In some ways Manti Te’o finds himself back at the beginning again.

Even after four years in the NFL he returns to a point where there is a need to urgently prove himself. Even after 223 career tackles there are more than ballcarriers for the former high school and college All-America linebacker to wrap his arms around.

In his rookie season of 2013 it was about coming out from under the cloud of the infamous catfishing episode, something he handled with remarkable focus and poise, on and off the field.

Now, it means battling back from a debilitating Achilles tear to regain the form too often interrupted while missing 40 percent of the games played by his former team, the San Diego Chargers.

Which is why the numbers on the free-agent contract he agreed to this week with the New Orleans Saints speak more to opportunity than fluffing up the bank account and real estate holdings.

The most telling figures in the two-year deal for the 2012 Heisman Trophy runner-up are these: Only $600,000 of it is guaranteed, the New Orleans Advocate reported, and Te’o stands to make almost as much — $500,000, in bonuses — if he is on the active roster the entire 16-game regular season.

When your team is coming off a year in which you ranked 31st in scoring defense and 27th in total yardage defense, it is a shot worth taking. If Te’o produces, he can, through incentives, make as much as $5 million over the course of the contract, and the Saints will consider it a bargain given the prevailing rates.

And, if he is unable to, well, the Saints’ gamble doesn’t cost them all that much by NFL standards.

But if you know Te’o, it isn’t the $31,250-a-game carrot that figures to motivate him as much as the opportunity and urgency at hand. It is a chance — perhaps the last one — to show what he is capable of in a business where the average career lasts just under four years and we’re often reminded the league’s initials famously stand for “Not For Long.”

“I think it is a great opportunity for me to come in and compete and to show what I can do,” Te’o told the media in a Thursday conference call to announce the signing. “And I’m just grateful that they believed in me enough to bring me on board.”

Much of that belief likely hinged on his best career showing, the 2015 season, when Mike Nolan, now the Saints’ linebackers coach, held the same position with the Chargers. Back then Te’o led San Diego with 82 tackles as a team co-captain and defensive signal-caller.

But last season he suffered the Achilles injury in the Chargers’ third game and never got back on the field. It was the most severe in a series of perplexing setbacks that have included a stress fracture in his right foot (2013), stress fracture in the left foot (2014) and ankle sprain (2015). These besetting somebody who played in all 51 of Notre Dame’s games in a four-year stay under the Golden Dome.

Thursday Te’o told reporters he has been rehabbing the Achilles since early October but was unsure if he would be ready for organized team activities when they start next month. “It is still something that’s in the works right now,” Te’o said. “Like I said, when I go over there to New Orleans I’ll meet with the training staff and we’ll work hard to make sure that I can come back as soon as possible.”

Getting on the field will be half the battle. The other half will be earning a place in the lineup. The Saints return starting middle linebacker Craig Robertson and made another one, A.J. Klein from the Panthers, a major free-agent acquisition with a three-year, $15 million ($9.4 million guaranteed) contract.

Whether he winds up at the familiar post of middle linebacker or elsewhere, Te’o on Thursday vowed “… to make the best out of it.”

Which is how you have to approach it when you are out to prove yourself once more.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.