Has anybody ever loved being a member of the Pittsburgh Steelers before playing a down than has 13th-year veteran cornerback Patrick Peterson? That seems to be the impression we get every time he talks since signing with the team in March. He went perhaps even further in the latest installment of his All Things Covered podcast.
“I couldn’t imagine myself being in a better place for the latter part of my career”, he said, citing prior ties on the coaching staff. “Not only the storied organization that it is, but to be around a coach like Mike T, to be around one of the first guys who I started this with, who helped put me in this position, in Grady Brown”.
Peterson grew up having some familiarity with the organization because his podcast co-host, cousin Bryant McFadden, played for the team for several years, including under head coach Mike Tomlin, so he was able to get to know people long before he was even in the league.
As we’ve previously talked about, current Steelers defensive backs coach Grady Brown was a member of the LSU Tigers coaching staff while Peterson was there, so that’s another significant connection. But he has also already bonded with this roster.
“Being around a group of guys that all have that same laser focus, and that’s not only being a world champion, but to help each other become better and be the best that that individual can be to help the team collectively to be successful”, he said, “it’s just a beautiful thing to be around, and quite honestly, I’m just so happy to finally be in this Pittsburgh organization and in that building every single day”.
A first-round pick of the Arizona Cardinals in 2011, Peterson spent a decade there before finding himself in Minnesota for the past two years. He has mentioned multiple times that he wanted to sign with Pittsburgh last year, but things ended up not quite working out for reasons upon which he hasn’t elaborated.
But now he’s here, and he seems to be more than content to end his career here—and maybe even play for longer than he had planned. His stated goal was to play 14 seasons, which would take him through the two-year deal he signed in March, but he’s already made a couple of references to potentially extending his career beyond that.
That includes the potential advantages of playing inside in the slot, which he believes may help him prolong his career as well and take some of the emphasis off of sheer speed, which he knows at this point of his career he’s losing.
In the meantime, he gets to play the role of both student and teacher, fully learning the Steelers’ ways, learning from the man who coached him in college and from the man who coached his older cousin, while passing his wisdom along to the next generation already on the roster in Joey Porter Jr.—after playing with his dad in Arizona—and Cory Trice Jr.
