Where it all went wrong for Marcus Peters and the Chiefs

If you’re wondering how things could have soured to the point that they did for Marcus Peters and the Chiefs, here’s a rundown.

When the Kansas City Chiefs agreed to ship Alex Smith to the Washington Redskins on January 30th, the surprise wasn’t that the quarterback was traded, but that it came so early in the offseason.

Friday’s trade, however, is a complete shocker. A bombshell that changes the complexion of both teams involved and radically shifts the Chiefs’ offseason and draft priorities. The Kansas City Chiefs have agreed to trade Marcus Peters to the Los Angeles Rams. Yes, you read that correctly.

The details have yet to be released, but according to Ian Rapoport, the Chiefs will be receiving a bundle of draft picks in return.

We’ll have all offseason and the coming years to debate who won this deal and whether it was a good move for K.C. Right now, let’s look at *why* this happened. Why would the Chiefs trade one of the most talented and productive young cornerbacks in football when they seem primed for years of deep playoff runs?

The suspension

In 2017, Marcus Peters was suspended by Andy Reid for one game after he tossed a penalty flag into the stands in their Week 13 game against the Jets. Peters then left the field without having been ejected, infamously returning a few minutes later without socks.

While his antics in the game garnered the most media attention, he had a spat with one of the Chiefs coach on the plane ride out of New York after the game, which one can only assume did him no favors with Chiefs’ brass.

The money

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Peters is entering the fourth year of his rookie contract. There’s a 5th year option, but unless the Chiefs were planning on making him the highest paid corner in football, it’s certainly possible K.C. was looking to get the absolute most for him they could before his time with them came to an end.

It’s also possible that Peters had made it clear in some fashion that his interests were elsewhere regarding his long-term NFL home.

The anthem

Many fans and likely some media will be quick to question whether Peters’ participation in the anthem protests last season had anything to do with his being shipped out of K.C. I find this highly unlikely.

Clark Hunt remains the only owner to openly state he’d have “no hesitation” about signing Colin Kaepernick, so jettisoning Peters for his anthem protests wouldn’t match up with the team’s confirmed statements on the subject.

Conclusion

When everything shakes out and becomes clearer, I’d hazard a guess that a combination of Peters’ non-anthem related maturity issues and the Chiefs’ long-term money considerations created a perfect storm resulting in this massive swerve of a roster move.

Marcus Peters is in rarified company when it comes to his ability to generate turnovers. His ability to guess correctly when jumping routes is so excellent it seems less like educated guessing and more like Spidey sense. The Rams already elite defense just got that much more terrifying, and the NFC may have a new favorite in the conference. That’s how game-changing Peters has been for K.C. over his first three seasons.

The Chiefs have been by far the most aggressive team in the league early this offseason, so it is obvious Brett Veach, Andy Reid and co. have a plan. For the sake of a Chiefs fan base likely to enter the 2018 season with higher hopes than perhaps any other point in Chiefs history, I hope it all comes together. These are the kinds of moves that leave an organization labeled geniuses or fools—there is no in between.

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