survivor season had concluded where they had made an attempt to made it work and stay in contact through telephone and texts for a while), mainly as a result of Grant's inability to emotionally get past being blindsided and betrayed by Rob. Rob had attempted to apologize for hurting Grant's feelings by voting him out at the Reunion, and to make up as friends, but Grant was unreceptive to the idea; saying you have to draw a line in the sand from when the game becomes real life, that you have to make a choice how far you are willing to sacrifice friendship for a million dollars, and that human emotions and friendships become real and genuine on Survivor. Speaking on his overall Survivor experience to reporters he felt he had played a very good overall game, the best game of anyone that season besides Rob, and that it was frusterating and hurt a bit to be so close to getting to the end and winning if he had made it there. He said it was frusterating for him to be denied that achievement by his closest ally in the game and someone he had really trusted, but overall he felt elated, that he had a very well rounded experience, and totally dug it.

Since the filming concluded of Survivor he has continued to be a full-time yoga instructor at Moda Yoga International in Los Angeles.

At the end of April 2015 he moved to Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

External links

• Grant Mattos at NFL.com
• Grant Mattos at TSN
• Grant Mattos biography for Survivor: Redemption Island at CBS.com