Patrick Peterson provided some Week One bulletin board material for the San Francisco 49ers. And they got the last laugh. Heading into Week One, Peterson predicted an interception off 49ers QB Brock Purdy while touting the “tells” of the San Fran offense.
Despite a 30-7 loss in which Peterson gave up a pair of touchdowns, he has no regrets about the comments he made. Peterson was back on another episode of his All Things Covered podcast and said he isn’t taking back his words.
“Did I provide any bullet points?” he told co-host Bryant McFadden. “If you watch film, it’s on tape. Every offense, every defense in this league, in college, in high school, have tells. It’s just gonna be upon the player to be able to execute his job when that formation comes about. So they made this big story about it. It is what it is. I said what I said. I don’t take it back. Why would I take it back? I watched film just like everybody else and everybody has tells in their schemes.”
Peterson is correct that every unit in football has tells. If there’s a coaching staff, a scheme, a personality, and track record, there’s tendencies that can be gleaned. The 49ers won this game winning how they always win. A varied run game that pushes the ball on the perimeter, heavy but flexible personnel with fullbacks and tight ends, staying on schedule on early downs, and in-breaking routes in the pass game.
In moments, Peterson showed he had an understanding of the 49ers’ offense with two solid breakups over the middle, nearly picking off a pass. Still, the end results tell an ugly story, and it was the 49ers who had fun with his comments after the game.
Predictably, Peterson turned this to a media-created story. On the surface, it’s arguable that Peterson wouldn’t have known how much play his comments would receive, new to the Steelers’ market and fandom that pores over everything players say. It wasn’t a story he was looking to tell right out of the gate.
But once his comments became a top headline, his podcast leaned into them, posting an excerpt of the full podcast entitled “Patrick Peterson predicts he will pick off Brock Purdy in Steelers’ Week 1 game vs. 49ers.” They certainly weren’t trying to downplay the traction Peterson received.
“All I know is to be me, B-Mac,” Peterson said.
Credit to Peterson for doing his show after a tough loss in which he didn’t play well enough. And you can admire him for sticking to his overall comments about the 49ers’ offense. They weren’t wrong. But he might be more careful about his next bold prediction in the future. At least not until he plays better and the Steelers put a “W” in the win column, something they badly need Monday night against the Cleveland Browns.
