Quote:
Originally Posted by ChiefsFanatic
I was not a fan of Peters personality or his locker room presence, but people on CP suddenly want to act like he wasn't any good on defense, and that they always hated his playing style while he was with the Chiefs.
He was elite at taking the ball away. He wasn't a great tackler, and man-to-man coverage wasn't his strong suit, but he created so many extra possessions for the offense.
If this defense had a player that played exactly the way Peters played while he was here, that didn't tackle well, and got beat in man coverage from time to time, but took the ball away via interceptions and forced fumbles at the same rate as Peters, in big situations like Peters, people here would love that player. They would say his strengths far outweighed his weaknesses.
I believe that is an absolute fact.
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Personally, I never held that he was a flat out bad player.
I was deeply disappointed that the franchise didn't do the work to either figure out before drafting him he would be a bad fit, or work harder after drafting him to make him a good fit.
But there's a gulf of difference between a flat out bad player and an elite performer.
Peters produced big plays, but for us they were always on a minor stage. That wasn't completely his fault, but he wasn't part of a team competing for a championship or a defensive unit dominating the competition.
We may never fully know from the outside how much his failure to fully integrate into squad affected the overall squad performance, but it's hard to get too worked up over one player who was part of a mediocre to sub-par defense that wasn't up to championship snuff, particularly when his contributions were sporadic and when he wasn't contributing he was actively detracting from the group effort. We thought that habit of avoiding contact was a 'business decision' because he was looking for a better future out of here, but those business decisions continue to the present.