San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Super Bowl rivals Edelman, Peters do Bay Area proud.
Julian Edelman grew up in Redwood City, an extraordinary high school and college quarterback often dismissed as not big enough to make it to the next level. Marcus Peters grew up in Oakland, like Edelman an accomplished prep player but fully aware of the long odds of reaching the NFL.
And look where Edelman and Peters will meet Sunday, perhaps literally: in the Super Bowl.
This Patriots-Rams matchup carries a
strong Bay Area flavor, most glamorously in quarterbacks Tom Brady (San Mateo) and Jared Goff (Novato). Other players with local roots include Rams running back C.J. Anderson (Vallejo) and backup quarterback Sean Mannion (Pleasanton).
The potentially intersecting paths of Edelman and Peters offer an especially intriguing story line. Edelman is the undersized wide receiver still chugging along at age 32, preparing for his fourth Super Bowl. Peters is the brash cornerback still adapting to his new team, embracing his first Super Bowl. Their common bond: Both play with engaging tenacity, a nice way of saying they carry a giant chip on their shoulder.
This helps explain how Edelman, at 5foot-10, has more catches (105) than any wide receiver in NFL playoff history except Jerry Rice (151). That includes nine catches in New England’s victory over the Chargers on Jan. 13, then seven more in the AFC title game against the Chiefs on Jan. 20.
Five days later, Edelman re-tweeted an item noting 25 of the projected starters in Sunday’s Super Bowl had 3-star ratings (or less) coming out of high school. He’s not alone, in other words, so he punctuated the statistical nugget with #ProveEmWrong.
None of this surprises Bret Pollack, offensive coordinator at College of San Mateo. Pollack coached Edelman in 2005, his one year in junior college before taking his triple-option skills to Kent State.
Pollack, coincidentally, is co-teaching an English class this semester, and the students are reading Angela Duckworth’s “Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance.” He laughed during a phone interview, suggesting he already saw one vivid example.
“You can read the book, but if you spend one week with Julian, that’s all you need,” Pollack said. “His mindset, his competitiveness — that’s part of him. For most people, it would grind you to nothing, but not him. He was that way from the day I met him.”
Edelman, on his recruiting visit to San Mateo, noticed a wall of photos honoring past All-Americans at the school. He boldly asked where his photo would go, then worked diligently and, yes, earned All-America honors.
He was similarly driven at Woodside High and later during three years at Kent State. After his senior season in college, Edelman routinely woke up at 3:30 a.m. to drive an hour to Cleveland to work out with other top prospects in advance of the 2009 NFL draft.
“All his life, he’s been told he’s not fast enough, not big enough, not strong enough,” said Steve Nicolopulos, who coached Edelman at Woodside. “You tell him that and he just throws another log on the fire. He proves people wrong.”
Edelman had a productive comeback season with the Patriots, catching 74 passes after missing all of 2017 recovering from a torn ACL. He missed the first four games of 2018 because of an NFL suspension for violating the league’s policy on performance-enhancing substances.
Edelman never explained the positive test, saying only the findings and penalty were “disappointing” and he was “definitely accountable for that.”
At some point in Sunday’s game, Edelman figures to line up opposite Peters, a fellow Bay Area native. Peters, 26 and in his fourth pro season, already is a two-time Pro Bowl selection; he played in college at Washington and spent three years with the Chiefs before they traded him to the Rams in March.
His dad, Michael, has guided McClymondsOakland — where Marcus played for him — to three consecutive state CIF bowl victories. Michael Peters acknowledged he was a bit hard on his son, but Michael also saw Marcus’ abundant talent and ability to digest defensive schemes and understand opposing offenses.
Michael Peters called it a “great accomplishment” for Marcus and the Rams, who were 4-12 only two years ago, to reach the Super Bowl so quickly.
“To me, he’s not comfortable yet,” Michael Peters said. “That’s just being in a different system and learning different things. He had a good relationship with the guys in K.C., playing together and trusting each other. It’s hard to get to that point this fast.”
The younger Peters is exploring fresh terrain for McClymonds, a school with famous alums in basketball (most notably Bill Russell and Paul Silas) and baseball (Frank Robinson) but not so much in football. Marcus Peters is the eighth McClymonds alum to reach the NFL, but the first to play in the Pro Bowl or Super Bowl.
Peters had 19 interceptions in his three seasons in Kansas City, including a league-best eight in 2015 when he was named the Defensive Rookie of the Year. He had only three picks this season, as he adjusted to his new team.
Peters, like Edelman, brings some controversy to football’s biggest stage. His fiery personality led to a one-game suspension with the Chiefs for throwing a penalty flag into the stands during a 2017 game. More recently, he offered a testy retort when New Orleans coach Sean Payton disparaged his coverage skills after the Saints beat the Rams in November.
“He’s growing up,” Michael Peters said of his son. “Some of it is, he just has to mature a little more. He takes everything to heart and he has to learn how to channel that. He’s working on it.”