Cornerback Marcus Peters was suspended by the Kansas City Chiefs for Sunday's game against the Oakland Raiders at Arrowhead Stadium for throwing an official's penalty flag into stands and leaving the playing field before the end of last week's game against the New York Jets.
"I had a chance to talk to Marcus and felt this was the right thing to do at this time,'' coach Andy Reid said. "I'm not making it any more than that.''
Peters will be eligible to return to practice next week and play in the following game against the Los Angeles Chargers, also at Arrowhead.
But the Chiefs will be missing one of their most important defensive players for one of their most important games of the season. Peters leads the Chiefs with three interceptions.
The Chiefs and Raiders are 6-6 and tied with the Chargers for first place in the AFC West.
The Chiefs have dealt with outbursts from Peters before. He was caught by TV cameras directing profanity toward a fan behind the Chiefs' bench during a game this season against Washington at Arrowhead.
But Reid said the suspension was not for Peters' cumulative actions but specifically those toward the end of Sunday's game against the Jets.
"I like Marcus Peters so, yeah, that's a difficult thing to do,'' Reid said. "Any time you have to do one of these things, that's not the best part of the job. But I've always told you I'm going to do what I feel is best for this organization (at) that time and I try to sit back and I try to evaluate it and that's what I did and this is the conclusion I came down with.''