MMQB Review: Peter Remembers When He Didn't Have To Work So Hard

It's Monday, which means we get Peter King's MMQB. We had better enjoy/dread it for the next couple of weeks because Peter will be taking a vacation soon and not writing his weekly MMQB. I will miss him during that time span, though I know we are going to get tons of stories of coffee related adventures and in-depth stories on conversations he had with people who we don't know. It's like talking to your grandparents all day about their friends, except worse, because at least your grandparents don't talk about Brett Favre all the time.

MMQB!

I have nothing new to report on those column favorites, Brett Favre and Mike Vick.

Thank you for reporting that you have nothing new to report on Brett Favre and Mike Vick. Apparently Peter works for ESPN now. Except he doesn't interrupt the regular scheduled program for a SportsCenter minute to tell us breaking news that there is no breaking news.

Give Drew Brees his props.

Anyone who reads this blog on a regular basis knows it irritates me when sportswriters insist on pointing out great players or achievements by players that fans already know about, but the writer just assumes that because he/she doesn't pay attention to the player, then no one else knows about the player/achievement either. It pisses me off. Peter is assuming we all ignore Drew Brees' achievement like he tends to do.

No, you give Drew Brees props. I have given him props. I am not the one who put the Saints as the 24th best team in the league based solely on the reasoning Jeremy Shockey may not be healthy for all 16 games next year. Brees made Lance Moore a receiving threat, played a few games last year without his #1 receiver (or what seemed like ANY good receivers) and his team had a mediocre defense and he still almost broke Dan Marino's NFL passing yardage record and led the team to an 8-8 record. He was the team last year at times. Everyone who follows football understands this. Please don't tell everyone to give Drew Brees props because we are not the ones that are ignoring his achievements and acting as if Jeremy Shockey is the only receiving threat on that New Orleans team. I have given Brees props throughout his career, probably too many props. I told everyone who would listen I would take Brees over Vick in 2001 when they were in the draft together and also said I would trade Phillip Rivers and keep Brees if I were the Chargers. Not that those were correct decisions for the Chargers to make, but it seems as if Peter is one of the few not giving Brees props.

Go ahead and annoy me Peter with the information you have.

In the 89-year history of the National Football League, only one player has thrown for more yards in a three-year period than Brees has thrown for in his last three years. This is Drew Brees we're talking about, not any of the very famous quarterbacks I'm going to show you in this chart.

I don't need this information, I put Brees very high in the rankings of quarterbacks in the NFL. #2 in fact.

I know there are tons of people out there who think a lot of Brees, I just hate it when Peter King acts as if he telling everyone new information about Brees. We know he is good, I am glad he just noticed.

"It's just numbers,'' Brees said when I told him about this gaudy list on Friday. "It's not a very big deal. To be mentioned in the same breath with Marino, Elway and all those guys is a great honor. Wow. But in the grand scheme of things, we don't have the ring. One of the reasons nobody would know about those numbers is, look at our record. [The Saints are 25-23 in that period.]

I want to know how Peter presents these type of lists to players? Does he call them up and say, "Hey Drew, Peter King here. Did you know you are second over the last 3 years in passing yardage? Give me your response to that!"

If so, I think that would annoy me if I were a pro football player.

It's beginning to look a lot like Stafford

Wow, he is doing a story on the Detroit Lions. They are not even close to the East Coast. Color me surprised.

"We've got two criteria for when Matthew will play,'' said Schwartz. "One is he'll play when he's ready. The second is when he's the best quarterback for us. But so far, whatever the opposite of buyers' remorse is, that's what we have.

The opposite of buyer's remorse is immediately wishing that you had bought something that you did not purchase. I don't know what that means for the Lions this upcoming year, but at least Matt Millen is not involved with the team anymore. I can't wait for Stafford to be a better quarterback than Mark Sanchez. It's not because I don't like the Jets, I just don't think Sanchez was a 1st round quarterback and such a to-do was made of his arriving in New York.

One was about a 2009 inductee, Randall McDaniel, a former teammate of Zimmerman's...He should have been a first-ballot guy. Which Zimmerman, who played with McDaniel in Minnesota, did. And then he said: "He's not only the strongest man I've ever seen. But he used to challenge defensive backs to races for $100, and they wouldn't take him up on it. If they did, he would have smoked them all.

I realize Randall McDaniel was a great player and may deserve to be in the Hall of Fame, but the fact he was strong and could run really fast is not two great criteria that should help put him in there. Mike Mamula would make the HoF based on that criteria.

He was a phenomenal football player.''

More importantly, he was strong and could run fast though. Way more importantly, what the hell were the Vikings doing with defensive backs that could lose a foot race to a Guard? I think reflects much more poorly on the defensive backs than it reflects well on McDaniel.

Happy Anniversary to me.

(The sound of Peter tooting his own horn begins)

But the current cover, the June 1, 2009 edition of the mag with Tom Brady on the front and my story inside, is one I'll keep.

Because it has like 3 super sexy pictures of Tom Brady's chiseled face?

Because that date --today -- is my 20th anniversary at the magazine.

Congratulations. I would buy Peter a cake, but I have a feeling he may have one or five in the fridge already.

I think back to when I was hired, and I remember thinking what a plum job this was.

Oh, and Peter, it still is a plum job. Don't ever forget that. There are thousands of journalism majors who would hold your sweet little (maybe not little) daughters hostage for your job.

Mulvoy told me I'd be responsible for some NFL stories in the offseason, and maybe a story or two in other sports, but I'd be able to enjoy the offseason. In the first couple of years, I bet I had 10 weeks in the offseason when I didn't have an assignment, including vacation. What a life! No TV, a little radio, no internet, no cell phones.

Holy crap! If Peter had known he would have had to work all year long, he would have taken that job at the landfill instead. If anyone ever wonders why these old time journalists are always on television bitter, angry, and hate blogs, this is why. Many journalists used to not work 10 weeks of the year, at least the football journalists did not. They could ignore news that was occurring because no one else had access to the news, but now they have to work harder because information is readily available. Damn Internet! I would be pissed off too if my well paid 40 weeks a year job became a full time job. No one went to journalism school to get a full time job.

I wrote my "Inside the NFL'' column for the magazine each week during the season, and maybe six or eight times each offseason.

That still sounds about right. I know Jim Trotter and other columnists write this every week for SI now, along with Peter. I am not even sure if Peter does 6 or 8 in an offseason any more.

That's how this mayhem began. I started out as a sportswriter. Now I'm a sportswriter who does the NBC "Football Night in America'' show, a radio gig (Sirius NFL Radio) one or two mornings a week, a few other talk shows around the country, and multiple columns for SI.com.

Impressed with ourselves much?

The other day, Mike Florio of profootballtalk.com made a great point about the difference between Mike Vick coverage during his possible return to football in 2009 and the coverage of Leonard Little's return to football in 1999. Little got 90 days in jail for vehicular manslaughter while being more than two times over the legal limit for alcohol, and he was suspended by the NFL for eight games. Florio's point was that if that happened today, the court in Missouri would have gotten ripped to shreds for a relatively light sentence (it also included 1,000 hours of community service and four years' probation),

Uh oh, here's my soapbox. This is absolutely true. I would have personally ripped that court to shreds on this blog and 10 people would have read it. The effect would have been thundering.

Whatever happened to those four years probation? Didn't Little get picked up for DUI again? I guess you can still plead down from DUI and it won't affect your probation...which I, of course, think is stupid.

I think in some ways we beat horses 'til they're long past dead today. In some cases, the pressure to be first causes those of us in the news business to react too quickly. The Boston Herald's false Spygate report comes to mind. That concerns me.

(Coughing) Brett Favre and anything related to him is another good example. (It was a long cough)

"I think he has been a great flamboyant quarterback, but he has made more stupid plays than any great quarterback I have ever seen.''
--Tarkenton, lobbing another bomb toward southern Mississippi.

The ironic part about Tarkenton't quotes is that he was not ever a saint himself in Minnesota. If I am not wrong I think this quote from Wikipedia describes someone very well. Guess who it is...

He was also known to heave the ball deep on third and long with no regard to an interception. He stated this was due to the great defense they had.

Whose Wikipedia page is this? Tarkenton's. Sounds to me as if though I agree with Tarkenton's assessment, he may be the old man calling the veteran out for the same things he did.

Now Peter writes a page long story on Austin Wood who pitched 12 1/3 innings of no-hit baseball, which is a wonderful feat. Not necessarily deserving of 25% of the space in a Monday football column, but still exciting and wonderful. He replaced the starter in the 7th inning and then threw 169 pitches. Yes, this guy is the closer for Texas and he pitched 169 pitches...and no Dusty Baker was not the manager of the Longhorns team.

Again, I am not a big fan of pitch counts but I think this guy needed to be taken out at some point.

Wood started cramping severely around the 15th.

It's not like the bullpen was tired or anything, this guy replaced the starter in the game. There were other pitchers available.

Before he went out for the 17th, Wood adjourned to the locker room and threw up violently because he'd been drinking too much too fast.

"Did you think you'd be too sick to go back out?'' I asked.

"Oh, I wasn't coming out of that game,'' he said.

I understand he doesn't want to come out of the game and all......but he is vomiting and cramping. It may be time to get someone warmed up.

That was Wood's 163rd pitch. Usually he'd throw between 10 and 30 in an outing. Never, ever in his high school or college career had he gone this far in a game, thrown this many pitches.

Doesn't this sound slightly irresponsible to anyone else on the Texas coaching staff's part?

Wood said, "but I couldn't believe how good I felt. My arm felt great. I wasn't sick, even though I threw up. But my body felt great, my arm felt great.''

Yes, because everyone knows after a good hard workout you immediately become sore. He should know the pain is going to come a few days later, if there is any pain. I wonder how he felt 2 days later?

Factoid of the Week That May Interest Only Me

When Brett Favre has thrown this spring to high school receivers near his Sumrall, Miss., home, one of the wideouts has been a 6-foot-1, 195-pound Division I prospect with Ole Miss, Mississippi State and Louisville chasing him. Pretty good pedigree too. The wide receiver in question: Steve McNair Jr., the son the former MVP quarterback.

I thought Peter had no Brett Favre news? He just had to mention something about Favre or else he would go through withdrawal. This man is obsessed with Brett Favre.

1. I think these are my three opinions about Anquan Boldin likely changing his agent from firebrand Drew Rosenhaus to the less-confrontational Creative Artists Agency, with Tom Condon and Ben Dogra:

c. Absolute gut feeling: Boldin stays in Arizona and gets a new deal done, quietly, around Halloween. Kurt Warner rejoices.

This is why Peter gets paid the big bucks...for his gut feelings. So Boldin fires the agent that was playing hard ball with the Cardinals, the one who was looking into trades, and was ignoring the fact Boldin wanted to stay with the Cards...and Peter thinks this may mean Boldin wants to stay in Arizona. Gosh, what gives you that impression Peter, other than common sense of course?

Usually when a team fires its head coach, it means it wants to change the direction of the franchise, so in a similar situation Boldin wanted to change the direction of the negotiations, so he fired Rosenhaus. Maybe I am being a smart ass but it seems to me like he is wanting to stay in Arizona and will. I did not have to dig too deep to come to this conclusion.

5. I think I wouldn't be bothered so much by the news of Eric Mangini sending his rookie class on a 10-hour bus ride to Hartford to work at his weekend football camp for underprivileged kids -- if he and his coaches hadn't flown there.

This is the same Eric Mangini that Peter believes will give Joshua Cribbs a new contract halfway through his current contract. He's like Bill Parcells, except moderately incompetent.

Peter is probably just pissed off that Mangini did not donate anything to Dr. Z's foundation and yet he had time to help out underprivileged children. I don't think Mangini understands. Dr. Z can't talk and we need to get him back to where he can talk and interact again. Fuck little underprivileged children. If Mangini has time to get a plane to help underprivileged children, he certainly had time to help a foundation whose sole purpose was to help an 76 year old man get expensive therapy to overcome a stroke, while ignoring all other stroke victims.

I think that is why Peter is really mad.

The bottom line, though, is a coach shouldn't enlist people who he barely knows to go work a camp for him, even if the camp is a tremendous idea, which it is.

Peter probably thinks a better camp idea would be a camp entirely funded for one underprivileged child that he knows well and ignoring the other underprivileged children in the country.

7. I think I have nothing new to report on your favorite newsmakers, Brett Favre and Michael Vick.

Yes, this is the second time that Peter has stated he has no information on either of these players. We get it.

b. You tell me the World Baseball Classic isn't kryptonite for Daisuke Matsuzaka. Since winning the WBC MVP, Matsuzaka has started four games for the Red Sox. Innings: 16.1. Hits: 29. Walks: 10. That's 2.4 baserunners per inning.

d. So Jason Varitek hit a ball into the right-center-field upper deck, about six rows from the top of the Metrodome, on Thursday. One of the longest balls I've ever seen hit. And the Twins came out and said it was a 427-foot homer. I said on Twitter, if it is, then I'm Bud Selig. So I get this link back from a homer-run-measuring site, Hit Tracker (yes, there is really a home-run measuring site, from the looks of it), with the real-deal measurement of 452 feet. I trust the math in here far more than I trust the Metrodome's measurers. Check it out:

f. Nothing personal, Rance. But Rance Mulliniks' middle name should be "Statingtheobvious.'' Mulliniks also informed the New England audience Sunday that Nick Green, one of the offending shortstops, was a "young rookie.'' This is Green's fifth year getting big-league at-bats, with his fifth team. NESN might want to make it mandatory that the analysts it has subbing for the ailing Jerry Remy actually have heard of the players in the starting lineup.

Anyone looking for a Red Sox update? Fred or Ivn? If so, here you go.

e. Saturday was the third time in two weeks that a shaky play or error by the shortstop played a huge role in a Red Sox loss. Either Jed Lowrie is going to be ready in about 10 minutes, or they'd better trade a real prospect for Omar Vizquel.

Yes, trade a "real prospect" for this guy. It doesn't matter that Vizquel is not currently available, if the Red Sox demand him, Peter thinks the Rangers have to give him up. I would like to know what a "real prospect" can be defined as.

c. Mariano Rivera is not only the greatest relief pitcher of all time, but also one of the 10 best pitchers of all time. What an amazing specimen and competitor.

Really? I have a lot of respect for closers but I don't know if I can go this far. I would like to pretend that I can and Rivera is a great closer, but top 10 best pitchers of all time? I don't know how I feel about closers in regard to putting even the best one in that category. It feels a bit much for me.

i. You go, Daniel Schlereth. The son of ESPN's Mark Schlereth, the former Bronco and 'Skin guard, made his major-league debut as a lefty reliever for Arizona Friday night in Phoenix, getting the Braves out 1-2-3 (Brian McCann, Garret Anderson, Casey Kotchman) Friday night with a very nervous dad in attendance, then followed it up with a second shutout inning Sunday.

You get zero credit for getting out Anderson and the next shutout inning was Failcouer, Jordan Schafer, and a pinch hitter. I could get at least three of those guys out. I just don't want this kid to get too full of himself. Many people have gotten those three guys out this year.

I am going to send another question to Peter this week. I just have to think about it. I am determined to have him answer my question, and I want him to get an attitude with me. I will probably fail again.