For years I thought Peat was a talented but wildly inconsistent, injury prone player that could be upgraded. The Saints saw the total opposite. Apparently they saw him as a foundational piece that had to be retained at all cost. So they had a bidding war with themselves and made Peat one of the highest paid Guards in the league. I try not to use the word hate so I'll just say that I had an extreme dislike for that contract. I looked forward to the day that contract would come off the books. I looked forward to seeing Peat move on to wallow around on the ground and post up in the training room for some other team.
But then a funny thing happened last year. Andrus Peat went from fighting for a starting spot at Guard to being a rock solid replacement at LT for the struggling Penning. The O line went from "Oh my god!" to ", "Oh. Okay." They struggled in the middle of the season but they finished strong winning 4 of their last 5 games to heroically finish at 9-8 and being this close to the playoffs. I now realize that having Peat on the roster was better than not having Peat on the roster. He's still a starting caliber Guard and perhaps the best backup LT in the league. I never thought I'd say this but I'll miss Andrus Peat.
Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got till it's gone.