Pro Day Last Chance for Marcus Peters to Stake Claim as NFL Draft's Top CB

Want to know who the best cornerback prospect in the 2015 NFL draft is?

As Robert Klemko of The MMQB reports, Washington's Marcus Peters will gladly tell you. “I’m the best corner in the draft for a reason,” Peters said. “I’ve got three years worth of tape. You go watch it and tell me I’m not the best out there.”

However, for all of Peters' talents, it may well wind up that the most important work Peters has in front of him April 2 at Washington's Pro Day won't involve his physical skills at all.

As Klemko wrote, there's no denying what the 6'0", 197-pound Peters brings to a secondary from a physical perspective:

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Looking solely at the product on the field, he’s a top-five overall talent. Rare is the college cornerback who thrives off the ball and in press, can tackle, blitz and create turnovers. How long Peters survives in the NFL depends on his acclimation to structure.

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It's that last part where things get bumpy.

To say that the 2014 season did not go well for Peters would be an understatement. The mercurial young player clashed repeatedly with new Huskies head coach Chris Petersen. There was a suspension after a temper tantrum against Eastern Washington. Then, in November, Peters was kicked off the team altogether after arguing with a coach in practice.

At the time, Petersen told Adam Jude of The Seattle Times that he wished Peters the best, but the time had come for player and team to part ways:

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It’s unfortunate, but we’ve got certain standards and operating procedures. We’re trying to do something special here. Sometimes it just doesn’t work out. Like I said, we wish him the best. It’s always a hard thing—worst part of the job, without question. And with all that being said, that’s really it. That’s it in a nutshell. I know everybody wants the details and other things—we don’t go there; we can’t go there. But like I said, we wish him the best, and it’s hard and painful.

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And ever since, Peters has been waging a war against the perception that he's a million-dollar talent with a 10-cent head.

For his part, Peters told Doug Kyed of NESN that he's learned from his mistakes, and that he met with Petersen to mend fences in advance of the Huskies' pro day:

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I made some immature decisions at the University of Washington, and it hurt me truly. So I’ve just got to learn from my mistakes, and I grow from it. I recently went up there a couple of weeks ago and had a real good conversation with Coach Petersen. We sat down, and we talked about everything that happened. I sincerely apologized to him again for what I put him and the team through throughout this year. But it was a good conversation and he welcomed me into the pro day.

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There were also fences to be mended with people Peters has never met. More and more teams are developing less and less patience with "problem" players. Some teams are reaching the point where players with checkered pasts get taken off boards altogether.

From all indications, Peters fared well in interviews at February's NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis. Where he surprisingly didn't do so well (per Gil Brandt of NFL.com) was in the workouts themselves:

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One scout told me last fall that Peters was one of the best corner prospects on the West Coast in the past 10 years. At the combine, his height (5-11 5/8) and weight (197 pounds) looked good, but his workout was just OK, marked by a so-so 4.53 40. He didn't appear to be very quick and displayed questionable ball skills. The performance might seem a bit puzzling; after all, he did have a plethora of pass breakups in the first eight games of the season. I suspect his showing had something to do with the fact that he hasn't played in a game since Nov. 1. I'm sure he's been training since then, but there's a difference between being in training shape and being in football shape. Peters can be very good in the NFL, provided he comes to realize he should be working for his team, and that the team doesn't work for him.

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Still, even were Peters to turn in another round of so-so workouts in Seattle on Thursday, it's unlikely it would do much to damage his draft stock. As he himself so aptly put it, there's three years of tape to watch on Peters.

And as a wise man once said, the tape don't lie.

There's plenty of video that shows off the physicality and strength that makes Peters arguably this year's top press cornerback.

That's Jaelen Strong of Arizona State, a first-round prospect in his own right.

There's also plenty of video of Paters blitzing and chipping in against the run, the latter of which is a big plus for teams that employ two-deep coverages a lot:

The physical talent is there and then some. In fact, Bleacher Report's Ian Wharton went so far as to call Peters a generational-type talent:

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He’s a rare player entering the NFL with his combination of size, speed, technique and ball skills.

Why he was dismissed from the program will be something NFL teams will have to dig in to, but from a football standpoint, Peters is one of the few elite cornerback prospects in the last decade. He’s a potential Pro Bowl-type talent who can force an offense to change their game plan just for his ability to force turnovers.

He compares favorably to NFL cornerbacks Darrelle Revis and former Husky Desmond Trufant because of his ability to play in any scheme and cover any route variation. His value for his play could prove to be worthy of a top-five selection in May.

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Heady praise indeed. But Bleacher Report NFL National Lead Writer Matt Miller believes it to be at least partly justifiable. That is, if his most recent mock draft is any indication, as Miller predicts Peters will be the first cornerback off the board at No. 10 overall:

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Years of need-based drafting led this team to mediocrity, but in the 2014 class, the Rams went with a high grade (Aaron Donald) over a need and landed the Defensive Rookie of the Year. Lightning could strike twice with Marcus Peters as the highest graded player left on my board.

Peters isn't an immediate need in St. Louis, but he could make the trio at cornerback (with Janoris Jenkins and E.J. Gaines) remarkably talented for a young group. With an elite defensive line, Akeem Ayers filling the hole at linebacker and offensive weapons in place, this is the right pick for the Rams.

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For Peters to pull that off, though, one step remains: putting to rest any lingering doubts about his being a malingerer and reassuring coaches that he is, in fact, coachable.

In short, the only standing between Marcus Peters and the head of this year's cornerback class is Marcus Peters' head.

Gary Davenport is an NFL Analyst at Bleacher Report and a member of the Fantasy Sports Writers Association and the Pro Football Writers of America. You can follow Gary on Twitter at @IDPManor.