Kansas City’s GM, Brett Veach, has been on the job less than a year, but he’s not shy about making big deals. He put together the big Alex Smith trade during Super Bowl week, and now he’s agreed to send one of the game’s best cornerbacks to the Rams. Kansas City won its division last year, but they’re not sitting on their hands.
Marcus Peters at times can be a coaching headache. At the University of Washington, he was first suspended for a game after a sideline tantrum (when the defense was giving up a ton of receiving yards to Cooper Kupp of unheralded Eastern Washington) and later kicked off the team entirely. Last year he was suspended by the league for a game after his late hit against Derek Carr triggered an brawl at Oakland, and sat down by the team after the Jets game, which included him throwing a flag into the stands and walking off the field to the locker room. Peters reportedly also got involved in some kind of heated dispute with an assistant coach prior to that game – the league fined Peters, but the team suspended him.
Peters also is a national anthem protester, and he’s more outlandish in that regard than most of the other players around the league. Prior to a preseason game against Seattle, for example, Peters rode an exercise bike during the anthem. Peters’ social cause intentions might be good, but those kind of actions are more of a liability in conservative Missouri than they will be in liberal California. Kansas City owner Clark Hunt admitted during last season that he had talked to Peters, hoping to convince him to stand for the anthem. That might have contributed to the team being less excited about making a big financial commitment to the player.
But set aside the off-field and behavior issues, and Peters is definitely a special talent with a remarkable ability to get involved in creating turnovers. With superb hands and great timing, he’s one of the best at intercepting passes, and he’s got an uncanny knack for knocking loose balls and coming up with fumbles. In his last game for Kansas City, for example, he nearly swung the playoff loss against the Titans – sneaking off his guy to intercept a pass in the red zone in the first half, and then ripping loose a fumble that was returned for the game-winning touchdown with 2 minutes left (the play was overturned after replays showed Derrick Henry was down just before the ball came loose).
In terms of causing turnovers, Peters is a lot better than any other cornerback in the league. Over the last three years, he’s intercepted 19 passes, caused 5 fumbles and recovered 5 fumbles. That’s 29 impact plays – 8 more than any other defensive back. Peters tends to come up with 2 such plays every three games – over twice as many as every other cornerback in the league except Josh Norman.
The Rams have an aggressive defensive scheme, with a strong pass rush and cornerbacks left in single coverage often, and Peters should fit perfectly in that kind of system. (That’s assuming that the deal doesn’t somehow fall apart – it won’t become official until March 14.) Mostly likely, Peters will look like the strong favorite to lead the league in takeaways in 2018.
Kansas City bolstered its secondary when it picked up Kendall Fuller in the Alex Smith trade, but it probably will be in the market to obtain another good cornerback. That might include bidding on Trumaine Johnson (who’s probably not in the plans of the Rams anymore).
| DEFENSIVE BACKS; TURNOVERS SINCE 2015 | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pos | Player | Tm | G | Int | FR | FF | Tot |
| CB | Marcus Peters, K.C. | K.C. | 45 | 19 | 5 | 5 | 29 |
| SS | Mike Adams, tms | tms | 44 | 9 | 5 | 7 | 21 |
| FS | Reggie Nelson, tms | tms | 48 | 14 | 4 | 2 | 20 |
| CB | Josh Norman, tms | tms | 46 | 7 | 3 | 7 | 17 |
| FS | Glover Quin, Det. | Det. | 48 | 9 | 1 | 6 | 16 |
| FS | Eric Weddle, tms | tms | 45 | 10 | 2 | 3 | 15 |
| DB | Rodney McLeod, tms | tms | 46 | 7 | 3 | 5 | 15 |
| DB | Micah Hyde, tms | tms | 47 | 11 | 4 | 0 | 15 |
| CB | Byron Maxwell, tms | tms | 36 | 5 | 1 | 8 | 14 |
| CB | Trumaine Johnson, LAR | LAR | 44 | 10 | 3 | 1 | 14 |
| CB | Darius Slay, Det. | Det. | 45 | 12 | 1 | 1 | 14 |
| CB | Malcolm Butler, N.E. | N.E. | 48 | 8 | 2 | 4 | 14 |
| S | Malcolm Jenkins, Phil. | Phil. | 48 | 7 | 3 | 4 | 14 |
| CB | Casey Hayward, tms | tms | 48 | 11 | 2 | 1 | 14 |
| FS | Kurt Coleman, Car. | Car. | 42 | 11 | 1 | 1 | 13 |
| CB | Brent Grimes, tms | tms | 44 | 11 | 1 | 1 | 13 |
| CB | Bashaud Breeland, Wash. | Wash. | 44 | 6 | 2 | 5 | 13 |
| CB | Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie, NYG | NYG | 45 | 9 | 1 | 3 | 13 |
| S | Landon Collins, NYG | NYG | 47 | 8 | 3 | 2 | 13 |
| S | Keanu Neal, Atl. | Atl. | 30 | 1 | 3 | 8 | 12 |
| S | Reshad Jones, Mia. | Mia. | 38 | 8 | 4 | 0 | 12 |
| CB | Janoris Jenkins, tms | tms | 39 | 9 | 0 | 3 | 12 |
| FS | Earl Thomas, Sea. | Sea. | 41 | 9 | 1 | 2 | 12 |
| DB | Marcus Williams, tms | tms | 41 | 9 | 1 | 2 | 12 |
| FS | Darian Stewart, Den. | Den. | 47 | 7 | 3 | 2 | 12 |
| FS | Ha Ha Clinton-Dix, G.B. | G.B. | 48 | 10 | 0 | 2 | 12 |
| S | Quintin Demps, tms | tms | 30 | 7 | 2 | 2 | 11 |
| CB | Damarious Randall, G.B. | G.B. | 39 | 10 | 1 | 0 | 11 |
| S | Kenny Vaccaro, N.O. | N.O. | 39 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 11 |
| CB | Desmond Trufant, Atl. | Atl. | 40 | 4 | 5 | 2 | 11 |
| FS | Tyrann Mathieu, Ariz. | Ariz. | 40 | 8 | 0 | 3 | 11 |
| S | D.J. Swearinger, tms | tms | 43 | 7 | 2 | 2 | 11 |
| S | Chris Conte, T.B. | T.B. | 44 | 5 | 1 | 5 | 11 |
| FS | Andre Hal, Hou. | Hou. | 47 | 9 | 0 | 2 | 11 |
| S | Tony Jefferson, tms | tms | 47 | 3 | 2 | 6 | 11 |
| CB | Chris Harris, Den. | Den. | 48 | 6 | 1 | 4 | 11 |
| CB | Ron Parker, K.C. | K.C. | 48 | 6 | 2 | 3 | 11 |
| S | Charles Woodson, Oak. | Oak. | 16 | 5 | 4 | 1 | 10 |
| FS | Kevin Byard, Ten. | Ten. | 32 | 8 | 2 | 0 | 10 |
| CB | Darrelle Revis, tms | tms | 34 | 6 | 4 | 0 | 10 |
| CB | Stephon Gilmore, tms | tms | 40 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 10 |
| DB | Darius Butler, Ind. | Ind. | 41 | 4 | 1 | 5 | 10 |
| SS | Deone Bucannon, Ariz. | Ariz. | 41 | 2 | 3 | 5 | 10 |
| CB | Richard Sherman, Sea. | Sea. | 41 | 8 | 2 | 0 | 10 |
| FS | Harrison Smith, Min. | Min. | 43 | 7 | 2 | 1 | 10 |
| CB | Justin Bethel, Ariz. | Ariz. | 48 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 10 |
| DB | Duron Harmon, N.E. | N.E. | 48 | 8 | 1 | 1 | 10 |
On the above chart, I cobbled it together using the stats available at the Pro Football Reference site. They’ve got a neat tool allowing you to search for stat totals by position across various seasons. I pulled the interception leaders for defensive backs since 2015, and the fumble leaders for the last three years, then blended those two lists together.
—Ian Allan