Jabrill Peppers’ Patriots contract extension is highway robbery by New England

Eric Canha-USA TODAY Sports

Peppers’ new deal is a steal for the Patriots.

Finding the right schematic home for your talents cannot be underestimated as a precursor for success in the NFL. There are far too many examples in pro football history of players winding up in the wrong places with the wrong coaches, and their base attributes dissipate and disappear as a result.

But some of those players can be saved along the way with a “right place/right time” scenario with the right coach, who picks the player out of the Danger Zone and makes his future a far happier place to be.

Throughout Bill Belichick’s legendary career, few shot-callers in league history were better at understanding how to best exploit those mismanaged situations for his own benefit. How many times did we see the New England Patriots take fliers on middling players from other teams and turn them into stars? And how annoying was that for Belichick detractors?

Well, on his way out in 2023, Belichick did it once again with safety Jabrill Peppers. First in 2022, with a one-year, $2 million contract with $1.5 million guaranteed, and an additional $3 million to be earned in playing-time incentives, and then, with a two-year, $9 million deal including $6 million guaranteed.

Now, the Pats have tripled down with a three-year, $24 million deal for Peppers that could go as high as $30 million if he meets all his incentives.

In his second season with the Patriots, Peppers didn’t just get a lot of playing time (though he did do that, with 955 defensive snaps) — he redefined who he was as a player. Last season, the 2017 first-round pick of the Cleveland Browns finally had the career year his skill set always indicated.

As a pass defender, Peppers allowed 20 catches on 34 targets for 132 yards, 101 yards after the catch, one touchdown, two interceptions, seven pass breakups, and an opponent passer rating of 52.6. He also had 54 solo tackles, 28 stops, one sack, five total pressures, five tackles for loss, and a forced fumble.

Peppers transformed himself in Belichick’s defense, and the post-Belichick Patriots have rewarded him accordingly — to a point.

Did Peppers get a deal based on his status as a one-year wonder? His current base $8 million AAV places him in the second tier of safeties with Kevin Byard, Darnell Savage, Juan Thornhill, and Malik Hooker. Not the worst place to be, but after the season Peppers just had, and given his specific value to the Patriots with or without Belichick — new head coach Jerod Mayo won’t likely change too much of the architecture, as he played and coached for Belichick – one wonders why Peppers wasn’t able to get more on the open market.

In Peppers’ case, it may well be his square-peg/round-hole past.

Peppers was without a GPS in his first six seasons.

At Michigan, Peppers was a true hybrid safety in an era when that wasn’t a thing in the NFL just yet. He had more than 200 snaps each on the defensive line, in the box, and in the slot with the Wolverines in 2016. But his first two NFL teams — the Browns and then the New York Giants as part of the Odell Beckham Jr. trade — couldn’t quite figure it all out. The Browns tried him all over the place (with defensive coordinator Gregg Williams occasionally placing him in the parking lot from a deep coverage perspective), and the Giants had him more as a box/slot defender.

That was a similar strategy to what the Patriots tried with Peppers in 2022; then in 2023, they had him as a free safety on 424 snaps, with 267 in the box, 134 in the slot, 80 at outside cornerback, and 50 at the defensive line.

However it worked, it worked for Peppers like never before.

Jerod Mayo is just as happy about getting Peppers back in the fold now.

“I can confirm it. I’m the head coach,” Mayo said Friday of the deal. “I’m happy for Peppers, and for his family, and for our team and organization. He really embodies everything that you want on the field. He’s very selfless out there flying around all the time; it’s good to get that deal done.”

“I love it,” Mayo said of Peppers’ passion for the game. “ I will be honest with you, when he first got here, it was a little bit much for me. But, you know, I do appreciate it. He brings passion, he brings that energy each and every day. He’s one of our best communicators on defense along with Dug [Kyle Dugger] and I feel very good about that safety room as a whole.”

As he should, because Peppers’ tape from last season was pretty ridiculous.

Peppers was dominant everywhere in 2023.

Perhaps it’s Peppers’ understanding of how to generate pressure, but he also has an outstanding sense of how pressure from other defenders affects quarterbacks, and which throws they’re willing to make.

The interception shown above, on a Week 14 pass from Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Mitch Trubisky to tight end Pat Freiermuth, was based on Peppers’ read of the pressure created by fellow safety Kyle Dugger. The Patriots had a devious pressure/coverage thing going out of Cover-2 on third-and-10 at the start of the second quarter, and while Trubisky might have wanted to hit something deeper to the boundary, the pressure was shortening Trubisky’s clock — and Dugger’s pressure affected the throw. That’s why Peppers ran back to the curl/flat area from a deep drop right when Trubisky threw the ball.

Peppers’ on-field acumen extended to reading progressions — and more than just one at a time. On this Week 7 intersection of a Josh Allen pass to Buffalo Bills tight end Dawson Knox, Peppers let Knox through to the next level of New England’s Cover-3, followed tight end Dalton Kincaid to the flat, and then rushed back to Knox as Allen got ready to throw the ball. Peppers’ increased understanding of what the quarterback was about to do was a big part of his career-defining 2023 season.

And if the Patriots need someone to X out deep passes from the deep third, no problem there. Peppers played 30% of his snaps last season as a single-high safety, and another 25% as a split safety.

As a pass-rusher and run-stopper, Peppers has no issue getting grimy in the backfield. He proved that on his Week 12 sack of New York Giants quarterback Tommy DeVito, when he obliterated running back Saquon Barkley on the way in.

And as Jalen Hurts of the Philadelphia Eagles discovered in Week 1, quarterback runs are met with less-than-optimal results when Peppers is on task. As John Facenda said of the Green Bay Packers’ defense in the Super Bowl I highlight film, “Success invites punishment.”

“There wasn’t much time left, so we knew that when they were [in an] empty [formation], they like the QB draw,” Peppers said of the forced fumble, which came with 3:35 left in the game. “He’s a cutback kind of runner. I just took my leverage and tried to put my face mask on the ball. Get the ball out.”

New England’s defense is underrated, and Peppers plays right into that.

That play gave the Patriots a chance to win the game — unfortunately, New England’s offense couldn’t capitalize, and the result was a 25-20 loss. But as much as that offense couldn’t do much of anything last season, Bill Belchick’s final Patriots defense was on point as ever, and Peppers was a huge part of that.

Peppers will also be a huge part of the new era and that rebuild, because he’s finally found the right home for his talents. And the Patriots got a massive bargain with one of the NFL’s best safeties.