Peters staying right here
Ravens, Pro Bowl CB reach agreement on contract extension
The Ravens have reached an agreement on a contract extension with Pro Bowl cornerback Marcus Peters, the team announced Saturday, rewarding a welltraveled but proven ballhawk who’s helped transform the team’s defense.
The extension is reportedly a three-year deal through 2022 worth $42 million, including $32 million guaranteed. The contract also will pay Peters $20.5 million next year, according to ESPN. Only five cornerbacks this year were under contract for more than $14 million annually, his extension’s yearly rate.
Peters, a two-time All-Pro pick who turns 27 next month and was set to hit free agency this offseason, has reemerged as one of the NFL’s top cornerbacks following a midseason trade. He has returned three interceptions for touchdowns this season, two with the Ravens, and sealed a win over the Buffalo Bills in Week 14 with a last-minute deflection on fourth down.
As Peters has excelled, so too has the Ravens defense. When he was acquired from the Los Angeles Rams in midOctober for linebacker Kenny Young and a 2020 fifth-round pick, he was rated Pro Football Focus’ No. 15 cornerback; he’s now third overall.
Since Peters’ debut in Week 7, the Ravens’ defensive efficiency has improved from No. 22 to No. 4, according to Football Outsiders. Heading into Sunday’s regularseason finale against the Pittsburgh Steelers, the team is on a franchise-record 11-game winning streak and has already secured the AFC’s No. 1 playoff seed.
Peters has five interceptions this season, three with the Ravens, and 14 passes defended. Since entering the NFL in 2015, he has an NFL-high 27 interceptions and seven defensive touchdowns. Peters’ six interceptions for touchdowns ties Pro Football Hall of Fame selection Lem Barney for the second-most ever by a player in his first five seasons. Only Ken Houston (nine), another Hall of Fame member, had more.
“You really don’t know until a guy gets into your locker room and into the defensive meetings how football smart they are,” defensive coordinator Don “Wink” Martindale said of Peters last month. “He is a savant when it comes to playing corner and routes and everything else. That’s been really refreshing because, as I’ve said many times, knowledge is power in this league. And you can see with his play that he has a lot of knowledge.”
In his first Ravens game, a Week 7 win over the Seattle Seahawks for which he had only days to prepare, Peters picked off a second-quarter pass from Russell Wilson, the quarterback’s first interception all season, and returned it 67 yards for a go-ahead score. Peters said after the game that he’d recognized the pass concept from a Rams game two weeks earlier and knew where Wilson might go with the ball.
Peters added another crucial pick-six two weeks later against the Cincinnati Bengals. Other than a poor first half in Week 13 against the San Francisco 49ers, he has paired with third-year star Marlon Humphrey, another Pro Bowl selection, to give the Ravens one of the NFL’s top cornerback duos. They’ve helped hold opposing offenses to 207 yards passing or fewer in seven straight games.
“It’s been really good,” Humphrey said last month. “I heard about the things he does on the field. For him to be on my team has really been a help.”
Peters is allowing a passer rating of 63.6 in coverage, according to Pro-Football-Reference.com, and his weekly excellence has largely overshadowed some of his other on-field behavior.
Against the Houston Texans in Week 11, he had animated conversations with star wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins in between plays. After his game-clinching stop against the Bills, Peters celebrated by drinking a beer in the stands in the first row of seats at New Era Field. (The NFL later fined him over $14,000.)
But the former first-round pick has largely avoided the disciplinary problems that dotted his early career. Dismissed from the University of Washington football team in 2014 after multiple arguments with assistant coaches, Peters earned Pro Bowl honors and was named a secondteam and first-team All-Pro in his first two seasons with the Kansas City Chiefs.