Julius Peppers

One more day until we find out whether Julius Peppers goes for the money or he goes for the chance to win a championship.

He already has a boatload of money from his time with the Carolina Panthers, so he doesn’t need to pursue the highest-value contract. But, you can never have enough mansions.

If he wants to go for a Super Bowl, he’s going to have to accept less money since none of the teams that play in the sort of situation that he’s looking for can afford to spend what Peppers is asking for.

If rumors are to be believed, there are four likely destinations for Julius Peppers: the Chicago Bears, the Washington Redskins, the Philadelphia Eagles and the New England Patriots.

Chicago Bears

The Chicago Bears may not be able to afford Peppers, but they’d dearly like to have him in the line-up.

It’s rumored that some of the Bears staff met with Carl Carey who happens to be Peppers representative at the NFL Scouting Combine. Peppers is Carey’s only client, so unless they were talking about the weather…

Philadelphia Eagles

The Eagles won’t be able to compete with some of the top-dollar teams, but if Peppers decides a championship is more important than money then the Eagles should be in the mix.

Peppers would help the Eagles short-term, but he doesn’t make a lot of sense. The Eagles don’t normally spend a lot on free-agents, and they don’t normally sign older players like Peppers to long expensive deals. They’d be more likely to sign some of the cheaper free agents out there.

Washington Redskins

Under Shanahan, the Redskins are switching to a 3-4 defense which means Peppers would have to switch to outside linebacker. But Peppers has already made it known that he’d like to see how he fits in a 3-4 defense.

The Redskins can afford send the Brinks truck to Peppers, but they’re probably not going to be a championship contender for a little while so Peppers would have to give up on his dream of winning a Super Bowl.

New England Patriots

The Patriots are the perfect 3-4 team for Peppers, but they can’t afford to pay him anywhere near what he’ll get from some other teams.

The Pats with Peppers become instant Super Bowl contenders. He could do that for any number of teams, but the Pats can afford to pay him more (at his discounted price) than he’s likely to get from teams like the Eagles.

So how do those loyal Patriots fans respond? By booing their team in Sundays wildcard loss to the Ravens. The Ravens first play from scrimmage was an 83 yard touchdown run. The Patriots first series finished in a strip sack of Brady by Suggs, which led to another score for the Ravens.

With the team down 14-0 only five minutes into the game the crowd lost all faith in their team. Forgotten are all the comebacks dialed up by Brady and games won in the final seconds. Nope, Patriots fans weren’t having any of it. In their eyes the team was a disgrace.

The Ravens were the ones who benefited from this. Their arrogance was bubbling over even more than usual as the sound of frustrated fans only served to jack Lewis and company up more. At the end of the first quarter the Patriots were down 24-0.

New England’s defense settled down only allowing 9 points for the remaining three quarters. But the damage had been done. The Patriots offense never seemed to find it’s rhythm. At times it looked like a comeback was possible. It never manifested itself though, the Ravens just seemed to be getting all the bounces.

Would this game have been different had the crowd not disrespected their team? There’s a good possibility it may have. If you watched the game you could see how the Ravens were feeding off it. You could also see the frustration from the Patriots. Who wouldn’t be frustrated and let down?

It’s pretty obvious football doesn’t mean as much to Boston fans as baseball, basketball or hockey. Maybe the Patriots just don’t have the tradition Boston fans love. I’m really not quite sure why it is. I know that if my town had a team as successful as the Patriots have been there would be nothing but love for them. But like spoiled children, nothing is ever good enough for Patriots fans.

That’s the loudest the fans at a Patriots game have been in quite some time. Too bad it only served to help the Ravens play better. With all the talk about Jacksonville, Minnesota or a few other teams that have way better fans than the Patriots moving to Los Angeles, maybe it’s time to throw another team into that mix. The LA Patriots, it has a pretty nice ring to it. Much nicer than the ring heard in Gillette stadium Sunday afternoon.

T. Jay is the writer and founder of http://www.GridironInsight.com, a blog dedicated to giving people a different view of the NFL. You can follow everything on twitter at http://www.twitter.com/GridironInsight.

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