The Kansas City Chiefs are expected to trade cornerback Marcus Peters to the Los Angeles Rams, according to Adam Schefter of ESPN. The teams are in “final stages of talks,” and “barring an unexpected snag,” the deal could be done on Friday.
Edit: And now Schefter reports that the deal is fully agreed upon, but can’t be made official until March 14. Multiple reports suggest a package that is built entirely of draft picks.
The San Francisco 49ers were among the teams interested in trading for Peters, along with the Cleveland Browns, according to Ian Rapoport of the NFL Network.
This is huge, and unexpected. There were rumblings about Peters being available, but they were viewed as unsubstantiated rumors by myself and the NFL media at large. We took a look at what Chiefs fans thought about the rumors, which were barely considered rumors at the time.
Peters is simply too good to be traded, isn’t he? Apparently not.
Obviously, this impacts the 49ers in a big way. They are in the cornerback market, and if Peters was available, it sure would have been nice for them to get him. But even without considering that, the NFC West just got a whole lot more interesting. Peters will certainly make life a lot tougher for 49ers quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo, who led the team to a win over the Rams in Week 17 of the NFL season.
The 49ers recently hosted free agent cornerback Vontae Davis, and multiple 49ers players have been on Twitter trying to recruit New England Patriots cornerback Malcolm Butler, while NFL mock drafts consistently have cornerbacks going to the team. It’s a position they need and want to improve, clearly.
This also makes it more likely that Trumaine Johnson doesn’t re-sign with the Rams, and will hit the open market in free agency.