The Front Office: Adam Peters and Roster Construction

[Discobob]

I think that Jones realizes that he doesn’t have a lot of time left and that is a large motivating factor in his actions.

I wish him good health.... but I'm totally down for rash decision making, or as the Cowpukes call it "decision making"

 

[Discobob]

Peters hasn't learned a damn thing from last year.. with the re-signing of Wise and Tuttle. both players over 30 and Wise coming off of injury.

Dude.... I don't care if you don't like Peters, totally fine by me.... but we have like 30 FAs leaving, if Wise on a 1-yr deal is what puts you over the edge.....

 

[burgold]

This operation’s ability to self-scout has been in doubt for a while imo

I think I agree although I may quibble.

I think this operation overcorrects. They thought their big problem in 2024 was that they couldn't stop the run so they got rid of their pass rushers and got the biggest, stoutest guys they could (plus Von Miller as a very late add) and hoped they could scheme up pass pressure without anyone (minus Luvu and Von Miller) who had a history of being good at it. This idea failed spectacularly.

I think Kliff believed the offense was fine but was missing a YAC guy and protection. So, they bolstered the oline and added Deebo. Mixed results but probably no better grade than a C. Injuries make this harder to judge because once Terry came back and Burks came up to speed the offense started to look okay again even without Ertz, Ekeler, Daniels, Brown, etc.

In both cases, I think by overcorrecting they lost some of what made them effective in 2024. Of course, there was also the continuance of the idea that they could squeeze the last juice out of aging veterans wanting just one more go around. Again, while this worked really well in 2024 it largely failed in 2025. Part of that I do think was a failure of coaching as well as injury as many players seemed to regress.

 

[Riggo44]

I think I agree although I may quibble.

I am going to do the same with the pass rush--it's hard to rush the passer when all of your DEs get hurt. There was a tweet about mid-season that before Armstrong et al got hurt, we were middle of the pack at advanced metrics rushing the passer (win rate, pressure, etc.) and those numbers dropped off the cliff after Armstrong, Wise, and JJB were out for the year. So while not exactly the Seahawks or Vikings pass rush, we weren't horrible at it.

 

[skinsinparadise]

I think Keim talking to a source with the team summarized the Peters approach well. Paraphrasing what was said.

A. Rebuild the culture by adding culture building veterans in 2024

B. In 2025, since they were just a game away from the SB in 2024 they doubled down on this and just tinkered with the roster

C. in 2026, now, they realize they need to move away from this veteran approach and will go for the kill.

To add my own editorial that in 2025, I think Peters suffered from a bout of extreme arrogance. The idea that he can strike gold with veterans, without killing the cap, and that he found some sort of loophole in the WR market where he can grab dudes off the street and find gems -- in short, that Zaccheus signing set this team back IMO where Peters thought he can do it over and over again.

I think Peters comes off by reputation as a nice guy so I don't mean smug-arrogant in a personality sense -- but based on his moves, he came off like his crap doesn't stink. It's not unusual for an upstart or rookie success to fall on their face the next year for partly this reason. It's part of the soup of the sophomore slump. To me the kicker was in the 2025 draft room, Peters going Adam "fing" Peters as if he's already a legend. I do think it all went to his head. Quinn to some extent, too. They alas were the cliche of the sophomore slump. Sheehan was going over it in one of his shows which is there have been many instances of teams having quick success like Washington did in 2024 and then collapsing the next season.

All of that reminded me some of the 2nd season under Rivera where the O line held up with backups they signed and the FO started to think that they can manage that spot on the cheap because of their special niche of finding O lineman who don't break the bank. We went on a similar ride at WR with Peters. So now here we are.

I think Peters for his faults has shown enough competence for me to give him this off season. There is nothing beats failure as a learning tool and heck Peters said the same in one of his first interviews. Their plan this year looks very different in theory at least as its been predicted compared to the previous two years so I'll give it a chance to play out.

It wouldn't surprise me if Peters went to Harris after the 2024 season and said look I can build a winner in a different way than other organizations. We can add veterans. We don't need to spend 20 million plus on WRs in FA like other teams or spend that kind of money on edge. Did you see Zaccheus? how much did we pay him? Dude, I can find you a Zaccheus every year. Look at all the sacks we created with Fowler and Armstrong. We can ride this approach all the way through Jayden's looming expensive contract -- etc.

Then oops Peters found out he's mortal. Jayden is mortal. And heck we haven't figured out a cheat code that the rest of the NFL hasn't. I think and hope he got smackled with cold water in his face and he has his sleaves rolled up and they are ready to spend. It feels like its going down. And if so, I'll let this chapter play out before killing Peters about this or that.

 

[Voice_of_Reason]

I think Keim talking to a source with the team summarized the Peters approach well. Paraphrasing what was said.

A. Rebuild the culture by adding culture building veterans in 2024

B. In 2025, since they were just a game away from the SB in 2024 they doubled down on this and just tinkered with the roster

C. in 2026, now, they realize they need to move away from this veteran approach and will go for the kill.

To add my own editorial that in 2025, I think Peters suffered from a bout of extreme arrogance. The idea that he can strike gold with veterans, without killing the cap, and that he found some sort of loophole in the WR market where he can grab dudes off the street and find gems -- in short, that Zaccheus signing set this team back IMO where Peters thought he can do it over and over again.

I think Peters comes off by reputation as a nice guy so I don't mean smug-arrogant in a personality sense -- but based on his moves, he came off like his crap doesn't stink. It's not unusual for an upstart or rookie success to fall on their face the next year for partly this reason. It's part of the soup of the sophomore slump. To me the kicker was in the 2025 draft room, Peters going Adam "fing" Peters as if he's already a legend. I do think it all went to his head. Quinn to some extent, too. They alas were the cliche of the sophomore slump. Sheehan was going over it in one of his shows which is there have been many instances of teams having quick success like Washington did in 2024 and then collapsing the next season.

All of that reminded me some of the 2nd season under Rivera where the O line held up with backups they signed and the FO started to think that they can manage that spot on the cheap because of their special niche of finding O lineman who don't break the bank. We went on a similar ride at WR with Peters. So now here we are.

I think Peters for his faults has shown enough competence for me to give him this off season. There is nothing beats failure as a learning tool and heck Peters said the same in one of his first interviews. Their plan this year looks very different in theory at least as its been predicted compared to the previous two years so I'll give it a chance to play out.

It wouldn't surprise me if Peters went to Harris after the 2024 season and said look I can build a winner in a different way than other organizations. We can add veterans. We don't need to spend 20 million plus on WRs in FA like other teams or spend that kind of money on edge. Did you see Zaccheus? how much did we pay him? Dude, I can find you a Zaccheus every year. Look at all the sacks we created with Fowler and Armstrong. We can ride this approach all the way through Jayden's looming expensive contract -- etc.

Then oops Peters found out he's mortal. Jayden is mortal. And heck we haven't figured out a cheat code that the rest of the NFL hasn't. I think and hope he got smackled with cold water in his face and he has his sleaves rolled up and they are ready to spend. It feels like its going down. And if so, I'll let this chapter play out before killing Peters about this or that.

I was going to say I disagree with just about all everything after your summary of the Keim thing. But I actually don't know if I disagree, or there is just absolutely no proof either direction of this being true. There's literally nothing to suggest any degree of arrogance or hubris from any reporting I've heard. The league generally thinks Peters knows what he's doing, the players clearly like him.

I think they made mistakes with the roster construction. That's clear.

But you're drawing a conclusion about arrogance based on results, not intent. And I think that's dangerous.

Sometimes it's just as simple as you make a bad plan. Due to nothing other than the fact you made a bad plan. Make enough bad plans, you get fired. Do it once in a while, it happens. In every line of work.

And I think they had a bad plan and then got seriously unlucky. Which amplified the bad plan.

Peters, nor Quinn, is Rivera. They've never really talked like Rivera, they've never really behaved like Rivera.

Could what you say be true about the arrogance? Sure. But it also could be true that he just made a bad plan and it blew up in his face. Hopefully, he'll learn from it, and change approach.

One of the key signs of arrogance is not being able to see your own mistake and change directions. And generally, people who are arrogant, stay that way. Changing that characteristic is hard.

It sounds like he's changing approach, he has admitted that he has learned things, so I personally don't see the arrogance. You never know, none of us know him.

I honestly don't care that much, I just want the team to play well.

If we do change paths, and dramatically so, I think that is another sign it wasn't arrogance. It was a bad plan, he learned, adapted, tried something different. That's a really good sign in general.

 

[burgold]

To add my own editorial that in 2025, I think Peters suffered from a bout of extreme arrogance. The idea that he can strike gold with veterans, without killing the cap, and that he found some sort of loophole in the WR market where he can grab dudes off the street and find gems -- in short, that Zaccheus signing set this team back IMO where Peters thought he can do it over and over again.

Think about the precious and semi-precious metals he found in 2024. Noah Brown was arguably our number 1 receiver and a good one before his internal fluke injury. Often got more targets and more important passes than Terry. You mentioned OZ. Then there's Jamison Crowder who was resurrected off the trash heap to contribute some really important snaps.

I think this did lead Peters to think he could turn hay to gold. Unfortunately, we won't know if it would have worked because all his hay was rotted and broke practically before he could spread it over the field.

 

[skinsinparadise]

Think about the precious and semi-precious metals he found in 2024. Noah Brown was arguably our number 1 receiver and a good one before his internal fluke injury. Often got more targets and more important passes than Terry. You mentioned OZ. Then there's Jamison Crowder who was resurrected off the trash heap to contribute some really important snaps.

I think this did lead Peters to think he could turn hay to gold. Unfortunately, we won't know if it would have worked because all his hay was rotted and broke practically before he could spread it over the field.

Exacty. It wasn't just Zaccheus. I don't blame him for thinking he can pull it off every year until it fails.

Keim has said many times from talking to a source with the team they were counting on Noah, Gallup, Osborn, Chris Moore and it just didn't work out.

Now for most organizations they aren't riding on street FAs even to be primary backups. Peters thought he could pull it off. He failed. But likely though hey Dyami had his best season here because of Jayden. Crowder played well enough. Zaccheus was good. Noah when healthy was good. And that's 3 street FAs and one young WR who some saw as a bust until Jayden arrived.

Not the end of the world. Seems like he learned his lesson. I got the logic behind it. But yeah to me its cocky. But I get why he was cocky. But I don't think he is anymore.

It was like lol when I played craps for the first time in Atlantic City, I felt like I had the touch, won money until i didn't. I had an early small cap winner as to my stock portfolio, I thought I had the touch to pull off some risky stock picking until I found out it wasn't that easy. Same idea.

 

[skinsinparadise]

I was going to say I disagree with just about all everything after your summary of the Keim thing. But I actually don't know if I disagree, or there is just absolutely no proof either direction of this being true. There's literally nothing to suggest any degree of arrogance or hubris from any reporting I've heard. The league generally thinks Peters knows what he's doing, the players clearly like him.

I think they made mistakes with the roster construction. That's clear.

But you're drawing a conclusion about arrogance based on results, not intent. And I think that's dangerous.

Sometimes it's just as simple as you make a bad plan. Due to nothing other than the fact you made a bad plan. Make enough bad plans, you get fired. Do it once in a while, it happens. In every line of work.

And I think they had a bad plan and then got seriously unlucky. Which amplified the bad plan.

Peters, nor Quinn, is Rivera. They've never really talked like Rivera, they've never really behaved like Rivera.

Could what you say be true about the arrogance? Sure. But it also could be true that he just made a bad plan and it blew up in his face. Hopefully, he'll learn from it, and change approach.

One of the key signs of arrogance is not being able to see your own mistake and change directions. And generally, people who are arrogant, stay that way. Changing that characteristic is hard.

It sounds like he's changing approach, he has admitted that he has learned things, so I personally don't see the arrogance. You never know, none of us know him.

I honestly don't care that much, I just want the team to play well.

If we do change paths, and dramatically so, I think that is another sign it wasn't arrogance. It was a bad plan, he learned, adapted, tried something different. That's a really good sign in general.

For Keim, I don't care whether you believe it or not. In my mind, I have plenty of proof with his name dropping leading to actual FA and draft picks over many years. I did a fan zoom with him once where he explained why he name drops and why he does it subtly. If you don't want to believe that or believe he's just spit balling by combing other sources and is really good at extrapolating good guesses that way. That's cool.

In my mind you are 100% wrong not even 99.9%. But my point isn't to convince you. I know some people buy into his name dropping means something, I know some don't think so. Cool either way. I share for those who do believe it. And those who don't they are free to ignore. Standig is getting really aggressive with name dropping players this off season, be interesting to see how he does.

And the idea I've seen you use that when this story or that story surfaces and Keim or name that reporter never knew as proof that they aren't that on top of things and to extrapolate from that it means their actual reporting isn't what we all crack it up to be -- to me that's a bit silly. No reporter, not Keim, not Schefter or whomever knows what a team is thinking about everything and will anticipate every move -- that would be absurd. the idea is about what they do know. The idea isn't that they know everything, of course they don't.

As for Peters, I've explained what I felt was arrogant like 100 times so lol I don't feel like diving in again. Of course, I don't know for sure what emotions Peters is experiencing. I didn't say I do. I just explained why it felt that way to me. Just like you can't explain the emotion of anybody you know including even people you are close to, all you can do is make deductions based on how it comes off to you.

 

[skinsinparadise]

As for the comments on D. Wise. To each their own, but for me I see it as a good sign not a bad sign. D. Wise from the jump is a good backup rotational guy. Bring him in heavy sets. Run focused teams, etc. But the idea that he's the solution at either end spot last season IMO was ridiculous.

Not only didn't they do enough to upgrade their roster -- their depth was a joke. Bringing back guys like Burks and Wise as depth are good moves IMO.

I don't mind some older players on the cheap as depth. You got to sign some players on the cheap especially for depth and the older ones are cheaper. But I love the idea of Wise as a backup. Or Burks as a backup. Hopefully Jacob Martin as a backup.

Having decent backups help avoid season collapses.

 

[DWinzit]

As for the comments on D. Wise. To each their own, but for me I see it as a good sign not a bad sign. D. Wise from the jump is a good backup rotational guy. Bring him in heavy sets. Run focused teams, etc. But the idea that he's the solution at either end spot last season IMO was ridiculous.

Not only didn't they do enough to upgrade their roster -- their depth was a joke. Bringing back guys like Burks and Wise as depth are good moves IMO.

I don't mind some older players on the cheap as depth. You got to sign some players on the cheap especially for depth and the older ones are cheaper. But I love the idea of Wise as a backup. Or Burks as a backup. Hopefully Jacob Martin as a backup.

Having decent backups help avoid season collapses.

Very happy with Wise coming back, I felt he was playing well before injury. I would have been pissed if they didn't bring Burks back. I don't recall hearing Martin has been brought back but he and Mariota would be the next most important....and extending Tunsil of course.

So I too would be pleased with Wise, Burks and Martin back as backups. I will be upset if any of those are considered starters.

 

[Canuck]

Designating Payne saves the team $22M against the cap in 2026.

So, if you want a bucket of money to chase free agents that's a nice cache of change to add to the pot.

No one is going to confuse Payne with Chris Jones.

Who do you replace Payne with in FA? In a contract yr, I think he will be motivated.

 

[Riggo44]

Who do you replace Payne with in FA? In a contract yr, I think he will be motivated.

Last time he was in a contract year, he put up 11 sacks.

 

[skinsinparadise]

Very happy with Wise coming back, I felt he was playing well before injury. I would have been pissed if they didn't bring Burks back. I don't recall hearing Martin has been brought back but he and Mariota would be the next most important....and extending Tunsil of course.

So I too would be pleased with Wise, Burks and Martin back as backups. I will be upset if any of those are considered starters.

Yeah as a starter I thought meh. And lol i thought it was weird how much they hyped Will Harris and D. Wise as some big solutions to their defense. Both are solid players but they aren't difference makers.

So making a big deal about signing Wise and how this Superman supposedly is going to single handily solve the D line's woes at stopping the run -- felt a bit cringe to me. But you take that same player and have him as a backup, i love that.

they need to take depth seriously IMO, and it seems clear that they get their depth was pathetic last year really in every spot except O line. So this is a good start IMO.

 

[skinsinparadise]

 

[RedWolf]

We need a solid kicker!!!

 

[skinsinparadise]

We need a solid kicker!!!

I just noticed I posted that in the wrong thread. But to bring it on theme, Peters for two seasons struggled to get a kicker, shows us Adam you learn from your mistakes.

 

[Riggo44]

I find it utterly hysterical people think that Burks is going to be the only signing at receiver.

 

[Voice_of_Reason]

For Keim, I don't care whether you believe it or not. In my mind, I have plenty of proof with his name dropping leading to actual FA and draft picks over many years. I did a fan zoom with him once where he explained why he name drops and why he does it subtly. If you don't want to believe that or believe he's just spit balling by combing other sources and is really good at extrapolating good guesses that way. That's cool.

In my mind you are 100% wrong not even 99.9%. But my point isn't to convince you. I know some people buy into his name dropping means something, I know some don't think so. Cool either way. I share for those who do believe it. And those who don't they are free to ignore. Standig is getting really aggressive with name dropping players this off season, be interesting to see how he does.

And the idea I've seen you use that when this story or that story surfaces and Keim or name that reporter never knew as proof that they aren't that on top of things and to extrapolate from that it means their actual reporting isn't what we all crack it up to be -- to me that's a bit silly. No reporter, not Keim, not Schefter or whomever knows what a team is thinking about everything and will anticipate every move -- that would be absurd. the idea is about what they do know. The idea isn't that they know everything, of course they don't.

As for Peters, I've explained what I felt was arrogant like 100 times so lol I don't feel like diving in again. Of course, I don't know for sure what emotions Peters is experiencing. I didn't say I do. I just explained why it felt that way to me. Just like you can't explain the emotion of anybody you know including even people you are close to, all you can do is make deductions based on how it comes off to you.

You're really sensitive about Keim. If you go back and read my post, you'll notice that I didn't actually mention anything about him. If you look carefully, I said, and I quote, "I was going to say I disagree with just about all everything after your summary of the Keim thing. ... " The key phrase here is "after your summary of the Keim thing." I never even commented about what you summarized from Keim. My entire post was a reaction to your post starting at "To add my own editoria"

I never brought up Keim or said anything about him. However, you saw Keim and assumed somebody was attacking him. Which, at least in this case, wasn't the case at all.

My entire post was about Peters, and the fact I think you've gone a little bit far on the criticism due to a correlation you've made between actions and arrogance.

I think you might have a little bit of Ron Rivera and Bruce Allen induced PTSD where you're drawing a conclusion which isn't really there. However, you're more than entitled to that opinion. As I am thinking it's going a bit far.

 

[Voice_of_Reason]

Think about the precious and semi-precious metals he found in 2024. Noah Brown was arguably our number 1 receiver and a good one before his internal fluke injury. Often got more targets and more important passes than Terry. You mentioned OZ. Then there's Jamison Crowder who was resurrected off the trash heap to contribute some really important snaps.

I think this did lead Peters to think he could turn hay to gold. Unfortunately, we won't know if it would have worked because all his hay was rotted and broke practically before he could spread it over the field.

Noah Brown wasn't even remotely as important as Terry. What he was, until his injury, was the benefactor for the fact defenses had to roll coverage to Terry, and Noah Brown was good enough to take advantage. On a lot of the throws in critical situations, defenses would bracket Terry, essentially eliminating him, which left NBrown singled or able to work against a softer zone. And Daniels was good enough to recognize this and look his way.

And Peters, Quinn and Kliff are all football intelligent enough to know this.

The offense is 2024 ran through Daniels, but the second most important skill position player was Terry, and the third most important is miles behind.