13 comments MMQB Review: Peter Lauds the Eagles For Making Draft Choices He Admittedly Knows Nothing About

It's Monday and we all know what that means. It means Peter King entertains us all with stories of him taking a crap in an airport toilet, finds ways to compliment his favorite teams in the NFL, and most of all shows us what a great NFL insider he is by giving us information that is of no use unless you are planning on buying a cup of coffee in England.

Peter gives probably the worst excuse presented yet as to why Brett Favre did not lie when he said he wasn't coming back to the NFL...and now it appears there is a chance he is coming back to the NFL.

I don't want to delay any further because I know everyone is very excited.

First, a Brett Favre prelude. A semi-brief Favre prelude.

Rewording the second sentence to mean nearly the same thing as the first sentence does not equal a brief prelude.

There's no good reason to ask for his release from the Jets unless it's to leave open the option to play again. I am told he may be feeling the urge to play again.

Favre will not rest until he has completely tarnished his legacy, given the entire state of Wisconsin a reason to hang his #4 jersey up in effigy and his quarterback rating is in the lower quarter percentile of all starting quarterbacks. Jake Delhomme, he is coming for you!

When he retired from the Packers 14 months ago, Favre said, "It's over. I've given everything I can possibly give to this organization, to the game of football, and I don't think I've got anything left to give.'' When he retired from the Jets two months ago, he told me, "I foresee myself getting the impulse to play, but ... I could never bring myself to do it. I know I won't do it.''

But with Favre, words are less important than emotions.

This is the worst excuse ever given for potentially retiring and unretiring twice in 14 months. This shouldn't shock anyone that Peter King would make excuses for Brett Favre but this is incredibly weak. Let's see how this works in the real world:

(Husband to wife) "I know I said that I was going to uphold all of my marital vows but you know to me emotions are much more important than words."

(Wife to husband) "You are leaving me for a 20 year old secretary from your office. How can you do this to your kids and me?"

(Husband to wife) "Look, I didn't mean to lie, but my emotions have gotten the best of me, this is what I want. You should respect it because you know words mean little to me, (putting his hands to his chest) it's the emotions that count in my world. I have to go now, she just pulled in the driveway. Tell me when the kids get old enough to play sports, I will try to attend one or two of their games."

In Peter's world, its not lying because words mean nothing to Brett Favre anyway, and this is all fine. I think I speak for the world when I say, go away Brett Favre. Leave and don't come back. We don't miss you and we won't miss you. Farewell.

If Favre decides to play, can he go forward with a bad right arm that Jets doctors were convinced at the end of last season needed surgery to fix?

A commenter brought up this exact point. Who cares though, it's Brett Favre. He can win games with his boyish love for the game!

I know you're sick of this story. We all are. But my gut feeling is Favre never completely got this Vikings fixation out of his system.

I mean this when I say it. I am beyond tired of Brett Favre. I don't care if he retires or doesn't retire. Just choose one and either stay and become an average quarterback in the NFL or retire and stay retired.

If he returns, the dream game of this season won't be Pats-Colts.

Ok Bill Simmons, that was never my dream game. Everyone doesn't like to watch the Pats and the Colts play football just because you do.

It'll be Vikings-Packers. Twice.

Maybe that will be FOX's dream game, but I will stay tuned to my favorite team's game and perhaps catch highlights of this crapfest at some point.

What would you think if I told you the Philadelphia Eagles got third-, fifth-, sixth- and seventh-round draft choices, plus half a starting cornerback for nothing in this year's draft?

I would say none of those players drafted in the 5th, 6th, or 7th round are likely to be impact players and I am not incredibly shocked they didn't give up much for these.

This may come out the wrong way, so bear with me.

It's not coming out wrong, he is saying what he means. He fucking loves the Eagles and everything they did in the draft.

They give their fans a chance every July at camp time to think they're going to make the playoffs and have a chance to contend for the Super Bowl. Isn't that what you want, as a fan? A chance, every year? What team every year in this decade has given you that chance? Philadelphia. New England. Indianapolis. Pittsburgh. The Giants, maybe.

Shockingly, if you forced me to make a list of the teams that Peter obsessively follows and writes his columns about all the time, all five of those teams would be on the list. I don't know if this means anything but he pretty much tells everyone here, "be a fair weather fan, go ahead and do it. Choose your favorite team based completely on how successful that team is."

But if I were a football fan looking for a team to root for, I'd pick the Eagles, and what they did on draft weekend is a big reason.

See? Choose the Eagles as your favorite team. Peter King wants you to.

But what the Eagles did on the second day of the draft -- still unnoticed eight days later; no one's said a word about it -- is one of the greatest feats of trading down and getting value for the future that I've ever seen. And I mean ever.

EVER! EVER! EVER! You may think getting, in my opinion, the 3rd best WR and 2nd best RB in the draft was their best feat on draft day. No way. It's was trading around and getting more draft picks in the part of the draft where fewer impact players are found. Fucking genius. Here are some examples of the genius.

Traded the 85th overall pick (third round) to the Giants for the 91st (third-round) and the 164th (fifth-round) picks.

Pretty standard draft trade there. Nothing really genius about this.

Traded the fifth-round pick acquired from the Giants to New Orleans for the 222nd pick (seventh-round), plus the Saints' fifth-round pick in 2010.

Again, standard. See? Genius!

Let's go back to my original premise in this column:

Brett Favre IS NOT a liar and the Eagles (not the band) rock.

When the time to make the third-round pick (No. 85 overall) was approaching, the Eagles looked up on their draft board. They had about 30 players graded very closely. Heckert told me if they'd been forced to pick the 25th player on the list, they'd have been fine, because these 30 players all had second- or third-round grades, so by the Eagles' system, even the 25th player on the list would be a solid third-rounder and worthy of a pick around then.

So it is not really genius, it just so happens the scouts did such a great job of scouting, they had 30 guys all clustered in the same spot on the draft board. Way to differentiate between different player's skill sets Philadelphia Eagles scouts.

getting the Giants to move up six spots, then finding Seattle desperate for the 91st pick, which the 'Hawks would use on Penn State wide receiver Deon Grant.

Wow, the Seahawks used a 3rd round pick on a Penn State receiver named Deon Grant, who if you click the link, looks like a safety they currently have on the roster who was drafted by Carolina in 2000. Screw the Eagles draft board, I want to know exactly how this worked out. I demand to know how the Seahawks drafted a player they already have...who doesn't even play the same position he played last year for them.

And finally we got [Seattle GM] Tim Ruskell to agree to a deal because he wanted Deon Grant.''

Deon Butler. Butler, not Grant. Can someone please edit Peter's column for him? (Now I am proofreading and it is changed...but I have the proof he screwed up...much like that Mariotti column back in March when he said Conference Tournaments were useless and then edited the column completely and bragged how great they were after the Syracuse-UConn game.)

Eleven picks later, without a guy on the board who surely would make their team, Philly flipped the pick to New Orleans for a seven and a 2010 fifth-rounder. And midway through the seventh, they dealt their choice to Indy for a 2010 sixth.

Look, the Eagles just accumulated more picks for next year. That's all they really did. They did not use some black magic or anything, they just took advantage of the fact teams wanted players this year and got picks for next year. Smart move, but not qualifying as a genius move in my book.

It got a left tackle of the future, Jason Peters, for first- and fifth-round picks in this draft,

11.5 sacks allowed last year...only for a 1st round pick and a fourth round pick, plus a 2010 second round pick? I'll take it! You mean he even has a tendency to be a big pouty cry baby? I'll pay you even more for him!

If someone wants to explain to me why Peter King doesn't think Julius Peppers is worth a first round pick and between $12-$14 million per year (Peter says $16 million but that numbers has never been proven as correct, he is making it up I believe), while he thinks Jason Peters is worth a 1st, 4th, and 2010 2nd round pick and $60 million over the next 6 years, including $25 million guaranteed, I am willing to listen. I don't think Peppers is worth all of that, but then again, I don't think Peters is either so I don't see why Peter King thinks it was such a steal.

"Maclin and Crabtree are top 20 picks but Harrell and Daniel, the guys who throw to them, are 'system guys?' I don't buy it.''--Tweet from rodhartwig, who is Rodney Hartwig of Phoenix, on Twitter, referring to undrafted quarterbacks Graham Harrell of Texas Tech and Chase Daniel of Missouri, both of whom went undrafted.

Chase Daniel, I am not so sure about him honestly. I have seen him play a fair amount and he is minorly impressive but I don't think he is an NFL quarterback, but I have to admit I don't get the whole Graham Harrell thing. I would have at least spent a late draft pick on him if I were a GM in the NFL. I could see him being a good backup in the NFL.

My humble advice (and I mean that; I don't study college tape at all) to those who make their living grading college football players: Watch the games.

So previously, and I left this part out of my post here, Peter got all excited and bragged about how the Eagles selected Cornelius Ingram with those draft picks they accumulated, but he has no idea if Ingram is any good because he doesn't watch tape of college football players. Ingram missed this entire last year due to a knee injury so there is no way Peter could have watched his games to know if Ingram was any good or not.

This is a common complaint I have about Peter King. He has few, if any, original thoughts. He just parrots what everyone else says. His rant about Graham Harrell was brought on by a guy who Tweeted him this idea, it wasn't an original thought he had. His entire MMQB column is information others have given him and he just disseminates the information to the masses...and usually it is not very important or good information. How the hell does he know the Eagles made genius draft moves if he knows very little about the players that were drafted? If he watches the college games, that is fine, but I have a feeling he doesn't even do that.

I got away with my wife to visit my brother and his family in England over the weekend, and we took in a Barclay's Premier League soccer game between Manchester City and the Blackburn Rovers. City won 3-1 in a thoroughly entertaining 90 minutes of sport -- my first big-league soccer game in England.

This is the part where he gives a personal story that kills space and just makes me think he is a self involved moron.

I walked away wondering if there's anything in America like the constant hum of a 90-minute match with the kind of tradition football in Britain has. I'm not sure there is. Maybe a big college-football rivalry or a Red Sox-Yankees playoff game,

No. Nothing beats the Red Sox-Yankees in the playoffs. Nothing. Not even the Super Bowl, not the World Series, and not even the second coming of Jesus Christ. The Red Sox-Yankees in a playoff game is something Jesus would watch BEFORE he revealed himself again to the world. I just don't know who he would cheer for.

Well, the Paul Zimmerman dinner/auction is two weeks from tonight, and I'm here today to ask for a little help.

Because the obscene amounts of money people are paying so far to help a quite wealthy nearly 80 year old journalist get incredibly expensive access to rehabilitation is not enough. Peter wants more.

The big-ticket auction items -- the Super Bowl trip for two, and trips to see the Cowboys, Vikings and Broncos -- are not moving.

It could be because two of those teams did not make the playoffs last year...or someone is afraid if they visit the new Dallas Cowboy's stadium, it will fall on them and they will be paralyzed.

If you've not read about the cause this is all for: Paul Zimmerman, the best football writer of our time, suffered three strokes in late November and is currently unable to read, write or speak coherently, though he is making good progress. We're trying to jump-start his therapy and road back to writing one day by raising money to allow him to undergo some aggressive therapy in Michigan and New Jersey.

I guess he really is going to sum this up for us every single week.

Let me sum it up in a little more jaded fashion. I hope Dr. Z gets better quickly, fully, and he is able to afford this rehabilitation...but Dr. Z is not the only stroke victim that would really benefit from access to this type of rehab, and as far as I can tell, this money is all going to help him out and no one else. I find it a little selfish of Peter King that he expects everyone to drop a bunch of money on a soon to be 78 year old journalist who had three strokes. This money should also be going to other individuals to afford the exact same treatment, people who actually need to get better so they can interact with their children and possibly return to work because they depend on that job as income to live off of, and I can imagine Dr. Z doesn't rely on his writing as income to support he and his wife all that much anymore.

Dr. Z only has a couple more good years left writing, he should really probably retire pretty soon (I hate to say it), and there are probably hundreds of people out there who need this rehabilitation as much as Dr. Z. I think some of the money should be going to those people as well because they don't have access to Peter King or his network of contacts to drum up the money to pay for the rehabilitation. As I said last week, Dr. Z is probably in the 99th percentile in the United States in regard to income, I think it is a bit upsetting he should have access to this rehabilitation and others don't...and with no money being raised for anyone else to afford it, they never will have access.

1. I think I can't believe what happened at the Cowboys practice facility Saturday.

You know if this were Biblical times (I feel like a minister today, talking about Jesus coming back and now this...I need to include more curse words at some point) they would see this as a sign that God does not approve of what was built and it would be torn down immediately. I think this is all I want to say about this because I feel bad enough someone was paralyzed, I don't want to have my feelings towards the Cowboys and Jerry Jones make light of those who got injured.

6. I think Julius Peppers is going nowhere, for one simple reason: Not only would a team have to pony up a first-round pick in 2010 (at least) in return for the Panthers' defensive end who wants out, but then he'd have to be paid somewhere in the $12-million-to-$16-million range annually. And he's not worth both of those things.

The dude had 14.5 sacks last year. Doesn't anyone want him? Anyone at all? Just make Carolina an offer. I can't figure out whether the Panthers are just sticking to their guns smartly or absolutely trashing this year's team by keeping him on the roster.

I wish there was a journalist who parrotted what others said who followed the NFL who could make a few phone calls and get me an answer to this question. Perhaps the same guy who broke down the Matt Cassel franchise tag about 30 different ways and also just did a page and a half run down of how the Eagles accumulated extra draft picks this year in the 3rd to 7th round. I guess I still get nothing. I just wish Peter would tell us something interesting that doesn't deal with the same teams we read about every week in his MMQB. Is David Garrard happy the Jags drafted tackles in the draft, what has Matt Schaub done to stay healthy this off season, or an update on the Anquan Boldin situation. These random sentences every week doesn't really count as information. He may "think" things like this but I want him to "fucking find out" things like this.

Just like there are probably 10 other teams that had great drafts but Peter decides to write about the Eagles, like he always does. I would really like to also have some information on what he has against Aaron Curry and the fact he didn't sack the quarterback in college doesn't count as a reason to not like him.

(Peppers is killing me. No one down here knows anything and since Carolina is not on Peter's list of favorite teams to follow, I get nothing. If Peter King could write half a page one week about this and give me ANY information or insight, I would lay off him for one week...and that's a promise, I am not lying. Though I do tend to run on emotion, much like Brett Favre, so that is my excuse if I am lying.)

8. I think Jason Taylor will be a Patriot, unless Miami steps up to offer some real money.

If anyone needs information on retired football players or semi-retired/washed up football players, Peter King is your man. If you want information on current football players...you are better off not reading his MMQB column.

9. I think, speaking of Miami, the Dolphins might be working Pat White at quarterback only for now, but it's a matter of time before he becomes a "slash'' player, a guy who receives, runs and throws. He's going to be a great asset as a versatile weapon.

Oh yes, an instance where Peter takes something we all know and then puts it into written form like he just learned it recently. Much like when he says, "we will be hearing something from this Andre Johnson very soon"...after he has played in the NFL for 6 years.

I can't put "As They See 'Em'' down, and it'll be one of the five books I review in my annual Father's Day book-review column June 8. I like to give book advice so you don't buy another tie that your dad will thank you for and then throw to the bottom of his closet.

Yes, buy him a book that he will thank you for, read once, and then throw at the bottom of his closet. That makes so much more sense.

e. Coffeenerdness: Espresso's not the same in England. Even the Starbucks espresso is not as rich.

Oh in the name of Brett Favre say this isn't true. While the rest of the world is cutting down on so called "latte spending," Peter King is bitching about $4.50 cups of coffee. He is a man of the people. If "the people" are aristocrats who bitch about things like un-heated toilet seats or are those people who attempt to critique a restaurant's service and food as if he/she were a food critic and not an overweight professional kiss-ass.

Don't know what it is. It's almost tea-like. Yet every traveler who has coffee there says the espresso they serve in America is too strong. Hmmm. That's just wrong.

Note to President Obama: Don't nominate Peter King as Ambassador to England, he would spend most of his time there discussing the differences in coffee and eventually offend her Royal Highness by commenting that the crumpets served were a little dry.

For those who would like to, be sure to send in questions to Peter that you may have and we can see if we can get published. I think I have my question ready and it will not be answered, but I will post it in the comments when I have it officially ready. I wish he had answered my Aaron Curry one from last week.