I have seen how Chiefs fans have reacted to Marcus Peters over the last year and I can tell you there are a lot of racist fans in KC that said a lot of racists things.
Were teams afraid that Peters who is unquestionably one of the best DBs in the game could turn into another Kaepernick or was there something else?
SI has the story.
I’m told the Chiefs called all 31 other teams in the league this month on Peters, looking for a trade partner, and 28 teams either said they were not interested or did not make an offer of any value. For a player with the playing history of Peters at a vital and hard-to-fill position, that’s amazing.
Peters’ behavior had become erratic, apparently, capped by the Week 13 meltdown in the Meadowlands. The Chiefs decided they couldn’t trust his behavior anymore and, despite his playmaking ability, felt whatever they could fetch for him in trade would be better than Peters returning in 2018.
His protests during the national anthem didn’t help—at various points he raised his fist, sat on the bench and stayed in the locker room—but weren’t the driving force behind a trade.
Peters loves football. He practiced hard in Kansas City. But his tendency to lose it was a divisive part of his résumé too, and a big reason why the Chiefs dumped him.
In the end, Peters’ temper and disposition probably cost him a long career in Kansas City.
Here is what Peters had to say about people criticizing his protests.
Nobody’s gotta know my reason why I sit,” Peters said. “Nobody’s gotta know the reason why somebody chooses the religion they choose. Nobody’s gotta know why I eat cereal instead of eating oatmeal in the morning.”
I have sources that tell me that Peters protesting was a bigger reason that what the SI story would lead you to believe. That the Chiefs were inundated with upset MAGA fans about his actions and wanted him gone. One of the differences between a marginal player protesting and an All-Pro is the attention it gets. It is not the singular reason why teams wanted to stay away, but teams do not want a Kaepernick situation with a strong-minded black player no matter how talented he is.
NFL teams want to be like the army; they want players they can control. One of the knocks against Peters is he is his own man and doesn’t just toe the company line. Did he have legit problems that he caused on his own, absolutely, but to try to downplay the protest in his trade value is 100% false.
Peters is one of the most talented players in the NFL, but that doesn’t mean the NFL wouldn’t blackball him if he doesn’t fall in line at some point. This is just a small glimpse of what happens in the NFL if you get a reputation of being a difficult player, it gets around the league and teams will simply say I don’t want to deal with it.
While marginal quarterbacks are getting between $30-60 million in guaranteed money, but Peters was only worth a 2nd and 4th round pick, in the immortal words of Ice Cube “Here’s what they think of you.”