Veteran Eagle Jason Peters not going anywhere just yet | Les Bowen
Left tackle isnt ready to retire yet, but Birds are putting pieces in place for when he does
Update: The Eagles announced Wednesday morning that Jason Peters has signed a contract extension through 2019.
THE SUCCESSION plan is in place and rehearsals have gone well. Lane Johnson has spent the spring working at left tackle. Halapoulivaati Vaitai, who would take Johnson's right-tackle role if Johnson moved to the left side, is "night and day" more ready for that job than he was a year ago as a rookie, offensive-line coach Jeff Stoutland said this week.
Except, Tuesday, as the Eagles began their three-day mandatory minicamp, 35-year-old left tackle Jason Peters made his first appearance of the spring and hinted that he isn't really thinking about retirement yet. In fact, Peters indicated he'd really like his contract reworked, so that the team doesn't have a huge incentive every offseason to release him or ask him to take a pay cut to help with the cap. (The Eagles asked, very nicely, this offseason. Peters declined, and will count $11.7 million toward the cap this year, $11.25 million next year, the last installment of his deal. If he is released after this season, the team will realize $10.25 million in cap savings.)
"I don't want to be year-to-year, doubting me or releasing me, taking pay cuts and all that," Peters said. "I just want to make sure I've got the reassurance that I'm going to retire here, I don't have to worry about it. Show up and show out."
The man has been selected for nine Pro Bowls, seven as an Eagle since arriving in a 2009 trade. The most Pro Bowl berths anybody ever accumulated in an Eagles uniform is eight, by Chuck Bednarik. Peters is one of the franchise's all-time greats. Given more practice time off last season than he'd enjoyed under Chip Kelly, Peters played every game and looked good. Stoutland said it was Peters' best year since Stoutland's arrival in 2013.
Eagles coach Doug Pederson Tuesday called Peters "the least of my worries." The organization more or less encouraged Peters to work out on his own in Texas during OTAs, to save him some wear and tear and to give Johnson work at left tackle, work Stoutland said Johnson needed to reassure Stoutland that Johnson was ready to do the job.
"I was just resting my body. Fourteenth year," Peters said. "Just trying to go as long as I can."
The cap number is just about the only thing clouding Peters' horizon. If he can reduce that in a reworked deal that adds guaranteed cash, well, age doesn't define him any more than it does, say, Tom Brady.
All of which leaves Johnson as the Prince Charles of NovaCare. Prince Charles is 68 now and, in case you haven't checked lately, still isn't the king of England. He might have once thought he'd get to wear the crown while he still had hair to tuck up under it, but Queen Elizabeth II is going strong at 91.
When the Eagles signed Johnson to a five-year, $56.25 million extension early last year, the structure assumed he would become the left tackle pretty soon. His cap number went from a little more than $7.7 million last year to more than $9.8 million this year, and will go to $12.25 million in 2018 and $12.85 million in 2019. It's hard to pay two guys to be your top-of-scale left tackle. But Peters doesn't seem inclined to take his final bow.
"I just go year-to-year, I don't know (how many more)," Peters said. "If I felt like I was gettin' beat too much, I'd just move inside (to guard). Whatever I can do to help the team."
So, is he thinking several more years?
"Yeah, if I gotta play guard, I'll play guard," said Peters, who clearly doesn't have anything he'd rather do than play football.
"Eventually," Johnson said Tuesday, when asked about that left-side role. "Biding my time, playing right. I guess it'll come when it comes."
The salary-cap situation might not have an easy solution. Peters isn't against lowering his cap number, but he definitely expects to be paid the going rate for a perennial Pro Bowl left tackle.
"It's going to come to a head, I just don't know when," Johnson said. "It's kind of a waiting game."
But a reasonably pleasant one.
"Just the tone - he comes in the locker room, it's (like) 'Hey, you have that old papa bear, everything's going to be OK.' That's the kind of feeling you get whenever he comes in the building," Johnson said, when asked about the difference made by Peters' presence.
"Whenever he's here, he coaches me up, just kind of takes the pressure off things," Johnson said. "He's the guy that's been through all the fire and stuff I'm going to be going through when I go to left tackle, so I just try to learn as much as I can."
Johnson said he has no big issue as long as he's being paid like a left tackle.
"I'll eventually get over there," he said.
Johnson envisions a scenario in which Peters might be able to rest a limited number of snaps this season, with Johnson moving over and Vaitai coming in, like a defensive-line rotation.
This spring has been Johnson's most extensive work at left tackle since he left Oklahoma as the fourth overall pick in the 2013 draft.
"It's been good for me, really good," he said. "Really my stance, it's a lot different on the left. Even my footwork - it seems simple, when you look at it from the outside, (but) when you get in there and do it, it's a lot more difficult."
Peters didn't take a lot of reps his first day back. Much of the time, Johnson was the left tackle for Carson Wentz's unit, Vaitai the right tackle.
"He's coming along. He's a natural. He's getting better every day," Peters said of Johnson. "Like 'Stout' said, he needs to work, just to get in there and get the repetitions. He's going to get better and better."
Vaitai said he is more patient and confident than he was as a fifth-round rookie. He did a lot of core work in the offseason, for his balance. In the wake of Johnson's 10-game PED suspension last season, Vaitai ended up starting six games. It's not at all clear he'll get as much playing time this year, despite the refinements he's made.
"I don't worry about that," Vaitai said. "I'm just playing day by day."
@LesBowen
Blog: philly.com/Eaglesblog