You may have seen a rumor floating around yesterday, started by who knows exactly, about the Pittsburgh Steelers potentially being interested in cornerback Marcus Peters. Sure, there probably was a time that they would have liked to have him. At this stage of his career, though?
While he was seemingly too good-natured to completely shut the door, Jeremy Fowler of ESPN came pretty close to spelling it out for his hosts on 93.7 The Fan yesterday. When he was asked about it by Andrew Fillipponi and Chris Mueller, he had to start off by pausing to laugh about how odd it would be to picture the pairing.
He said it was “not a fit” for what the Steelers do. “That’s not his game. He’s gonna go gamble and try to get every interception and he’s gonna blow coverages as a result and occasionally get you the ball. I just don’t know that that’s what they want. That’s not really their identity”, and of course he’s right.
Seemingly trying to humor the conversation for the sake of it, he did allow that head coach Mike Tomlin knows him well, and that perhaps if they felt they needed to take the ball away more they would consider it, but he was reminded that the Steelers led the league in interceptions. So even that angle died.
Contrasting the situation to when the Steelers signed Joe Haden, Fowler said, “He made more sense for what they want to do than Marcus Peters in my mind”. But he did say that he expects the team to “go get somebody” at cornerback because they need help there and it’s not a strong draft class.
Time will tell on that. It depends on what they decide to do. It’s much less likely if they re-sign Cameron Sutton. James Pierre is a restricted free agent but should be safely retained. They still have Levi Wallace, Arthur Maulet, and Ahkello Witherspoon. The latter is admittedly coming off a pretty rough year, but we’ve seen him play better. He can be depth. And that’s all assuming they release William Jackson III, which admittedly is very likely, and make no play to re-sign him.
If Pittsburgh brings back a group consisting of Sutton, Wallace, Maulet, Witherspoon, and Pierre, plus with Tre Norwood and perhaps Damontae Kazee capable of playing in the slot, then I’m not sure they press the issue at all at cornerback this offseason.
And Marcus Peters? Sure, he was an All-Pro at one time. But what time is it now? He hasn’t been healthy in years, for one thing. And a beat-up gambler is not what you want at the cornerback position. The less athletic you are, the less your team is going to want you to take risks.
