Marcus Peters' Rookie Season a Sign of Superstardom to Come

The life of an NFL rookie can be tumultuous as the transition from college to the professional level brings new challenges. Some players take years to develop and fall into a niche role with the right franchise. Others like Kansas City Chiefs’ cornerback Marcus Peters find their footing immediately on the path to becoming a superstar.

While we can confidently say quarterback is the hardest of all NFL positions, a cornerback also faces an incredibly difficult task every week. The best athletes tend to be edge-rushers and wide receivers because of the importance of physical traits at those positions. The level of nuance needed to guard those players at both offensive tackle and cornerback has left the NFL starved for talent at each spot.

Developing players at cornerback can take years to finally see positive play. Successful cornerbacks are usually solid athletes, but it’s not a requirement. Players such as Josh Norman and Richard Sherman are terrific because of their mental aptitude and refinement of their craft.

After Peters was kicked off Washington’s football team, I opined that Peters was an elite talent because of his advanced technical talent and natural ball skills. As his rookie year continues into the divisional round of the playoffs, Peters has delivered as the 18th pick in the 2015 NFL draft. Teams that passed on Peters look foolish, since he’s been the best defensive rookie this season.

Cornerback is one of the few positions every team needs help at. As soon as attrition occurs and backups have to hit the field, an entire secondary can be destroyed without decent depth. But there’s so few qualified players to earn rotational snaps, spread offenses have benefited from the dearth of talent.

Peters was the best of the extraordinary rookie cornerback class that featured studs like Ronald Darby, Quinten Rollins, Damarious Randall, Quandre Diggs and Kevin Johnson. Each of their respective teams has legitimate reason to believe it has long-term starters at the position after just their first year. It’s highly uncommon for several young cornerbacks in one class to perform so well this quickly.

To help capture that point, we just have to look at the history of the Defensive Player of the Year Award. Only two cornerbacks have won it since 1992, and one of those individuals was the great Charles Woodson. Five cornerbacks have won total since the award began in 1967.

As the regular season is over, major awards will be handed out in the coming weeks. While there are several strong candidates for the Defensive Rookie of the Year Award, Peters should be considered the heavy favorite. But his arc is only beginning with this award, as he has the talent to become as good as any NFL cornerback.

Isolating cornerback performance is something I’ve worked to do over the last three seasons. Regardless of scheme, opposing quarterback quality and the statistical output of a given play, how a cornerback performs can be measured. By charting every route a cornerback faces in coverage and not just limiting analysis to targeted passes, we can get a clearer view of how well a cornerback can actually cover.

Of the 39 cornerbacks I charted in 2014, I found out the average cornerback allowed his receiver to create considerable separation on at least 35 percent of his coverage snaps. The elite cornerbacks that season were losing around 25 percent of the time—or less. Jimmy Smith of the Baltimore Ravens had the best score, with a burn rate of 16 percent.

Coming back to Peters, I was able to take an eight-game sample of his 2015 rookie season to see how well he’s competing in coverage. This is a player who notched an NFL rookie record eight interceptions and led the NFL in passes defensed and targeted plays, per Pro Football Focus. This would indicate he’s not sticky enough in coverage to deter targets, but that’s far from what I found on tape.

I found Peters to be within one arm’s length of the receiver to challenge the pass, whether it ever came or not, an incredible 84.34 percent of the time. That’s a burn rate of 15.66 percent in an eight-game sample. The eight games I charted and their results can be seen below:

Route	Losses	Attempts	Burn Rate	2014 NFL Average Burn Rate
Cross	1	4	25%	37.4%
Quick In/Out	1	16	6.25%	32.2%
Slant	5	14	35.7%	49.5%
Comeback	0	8	0%	38.9%
Curl	4	38	10.5%	24.7%
Deep Out	5	13	38.4%	44.6%
Dig	3	17	17.6%	40%
Corner	1	7	14.2%	39.7%
Post	3	9	33%	35.9%
Go	3	40	7.5%	24.2%
Cumulative	26	166	15.66%	32.5%

The key for this study was to see where Peters struggles and against what archetype of player he has more issues with. Quick, shifty receivers like Amari Cooper and Antonio Brown regularly destroy everyone they face and had considerable success against Peters. But Peters found his footing with each as time passed.

One major positive for Peters is his ability to adjust after losing early. His game against Brown embodied this. Brown creates excellent separation on the play below because he keeps his options open at the stem of the route. Peters incorrectly guesses and opens his hips too much. Easy completion and a tallied loss for Peters on the deep out route.

Where some cornerbacks are more limited as far as adjustments, literally three plays later, Peters is faced with the same situation. Instead of playing inside the numbers, Peters stays closer to the sideline, which would force Brown into the teeth of the safeties. It also allows him to cover less ground on an out-breaking route. As Brown cuts outside, Peters is masterful as he rolls his body and transitions to the sideline.

Peters earned a charted win, and the second half of the Pittsburgh game was generally easier than a tumultuous first half for Peters. I’m only using this game for some examples, but it’s because Peters lost just four of 10 routes he faced Brown. That’s quite impressive considering Brown is the NFL's best receiver.

Credit: NFL Game Pass

The big play factor for Peters is what makes him more skilled than some of the best cover corners. His teammate, Sean Smith, charted as an elite cornerback in 2014 for me over a 16-game sample. But Smith’s hands and ball skills are nowhere near Peters’, so he wasn’t converting at the catch point like his young teammate.

Interceptions are not a great indicator of truly great cornerback play, since some cornerbacks simply don’t see the bulk of targets to make the plays. What’s strange is why teams threw to Peters so often, even with another great cornerback on the other side of the field. Peters is fantastic at sticking to his assignment in general, and the interception-ability should only be a bigger deterrent for offenses.

The big knock on Peters’ rookie season is that Pro Football Focus claimed Peters allowed eight touchdowns this year. I had six on Peters, which still isn’t good, but only one came after Week 8 of the season. To be exact, it was Week 17 against the Oakland Raiders.  The early-season gauntlet of DeAndre Hopkins, Demaryius Thomas, Emmanuel Sanders, A.J. Green and Brown directly tested Peters since he matched up with each player for stretches of each game.

Kansas City played Peters almost primarily as the left cornerback, so teams could manipulate what matchup they wanted with the Chiefs secondary. That unit is fantastic, though, in large part to their incredibly talented cornerback and safety situation. They’re willing to give up the occasional short gain in order to maximize their front-seven presence, and their cornerbacks are great enough to win on an island.

The next step for Peters is to continue working on his short-area quickness and foot speed. He’s far from deficient in this area, but facing Cooper twice a year is a major challenge. Cooper did well against Peters in Week 13, winning six of his 13 routes. Week 17 was a different story, when Cooper was only successful on one of seven routes.

Also, his comfort in the red zone must continue the trend he showed in the season's second half. He’s not a high-variance player like Joe Haden has proven to be, as Peters is already much better at shutting down receivers than Haden has been throughout his career. That tells me he can continue improving his press ability on the goal line, which can also help negate quicker receivers at the line of scrimmage.

As Kansas City makes its way through the playoffs, and even into the future, the Chiefs can be very confident in Marcus Peters’ ability to handle one side of the field. When paired with Sean Smith and Eric Berry, this is the best coverage secondary in football. Peters’ emergence as a playmaker and not just top-tier technician was surprisingly fast, but it helps show he is on the fast track to greatness.

All coverage data was self-charted unless otherwise noted.

Ian Wharton is an NFL Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report. 

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