Marcus Peters was put on blast Thursday night after he allowed a 40-yard touchdown to DK Metcalf. He appeared to get beat in man coverage by a significant amount, as the catch wasn’t even contested by Peters.
If you ask Eric Weddle, it wasn’t the cornerback’s fault. That play falls on him. Weddle said after the game that he was responsible for the touchdown, not Peters.
“Seattle’s a good team, and Russell Wilson’s playing out of his mind right now and what he can do to extend plays,” Weddle said. “Outside of the one where I blew the one on MP, that’s me. Outside of that, we’re covering them up.”
On Friday, Sean McVay confirmed it wasn’t Peters’ fault.
“The one that they ended up hitting to Metcalf, that was not how we envisioned it and that was not on Marcus. … Really, there’s so many different coverage intricacies that are involved. I think, in a lot of instances, when you look at the defensive backfield – very similar to sometimes the offensive line play – once there’s really a clear-cut understanding of exactly what the intent of what we’re trying to get done or how a certain things play out and what’s supposed to occur, I think it can get a little bit misleading. I think the Metcalf touchdown was one of those last night as well.”
If you watch the play again, you can see Weddle – the free safety – bite up too much and leave Peters on an island. It was a busted coverage and Weddle was likely supposed to be in the deep middle, not in the box.
That was a big turning point in the game and gave Seattle some momentum midway through the second quarter. Weddle would like to have that one back, and he took accountability for the mistake afterwards – something that should surprise no one, given his leadership skills.
