Marcus Peters is the opposite of Malcolm Butler. Instead of letting you get a step and playing behind you, Marcus sits back, keeps you in front of him and waits to jump the route once the ball is in the air. He’s able to do that because he doesn’t play the receiver like Malcolm does — he doesn’t even look at the receiver.
He plays the quarterback.
Marcus rarely takes his eyes out of the backfield. It’s weird when you first play against him because you’re running a route and you’re like, This guy doesn’t even have his eyes on me. How’s he gonna cover me? And then you get to the top of your route and you’re about to make your cut, and Marcus is already jumping the ball.
Watch how he jumps the route on this play against the Jets.
See how he breaks on the ball before the receiver even makes his cut or gets his head around? He’s able to do that because he’s not waiting for the receiver to give him an indication of where the ball is going. He sees it out of the quarterback’s hand.
Now, because of his style of play, Marcus does give up a lot of completions. He’s great at guessing, playing percentages and jumping routes, but you can beat him on pump-fakes, especially deep. He’s also got the benefit of a great pass rush, so a lot of times, the quarterback doesn’t have time to set him up and beat him deep. The safety also cheats over his way a little sometimes because he understands that Marcus jumps a lot of routes and can get beat if he misses. So the rest of the defense gives him a little extra help to allow him to make those big plays.
And it’s working for him. I don’t think anybody has more interceptions since he came into the league in 2015. If somebody does, I know it’s close. Because that’s where he makes his money. And if he gets beat every now and then, that’s just the cost of doing business.
It’s like when you got a big hitter in baseball who strikes out a lot. You can live with the strikeouts.
As long as he keeps hitting home runs.
There aren’t a lot of guys who play the cornerback position like Marcus does. These days, it’s a press/bump league. So at a time when most corners are jamming you at the line and getting up in your face, Marcus’s style really stands out.
Darrelle Revis
Spoiler!
He’s not the biggest. Or the strongest. Or the fastest.
He doesn’t try to bait you. Or trick you. Or jump routes.
He’s just straight up technique savvy, man. He has quick feet and great hip control. Slant route, go route, double move — it doesn’t matter. He just gets on you and moves with you, like you’re joined at the hip.
But the big thing with Revis is how he defends the deep ball. The moment that he realizes you’re trying to go deep, he does this thing called the arm bar. Basically he’ll fight for position and then take his arm and extend it across your body — he’ll wall you off and won’t let you hit your stride and run past him. He’s been doing it forever.
I used to always complain to the refs about that. “C’mon, man … he’s using an arm bar!”
And the refs would always say, “He’s not grabbing you.”
No, he’s not. But he’s still impeding my route and not letting me get a free run, and he’s doing it after five yards.
Man, I would get so annoyed … I’m getting heated right now just talking about it. They gotta create a new rule for it, or something. The Darrelle Revis rule. He made a lot of money doing that, man.
Like I said right off the bat: The thing about lists or rankings is that is that somebody deserving always gets left out. But if anybody who has played receiver in the league over the last 10 years does one of these 5 Toughest lists, they can’t do it without including Darrelle Revis. Straight up, man-to-man … I don’t think there’s ever been anybody better.
Last edited by Quesadilla Joe; 12-19-2017 at 07:53 PM..
12-19-2017, 07:40 PM
Emmanuel Sanders breaks down Marcus Peters
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