7 comments MMQB Review: Goodbye My Lover Edition

Brett's gone. That sound you heard last Tuesday when Favre announced he was done throwing interceptions (and touchdowns but interceptions are more fun to talk about) in the NFL was Peter King diving into a gallon of Peanut Butter Panic ice cream. I am tired of talking about Brett Favre but unfortunately Peter dedicates 1/3 of MMQB to Brett Favre and the answers to the softball questions he has for him. The mere sight of Favre's face is starting to irritate me, this better be the last time I ever talk about him. Let's eulogize Favre with Peter.

We've got a lot going on for what's supposed to be a dead time -- Michael Vick's on the block while in the cell block,

Woody Paige just made a cameo in Peter's column.

Alex Rodriguez is lying about Selena Roberts (which enrages me),

(Peter slams his fist down on the coffee table and spills his double shot latte expresso with chives on the table and quickly licks it up with this tongue.)

a 10-year-old dog won Best in Show at the Westminster

This is clearly not a sport. Not sure why you just mentioned it.

You probably figured I'd lead with Favre.

Peter is being self deprecating now. I think I enjoy it.

This is the ground I wanted to cover when we spoke for 40 minutes the other night: Is it real this time? Why wasn't it real last time?

Then Peter told Brett, "enough about the questions regarding possibilities for a sexual relationship between us, let's talk about your retirement."

Peter had 4 difficult and soul searching questions for Brett...let's look at them. I warn you, they take you into the heart of Brett Favre and are very probing of Brett's psyche.

1. What will he do now?

The best thing he could do, I think, is interview players informally. Not in a sitdown setting, necessarily, but ambling around the house or the field with wireless mikes, just talking.

This is known as "having a conversation."

Forget the scripted questions; he needs to simply talk and swap stories. Having been in those settings with Favre, I can tell you it's the perfect setting for him to get his subject to talk.

If a pregame show hires Brett Favre and his schtick is that he talks with players informally and swaps stories about their lives, then I have been given one more reason to never watch an NFL pregame show. You may not believe this, but I want more journalists and less ex-players on pregame shows.

2. How does he know he won't come back, somewhere, in August?

It comes down to the high regard he has for Jets GM Mike Tannenbaum, dating back to last August.

I can use my super powers of deduction and say that Brett Favre did not hold Ted Thompson or anyone in the Packer organization in high regard based on his answer to this question.

Go fuck yourself Packers fans! Signed, Brett Favre.

"I foresee getting the impulse to play,'' Favre said. "But as good as Mike Tannenbaum has been to me, I could never bring myself to do it. I know I won't do it. If I did, I'd be putting the Jets in a tough spot, because I know they can't release me.''

Now it makes sense. He doesn't want to do to Tannenbaum the exact same thing he did to the Packers last year. That's pretty noble of Favre. He's like the Robin Hood of NFL quarterbacks. Stealing from the rich (Packers have Rodgers) and giving to the poor (a mediocre year for the Jets) and then retiring again. So he would be more of a lazy Robin Hood.

3. Why wasn't his retirement real last time?

The reality, Favre knows now, is he not only wanted to play again, but he wanted to show Green Bay -- particularly general manager Ted Thompson -- that it was making a big mistake in going forward without him. "Part of me coming back last year, I have to admit now, was sticking it to Ted,'' he said in a rather startling admission.

What a competitor. He will be missed. Jets fans will be proud to hear one of the big reasons he played this past season was to prove to his old general manager he could still play. Love of football? Not completely. Passion for the game? Not completely. Too much pride to admit when he is done and wants to continue to hold a grudge against his old GM for not letting him come back and play football after he has retired? Yes, that was part of it.

This admission is startling and mostly simply because through the entire retirement/non-retirement whining fest Favre did last year, he insisted his wanting to be traded had nothing to do with Ted Thompson and had to do with the love for the game he has and he just wanted to play. This was apparently not completely true, at some point it became partly about proving Ted Thompson right. Brett Favre semi-lied again, though if he channeled this energy the right way it was not a bad thing for the Jets.

How delusional is Brett Favre that he thinks the Packers made a mistake in moving forward without him? I think Brett Favre is one of the top 10 quarterbacks of all time, his past 4 seasons (except one) really are the exception for his career, but Aaron Rodgers is 14 years younger than Favre and is/was the future at quarterback for the team. Any person who is thinking clearly knows that Aaron Rodgers needed to be starting for the Packers last year. Sure, it may not have been the best thing for the team in the short term, but was exactly what was needed in the long term. And for the 900th time, the Packers did not move forward without Favre, he retired and tried to force his way back into the Packer's plans.

I've saved the four-minute voice-message from him on my cell phone the day he quit, and when I've played it for people, I've asked, "Does that sound like a guy who was retiring with a lot of doubt in his mind?''

And everyone responds with, "Have you really gone into your phone every month and made sure that message was not erased?"

This is weird. Seriously, convert it to an MP3 and put it on your computer as a retirement memento from Favre or something, but saving it on your phone for almost a year is very weird.

4. Why did he stink it up in December?

Why did he stink it up 2005 and 2006 as well? Why have you stunk it up the last 3 out of the 4 seasons you have played in the NFL? Those are some questions I would have asked Favre as well.

I guess one of my biggest problems with Favre is that he was acting like he had not stunk it up those 3 out of 4 seasons. He wanted the Packers to keep holding on to hope was going to un-retire and it came to the point Aaron Rodgers was just as good as Brett Favre, so the Packers had no incentive to keep him.

Last summer, Favre thought he wasn't going to play, and so he didn't do any physical training in the off-season. As time drew close to camp, he threw with the local high school team a few times, but that was too little, too late.

This is coming off as Peter using excuses for Favre. Favre knew he wanted to play football in late May of this past offseason. He had from June to August to get into football shape and if he did not do any physical training that is pretty much his fault. Considering Favre was not young and he played in the NFL for many years, he knew the risks of not doing any physical training, but still apparently did not do any.

If any other quarterback broke down at the end of the year because of a lack of physical training, there would be some harsh criticism abound in his direction, but for Favre this gets used as an excuse for his poor performanceby Peter.

"I'm not going to replace throwing touchdown passes by cutting down three trees tomorrow,'' he said.

Picking up goat shit is not going to replace throwing interceptions either.

All he knows is he's 39, and he's like an awful lot of unemployed people in America right now, other than he's got a bazillion in the bank and they don't. He's got to find something to do with his life.

Everyone start the pledge drive to send cards to Favre's residence in Mississippi. This poor millionaire doesn't know how he is going to spend the rest of his life now that he has retired at the age of 39. I just completely pity him. Poor him.

I want to go ahead and say when I wake up in the morning, having millions in the bank and not being bored at home is not what I worry about. Don't expect me to feel sympathy for Favre...but yet Peter kind of tries.

"If they decide to use the tag on me, the first thing I would be doing is requesting a trade.''
--Carolina defensive end Julius Peppers, whose contract has expired and who, by hook or crook, wants out of Carolina.

I looked up "hook or crook" and found it means, "by any means possible - fair or foul."

Julius Peppers is a free agent. That means he can sign with any team that he wants to. He has made it clear he wants out, he has not wavered on this, and has agreed to a trade and said he would not hold out of training camp. He is not holding the organization hostage, though the organization is hostage because they are incompetent and haven't been able to take care of this situation yet.

I don't like this language Peter is using here because it infers that Peppers is being difficult, when in fact he has been very nice about this situation and he just wants out. To follow up a puff piece story on the retirement of Brett Favre, who lied and held an entire Packer organization hostage with his demands last summer, admitted in the puff piece that he had a vendetta against Ted Thompson and un-retired partially because of that, and just overall acted poorly last year, with a quote by Julius Peppers and refer to him wanting to leave Carolina by hook or crook is horribly misguided. Don't be confused, I don't like Julius Peppers that much, maybe one day his production will actually equal the value he thinks he is worth in his mind, but he is not the bad guy in this situation. There is no bad guy. Carolina wants value and Peppers wants out. This would be done already if Jordan Gross was not a free agent also.

I am not even going into the differences in these two situations but Peppers is not doing anything, fair or foul, to leave Carolina. He is exercising his rights as a free agent. He has not complained and had a 20 minute interview on Saturday with 7 journalists explaining his reasons for wanting to leave Carolina. It irritates me Peter King follows up profiling a real hook or crook situation with this quote by Peppers.

Aggravating/Enjoyable Travel Note of the Week

Bumper sticker seen in Manhattan last week: THIS IS OUR YEAR.

Who are you? Whose year is it, or will it be?

Oh, the things Peter King spends his time worrying about.

And one other point for all of you casting either SI or Roberts as the Wicked Witch of the West here: The press exists, in part, to investigate. Sometimes reporters have to go where they're not wanted.

This fall on CBS look for the new show starring Peter King as an investigative journalist. Each week Peter will attempt to text message or call an NFL player to see if that player will give away his current location and then Peter will sort through that player's trash to find out exactly what type of coffee he drinks and Peter will also attempt to gain entrance to each player's house to find out more personal information. A larger story arc will cover Peter finding his way back into the NFL man-crush world where he will audition each white NFL quarterback to write wonderful things about every week in his MMQB. It's the perfect mix of CSI and The Bachelor.

The show is either going to be called Donut: He Ate, CSI: Chris Long's Underwear Drawer, or Most Annoying/Aggravating Show on Television.

2. I think the Panthers have to get tackle Jordan Gross signed this week, or they'll get no compensation for Julius Peppers. That's how it looks to me.

We still get no breakdown of what happens if they would sign Gross/Peppers and franchise tag the other player. If it were Matt Cassel and Richard Seymour you can bet we would get at least two graphs and a chart detailing the options. I actually don't care to see this type stuff at all, but I do like how it took Peter nearly a month to figure out Carolina has two Pro Bowlers who are free agents. Then we get two sentences about it. You would think the fact the second best team in the NFC (or 10th best according to his last power poll) has this dilemma would interest Peter a little bit. Guess not.

If Gross can be signed, Carolina can franchise Peppers and deal him for at least a first-round pick -- which I would do because he's 29, entering his ninth year, and clearly isn't going to be a program guy if he stays.

My biggest wonder is this: how incompetent can the Panthers front office be? They have four days to sign Gross to an extension and then they can franchise tag Peppers and trade him. Before that, they have had one full month to get this done. Even if you have to give Gross money over what he is really worth by a few million over a 6 year contract, wouldn't it be worth it in the short term to get draft picks for a player who has no interest in playing for your team? I guess you could expect nothing less from the same team that traded for Sean Gilbert (and gave up two 1st round draft picks) after he said God told him to sit out a year for more money when he was with the Redskins.

4. I think the Lions, with sufficient cap room available and picking first and 20th in the first round 10 weeks from now, will find their quarterback of the future by May 1. I just don't know if his name is Matt Cassel, Matthew Stafford or Mark Sanchez.

I am not an NFL scout nor do I know anything at all about what it takes to get or be a good quarterback in this league. I will say that drafting a quarterback first in the draft, especially with a new head coach, ties the team and the coach's future to that player's development. I am not sold this is the best move for the Lions. I am also not completely sold on Matt Cassel and I don't know if I would draft a quarterback first in this draft. I think the Lions would be better off building up both the offensive/defensive lines and finding a quarterback through free agency or later in the draft. It's not the sexy thing to do, but with two first round draft picks they have the opportunity to build almost as quickly as the Dolphins did last year.

I have watched all 3 of these quarterbacks play and Matthew Stafford has never done anything to impress me. He looks like a quarterback should look, but that is about it, I can't think of one time I watched him play and thought he looked like the leader of an NFL team. Sanchez would need to sit for a year at least, simply because I don't think he is quite ready to play at the NFL levle, and even then I am not sure I am sold on him as an NFL quarterback over the long term. I still think he could fall to the second round too.

The last thing a team as crappy as the Lions needs to do is trade draft picks for a quarterback that seems to be good, but strikes me more as a cog in the Patriots machine, which means the Lions will end up trading picks for Cassel.

5. I think if I were Matthew Stafford, by the way, I'd be keeping a collection of all these "He can't make an impact in year one like Matt Ryan or Joe Flacco'' quotes that are everywhere these days. And they'd be driving me to work a lot harder this off-season.

I wish I was more popular because I would love for Stafford to try and prove me wrong. He never impressed me that much when he played for Georgia.

Vice president of officiating Mike Pereira entered the locker room to find field judge Greg Gautreaux crying, and they were tears of joy and relief. Seems that Gautreaux, the man who made the immediate and correct call on the touchdown catch by Santonio Holmes by seeing Holmes get both feet down in fair territory while possessing the ball as his body hit the ground, was petrified that the biggest call of his life, a call he had to make in a millisecond, might be wrong. But it wasn't. It was perfectly correct.

You may have to work harder to prove to Cardinal fans his right foot was not resting on his left foot.

6. I think I wouldn't touch Pacman Jones. But I might be interested in Michael Vick. Keep this in mind: Even if Vick's free in mid-July, as he might be, I fully expect Vick to be hit with a suspension from the league of as long as a year. I don't believe he'd be available to play until at least opening day 2010. At that time, it will have been 44 months since he played a football game. Vick will be 30. If I had a moderate need at quarterback, and I knew Vick would be amenable to play different positions, and I knew Vick was in pretty good condition, I'd make a conditional-pick deal for him -- say, a fifth-round pick that could rise to a second- with the right incentives. Vick certainly had a dark side, and he was a liar. But I'm not sure he's a lost cause. He's been humbled, been stripped to the core, and he might be ready for a last chance at redemption. If not, a fifth-round pick was worth the risk. We're a country of second chances.

Please just remember this sentence about Mike Vick and how teams would want to trade for him after he missed almost four years of football.

9. I think this would be my question to Drew Rosenhaus about Plaxico Burress: I know you have to worry about servicing your client, but what makes you think he's playing football in 2009 anyway? And why would any team deal for a guy almost sure to be missing (either by league suspension or because he's in jail) for a good portion of the season, if not all of it?

Peter, remember "we are a country of second chances?" Maybe a team would be interested in Plaxico Burress because they know he would be worth it the next year after he was not suspended or in jail. I think for a fifth round pick, he would be worth the risk, Plaxico has been stripped and humbled you know.

I like how Peter forecasts almost two years into the future for Mike Vick but with Plaxico Burress he can only see the 2009 season. Burress has some value after he comes back from a suspension or jail. If you are a team in need of a wide receiver, I think he would be worth the risk.

For all you Zim-ophiles: Paul Zimmerman is improving, slowly but surely. He is still not speaking or reading,

d. You ready for Dr. Z-visit round two, Matt Millen? Zim is ready for another visit, with more stories of the old days with the Raiders.

(Correction: As pointed out to me by Anon, I misread this sentence but just pretend I did not and think how funny it would be if Peter King dropped a note in his column for Dr. Z who can't read yet) I like how Peter King notes that Dr. Z is not able to read yet, but Peter still leaves a note in his MMQB directed towards Dr. Z. Brilliant as if he could read it. Not only is he wasting his reader's time with personal messages but he is writing messages to people who can't even read them. What's next? Messages to the dead?

It's like on American Idol when Ryan Seacrest tried to high five the blind guy (he actually has tunnel vision..the blind guy, not Ryan), then Paula Abdul gave him a standing ovation (like he can see that) at the Hollywood round, and Paula told him last week, "you are going to have to be seeing us in the round of 36." Sadly, all of this is more understandable than Peter King noting in one sentence his great buddy can't read and then writing something to him in the next sentence.

e. Coffeenerdness: I swear this was the request at Starbucks in front of me Saturday: "Chai latte apple infusion, with a shot of chocolate.'' Is that real? Or is someone making that up to test the mettle of a sleepy barista?

I swear one time I read a journalist write about how people who drive cars don't come to a full and complete stop. This same journalist also gave me the play-by-play of a Steelers fan eating food and comments on the smell of hotel shampoos. Sadly, I know this is real and that person's name is Peter King. I read his column every week and I think that says something about me as a person.