MMQB Review: Inspiring the Troops By Insulting Them With Football War Analogies...And A Brett Favre Update

Every week we get to read as Peter King writes less and less useful and important information in his MMQB and this week is no exception. Out of 5 web pages, we essentially get 2 pages of information and the rest is his opinion on a variety of subjects and him doing publicity for NBC's Sunday night football show. We also get a Brett Favre update and an aggravating travel note that should in no way be construed as complaining...at least from the point of view of the fine (re: dumbass) reader who wrote into Peter's MMQB Tuesday mail bag last week and said it was clear Peter enjoyed his job and never complained.

Let's just enjoy making fun of MMQB while we can.

Four weeks from Fourth of July weekend, I'm whistling a patriotic tune this morning, and alerting our men and women overseas you're about to have some interesting visitors.

Aliens. Oh yes, they're coming. This summer. Watch out International Community.

Later this month, three Super Bowl-winning coaches from this decade -- Tom Coughlin (Giants), Bill Cowher (Steelers) and Jon Gruden (Bucs) -- will join one AFC Championship coach, Tennessee's Jeff Fisher, and the AFC Championship runnerup last year, Baltimore's John Harbaugh, in traveling to the Persian Gulf to visit our troops.

Hmmm...coaches. No players? We all love coaches, but I wouldn't define these guys as interesting visitors for the troops. The troops probably want players. Coaches who sound a lot like their superiors in the military will probably not interest them that much. I am not sure they will enjoy more men in a position of authority lecturing them about what it means to be a part of a team.

The Giants' coach is not alone. You can bet all five coaches use war stories to motivate their men. For that reason, it's going to be strange for them to be talking to military men about football players rather than the other way around.

War metaphors are very stupid/offensive and I think a coach should be precluded from being able to go on a USO tour if he has ever made a war analogy while talking about football. War is not like football and football is not like war. One is entertainment and the other is very serious life or death shit.

You can bet Coughlin, at some base in Iraq or Afghanistan, will tell a room full of soldiers the story of David Tyree, the last receiver on the roster, who caught four passes in the first 18 games of the 2007 season, and then, because of injuries, stepped up to catch four in the Super Bowl upset of New England. Including the helmet catch, of course.

And you can bet the soldiers will relay stories to Tom Coughlin about their friends' leg being blown off, landmines blowing up their Humvees, not being able to go to the bathroom at night and if you do running quickly because you never know if someone will try and shoot you from some random hill top, and just generally have a hellish experience. Let's hear about that helmet catch and how we all have to be ready to step in the clutch though...football gives you such great life experience and is so similar to war.

My advice to the five coaches: Get ready to sign 750 autographs a day, minimum, and pose for 300 pictures a day, minimum. Get ready to fall into an exhausted sleep every night and never get more than five hours of it, because there will always be more people to see and bases to visit. In the Persian Gulf, you'll be like the Beatles were in New York in 1964 ... without the shrieking girls.

It's like you are a hero to them. It must be wonderful to have your ego massaged in that way. Here's the problem Peter is too self involved to think about. This trip is not about signing autographs or giving war analogies, it's to let the troops know we support them and are thinking about them. It's not about giving the troops an interesting time or taking pictures with them and then telling us how busy you were. If that's what Peter wants, great, but Peter shouldn't act like he is a hero in high demand over there. Plus, I bet there are tons of shrieking girls in the Persian Gulf, I just don't think if Peter traveled with the soldiers he would find they would be the type of shrieking girls he was looking for.

I just think the focus of Peter is too much on what the coaches can provide and not on more important issues.

Brett Favre (who is going to have his own network, website and galaxy before his career's over)

He actually does Peter.

His web site.

His network.

His galaxy.

The man wants to play football for the Vikings, and they Vikings have obviously given him enough of an indication that if he's healthy and ready to throw full-throttle by early July that they'll be interested in signing him.

If anyone doubted he would be coming back, frankly you are a moron. The spotlight is on him and he wants to prove he can still play football at a high level for 10 weeks of an NFL season. That would be the first 10 weeks and then all bets are off because he is 40 and coming off shoulder surgery. His passer rating could go into the negative after that, we never know. If he were a horse, we would euthanize him, but he is Brett Favre so we canonize him.

All indications are the Vikings haven't agreed to a contract yet with Favre; what do you pay a man who will turn 40 and is coming off shoulder surgery two months before the start of training camp?

A 40 year old man coming off shoulder surgery two months before training camp? You don't sign him.

If you insist on signing him, you give him a $2 million base salary with incentives for playing time and on-field achievements like passing yards or touchdowns.

More likely the contract would have to be for a year at $8 million to $10 million, max, with some incentives.

That's not how much you give a 40 year old man coming off shoulder surgery two months before training camp...that's how much you give a 40 year old named Brett Favre.

It'll be an upset if Favre doesn't attempt a comeback with Minnesota now.

It'll be an upset if this doesn't fail miserably.

I asked Drew Brees if he was worried about Shockey. He paused for a few seconds, then said, "Oh boy ... I'm not worried about him. I don't care who you are, here I feel like we can win without him, just like I feel we can win without Reggie Bush or Marques Colston. If he fits in, I'd love to have him.''

They went 8-8 without him last year. But they are the 23rd best team in the NFL because he can't play a full season. Right Peter? If the Saints stink, it's not because Shockey can't play a full season.

Let's allow Peter to pimp out his NBC football show by fawning over its newest arrival. (This is the part where I don't write all the wonderful quotes Peter included that Harrison said and you readers can skim through them...I will be waiting for you to finish)

Apparently NBC has borderline racistly hired Harrison to be the "off the cuff black man" and to "tell it like it is." Enough with that human vagina Jerome Bettis, let's get some controversy up in this bitch.

The early returns on Harrison are good (a receiver "curls up like a little girl'' and football is turning into a "soft, pansy sport'' are good enough for me),

(Peter rubbing his fat hands together) Yes, he will fit the stereotype quite well.

Here's a question I have...We hear a lot about how we need to protect players better on the field and Peter King has even bitched and moaned about the player's pension plans not being sufficient after they retire because their bodies are so beat up...especially for the older players. Peter thinks we should do more for these players because of injuries due to the violence of the game. Here Peter is quoting an ex-player who complains that the game is not violent enough anymore and Peter appears to be supporting this statement. Read through some of Harrison's quotes, there is more of this type of quote about how the game should be more violent.

How does Peter justify these two positions? If he was really concerned about player safety and making sure they could hold their children after their playing days are through, he would not support the idea the game is not violent enough. He has talked a lot about player safety and the league's pension plan in the past...but now he thinks it is a great idea for someone to dream up the idea the sport is not violent enough. I don't get it. I realize he is not outright saying the game needs to be more violent, but he is quoting Harrison who says it should be and Peter doesn't disagree.

More and more the Pro Bowl is almost an insignificant measure of greatness for a player. Harrison was hated by many players, and they wouldn't honor him by voting him into a Pro Bowl.

Peter neglects to mention why the players hate Harrison. It is because he was widely considered to be the dirtiest player in the league. Peter just acts like they didn't like his personality or how he dressed, when in fact they may or may not have had a good reason to dislike him. There is a difference in hard hitting football and cheap shots and I think many players felt like Harrison was always on that borderline between those two.

Texas moved on to the next round of the tournament against TCU last weekend. Wood, the closer, warmed up but did not pitch in a win Saturday night. He threw four pitches and retired the only batter he faced Sunday in a TCU win.

Oh yes, the pitcher that was semi-abused by his Texas manager has faced one batter and pitched four pitches since then. I remember him.

But what about the long-term damage he could have done to the arm? "I don't buy it,'' Wood said. "They said coach Garrido abused me. It's crazy. He never abused me. I'm not going to stay in a game and pitch hurt.''

Doing this one time may not hurt his arm, that is true. But Dusty Baker must be salivating at the chance to have this guy pitch for him. He will be the first modern day closer to ever throw 200 innings.

Also he did stay in the game when he had been vomiting and dehydrated. That doesn't count as "hurt" but it also doesn't count as being completely healthy.

I'm very big on the whole immediacy of coverage, but I hope this summer, as I make my rounds, I see that there's still something left for the daily papers -- some more in-depth stuff.

If it is in-depth coverage of Brett Favre or any other subject I am tired of, then I will pass. The problem with a lot of papers is that they do go in-depth many times on subjects that there is really not that much depth to. This is part of the reason we end up reading the same article over and over again about David Eckstein. That's just my opinion.

Enjoyable/Aggravating Travel Note of the Week

I'll give you a hint, it's not enjoyable and is aggravating.

On Wednesday, I had a 6:03 a.m. flight from Providence to Detroit; Northwest to Detroit cheaper from Providence than Boston, or at least it was for this flight. I left Boston at 4:05 a.m. for the 53-mile drive to the airport in Providence. Not being all that familiar with the drive, I did what anyone would do -- followed the signs on the highway for T.F. Green Airport, figuring it would be the shortest route.

From I-95 north of Providence, I got on I-295 south. And drove. And drove ... and got back onto I-95 south of Providence for the final couple of miles to the airport. I couldn't believe it -- 65 miles. Seemed way too long. Got to the airport at 5:18, and if you've flown from Providence, you know it has the longest rush-hour security lines on the East Coast.

I made the flight, but I went on Mapquest later in the day and looked at the route. Mapquest would have had me go straight down I-95 all the way. So I'm an idiot for not looking at a map before I left home. I just figured if a sign on an interstate highway tells me to take I-295 to get to the airport, it wouldn't be taking me 12 miles out of my way to get there.

See Peter, that's the thing about interstate signs. They are so immediate like Twitter, but they leave room for the print maps to go more in-depth. Just like newspapers do. Just like you wanted. It's what you wanted, don't bitch.

But if 200 cars follow the route the highway planners tell them to follow, then cars are driving 2,400 more miles per day than they have to.

That idiot who wrote in last week and said Peter never complained must skip this part of Peter's column every single week. This takes up almost half the page, it's Peter bitching about highway signs.

Cardinals manager Tony LaRussa sued Twitter last week for a defamatory phony Twitter account under his name. These accounts for Manning aren't defamatory, unless you consider graphic defecation posts defamatory. But they're not him.

It's a good thing LaRussa sued to protect his reputation on Twitter. We wouldn't anyone thinking the man who is famous for falling asleep drunk in his car in the middle of the road and turning a blind eye to all sorts of steroid users on his teams would make defecation jokes. That could ruin his reputation.

1. I think the reason Ralph Wilson chose Chris Berman to introduce him for induction to the Pro Football Hall of Fame is simple: He likes Berman a lot, and Wilson's not close to people in the league. He's mostly a loner in league circles. That's neither a criticism of Wilson nor his peers.

I can't think of anyone who would be more annoying in introducing a person or player into the Hall of Fame than Chris Berman. Can he give a speech without using dated references and being an overall douchebag? I doubt it.

Maybe Gallagher would be more annoying, but I think everyone would enjoy the watermelon smashing at the end.

4. I think I'd like to take this space to wish Jason LaCanfora, ex of the Washington Post, good luck in his new gig as information man for NFL Network. The network got a good man. LaCanfora's a worker bee with a good presence.

Is this a situation where an email would have sufficed perfectly instead of wasting space by publicly congratulating him? I think so. It is much more personal, plus a person doesn't sound like they are name dropping to show off how many people he/she knows.

5. I think Matt Millen might be getting cold feet about the Thursday night NFL Network gig.

If Matt Millen got that gig it would only be two more years before the NFL Network has the lowest ratings on all of television and they would bring a new color commentator every year to add to the booth even though they already have enough of them.

6. I think, not to over-write TV, one of my pet peeves over the last couple of years has been how the football and media world is obsessed about how many people NBC uses on its Sunday night "Football Night in America'' show...NBC. Varied between five and seven for the 75-minute show. But when it was seven, I'd bet numbers five through seven -- me, Tiki Barber, Jerome Bettis -- took a total of six or seven of the 75 minutes.

Did we have more bodies on the set? Not more than FOX, if you count Caliendo and Reynolds, and assuming Schefter joins the ESPN set, ESPN will have the same number. If NBC was overloaded, why aren't those shows overloaded, too.

I think the point that was being made when calling the NBC show overloaded, which Peter made perfectly, is that they had dead weight on the show in Bettis, Barber and Peter King that did almost nothing and added very little to the show. NBC was overloaded because it had dead weight sitting at a desk (I edited out a Peter King dead weight joke here because it really writes itself). I don't watch pregame shows but from the names Peter listed it seems like the others contribute to the show and give more than 7 minutes worth of contributions each week.

I would like to know who thought Jerome Bettis would be a good sports commentator? He wasn't awful but just because a guy smiles a lot doesn't mean he will be good at the job.

8. I think if I were a boss in the media -- TV, website, radio -- I'd look long and hard at giving Bill Kuharich a job for the fall.

Regarding the Chargers, he said, "I think they're going to continue to go backwards.'' Regarding JaMarcus Russell, he said: "You can't live up to the billing of being the number one pick in the draft. But I see him growing. Very physical, very strong arm, and his accuracy is improving. I see him learning to manage the game better. I don't know if he'll ever be in the Dan Marino category, but he'll be a good, functioning NFL quarterback.''

Sure, let's hire the guy who thinks JaMarcus Russell is a good quarterback even AFTER seeing him struggle the first two years of his career in the NFL...when he did not appear dedicated enough to the game and battled weight problems...as a quarterback. If this guy had said it before Russell got to the NFL, then maybe I could agree with this comment, but he has seen him play already and still believes in him. Even after Jeff Garcia takes the starting job this year. This is the guy who should get a job with any type of media commenting on sports?

a. If there's a better song playing on the planet right now than "Breathe'' by U2, I'd like to hear it.

I've never heard that song, but I am going to go ahead and say there is a better song playing on the planet right now. Peter King really is a stereotypical liberal yuppie isn't he?

c. Congratulations, "North By Northwest,'' one of my three favorite movies of all time. You're 50 this summer.

Holy shit. He is congratulating movies for the anniversary of their release date. This really could have very easily been left out or perhaps left in Peter's brain.

"Congratulations Great Wall of China, the largest man made structure that can be seen from space, you are still keeping those Mongolians out."

d. A few of you, through e-mail and by Tweet, have asked me to move up my Father's Day book review column from next Monday to sometime this week. Sorry. Been busy with various work projects, and I've read only two of the books I'll be writing about next week.

So how does he know to recommend the book if he hasn't read it? Is this Peter King Father's Day Book Recommendation column fixed or something? It sure looks that way. Seriously, how do you recommend a book you haven't fucking read?

Is the book about Brett Favre, so he knows it will be good?

f. I'm thinking about a Monday Morning Quarterback/Twitter-follower gathering somewhere on the road in America during training camp this summer. The question is where. Albany? Bethlehem? Latrobe? Berea/Canton? Bourbonnais? Green Bay? River Falls? Terre Haute ? Mankato? Denver?

Hell?

Why would anyone want to get together with Peter to hear him complain about how aggravating it was to travel to where this event is held and to discuss coffee? Does that sound fun to anyone that doesn't hate themselves?

h. Friday night, Fenway Park, fog and mist rolling over the right-field stands, top of the Prudential Center cut off, 56 degrees according to the Weather Channel, and I can see my breath. June 5 in New England. You've got to love it, I guess.

My name is Peter King. My life is so good. I get paid a lot of money to do nothing AND I can see my breath right now, it has the strong scent of hot dog, double lattes, Junior Mints, and cake. Mmmmm...yummy.

i. Great to hear from Mike McGuire..."Naturally our main mission was route clearance and insuring the road was clear for everyone else to move along the battlefield. No one goes anywhere on the battlefield until the engineers cleared the way. We were the 'tip of the spear,' it was a rush at times. Sadr City has to be the biggest slum in the world. I could not believe how it looked. One funny thing though was that no matter how bad a place was or what it was made of, they all had satellite dishes on them.''

I am not really into questioning how people spend their personal money, but this seems like a little bit of a waste for an area that is dirt poor.

j. Of course, Mike. They all need to watch the NFL.

Or it could be the hundreds of other channels that are currently available to watch they have the satellites for...or it could be the NFL.

What a weird way to end the column. I am not sure even how to take this last comment. Is it sarcasm or what is it?