PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Former Eagles left tackle Jason Peters insists he can still hold his own in the trenches of the NFL.
“I just tell them to come watch the game or practice and see if they can see if I’m 39 out there,” Peters said Monday, all decked out in Chicago gear and a big Bears backdrop behind him.
The team announced last week that it signed Peters to a one-year contract.
Bears orange is certainly a shift from Eagles green, which Peters spent 12 seasons wearing in what many believe is a Hall of Fame career.
So, how did this even happen?
According to Peters, he was fishing on a creek in Texas when he suddenly received a phone call from Bears offensive line coach Juan Castillo — who held that role with the Eagles for many years.
“Phone rang, it was Juan. I was like, ‘Uh oh. I know what this is,’ ” Peters recalled.
The Bears needed help on their offensive line, and Peters was a free agent, as the Eagles didn’t bring him back for another season.
Truth be told, it seemed like Peters’ time in Philadelphia was going to come to an end sooner than 2020. He was with the organization last year after right guard Brandon Brooks suffered a serious Achilles injury. The team then moved him back to left tackle after Andre Dillard injured himself.
Although the Eagles didn’t retain Peters for season No. 13 in Philadelphia, he said he “told the coaches and the GMs and stuff over in Philly that I was gonna go another year. It just depended on the right situation. But I wasn’t retiring after last year.”
If he did, it would have come after another injury that kept him off the field. Peters only played eight games in 2020. He decided that December to get surgery on his foot, which he evidently injured in Week 1 against Washington. Once the playoffs were out of the picture, Peters opted for the procedure.
During the 2017 Super Bowl campaign, he suffered a season-ending injury that denied him a chance to take the field in the playoffs.
Despite his recent injuries and everything he’s accomplished from a personal and team standpoint, the chance at another Super Bowl win is motivating Peters to keep going.
Once football is no longer fun for him, he said, that’s when it’s time to call it a career.
“I really don’t have nothing to prove,” Peters said. “I just want to win, get another ring, to be honest. … The Pro Bowl stuff, I got plenty of those. All-Pros, all the accolades. The biggest one for me now is Super Bowl. I got one. I would like another here with the Chicago Bears.”
And if he doesn’t end up starting — something that hasn’t been the case since he was in his early 20s with the Buffalo Bills — Peters said he will still put a lot of focus on helping the younger players and “hand the baton off to them.”
Though at this point, Peters worked enough during the offseason to stay sharp — just in case someone called.
“I still got my quicks, my strength. Like I said, just get my legs up under me because the guys started in April and they got that big of a head start on me, so I’m just trying to get my legs where their legs are right now.”