I know, I know… it was just a few days ago that I called this trade a catastrophe. In terms of the “Marcus Peters Affair” it was a catastrophe. The trade compensation wasn’t what many fans were hoping for and that’s why we’ve seen and heard so much vitriol since the deal’s details became public. However, there are extenuating circumstances. There always are aren’t there? So let’s get into it… and you’ll see why I now believe this was a positive move for the team.
Marcus Peters was a puzzle that no one in the Kansas City Chiefs organization could solve. In other words, no one could talk to him or reason with him. The head coach tried, the position coach tried, his team mates tried, the owner tried. Now, it’s not that he couldn’t be communicated with. No. It’s worse than that. They’d ask him a question and he’d babble his babble and at the end of the so-called conversation… no one understood him. They literally couldn’t figure him out.
Now, admittedly, there were times that he was completely coherent and his intelligence was obvious… it’s like he had an interview face… that apparently people in the organization weren’t experiencing. So, how do you interpret this babble-speak of his? It’s simple: Marcus Peters wanted out.
It’s not enough that he wanted out… but Peters, if I understand my sources well, would come to the sidelines spouting his own vitriol in F-bombs: for the play call, for the refs calls, for the coach. The problem with that is… it wasn’t just a few isolated incidences. It was commonplace. So much so… that the normal mic-ing-up of players, and sideline camera-work, was no longer possible.
F-bombs? Come on. Who in their right mind puts up with that every day?
So, if you’ve got a guy festering with negativity… who do you think will be influenced by that? The answer to that is… he had his own corral of players on the Chiefs team who backed him up and were beginning to take on his persona. When the coaches noticed that the team was fracturing, and that the younger players were being influenced by him… then in their minds… since they couldn’t reach him through conversations that were unintelligible… then… Peters had to go. In any case, having several of your young players poisoned by one player wasn’t going to work. They began to think that playing the way Peters plays was the way they would play… and that the way Peters acted….
Admittedly, this is coming from a source I have that is close to the Chiefs and witnessed this, so I have no reason to believe that they’d lie to me.
When you consider that the man who drafted him, John Dorsey, in Cleveland, was loaded with draft picks, would not, and could not, come up with more than a 2nd and a 4th, exchanged for a 6th, it communicates loud and clear that every GM in the league was privy to the Peters toxic elements and irrational inner workings that had become so godawful that they were untenable. Even when you think about how the Browns fans would have deified Dorsey for bringing “the” a top CB to play in Cleveland… it’s clear that the blood is on the street… and Peters put it there. Plus, you’ve gotta believe the Chiefs would have loved to pawn Peters off on Dorsey for many reasons.
Here’s an example of how Peters had become so unmanageable: when questioned, Marcus Peters could not say why he was kneeling during the NationaL Anthem. It’s a simple question, but Peters couldn’t say why.
If I can interject my take on that… I’ve taught lots of kids who were what I call, “contrarians.” No matter what I would say in class, they say the opposite. If I asked a question, they’d say the opposite answer that they knew I’d like to hear. Since they had chosen to make their contrary-ness a public issue… I would usually confront them about it in front of the whole class. By the time you’re Marcus Peters age… it’s too late. Adding a grown “contrarian” to the Chiefs mix wasn’t going to work. No matter what. If he’d have stayed… he’d have destroyed the team… or any feeling of a “team.”
When only a couple of teams showed interest in Marcus Peters, we should have taken more notice of that. Is he being black-listed? No. I’d say… not yet. However, he could go the way of Colin Kaepernick as soon as one year from now. If he doesn’t respond to the leadership there… the way they think Peters will respond… then he’ll be out on the street and I don’t think Jon Gruden will even take a flyer on him. After all, the Raiders didn’t make a peep to show that they were interested in Peters this time around (not that the Chiefs would have entertained that idea).
Well, here’s another tidbit I heard: the Chiefs are trying to clear the locker room of all the players who were Peters-Patriots. That may include Justin Houston. What’s clear is: the Kansas City Chiefs are cleaning house. Players are either buying into the Reid/Veach/Hunt way… or they’re out the door. I do think that John Dorsey might be interested in Justin Houston. If clearing Houston’s salary from the books to totally re-make this team is what it takes to get everyone on the same page… so be it. You can’t get anything accomplished with a fractured team.
Many fans may complain that Andy Reid and his staff should have been able to get-through to Marcus Peters. The problem there is… what is Reid’s recourse is he can’t. If your the boss down at the local mom-&-pop store, you’re left with nothing to do but fire that employee. If you’re the boss at a chain like Hy-Vee, you might look to transfer the employee. That’s basically what Andy Reid did here. He transferred Peters but in this case… got something back in return (thank God there was that option here). Something the Rams may not be able to get when things go sour in L.A.
Reid has been known as a player’s-coach, one who took hard-to-work-with players and make things work. Note: Michael Vick or Terrell Owens. So, if we now see that Reid has met his match: a player who he can’t “fix”… is that Andy Reid’s fault? I don’t think that’s accurate. Sometimes, you have to cut your losses and if that’s what Reid did here, it’s because he’s not Superman and hopefully he finally learned what his limitations are. So, good. But, so what. Now we know he’s not Gandhi either. That does not mean this is Andy Reid’s responsibility. Sometimes… it’s on the player. This is one of those situations.
From a position coach, coaching standpoint, it’s incredibly frustrating to “coach-em-up” to do something like, tackle… which is part of the essentials of playing defense… and then have a player refuse to tackle. When they do that after you’ve gone over it with them several hundred times and they don’t change… you’re done. Yes, Peters was an incredible turnover machine, but that alone does not a good team member make. When the coach goes to drive a point across and that player ignores his repeated requests, any coach would not stand for it. When the coaching-player relationship become adversarial, then a head coach like Andy Reid attempts to step in and bridge the gap. When he can’t and then he considers the history of that player in college, he can’t help but draw conclusions. Not the kind of conclusions that are good.
Earlier in the offseason, Andy Reid was asked if Bob Sutton was going anywhere and he said, “No.” We should have taken that to mean something specific about the Marcus Peters situation. Now, we can see that Andy Reid is going to side with his coach most every time… unless he fires him… which he didn’t. Peters wasn’t cooperating or getting along with Sutton and he was causing friction in that relationship. No way Reid is going to keep Peters and boot Sutton. There were so many times when the offense was a running play to opposite side of the field, and Peters was standing and holding hands with the WR opposite him, until the play was over. What’s worse… Dee Ford running the wrong way, or Marcus Peters doing nothing?
From an article written by Sam Mellinger for the Star called, “The Marcus Peters Experience: The good and the bad and little explanation” he quotes Ron Parker who said of Peters,
“Sometimes you gotta calm him down. Sometimes you gotta let him be himself. Because that’s all he knows. As an individual, that’s all you can ask for. You want guys to be themselves. Sometimes Marcus gets out of hand a little bit, but he does a good job of calming down.”
Seen within the light of his consistently incoherent sideline behavior, the phrase “Sometime Marcus gets out of hand a little bit” becomes more of an apology by Parker for Peters standard M.O. with no one to blame but himself. I know from teaching for years that, if you allow a behavior to go on year after year, that becomes a person’s permanent way of doing things and their fate is sealed. By the way, Ron Parker is also rumored to be on the “must-trade” list by the Chiefs.
Note: I can also see now that the early release of Derrick Johnson was a favor to him so that he didn’t have to be associated with all this “house-cleaning” that looks so negative, at least from the fans perspective. I maintain that DJ has always been a positive force and influence on and off the field for the Chiefs.
As you take into account all the public displays of what we’ve called “passion” — like punting the ball into the stands or throwing a refs flag or taunting opponents by wagging his finger at them or grabbing a ref by the shirt — and add those to his, previously unknown sideline antics and venom, we come closer to getting a realistic picture of what was happening on this team. It’s then too, that you realize that Marcus Peters could NOT control his own emotions. I know a lot of people who have had big problems in this life because they couldn’t control their emotions. It’s a serious-serious personal problem… but in this case it alienated many in the Chiefs organization. When you step back away from the team… and take all of this into consideration… it’s more evident than ever… the Marcus Peters trade was a positive move for the Kansas City Chiefs.
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