Jason Peters on Carson Wentz and Philly: 'It's a Hard City to Play For'
PHILADELPHIA - It's full speed ahead for Jason Peters and an 18th NFL season but it remains highly unlikely that it will be in Philadelphia where the transitioning Eagles are prepared to hand the baton at left tackle to either Jordan Mailata or Andre Dillard under new head coach Nick Sirianni.
Peters, the now 39-year-old nine-time Pro Bowl selection, appeared on the NFL Network's "Good Morning Football" on Thursday and reiterated that the plan is to keep going after starting eight games during his 12th season with the Eagles in 2020.
"I don't know about a whole lot, but I still got some in the tank, and I can definitely show some of the young guys how to play the game of football," said Peters. "You can know the Xs and Os, but I'm gonna be the one to stay with 'em after practice and show 'em how to really play the game, the technique, and the things about the detail of the football game throughout the course of the season."
Peters first showed that kind of acumen during the Eagles' 2017-18 Super Bowl run when he went down with a torn ACL and kind of acted as a tutor for Halapoulivaati Vaitai, who held down the LT fort en route to the franchise's first and only Lombardi Trophy.
Philadelphia had planned to move on from Peters after the 2019 season when injuries took hold, starting with Brandon Brooks' Achilles' injury at right guard.
At the point, Peters was brought back with the intent of shifting him to RG at Brooks' replacement while starting Dillard at LT, something that went awry when the 2019 first-round pick suffered a torn biceps in training camp.
From there, after a little contract wrangling, Peters was moved back over to his familiar LT position but he was limited by knee and toe injuries and the Eagles as a whole had to use a record 14 different OL combinations in 2020 turning a traditional strength into a significant weakness, at least at times.
Peters did sport an Eagles sweatshirt during his GMFB interview but seemed to understand any future on the field will be elsewhere.
The veteran, long a locker-room leader, also offered his opinion on quarterback Carson Wentz and what went wrong for the former face of the franchise, who will be traded by the Eagles to Indianapolis at the start of the new league year on March 17.
"I was surprised, but I wasn't, like, super surprised because when they benched him and put Jalen (Hurts) in, things went left," said Peters.
"And I always encouraged (Wentz) and told him, 'Keep working, everything happens for a reason,' and, like I said, I wasn't crazy surprised when it happened, but any team that was gonna pick him up, I knew it was gonna be Frank Reich 'cause when he was there, Frank had him running smooth. Super Bowl run, we went and got the trophy, and that was my deal on that.
"Carson is a great player, nothing really went wrong on that. He just was in Philadelphia. It's a hard city to play for, man, they're critical of every play, inch, foot, year. You gotta bring it every year or Philadelphia will eat you up, man."
Veteran defensive end Brandon Graham offered a similar sentiment when talking with The Athletic earlier this week.
"Philly is a tough market and tough place to play in, and so when things weren’t going right, I know it was … probably tough on (Wentz) and his family to have to live through that,” said Graham. “So it’s a breath of fresh air for all of us.”
John McMullen contributes Eagles coverage for SI.com's EagleMaven and is the NFL Insider for JAKIB Media. You can listen to John every Monday and Friday on SIRIUSXM’s Tony Bruno Show with Harry Mayes, and every Tuesday and Thursday with Eytan Shander on SBNation Radio. You can reach him at jmcmullen44@gmail.com or on Twitter @JFMcMullen
Ed Kracz is the publisher of SI.com’s EagleMaven. Check out the latest Eagles news at www.SI.com/NFL/Eagles and please follow him on Twitter: @kracze.
