Peters’ pick puts Bills on alert

Peters’ pick puts Bills on alert
December 19
Buffalo News columnist Bob DiCesare
"All those who feel the integrity of the Pro Bowl voting process has been validated by the selection of Jason Peters please respond by shouting, “Aye.”

That’s what I thought. Pretty much silence.

But that doesn’t change the fact that the Buffalo Bills find themselves right back where they started. If Peters unsuccessfully held out for more money after one Pro Bowl appearance, then he’ll surely hold out again. If he can skip training camp, perform at a less than optimal level and still get a plane ticket to Hawaii, well, why wouldn’t he take that same tack if the Bills dig in their heels?

While Peters wasn’t his dominant self this season, he remains the team’s best offensive lineman at its most demanding position, left tackle. It’s not his fault that the Bills’ budget is out of whack because they overspent in free agency for fellow offensive linemen Langston Walker and Derrick Dockery ($12 million total this season). Why shouldn’t Peters expect compensation that, at a minimum, reflects his value to the team? The Bills had no problem reaching deep for Chris Kelsay with, as it turns out, a return unequal to the investment.

What’s unfortunate for the Bills is that Peters’ bargaining leverage has been magnified by his return trip to Hawaii, an inexplicable honor that nonetheless carries heavy weight at the negotiating table. If the Bills don’t rework his contract before next season, they’ll never get another chance, not with Peters two seasons away from free agency. At that point he becomes Nate Clements, a player set on discovering what other teams will pay for his services in free agency. And who could blame him?

Yes, the Bills are getting snookered here to some degree because, let’s face it. The Pro Bowl selection process is far from ideal. Former Bills offensive lineman Ross Tucker noted the flaws in a column written for SI.com in which he categorizes Peters as undeserving, a product of a haphazard system.

“There are some significant holes in the way in which players vote for the Pro Bowl that have to be rectified immediately in the interest of continuity and fairness,” Tucker writes. “I have gone through the process a number of times on a number of teams and know that seemingly every organization does it its own way, some of which are better than others.” "
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