If there's any man in the NFL capable of taking a troubled but talented player, nurturing them with tough love and turning them into a high-quality NFL starter, it's Kansas City Chiefs head coach Andy Reid.
According to a pre-2015 NFL Draft report from Peter King of Sports Illustrated, that may be the very path Reid takes the Chiefs down in the first-round later tonight.
"Marcus Peters will be a strong candidate for Kansas City at 18," writes King. "Coach Andy Reid visited the player who some call the best cornerback in the draft this week in his hometown of Oakland. When you've got Peyton Manning, Philip Rivers and Derek Carr in your division-for this year at least-it's probably smart to invest in fast, physical cornerbacks."
Peters, as King notes, is viewed by many as far and away the best corner in the entirety of the 2015 NFL Draft. Were it not for characters concerns which eventually got him kicked off the Washington Huskies football team, Peters would likely be a top-10 or possibly even top-five pick.
"Talented cover cornerback with size, ball skills and the confidence NFL teams are looking for, but lacks the necessary discipline and maturity on the field and in practice," NFL.com's Lance Zierlein wrote in his pre-draft profile of Peters.
At 6-foot, 197-pounds, Peters has the prototypical build and movement for the position at the NFL level. His problems with authority though, continue to trouble teams.
"We had him in for a visit and it was just his mannerisms and his interaction, or non-interaction," an unnamed personnel man told Bob McGinn of The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. "What a joke. He's going to have inconsistency on the field and off the field. I don't know if it's an authority complex, a trust level. But what he does isn't what everybody else is doing."
Character issues notwithstanding, Peters is likely to go somewhere in the mid-to-late first or early second-round and, if the Chiefs and Reid believe they can control or overcome whatever personality tendencies got him booted from his college team, he'd be a fantastic value pick at No. 18.
With safety Eric Berry's health a question mark and Phillip Gaines only having manned a starting role on the outside for five games during one season, it certainly wouldn't hurt for Reid and Co. to add a talented player like Peters to their defensive back group.
