12-year veteran CB Patrick Peterson came to Pittsburgh this offseason talking about having had a plan for himself to play 14 years. He signed a two-year contract with the Steelers and is committed to seeing that out. And yet the more he experiences the team and the culture, the less eager he seems to be to hold himself to a 14-year plan, looking beyond that.
Already one of the greats of the era, he still has something to prove. His cousin, fellow CB Bryant McFadden, sprung a question on him during the most recent episode of their podcast, All Things Covered: what’s his Hall of Fame resume and why should he get in?
“Why should I get in the Hall? I mean, I think I’m the only DB to go to eight straight Pro Bowls, two different positions”, he said. “All-Decade. It’s not more than 40 corners that’s an All-Decade member. I believe I was named a top-150 player in the history of the game”.
He also noted that he currently has more interceptions than any other active player in the league (tied with his former teammate, Vikings S Harrison Smith), at 35. Having previously talked about it being very rare the way the game has evolved to see anybody hit 50 interceptions, though, he set an ambitious goal for himself.
“The book is still being written”, he noted, of the fact that his career is ongoing and he is still adding to his resume for a potential Hall of Fame candidacy one day. “I know I said that 50’s gonna be rare. I’m gonna get 50. That’s just 15 more”.
Peterson did get five interceptions last season in Minnesota, but that’s the second-most he’s ever had in his career, his highest being seven back in 2012. Other than that, he’s never had more than three interceptions in a single season, yet he said that he’s looking to get eight this year.
Nobody recorded more than six interceptions in the NFL in 2022, which is a generally low number for a league-leading total. In fact, since 1941, there have only been two seasons in which nobody recorded more than six interceptions, the other being 2019.
To Peterson’s point, there have only been 23 instances over the past decade in which a player recorded seven or more interceptions. There were 26 such instances between 1978 and 1980. Even though more passes are being thrown than ever, it’s become much harder to pick them off by percentage.
It was once common for 6-10 players per season rack up that total. The last time there were more than four in a single season was in 2008, a year that featured three Hall of Famers—Troy Polamalu, Ed Reed, and Charles Woodson—contributing to the numbers.
Peterson was one of four to do it back in 2012, along with, among others, Richard Sherman, who retired after 11 seasons with 37 interceptions and is widely presumed to be a future Hall of Famer himself. If Peterson isn’t already on his way there, he certainly will be if in this day and age he can find his way to 50. Just two players who began their careers in this century—Reed and Asante Samuel—have hit that mark.
