Rams’ Marcus Peters: ‘I know I’m a top corner in this league’

The Los Angeles Rams traded for cornerback Marcus Peters this past offseason with the expectation that his brilliant three-year run in Kansas City would continue in Southern California.

That just hasn’t been the case. Having dealt with a leg injury early in the season, it has not gotten much better in recent weeks.

He yielded four catches for north of 70 yards to Davante Adams in Los Angeles’ Week 8 win over the Green Bay Packers. It was a brutal overall performance.

Then, this past Sunday, Peters was torched by Saints wide receiver Michael Thomas on a 72-yard touchdown. The play itself was about as bad as it gets from the cornerback’s perspective.

Peters knows full well that he’s struggled big time this season. But he also has the confidence to turn it around. Whether said confidence is overblown is up for interpretation.

“I’ll stand up,” Peters said in a colorful interview. “I can play better. I’ve been playing (shabily) these last couple weeks, and that’s just being honest,” Peters said, via the Los Angeles Daily News. “I’m just going to continue to fight. That’s the type of player I am. You’re going to get beat in football, but you go out each week to the highest of your ability.”

The issue here is that Peters’ struggles have not simply been a two-week thing. He entered Sunday’s game having yielded five touchdown passes on the season. Following Thomas’ score, Peters has now given up the most touchdowns for a cornerback on the season.

Despite this, he still thinks he’s among the best cornerbacks in the game.

“If I wasn’t totally healthy, coach wouldn’t put me out there,” Peters said. “I had a bad couple weeks and I’ll step up. I know I’m a top … corner in this league and I ain’t been playing like that. Put that on me.”

As we saw in the Rams’ first loss of the season, they are going to need Peters to step his game up big time moving forward. The status quo obviously isn’t working. At the very least, he recognizes this.