The Rams didn’t give up much to acquire Marcus Peters

On Friday, news came out that the Kansas City Chiefs were trading star cornerback Marcus Peters to the Los Angeles Rams. Apart from confirmation that no other players would be involved in the deal, full trade details were scarce.

After an agonizing three-day wait, we have our answer, and the Rams didn’t exactly break the bank to get the extremely talented but historically troubled Peters.

Getting a 2018 second-rounder out of the Rams wasn’t in the cards, seeing as they don’t actually have one, so now LA does not have a second-round pick for the next two years.

Chiefs fans aren’t taking this news very well. Joel Thorman of Arrowhead Pride had this to say:

One day, I really want to know the backstory behind this trade because I expected much more than this. I didn’t expect the return for the Chiefs to be this low. This trade does not look any better right now. It seems obvious to me now why someone — sure seems like it was the Chiefs — didn’t want these details coming out.

Meanwhile, the Rams fans believe they’ve gotten away with robbery. Check out 3k’s write-up on Turf Show Times:

For the on-field merits, it’s a steal for the Rams. Peters has been one of the best if not the outright best cornerback in the NFL over the last three seasons.

But ultimately, the Chiefs soured on Peters’ attitude and compatibility. That they made the first move in bringing Peters to market instead of teams coming to seek him on their own terms depressed his value.

Perhaps this tweet is the most telling about how the rest of the league viewed Peters, and at least partially explains why the value doesn’t seem terribly high.

From a performance perspective, while he’s definitely got tremendous ball skills, I don’t think Peters is better than Xavier Rhodes, (an obviously healthy) Richard Sherman, or even Jalen Ramsey (who’s a second-year player). The well-documented behavioral concerns must have been too much for Kansas City to handle, and I reckon they just wanted him gone. Peters has one year left on his rookie deal, along with a fifth-year option, so there’s a lot of money at stake for Peters in the near future.

By the way, the Chiefs and Rams play each other in Mexico City next season, and would’ve been in Los Angeles under normal scheduling circumstances. I only wish that this was at Arrowhead Stadium.