5 comments Ten Things I Think I Think Peter King Has Not Thought Of: Bitter and Angry Edition

I have a good amount of links I want to comment on, so I think today I will do that. I don't like talking about items that are a couple of days old, which I have a couple mixed in, but I am going to do it anyway simply because they are interesting to discuss.

1. I have changed my opinion on the Joe Torre situation about ten times now. When it came out, I thought he was an asshole, then I heard it was not a first person account and I wrote that Peter King was a jerk for judging Torre, then I thought about the comments Torre made, and I think I am back to thinking he is an asshole.

"I think it's important to understand context here. The book is not a first-person book by Joe Torre, it's a third-person narrative based on 12 years of knowing the Yankees and it's about the changes in the game in that period," Verducci told the site.

I agree completely and can see why Verducci does not want Torre to be thrown under the bus based on his quotes, but these were also statements Torre told Verducci so he was merely reporting what Torre had told him. What I don't understand is why Torre feels the need to help write a book about the Yankees right now. Maybe when he is retired from baseball that would be a better time, but it seems like Torre puts a book out every decade or so. I think one big autobiography would work best for him and he should try to not tarnish his Yankee legacy in doing writing the book.

According to the newspapers' accounts, Torre's displeasure with management goes beyond the widely reported 2007 meeting in which Cashman met with the Steinbrenners to discuss Torre's future as manager, a talk in which the GM was said to have remained neutral as the drawbacks to extending Torre's tenure were discussed.

I don't like Torre, mostly because he managed the team that beat my favorite team twice in the World Series, and he always seemed like a standup guy, which always annoyed me. Apparently he is not a standup guy. It sounds to me like he is still very bitter he is not managing the New York Yankees any more. If he was so unhappy there, why doesn't he just keep his mouth shut, keep doing State Farm commercials and manage his current team? Get back at the Yankees by showing them they made a mistake in letting you go, that's the best course of action.

His Dodgers deal came two weeks after he walked away from the Yankees when they offered a one-year contract worth $5 million plus $3 million in performance incentives he termed "an insult.''

Like I said earlier about Andy Pettitte earlier this week, past performance does not guarantee future results. It doesn't matter what Torre had done in the past. The Yankees had not gotten where they wanted to go, the World Series, in a few years, and thought maybe Torre needed incentive. I am squarely on the Yankees' side on this issue. They have a goal and they want to meet that goal. Do I feel badly for Torre that he did not always get to keep or acquire the exact players he wanted? In a way I might, but he also has to remember if he did not like it, he could walk away. Which he did, very bitterly.

According to The New York Times, Verducci and Torre delve into the period following the Yankees' 2001 World Series loss to Arizona, during which the likes of complementary stars Tino Martinez, Paul O'Neill, Scott Brosius and Chuck Knoblauch reached the end of the line and were replaced by what Torre describes as "big boppers" such as Jason Giambi in 2002, who Torre believed "wasn't part of what we prided ourselves on: playing well defensively."

See, I thought they prided themselves on great pitching during this era. Call me insane but somewhere along the way great defense doesn't mean shit if your entire pitching staff is old/ineffective. I think Torre is off in saying playing well defensively was what made the Yankees good, I think he should be more focused on the timely hitting and pitching that got the Yankees were they wanted to be, which was World Champs 4 times.

Team chemistry was a part of it, just in that the team seemed to enjoy playing together in the 90's. I don't say that in a Bill Simmons, "I am going to make some shit up now" way, but in that when my favorite team faced them, it felt like the Yankees were a team that was concerned with picking up the guy ahead of them in the batting order if he struck out, while the later teams felt like they were all part of a machine. In the end, the players have to enjoy playing with each other, and whether it was true in the 90's or not, it certainly felt that way.

Whether that was Torre's doing or not, can be up for argument, but writing this book just seems like sour grapes to me.

2. Here is Buster Olney's reaction.

But here's the problem with that: It's Joe Torre's book. His name is on it. He got paid for it. He had a chance to read every word, every sentence, every paragraph. He had to approve every passage.

I can't argue with this reasoning. Buster Olney's "Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty" (the title is something like that) is actually a very good book and gives a good insight into the Yankees 2001 team.

Wells tried to distance himself from some of the words in the book, saying they belonged to the writer, but the Yankees' manager would not accept that. After a meeting with the pitcher, Torre said this to reporters:

"We talked to him about a lot of things today. I just sensed he was bothered by it. Not by what we said, but by how it came out. How much of it is actually what he said and how much isn't exactly what he said, I don't know.

"But there's no question: It has his name on it, and he has to be accountable for it."

Ouch. I think I am fully on the "Joe Torre should never have aired this stuff in public" side permanently. Especially when it is obvious that he did not condone this type of action when his players did it.

To this day, I have a picture of Joe Torre in my mind sitting on the Yankees bench staring at the field in a daze and I just could never imagine he would write a book like this.

Now it is Torre's responsibility to be fully accountable for the words in the book that has his name on it, and he must stand behind those words.

With Torre reaching out to Brian Cashman and others in the Yankees organization, I get the feeling he knows he screwed up.

A Rod doesn't really care.

As for Torre, A-Rod indicated that anything his former manager may say about him couldn't hurt him because, as one friend put it, "He doesn't feel like he had any real relationship with (Torre)."

I will usually defend A-Rod the baseball player, but A-Rod the human being is quite a weird person. I know he cares, but honestly some of Torre's thoughts that A-Rod was a prima donna and more concerned with how he looks do seem on target.

A-Rod also told people that nothing Torre could say would be more revealing of how he felt about his player than the act of batting him eighth in the lineup in Game 4 of the 2006 playoff series with the Tigers.

"Alex was really hurt by that," one friend of A-Rod's said Monday. "He believed that Torre did that to embarrass him and he knew then what Torre thought of him.

Sounds to me like A-Rod was a little hurt by some of Joe Torre's actions. Again, this may go back a little bit to what Joe Torre was saying about the Yankee teams that have A-Rod on them. If A-Rod really cared about the entire team, he would not mind being 8th in the batting order, because he was awful in that playoff series and hurting his team by batting higher in the order. Maybe Torre is correct that A-Rod is completely stuck on how things look. Of course, he still should have not aired this dirty laundry in public.

Most importantly, according to people close to A-Rod, is that he insists he doesn't worry about this type of stuff, what people are saying and thinking about him, the way he did when he joined the Yankees in 2004.

I don't really believe that. I could not live in New York because I could not deal with this Melrose Place type drama every single day of the week. Sometimes I wish everyone would just shut up and play their given sport.

Of course, no Yankee event would be worth talking about if I did not get my new friend, Wallace Matthews' take.

And as his parting gift to the New York Yankees, Joe Torre rolled a bomb into the clubhouse and lit the fuse ...

Torre actually left the Yankees last year, so this is not really a parting gift, but more along the lines of sour grapes.

For a dozen years, Torre was the glue that held that ballclub together, kept that clubhouse (relatively) serene, lent a measure of class to an organization that too often veered into crass.

I am actually starting to question whether it was Joe Torre who held the team together or not. Right now, it looks like he just held his tongue and let stuff go on in the clubhouse...then took great notes so he could talk about it in a later book.

Torre's book, "The Yankee Years," ensures that in less than three weeks, from the moment the doors to Steinbrenner Field are thrown open to the media, there will not be a minute of peace in Yankees camp.

Don't act like distractions like this are anything new for the Yankees. If it is not reporters asking questions last year about Joe Torre leaving the team for another job, it is reporters asking about the Yankees latest free agent signing and how that person will fit in with the team, or questions the players got about the Mitchell Report in the past, or why A-Rod chokes so much.

I would not completely blame Torre for the mayhem that constantly seems to go on in the Yankees clubhouse. If Torre had kept his mouth shut, the mayhem would be about the new free agent signings and whatever else drama goes down between now and February. There will always be drama.

The irony of it all is that the people Torre is most angry at - Randy Levine, Hank and Hal Steinbrenner, Lonn Trost and now, clearly, Brian Cashman - are the ones who will be the least affected by it.

My relationship with Wallace is off to a rocky start right now, simply because I actually agree with him on this.

The ones who will have to bear the brunt of it are the ones Torre professes to care about the most - Jeter, Mariano Rivera, Jorge Posada, Joe Girardi - and the one he claims to have tried so hard to help, A-Rod.

I don't recall Torre saying he was looking to help any of those people, it seems more like he just wanted to get all of this off his chest and let everyone know the Yankees problems in the 2000's where not entirely his fault, no matter what it makes him look like. I think Torre wanted everyone to know that he did not agree with the team he was "stuck" managing, so he can get some of his reputation as a great manager back. If anyone deserves to stand under a banner that says, "Mission Not Accomplished" it is him.

3. Let's look at everything Torre screwed up while with the Yankees.

If Lou Gehrig was once the luckiest man on the face of the earth, Torre was the luckiest manager. The Yankees had great players, the team that got a ton of breaks and he pushed all the right buttons throughout his first five years in the dugout.

Many times a manager may make a decision that turns out to be either good or bad and the only reason it turns out one way or another is good or bad luck. You may put the right player in at the right time as a manager or you may do it all wrong. Other times there is strategy involved, which is where you really hope your manager does not screw up, but luck does play a small role in how baseball events play out.

But the next seven seasons weren't as kind to Joe. There were early exits in the playoffs, a historic collapse in the postseason that still gnaws at Yankees fans and mistakes in the dugout that helped pave the way for his exit from the Bronx.

I don't blame Joe Torre for everything that went wrong during that time span but he did make some questionable moves on occasion.

6. Torre continually burned out his relievers. Tom Gordon, Paul Quantrill, Tanyon Sturtze and Scott Proctor were cooked by August and had nothing come October.

I guess there are two sides to this coin. The first being that the Yankees front office should have built a better bullpen so that Torre would have had more confidence in the other members of the bullpen to get an out or two. I always say if you are counting on Tanyon Sturtze to get important outs for you, you have already lost the game. The other side of the coin is that Torre should have known he was playing with fire and not relied on these relievers all that much. I think the biggest thing that did not come back to bite Torre in the ass is how many times he used Rivera for a 1+ inning save. At times I am surprised his arm was still attached to his body.

All in all this seems like a pretty minor complaint, no matter whether it is true or not. A manager wants to make sure his team wins the game, so he goes with guys he trusts. In my opinion, the bullpen would not have to be overworked if the starting pitchers could do their job and get into the 6th inning, which did not always happen either.

5. Instead of pulling his team off the field until a swarm of gnat-like bugs fleed Jacobs Field, Torre allowed rookie reliever Joba Chamberlain to get eaten alive. Chamberlain spit bugs out of his mouth and coughed up a one-run lead in the eighth inning of a game the Yankees eventually lost in 11 innings.

I agree that Torre should have pulled his team off the field in that situation. It was almost like he was angry with his players and wanted to watch them suffer through the infestation of bugs. Maybe he was just not paying attention to the game anymore. I don't know if we can chalk that as the reason Joba Chamberlain gave up the one run lead but the players should not have been on the field.

4. By tinkering with his batting order in the 2006 playoffs, Torre messed with Rodriguez's head. He batted A-Rod sixth, fourth and eighth in the four-game loss to the Tigers. Torre also benched Gary Sheffield in Game 3 after batting him clean-up in the first two games.

Whereas Bobby Cox sticks it out with this players a little too long at times and actually shows too much loyalty, Torre's moves did scream of desperation at that point. Joe Torre has gotten some credit for being good at handling egos, but given the fact most of his poor managerial moves came at the point when he had a bunch of egos to manage, I would actually say he had no clue what to do with all these players. This is a great example here of that. He had no idea whether to show loyalty to Sheffield/A-Rod, so he just made a desperation move.

3. Torre didn't tell his batters to bunt against Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling, who was hobbled by a torn tendon sheath in his right ankle that limited his mobility for Game 6 of the 2004 ALCS. In Torre's defense, most of the hitters in his slugger-laden lineup hadn't dropped a bunt since Little League.

Ok, maybe Jeter should have done this, but really the Yankees were not built to bunt and that was definitely not in the team's best interest. I do agree a bunt or two to get Schilling moving would have been incredibly smart, but this is an example of where I think Torre was almost sticking it to management and showing them he can't win with the team assembled for him.

2. Torre placed righthander Jeff Weaver on the 2003 World Series roster against the Marlins, then used him in extra innings of a tie game. Light-hitting shortstop Alex Gonzalez homers to win Game 4 and tie the series.

First, we insult Torre for overusing his relievers, and then we insult him for using a starter in an extra innings game. You can't have it both ways. This was not a bad move, regardless of the outcome, because there was no telling how long that game would have gone and no one could forsee Alex Gonzalez hitting a homerun.

1. If there is any mistake Yankees fans can classify as unforgivable, it is be starting Kevin Brown in Game 7 of the 2004 ALCS against the Red Sox. Brown didn't get out of the second inning of a 10-3 loss.

What were Torre's other options? Javier Vazquez or Esteban Loaiza or even pitch Mike Mussina on three days rest? Those guys would probably have been better but really, Joe Torre had no other options. Personally, I am bringing back Mussina on three days rest or going with Vazquez, but Torre chose the worst option, Kevin Brown, who had gotten shelled in his Game 3 start. This is all hindsight based on reading what Torre said in his new book, but maybe he was trying to prove a point to management that these players they had given him were not good enough, so he threw out Brown knowing he would fail. That would have been supremely stupid, so I don't actually believe he did that. He had marginally better options though.

4. Let's do a Peter King MMQB follow up.

From Nathan, of Natick, Mass.: "Quick question on Hall of Fame voters. If one of the voters were to be the ghost writer for a coach or player contending for HOF, what does the rule book say? Can the voter still vote for the player/coach? It seems like a clear case of conflict-of-interest to me. This question sprung to my mind when I saw Tom Verducci write this book for Joe Torre.''

No offense Nathan, but this is kind of a dumb question. What does it matter? There is no difference in a voter ghost writing a book with a player and a voter being great friends with a player, like ummm...Peter King and Brett Favre. Either way the bias that could come up is present. Woody Paige was already quoted as saying he voted for a player because that player was always nice to him. There is literally no difference in ghost writing a book with a player and having any other type of relationship with a player, the bias is still present.

I'm sure there is nothing in the bylaws about that. But in today's world, you never know -- maybe it should be.

Can anyone imagine how badly Peter King would yell "foul" if he was not able to vote because he ghost wrote a book for a player? I am not kidding about this, there is no difference. If a voter wrote a book with a player he would have no more bias than Peter King would have when it comes to voting Jerome Bettis or Tiki Barber in the Hall of Fame. He works with them everyday, eats meals with them and seems to genuinely like those two players. You are a liar if you say that won't color his HoF vote...and I am sure it will have an effect on it.

Jeff, of Hoboken, N.J.: "If I were Matt Cassel and I were franchised, I think I would sign the offer sheet immediately. While he will be leaving $10-12 million in guaranteed money on the table, he will receive $14-million-plus this year, and then either get a 15% raise in 2010, or become an unrestricted free-agent in an uncapped year. What are your thoughts?''
(Bengoodfella begins playing Russian Roulette with a six shooter that has five bullets in it.)

Look if you don't know Peter King's thoughts on Matt Cassel, you need to just Google it, you will find about 10,000 hits.

Couldn't agree more, but I don't think it's going to go down this way exactly. I think the Patriots will franchise him, and I think if Tom Brady is healthy they will explore trading Cassel. If that happens, the team that trades for him won't allow him to come in a one-year deal. Cassel will have to sign for a longer term to be made some team's quarterback of the future.

(Pulls trigger twice)

From Paul Rotondi, of Hoboken, N.J.: "Peter, it really bothers me that you can't go one week without bringing up President Barack Obama. People read you for the NFL. And putting in quotes from players or owners as you have been the last few weeks about Obama is the same as you saying the words yourself. Nobody wants to read politics in this column. I know literally dozens of people who are bothered by this.''

Of course no one wants to read about his favorite foods, the best places to dine in Pittsburgh, annoying traveling facts and at least 44% of the things Peter talks about in his column and that doesn't stop him from being successful in writing about it.

5. Rick Reilly gets paid millions to write columns like this.

Approximately 2.6 million Americans lost their jobs last year.

And you still have one! It's crazy isn't it?

So Lionel, 42, did what any true Philly fan would do: He started begging, borrowing and stealing his way into every Phillies, Eagles, Flyers and Sixers game he could. And nobody nudges better than Lionel. "I've never been to a Springsteen concert with him where he didn't say, 'Follow me,' and we didn't end up in the front row," says Lionel's best friend, Tom (Tush) Millison.

Oh I get it, he is an annoying mooch! Not only that but somebody paid hundreds of dollars for front row seats to a Springsteen concert and then have to get crowded out by a sweaty, unemployed man. Sounds like a great guy, let's profile him.

"Look to your right," Lionel says. And there he is, sitting TWO rows back, DEAD CENTER behind home plate, grinning like Phil Mickelson.

So he LOOKED exactly like Phil Mickelson when he GRINNED? I am NOT sure what THAT means because I am having trouble REMEMBERING how Mickelson grins. Great reference though.

Now Lionel starts going lotto-champagne crazy, squirting multimillionaire athletes up the nose, in the eyes and down the shorts. He pours an entire bottle over the head of slugger Ryan Howard. Matt Stairs gives him a head butt. He kisses pitcher Jamie Moyer on the cheek and yells, "Thank you for everything!" And Moyer yells, "No, thank you!"

Somewhere in America thousands of out of work journalists who have spent hours/days/weeks doing heavily researched stories about corruption or some other important matter, only to have the paper fold due to a lack of readership, read this column and weep violently into a pillow.

At this point, it is almost like Reilly is just flaunting that he has nothing of value to write.

And now I see the Flyers playing well. And my only thought is: Wonder how Lionel will spend his day with the Cup?

I counted how many sentences that did not contain quotes that were written in this column.

The answer: 42 sentences. This includes small sentence fragments. 42 sentences. Rick Reilly has the life and this fact has to hurt someone who wants to really be a journalist but can't find a job.

6. Ross Tucker shows why hiring ex-players is not always a good idea.

As bad as many of the columnists on the Internet are, I think he should leave writing columns to them instead of blatantly throwing incorrect facts for others to digest and believe.

The recent comments from Julius Peppers and his agent, Carl Carey, concerning his desire to leave the Carolina Panthers still bother me immensely, and they are over a week old.

I had never heard of Carey, and based on his handling of the Pepper's situation thus far, I think I understand why.

You have to love undeserved cheap shots. Julius Peppers is a free agent. That means after the free agency signing period ends, he can sign a contract to play for any team in the entire world and he can sign for as much or as little as he wants to. The Carolina Panthers will have no rights to him after that free agency period begins. Peppers' agent was afraid the Panthers would try to franchise tag Peppers, so he told ESPN that Peppers wanted a change of scenery and did not plan on re-signing with the Panthers. Rather than play games with the team, he actually was kind enough to give the team a chance to trade Peppers and get something in return for him. Peppers is not holding out of training camp, refusing to play in games, nor is his agent doing anything immoral or illegal. He is making it clear he wants to exercise his right to play for another team.

This, to me, has everything to do with money and nothing to do with the style of defense in Carolina.

If it was about money, he would take the $17 million he would get for having the franchise tag placed on him.

But if it is about money, why eliminate the hometown team desperate to keep him in the fold? He would have more leverage among if the Panthers were actively in on the negotiations.

Because as his agent very honestly said, he doesn't want to play for the Panthers anymore.

My guess is that Peppers' camp is weary of having the franchise tag placed on him by the Panthers, so they chose to fire a pre-emptive strike.

The Carolina Panthers have NEVER placed the franchise tag on Julius Peppers. His rookie contract has run out. If you are going to criticize someone, at least have the courtesy to get your most basic facts correct. Your guess is wrong and your criticism of Peppers' agent is also wrong.

Their claim about wanting a system that would maximize his abilities is completely unfounded.

Peppers has never played in another system, how the hell do you know this is unfounded. He is a free agent, if he wants to go to a team that has a more diverse Canadian community, he could do that.

Go back to playing football or do something you are good at.

7. This is my favorite article of the week.

Remember last week when I criticized Rick Reilly for this article? Here is a realistic response to Reilly's story focusing on whether his father can accurately cover him in the Super Bowl.

All the stories note father and son's shared grief over the loss of Fitzgerald Jr.'s mother to cancer, as well as Fitzgerald Sr.'s belief that it's inappropriate to cheer in the press box—even for your own progeny.

Reilly, too, fixates on Fitzgerald Sr.'s objectivity, writing:

[I]t's going to be murder for Larry Sr. not to violate that no-cheering-in-the-press-box rule.
"I won't cheer," Fitzgerald says. "I'm going to stay objective. I've come too far to suddenly show up in the press box with pompoms. But if you could put a monitor on my insides, you'd find a whole fan club in there."

There is no way he can objective. It is impossible.

Fitzgerald Sr.'s column in the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder, a weekly African-American newspaper, is less a work of journalism than a proud parent's scrapbook. Judging by the last two issues, the Spokesman-Recorder doesn't run straight game stories, meaning that Fitzgerald Sr.'s columns represent the bulk of the paper's writing about football. As such, the Spokesman-Recorder sports section is essentially a Larry Fitzgerald Jr. tribute page—since 2003, the elder Fitzgerald has written about his son at least 23 times.

I want you to remember Fitzgerald Sr. is a columnist in Minnesota and Larry lives in Arizona. There is even a pro football team in Minnesota and Fitzgerald Sr. has written about his son 23 times. This doesn't sound objectivity, and there is actually nothing wrong with not being objective, the problem lies in the fact Rick Reilly and Michael Wilbon have done stories on how objective Fitzgerald Sr. is able to be without doing any research into whether it is true or not.

In both articles, more than half of the copy is devoted to detailing Fitzgerald Jr.'s exploits; in neither story does the author disclose that he's writing about someone who shares his DNA.

There is nothing inherently wrong with this but Fitzgerald Sr. can not claim to be objective when the facts completely lean the other way.

It's also hard to argue with what Fitzgerald Sr. has been saying—it's true that nobody has played better in these playoffs than his flesh and blood. It's easier to find fault with Bell and Reilly, who've concocted a fable about the impartiality of a man who basically acts as his son's PR rep.

Rick Reilly concocts fables and leaves out facts because he does zero research? I don't believe it.

Fitzgerald Sr. might not cheer in the press box, but he fashions the written-word equivalent of minutes-long standing ovations.

This is my favorite sentence.

Why does Reilly want us to believe that the author of 2004's "Fitzgerald shines at workout" ("The consensus is that Larry Jr. should have won the 2003 Heisman Trophy")

It is true but also shows that he is not completely unbiased.

Lapointe explains that his mother's passing was especially hard on Fitzgerald Jr. because they were estranged at the time. He also takes note of the recent domestic violence accusation by the mother of the wide receiver's young son.

If Rick Reilly had any journalistic integrity he would at least think, "Whoops." Instead he is on to his next story that has no significance, and more importantly, involves no research. The fact Fitzgerald Jr. was estranged from his mom is a major part of the story when talking about the fact she is dead.

Josh Levin is my hero for the day.

8. I hope Gary Williams quits/gets fired soon. This is getting very embarrassing with the forty point losses, blown leads and now he is arguing with the AD.

Gilchrist, a 6-foot-10 forward, transferred to South Florida during the summer. Evans, a 6-3 guard, ended up at Kent State.

Williams told reporters: "It wasn't my fault that they're not here. That was somebody else's call."

That prompted Maryland senior associate athletic director Kathleen Worthington to tell The Baltimore Sun on Tuesday: "I want to clarify the facts and the timing and the decision process of these situations. It was my recommendation that we not sign a release for Gus. I didn't want to release him. It was the head coach's decision. No one else released Gus."

Please just fire Gary Williams. Let him go somewhere that will actually respect him. He is a great coach and I think he deserves a little bit better than the effort his players are giving him and the complete lack of support the Athletic Department shows.

Williams' latest volley: "Kathy Worthington doesn't speak for me, she has never won a national championship, she has never done anything. She's an associate AD. This is just giving you guys stuff to make me look bad."

Felton at the University of Georgia got fired today. They would be wise to call Gary Williams and see if he will coach there next year. Ask him to pull a Manny or something. Maybe there is something I don't know about Gary Williams and he may really suck as a coach, but I don't think that is the case.

This is embarrassing for Williams also though. He should shut up and let Maryland look like the bad guy.

9. Brett Favre's master year long plan is finally taking shape.

The Brett Favre-Vikings rumors have been circulating for a week. It's risky, but if the Vikings are unable to trade for Matt Cassel of New England or Matt Hasselbeck of Seattle, it wouldn't be shocking if they made a run at Favre should he become available, as expected.

I only believe about 10% of the crap I read on Truth and Rumors, but since Favre wanted to play for the Vikings last year, I will go ahead and believe this.

New Jets coach Rex Ryan expects Favre to attend offseason workouts, which Favre rarely did when he was in Green Bay. Currently, Favre counts for nearly $13 million on the Jets' tight salary cap, and they could save that money if they place him on waivers next month.

(Favre rubbing hands together excitedly talking to his wife, Deanna) "What I will do is refuse to go to offseason workouts and say I think I may retire, they will figure they won't have me either way, so they cut me, save them some money and I can go somewhere else. Brilliant!"

The future hall of famer would then become a free agent and available to the Vikings, who were interested in him last summer.

"My master plan is working! Deanna, I will be right back, I am going to go shit on my legacy some more. Maybe moon a school bus full of kids or expose myself to the ducks at the park. Why is Peter King in a van outside our house?"

10. I don't like the ACC's unbalanced schedule. Wake Forest will not be playing UNC at UNC this year and Duke plays N.C. State only once. It would be nice if every team in the conference played a home/away schedule. I guess the conference tournament takes care of a little bit of that but still, I would like to see Wake go into UNC and play the Tarheels. It also annoys me in college football that some teams don't play other teams, especially in the Big 12, but they play so many fewer games, it is more understandable.

I wrote a few months ago that I will not predict Duke to get past the second round in the NCAA Tournament until they show everyone they are a different team from the past couple of years and they still have not shown me anything. I knew Wake would be good before the beginning of this year, but I was thinking #10-#15 in the country, but not quite this good though.