MMQB Review: Renamed Edition

I looked all morning for Peter King's MMQB and could not find it anywhere on CNNSI's site. I thought maybe he spent the night at Brett's last night and did not get a chance to make it to a computer. Upon further research I found that Peter had called his column for Monday "Inside the NFL" for some reason. I don't know why. Is he trying to avoid my wrath? Probably.

The new MMQB.

The first part is a tribute to Dr. Z, who had a couple strokes recently. Peter calls Dr. Z "the perfect Web site football guy" then lists his four favorite Dr. Z passages. All of which are dated 1990 or earlier. Apparently Peter thinks Dr.Z is perfect for a Web site but hasn't done his best work on a Web site. That's kind of interesting. One little nitpicky thing though...

"Look at the little decisions that might have changed the course of history. What if, for instance, the Pittsburgh Steelers had decided that neither Mike Kruczek nor Cliff Stoudt were the eventual successors to then 30-year-old Terry Bradshaw, and the team had drafted Montana? Instead of four Super Bowl victories by 1980, would the Steelers have gone on to win five? Six? Seven? Who knows?"

I know! What if the Steelers had then drafted Brett Favre and then finally Matt Ryan. How many Super Bowls would they have won then? 13? 14?

Actually they would have only won one more Super Bowl with Brett Favre, but that is beside my point. My point is this is not insightful and borderline stupid.

Now you see why I look up to the guy.

Seems like a great guy but literally anyone in the world can try to project how many Super Bowls a team would have if they had drafted differently.

I hope Dr. Z gets better, but this passage does not contain a special amount of insight.

3. Pittsburgh (9-3). I don't care how generous New England was in Foxboro. That was a tour de force performance by the Steelers in one of the league's toughest environments.

So is Foxboro one of the league's toughest environments or a place where rich people who are not "true" football fans come to cheer for their team of the moment? Peter King calls it one of the toughest places to play in the league and Bill Simmons thinks it is too quiet. Both love the Patriots with all of their heart and soul. Who is right? I will leave it to you readers to tell me, because I am actually interested in this. Someone has to be right.

4. Dallas (8-4). I understand the consternation of you who follow "The Fine Fifteen'' rankings, who set your watches by them, who believe in them the way you believe in everything your mother ever told you. And you wonder how I can be jumping the Cowboys over teams more consistently better. Simple. They're better than Carolina, better than Tampa Bay, better than Atlanta, better than Washington.

I love it when a writer takes the time to post a power ranking then gets pissy with his readers acting as if the rankings don't matter. If they don't matter, then don't fucking rank the teams asshole. It's pretty simple. If they are useless, then quit doing it.

I wish there was a way to tell if the Cowboys were a better team than the teams Peter listed, other than an arbitrary power ranking. How about team records? Tampa Bay and Carolina have better records and Washington beat Dallas at home. Putting Dallas here is actually not that simple. Just saying...

5. Indianapolis (8-4). They've won one game this year by more than six points. I admire their pluck.

Clearly Peter got Little Debbie Holiday Christmas Tree Cake crumbs on the keyboard here that affected his typing. He meant "I admire their luck."

11. New England (7-5). Ever notice you're a lot better when you hold onto the ball? Matthew Slater's lucky I like his dad so much, or he'd have been my Goat of the Week

Peter King writes the book for journalistic integrity and how to be unbiased. This book fortunately does not exist.

It's good to know he bases parts of his columns on how much he likes a player or that player's ancestors. If anyone ever needs to know anything about Peter King and how he covers the NFL, this sentence helps out a whole lot. I wonder if this is also how he fills out his Hall of Fame ballot. Every player in the league gets a vote based on how much Peter likes them and their family.

"Brett Favre is lucky Deanna has such good cornbread, chocolate cake, zebra cakes, and cookies or else I was not going to vote for him to be in the Hall of Fame."

I examined the short week of the Cardinals in advance of their game at Philadelphia and found three distinct disadvantages they faced:

2. They were unfamiliar with the Eagles. Only two of Arizona's 16 coaches and 19 of the 53 players were with the Cardinals the last time they played Philly, in 2005. Four of the eight Thursday night games this year match division foes, meaning the teams wouldn't have to prepare for the unknown.

The Eagles were probably also unfamiliar with the Cardinals, so that part evens out. There is this thing called "game film" a team can use to look and see what type of game the other team plays and what some of the weaknesses and strengths of the team are. I have heard it is really useful.

I have examined the short week and found two several advantages the Cardinals had:

1. They play in the NFC West where no team, other than them, have a winning record so they were going to clinch the division with four games remaining if they had won. This is still going to happen.

2. They have a long week to prepare for their next game. Just like they have a short time to prepare for Philly, they have more time to prepare for the next team they are facing. It sucks to have to play Thursday, but the Cardinals will survive.

Goat of the Week

Rian Lindell, K, Buffalo. Regardless of the weather, Lindell wears the horns this morning. From 40 yards-and-in entering the game, Lindell had made 56 straight field goals. In this game, he missed in the first half from 20 (HOW DO YOU MISS A 20-YARD FIELD GOAL?) and in the second half he missed from 40. In a 10-3 loss to a team Buffalo should have never lost to, those are ridiculously bad misses.

Here is how you can miss a 20 yard field goal:

Bad snap, bad hold, poor weather, the kicker's foot slipped, bad kick or the kicker had a bad day.

It is inexcusable to miss one of those and considering he had made 56 straight from 40+ yards, I think we should give him a break.

I guess my only real question is how you can name this player the "Goat of the Week" when if he had hit the two field goals he missed his team would have still lost the game. If he had made both field goals the Bills still would have lost and yet you blame him for this. This makes not of sense.

Quote of the Week I

"There's a huge paranoia that occurs when you carry a gun ... You just have your hand on your gun. That just drove me crazy. After two years, I just threw it over the highway when I was driving home one night because it was eating me up inside.''
-- Former NFL defensive end Marcellus Wiley, talking on ESPN Sunday about what it was like as an athlete to carry a gun early in his NFL career.

I am not sure if Peter "the King of common sense" King thought this quote through before his fat fingers began typing...but Marcellus Wiley threw a gun on the highway randomly. He could have sold it to someone else, pawned the gun or done any number of other things to where the gun could be traced to a new owner. Instead he just threw it into the wide open spaces of the highway. Even on a highway, some random person could find that gun and commit a crime with it or what if a bear found it and just started capping some nearby campers? This reeks of irresponsibility to me.

Quote of the Week III

"Does that count as a rushing touchdown? Or a given touchdown?''
-- Former NFL coach Jim Fassel, on the Westwood One radio broadcast of the Titans' demolition of the Lions Thursday, after watching a very passive Detroit defense allow a 58-yard touchdown run by Chris Johnson in the first quarter.

Ha...ha...ha...I can just picture Peter hearing this joke, stuffing another piece of pumpkin pie in his mouth, sipping his cafe latte he made the guy at Starbucks stay 5 minutes later making, and then pulling some mash potatoes out of his pocket (he kept them there from Thanksgiving dinner) and laughing like a maniac when he heard this.

I pretty much envision Peter King as Jabba the Hutt.

2. Matt Ryan, QB, Atlanta. Falcons were supposed to go 3-13. They are 8-4. They've won at San Diego and Green Bay. They've beaten 9-3 Carolina in the last month.

Not to harp in these things, but Peter King has Atlanta ranked higher than Carolina in his Fine Fifteen. That means he thinks Atlanta is a better team than Carolina, thereby Matt Ryan should not get credit for beating 9-3 Carolina, because as the better team they are expected to win. Right?

a. I keep hearing the Seahawks might be thinking of letting Matt Hasselbeck -- with a very manageable $9.95 million, $9.45 million and $6.75 million cap number for the final three years of his contract -- go. If they do, they're nuts.

I keep hearing Peter King's daughter works for the Seahawks, so I wonder if she told him this.

c. I don't trust anything about the Arizona Cardinals anymore. Disgraceful performance at Philadelphia.

Literally two pages ago Peter was making excuses for the Cardinals and bemoaning the fact they had three good reasons to lose that game. Now he is holding that game against the Cardinals saying they should have won. A little consistency please. Next week he will be right back with talking about how great they are.

That massive thump you just heard was not a plane hitting the building you are in right now, it is the sound of Peter King jumping off the Kurt Warner for MVP bandwagon.

e. Tony Corrente, please learn the meaning of "indisputable visual evidence.'' If there's one thing that gets my goat about instant replay in the NFL, it's referees overturning plays that have some doubt to them.

Apparently the referee did not have doubt in this play Peter speaks of. That is why he overturned it. Just because Peter King has doubt, does not mean everyone does.

And if you can tell me with 100 percent certainty that the Steve Smith incompletion in the Giants-Redskins game, with Corrente the referee -- as ruled by the officials on the field -- was actually a completion, I'll eat a helmet.

No, he's not kidding. His wife has him on a diet and he is really fucking hungry. He hasn't eaten anything in an hour. First person to mail him a helmet gets a signed Domino's pizza box...and its an extra large.

i. Bad, bad call by Green Bay coach Mike McCarthy in a 28-all tie with two minutes left against Carolina. With a fourth-and-one at the Panther 1, McCarthy kicked the field goal rather than try to punch it in. A field goal gives Carolina the chance to drive down for the winning touchdown. A touchdown assure the Packers of no worse than going to overtime, assuming Carolina doesn't score a touchdown and go for two. Getting stopped at the 1 on fourth down makes Carolina have to go 65 yards for a good shot at a winning field goal. I hated the field goal call because the Panthers, who'd been moving the ball well, only had to move into field-goal range to extend the game to overtime.

It's called research and before Peter chastises people, he could try to do a little. Until that point, the Panthers had 73 total yards of offense in the second half. Green Bay had all the momentum. What is the Easterbrook-esque fascination with going for it on fourth down here? If the Packers fail to get the field goal, then the Panthers would have the ball and could kick a field goal to win.

The Packers were at home and the crowd was probably being very loud, this was not a dumb move. The Panthers scored a touchdown on their next drive, so even in hindsight going for it on fourth down would have only tied the game. You have to have faith in the defense of your team.

4. I think Kurt Warner is rapidly playing himself out of all those nice things -- like a third MVP, like a winning January -- he'd played himself into through the first 10 games of the year.

Was anyone else in the world who pays attention to football surprised the Cardinals are not that great of a team when they play outside of their weak ass division? Seems like Peter was fooled.

d. You miss a few more of those extra-point kind of field goals, Rian Lindell, and you'll be applying for jobs in Calgary. The 20-yard miss was the shortest miss by a Bill since 1981.

This must be Misplaced Hatred Week for Peter King. He does not call a kick returner whose fumble changed the course of a crucial game the Goat of the Week because he likes the kick returner's father, but calls out Rian Lindell twice for missing field goals that would not have made one difference in the outcome of the game.

f. Terrible play by Derrick Ward in Giants-Redskins, running out of bounds with 29 seconds left in the first half, a yard short of the first down on third down, instead of diving for the first-down marker, which he definitely could have made. You don't make money in this league by imitating Franco Harris, Derrick.

You may not make much money imitating Franco Harris, but you will make the Hall of Fame.

Peter King probably voted for him and now he is calling Franco Harris a wimp.

a. Starting to hear Mark Teixeira is going to sign for seven or eight years somewhere, probably in Anaheim. And no, I don't call a team an hour outside of Los Angeles "Los Angeles.''

We can ignore this comment. Peter is just bitter Tex is not going to go to Boston...possibly. I still think he will end up there still and I have never been wrong.

b. For all of you wondering about the pros and cons of the MacBook Air, I just want you to know I flew from Newark to Seattle the other day and my battery lasted all the way through Montana.

For those of you wondering about the pros and cons of a dozen donuts from Dunkin' Donuts or two dozen, Peter only got a dozen and it lasted him from the Newark terminal entrance to when he got to his seat on the plane. He should go for two dozen next time.

Who I Like Tonight, and I Mean Tony Kornheiser

Houston 23, Jacksonville 17. I appreciate a totally meaningless game as much as the next guy (I spent four years leaving at halftime of all Ohio University home football games), but after a wall-to-wall football Thursday, decent football in the early games Sunday, the memorable Steeler chasedown of Matt Cassel, and the Bears and Vikings fighting for their playoff lives last night, I hereby give you permission tonight to choose from among:

If it is not Brett Favre, the Patriots, Steelers, or any other Northeast team, who really gives a shit? It's not real football and it is certainly not going to be entertaining. If it was going to be entertaining then Houston and Jacksonville would be located in the Northeast, but they are not so borrrrrrrinnnnnnnnng.

Peter King, the title of the column may change, but his reign of idiocy continues forever.