Julius Peppers Kind of Names 4 Suitors

The Carolina Panthers are in full pursuit of a contract that would lock up Jordan Gross and give them the ability to franchise Julius Peppers. Peppers knows this -- obviously -- and as a result, it would appear that he's providing his "counter-offer" to the team.

Well, somewhat. What he's really done is state that there are only four teams in the NFL for whom he's willing to play (as a result of a trade). What four teams are they? Excellent question. Seems even Peppers might not know.

[...]There are four teams to which Julius Peppers is willing to be traded, a source says. Three are in the NFC, and one is the Dallas Cowboys.

[...]The source says that two of the teams for which Peppers wants to play are teams the Panthers won't want to trade with.

For starters, Darin Gantt of the Rock Hill Herald reported the logical possibility that those teams are in the NFC South. Which seems odds, considering that no one in the NFC rolls with a 3-4 defense, Peppers' preferred scheme for the rest of his career.

And there's also word floating around that the other two teams that Peppers listed don't have the draft picks/personnel/cap space to make a deal work. One of those, presumably, is the Cowboys. They don't have a 2009 first-round draft pick to offer, and it's hard to believe that the Panthers would accept the 'Boys being bad enough to get them a decent pick in 2010.

The Packers and Cardinals stand out as other possible suitors, but really, the bigger issue here is the way in which Peppers is exiting the only franchise he's ever played for. Not only is he attempting to play some sort of perverse game of "chicken" for a team that has by all accounts treated him well, but he's ruining their ability to trade him. It seems unlikely that the Panthers wouldn't seek the best possible situations for both he and team -- certainly a fair outcome.

But Peppers appears willing to sacrifice whatever possible goodwill he could have generated by forcing his hand and daring the Panthers to hit him with the franchise tag. There's almost no chance this works out well: if the Panthers ink Gross they're almost certainly going to use their franchise tag on Peppers, and may do the same regardless of the Gross deal, just to make sure they get something back for the defensive end.