Safety Peppers hopes he made winning move
FOXBOROUGH — If you want to know how hard it is to win in the NFL, ask someone who’s never done it.
Winning was a way of life for Jabrill Peppers. He won four state titles at Paramus Catholic High School in New Jersey. He spent three years in a winning culture at the University of Michigan. He was a first-round draft pick in 2017.
The Cleveland Browns took Peppers 25th overall. His first year in the league was jarring. The Browns went 0-16. He lost more that year than he had in his entire life. The next year, they went 7-8-1. That offseason, the Browns bundled him with two draft picks for Odell Beckham Jr. Peppers spent three years in New York, and the Giants went 14-35.
Peppers signed a one-year deal this past offseason as a player who had gone his entire NFL career not knowing what it was like to have a winning season.
“Oh, that’s always on my mind,” he said. “High school, I won. College, I won. It’s just in the league. I haven’t been winning.”
Losing so much that it feels inevitable can change a player’s perspective.
“It changed a lot,” Peppers said. “Because when you’re winning all the time, you kind of get spoiled. But it kind of put a lot of things in perspective. I kind of had to hone in on things differently, do a lot of things differently to give myself a different edge. So it definitely makes you look at yourself in the mirror.”
Peppers didn’t come to the Patriots with selfish motives. Instead, the 5-foot-11-inch, 215pound safety saw New England as a place where he could make contributions — big or small — to winning.
“I feel like I always had that mind-set,” Peppers said. “I just want to win games, I haven’t won too much since I’ve been in the league . . . I knew it was a winning culture here. I wanted to come play for Bill [Belichick] because he knows the game a little better than most. He puts his players in the best positions to make plays, and they win. So I wanted to come be a part of a winning culture.”
It wasn’t hard for Peppers to learn the Patriots system because of the years he spent in New York under Patrick Graham and Joe Judge — two branches on the Belichick coaching tree.
“It really wasn’t too much of a culture shock for me,” Peppers said. “The defense was very, very similar, certain nuances are different, certain verbiage is different, but for the most part it wasn’t like I had to come into a whole new situation without practice and learn a whole new defense. Certain things were kind of hard for me because they’ve got different words that meant something different in the last system that means something new here. So I might say the wrong word one time. Other than that, it’s been cool.”
But what has impressed safety Devin McCourty was Peppers coming into the locker room as a six-year veteran who had carved out an identity as a starter, and not demanding a role but instead asking what needed to be filled.
“He’s been a good player. He just came in like, ‘What do ya’ll need?’ ” McCourty said.
Coming off a season-ending knee injury in 2021, Peppers didn’t get much time to get acclimated prior to training camp. Knowing how crowded the secondary was, he embraced the chance to be an impact player on special teams.
“I knew coming here, coming off injury, special teams was going to be a big thing for me,” Peppers said. “I wanted to show them that even if I’m not returning, I could still be valuable on special teams.
“We’ve already got a lot of talented safeties here, so it rotates week to week. So it’s got to be other ways that you’ve got to make plays and impact the team. So I was just trying to embrace that.”
Last week against the Jets exemplified all the ways Peppers contributes. With Kyle Dugger out because of a leg injury, Peppers stepped in. He was on the field for a season-high 40 defensive snaps, while holding down his normal special teams duties. He sprung Marcus Jones for a 32-yard punt return with a crushing block on gunner Justin Hardee, and he was on the hands team and recovered an onside kick that helped the Patriots ice a 22-17 win.
“Obviously, he showed the level that he can still play at from a defensive standpoint,” McCourty said. “And that didn’t take away the big punt return we had. He had the biggest block on the play. Then ending the game on the hands team. I just think the energy he’s brought to the team has been very positive.”
That energy of appreciation was forged from years of not knowing if a winning season will ever come.
“I think when young guys see that, they understand,” McCourty said. “Again, his talent level, what he can do on the football field, everyone knows about that. I think he plays to any role that he’s in, and that’s been big for us.”