NFL Draft 2015: Grading The Kansas City Chiefs

Feb 23, 2015; Indianapolis, IN, USA; Washington Huskies defensive back Marcus Peters catches a pass in a work out drill during the 2015 NFL Combine at Lucas Oil Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Brian Spurlock-USA TODAY Sports

Round 1 – Pick 18 – Marcus Peters – Cornerback – Washington

The Chiefs’ first-round pick caught some people by surprise. That’s not because Peters isn’t a great player and worthy of the number-18 pick. It’s also not because anyone was surprised that the Chiefs drafted a cornerback early. No, the surprise came in the fact that John Dorsey and Andy Reid would invest their top draft pick on a player with noticeable character red flags.

Let’s just be honest here, Peters appears to be a hot head. He’s had outbursts on the field. He’s gotten into it with his coaches. It got bad enough at Washington that despite his incredible talent, he was dismissed from the team. Normally when players are dismissed from the team it’s because the university feels it has to distance itself from a player because of legal issues or NCAA violations. This was not like that. The Washington coaching staff just decided Peters wasn’t worth the headache anymore.

With Peters now being one of our beloved Chiefs, it’s easy to overlook that concern, to convince ourselves that the coach was partly to blame for coming into a new job and throwing his weight around to try and prove a point. Some element of that may be true, but more than anything, coaches want to win and dismissing a talent like Marcus Peters makes that more difficult. So talented or not, Peters’ history has to be a concern when looking ahead to his career in Kansas City.

Now, having said all of that, when you look at Peters strictly as a football talent, he is exactly what the Chiefs needed. I don’t believe there was a single other player on the board that was a better pick for the Chiefs in terms of what he will bring to the field on Sundays. Peters is a physical cornerback that excels in press coverage (what KC primarily runs). He has the best ball skills of all the corners in this draft. Perhaps the best thing that you can say about Peters is that he makes wide receivers miserable. Don’t take my word for it. Go watch a few of his games on draftbreakdown.com. If there were no character concerns with Peters, this pick would be an A+.

So the question then becomes how much do we knock the grade down for the character issues? Do we ignore them all together and just grade his ability on the field? That feels a little bit like sticking your head in the sand to me. Still, I like the KC locker room and coaching staff and trust their ability to get the best out of Peters. So I’m not going to give this pick a bad grade based on his past issues. I’m also not going to ignore them because in my experience, a bad temper does not just go away. People may learn to better control it, but eventually it will resurface.

Pick Grade: B+

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