Alex Smith: Marcus Peters suspension “is a hard situation”
By Matt Conner
Alex Smith says the decision to suspend Marcus Peters presents the Kansas City Chiefs with a hard situation but that the team’s leaders know what they have to do.
The Kansas City Chiefs have a tough task ahead of them. In the midst of a three-way tie atop the AFC West, every game from here on out counts. For a team that’s also lost six of their last seven games, they need a single win to even stop the bleeding.
Enter the Oakland Raiders, coming into town with hopes of not only sweeping the Chiefs in the season series but giving themselves a leg up in the playoff race. There’s no way to lessen the importance of this game for both sides, with the victor likely on the outside of the postseason looking in with only three games to go.
The Chiefs’ battle is going to be even more difficult considering that head coach Andy Reid made the decision to suspend Marcus Peters, the team’s best pass defender and Pro Bowl cornerback, after a dramatic outburst last week. Peters was frustrated by the officiating at the end of the team’s loss to the New York Jets in Week 13 and threw an official’s flag into the stands. Consequently he also left the field under the pretense that he’d been ejected, and even when that wasn’t true, he returned without socks, which the lack of a proper uniform kept him from even returning to the field.
When asked about Peters’ suspension, quarterback Alex Smith was realistic about the news, saying that it was going to make things hard but that the team had no choice but to move on and do the job in front of them.
"“I can’t speak for everybody in here. But, certainly, a lot of the leaders on this team are ready to go. I think they understand it. It is not easy. It is a hard situation, a hard decision, and coach made it and we are going. To go back and forth on all this stuff on this point is pointless. Let’s go.”"
"Next: Did the Chiefs wait too long to punish Marcus Peters?"
Peters has created five turnovers this season, including 2 forced fumbles and 3 interceptions. He’s a ballhawk whose instincts have placed him in the Pro Bowl for each of the last two seasons. Now the Chiefs will have to rely on a rotation of underwhelming cornerbacks like Kenneth Acker, Phillip Gaines, Terrance Mitchell and Steven Nelson to do the job Peters would normally do as well as man the station opposite him on the outside.