Falcons defensive tackle Corey Peters is nobody’s big-budget blockbuster hero.
He does not come at you in IMAX 3-D, bigger than life. Aside from the little performance he gives after a quarterback sack — he pantomimes a dead dude — Peters goes about his work with the drama and flamboyance of a census taker.
Thursday night against Jacksonville, after a visit to the locker room to tend to an injured knee, he scooped up a fumble and trucked it in from 13 yards out — his first touchdown since high school. But, even then, his big play was obscured by John Abraham’s 3 1/2 sacks and the Falcons’ flashiest offensive performance of the season.
Like his agent says, guys like Peters are a much easier sell to football general managers and coaches than they are to fans.
He is, in other words, just the type to show up in “Late Rounders,” a modest independent film in which nothing blows up, there are no special effects, and not a single Kardashian is involved.
The documentary follows a group of five players getting ready for the 2010 NFL draft. It made the film festival circuit this year to nice reviews, but nobody was going to get rich or famous off it.
Peters is the solid, dependable, slightly under-appreciated one, the one who looks into the camera and declares: “I will never give [a team] a reason to get rid of me other than that I’m too old — and that I can live with.”
Falcons fans are slowly getting more acquainted with Peters as he fleshes out his second season in town. He’s the one who does a lot of the trench work, occupying blockers while the linebackers swoop in for the tackle. He’s the one who is proving himself a third-round bargain, starting over 2009 first-rounder Peria Jerry.
And away from the field, the Falcons just named him their nominee for the Walter Payton Man of the Year Award, given annually to a single NFL player in recognition of his work in the community. That doesn’t create the headlines of, say, a suspension or an arrest, but it does suggest Peters might be someone worth getting to know a little better.
Heroes are teachers
In “Late Rounders,” Peters is “introspective and beautifully unimpressed with the world he’s hoping to dive into,” the film producer said.
In the film, Peters himself declares, “I’m not your typical football player.”
When asked to expand on that characterization, he slathers himself in humility.
“To me, I’m able to see the big picture of things and understand that football is just something I do, something God blessed me to do,” he said.
“I went to school to be a teacher. They were my heroes. Somebody talented at math is no different than somebody who’s talented at football. My position is glorified a lot more, but in reality we’re the same.
“I try to stay grounded. This is what I do, but it’s not a big deal to me. Sometimes, when people ask for autographs, I get it, but I don’t get it.”
His mother is a chief nursing officer at a West Virginia hospital. His father is a USDA liaison officer at Alcorn State University in Mississippi. Such parents do not raise a son to believe that football is a be-all, end-all proposition.
Clifton Peters was one of 14 children. He put himself through college at Alcorn State working at the school’s pig farm. “And I sent money home,” he said.
One quote from Corey suggests his father made a strong impression: “A man who doesn’t work, doesn’t eat — that’s what I was always taught.”
Dad tried to make clear to his three sons that the world is filled with people who come from tough circumstances and such folks are not to be ignored.
And with Corey, the son with the most obvious athletic gifts, Clifton found himself delivering an additional message whenever they’d watch a game or a highlight show together.
“They’d interview a player and I’d say to Corey, ‘Why didn’t he explain himself better in that answer? He probably put more emphasis on sports than he did academics.’”
Enough of the sermons got through that Peters earned his degree from Kentucky in secondary education, while twice being named to the SEC’s All-Academic team. And with the Falcons this season, he was an almost weekly participant in the team’s community outreach.
He has popped in on firehouses, dined with breast cancer survivors, stumped for Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta and the team’s child fitness program.
One event, bowling with children from the Make-A-Wish Foundation, was particularly moving.
“I was paired up with a little girl who had leukemia. She had so much energy, was so excited about every little thing. I don’t know how I could take something that serious in stride and still be able to go out and have a good time.”
Season of extremes
Peters, however, is not paid by the mid-week appearance. The trick for a fellow who wishes to carry himself in a proper fashion is not to let good intentions get in the way when it is time to sow havoc at game time.
Carolina running back DeAngelo Williams will testify that Peters’ principles don’t interfere with his play. Among his three tackles last Sunday was the one in which he dragged down Williams by the dreadlocks dangling below his helmet.
Peters was himself once the owner of flowing tresses, but apparently there is no code of honor among that braided society. “[The Panthers] were outraged a little, but you got to get them down any way you can get them down,” Peters said. “If I can grab it, I’ll grab it.”
Grabbing for whatever he can, Peters leads all Falcons defensive linemen in tackles (31). He also has three sacks, each one of them accompanied by a celebration move he calls “The Bernie,” in which he goes stiff and tilts backward in the attitude of the dead character in the old movie “Weekend at Bernie’s.” He broke out a rendition Thursday after his fumble return.
The fan base has had reason to focus on Peters just twice this season, for good and bad. You finally get some small share of notoriety, then find out she’s a fickle dame.
He had a nifty one-handed interception of a Cam Newton screen pass that halted a potential tying touchdown drive in the first Carolina game. One of the best things to come of that was the big photo in his father’s office, showing his 300-pound son trying to stiff-arm a tackler like an oversized Adrian Peterson on the return.
Earlier in the season, there was the other extreme: Tampa Bay with the ball and a three-point lead, fourth-and-1 on the Atlanta 44 with 1:49 left to play. During the timeout, coaches reminded Falcons defenders that the Bucs’ best option was to try to draw one of them offside. Be careful. Be smart.
Then Peters lurched.
His offside penalty enabled the Bucs to run out the clock, denying Matt Ryan a shot to play hero.
“The response on my Twitter, it was kind of a reality check,” Peters said. “You learn who your true supporters are. I was surprised; a lot of people will take the opportunity to kick you when you’re down. But you bounce back from it and learn from it. I guarantee you I’ll never do that again in my career.”
Peters said he also applied the lessons of that episode to how he will react to other players’ foibles. The next blown dunk, the next base-running blunder or dropped pass he views as a fan, he won’t be so quick to pile on with criticism.
He wouldn’t mind if others out there would follow that lead, granted that reason and perspective are tough sells in the sports marketplace.
The camera crew stopped following Peters shortly after he was drafted and secured a spot on the Falcons roster, but his story didn’t end there.
Since, Peters has discovered there is a place in his noisy profession for a guy who, as his agent Greg Linton says, “just goes to work, studies film, listens to his coaches and does his job.”
There is an epilogue Peters would supply to that little film about young players and their against-the-odds struggles to make it in the NFL.
He said it would simply go: “I couldn’t have ended in a better spot. I couldn’t be happier.”
