Chris Mortensen of ESPN is reporting that Mike Peterson will meet with Jack Friday to determine how this whole incident plays out. According to Mort, the original issue arose when Del RIo was calling out various players in the locker-room. He apparently was going around riding everyone pretty hard, and he was expecting the players to shut up and take what was coming to them. However, when he got to Mike, Peterson decided to try to explain himself and his behavior... Big mistake. Jack apparently booted him from the meeting immediately, and sent him home when he showed up to practice Wednesday. Thursday Mike didn't report to practice, which prompted the scheduling of Friday's meeting. Del Rio is ready to allow Mike back with the team, and even to allow him play to this Sunday if Mike's attitude is where it should be.
Well played Jack! Be a hard-ass, but also be accepting when your players try to straighten things out (a la' Matt Jones). Mike needs to get his head in the game and stop worrying about his contract... He's old and injury prone and the Jags have literally all the cards. If they don't play him his value will only continue to drop and he likely won't even get 3 million again next year. If Mike shakes this incident off, he could turn it around and have a break-out second half of the season and thereby earn a contract with either the Jags or someone else. I expect we'll let him walk regardless of how he plays though. We extended alot of older veterans this offseason and it hasn't worked well for us at all. We have too much talent a LB to deal with a mal-content who is playing the worst football of his career. Mike I hope you get your butt in gear and get motivated, because we neither need, nor do we want, any whining in our locker-room. Get it together, or get out!
If this team can't improve their cohesiveness, we won't even make it to .500. Mike P was the leader of our defense for many years, but his recent behavior is totally unacceptable and something had to be done. Let's hope this incident serves as a sign-marker for this season's turnaround, because offense isn't our biggest weakness this year, defense is.
-Collin