Every year, Peters offers what Birds can’t refuse
PHILADELPHIA >> Eagles players call Jason Peters the Godfather, and for good reason. When he talks, they listen because the man of few words has been playing pro football since some of them were teenagers.
Peters, 37, is the seventh oldest active player in the NFL. He’s also the senior offensive tackle on the circuit, holding 11 months on the ageless Andrew Whitworth of the Los Angeles Rams.
There isn’t much Peters hasn’t done or seen as he approaches the 16th season of a career destined to land him in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
To better understand how Peters has evolved, it helps to review the signature plays he provided the Buffalo Bills, who signed him as an undrafted tight end out of Arkansas in 2004. One is prominent on the Bills highlights video former teammate Ross Tucker keeps on his phone.
The first sign Peters was special came in his rookie season, the campaign he played on the line with Wyomissing product Tucker, primarily a guard.
The Cincinnati Bengals were punting, and Peters crumpled the right side of the line, stretching out with his left arm to block a Kyle Larson punt. After bowling over the kicker at the 12-yard line, Peters sprinted — yes, sprinted — to collect the ball in the end zone. It gave the Bills the lead for good in a 7-7 game that turned into a 33-17 victory.
“It’s just crazy to think they had anybody over 300 pounds
out there on punt returns,” Tucker said. “It’s usually safeties, maybe linebackers. But he was on the kickoff team, he was on the punt return team. He broke through because the blockers on that team aren’t used to going against a body as big as him. He reached out with his hand, the ball hit right into it and he just kept going and fell on it in the end zone. We had won like four or five games in a row at that point. We were on a roll. The Bengals were pretty good. It was a hotly contested game and that was huge. That was like the nail in the coffin in that game for the Bengals.”
Peters remembered the TD, not the details. Unlike the younger, techier players of today, it’s not on his cell phone.
The following season Peters made another powerful yet artistic play for the Bills. In the opener against Houston, he hauled in a one-yard scoring lob from JP Losman to give the Bills a 12-7 lead with 22 seconds left in the first half. It was the only TD in the 22-7 win over Houston.
Fourteen years later it still could be a teaching point. Peters lined up, tight, on the right side of the formation, sold a block then leaked into the end zone. He leaped to haul in the pass and followed with a thundering spike that would have amped the testosterone level of the now retired Rob Gronkowski.
Just like the blocked punt, Peters didn’t recall too much about the play unless, that is, he enjoyed watching the animated description too much to stop it.
Peters doesn’t throw the catch out there when the offensive linemen are chatting at the far end of the Eagles’ locker room. Mostly, he listens.
“No, but I’ve seen clips of him when he was with Buffalo,” offensive tackle Lane Johnson said. “The catch, I liked what I saw. He looked like about two Alge Crumplers in one. It was very impressive.”
When Peters makes that trip to Canton, Ohio, they might want to dust off those TD videos. The presenter is going to have a tough time putting Peters’ career into perspective, starting with nine Pro Bowl appearances, two first-team All-Pro honors, what will be well over 200 games played and if the Eagles reach the playoffs this year, around 200 starts.
All by an offensive lineman, except for the first year with the Bills, who in 2009 made one of their biggest personnel mistakes in trading Peters to the Eagles for first- and fourth-round draft picks.
It’s not a coincidence that the two oldest active NFL players, 46-year-old Adam Vinatieri and 44-year-old Matt Bryant, are kickers. The only cats on the top 10 list of oldies who play regularly are quarterbacks Tom Brady (42), Eli Manning (38) and Philip Rivers (37). The Eagles recently picked up 40-year-old passer Josh McCown.
“It was one of those things in Jason’s first year where, who would have thought he’d end up being a Hall of Fame left tackle?” Tucker said. “I thought he’d end up being a starting offensive lineman in the league. But I didn’t think he’d end up still playing in 2019, which is insane. That was 2004. It’s crazy. But he’s got crazy athleticism.”
Peters says he’s taking football “year by year.” The Eagles traded up to draft offensive tackle Andre Dillard, the likely heir apparent.
Tucker recalled Peters working his way up from the practice squad to the active roster in Buffalo, playing “special teams, extra tight end, blocking tight end and later he moved to offensive line.
“They had him walk down for one-on-ones for the offensive line one day,” Tucker said of the mano-amano drills pitting blockers against pass rushers. “And the first time he ever did it in his life he was awesome. He got set and was just, ‘chooo!’ And then somebody else was like ‘alright, let me go against him.’ Nothing. He had no idea what he was doing at the moment but he was better in five seconds than I was at something I’d been doing for 15 years. I was like, ‘you’ve got to be kidding me.’ He was just that natural, that good.”
Every once in while Tucker — who was the Birds’ preseason TV analyst — mentions the punt block to Peters.
“And I’ll say to some of the Eagles guys, you ever shown video of that?” Tucker said. “I tease him about that.” Peters just smiles. The Godfather, you should know by now, is a man of few words.