MMQB Review: Peter Does PR for the Eagles

I always accuse Peter King of playing favorites and shading stories the way the NFL teams want him to shade stories. I still think that is true but I also think teams treat Peter like an innocent little child knowing no matter what bullshit information they feed him, he won't question that information and will print whatever they want said as the truth. So I am saying Peter may not shade the stories he writes one way he may just be too child-like and naive to understand what he is being told is a load of crap. This may or may not have happened again today.

Early Sunday morning, McNabb and Vick worked up a sweat side-by-side on two treadmills where the players work out.

I write this morning to dispel a myth and to illuminate the personal reality in Reid's life that led him to bringing the potentially combustible Vick onto this Super Bowl contender.

That personal reality? He doesn't want to get fired after this season so he will take any means necessary to win.

I believe there will be plays in which McNabb and Vick will be on the field together, and some plays (though not as many) in which Vick will be at quarterback and McNabb will be out of the game.

Like perhaps the rest of the season if McNabb starts playing poorly? Nah, I am sure the always forgiving Philadelphia crowd won't mind if one of the most exciting players in NFL history is sitting the bench if McNabb starts overthrowing his wide receivers and one hopping swing passes to the running backs.

No matter how sincere McNabb has seemed in backing Vick's return to the team, he couldn't really want him that badly. Why would one quarterback support the signing of another quarterback who might take his job?

The same reason Trent Edwards advocated signing Terrell Owens to the Buffalo Bills...desperation to win a Super Bowl.

I can't tell you all of the dynamics here, primarily because McNabb is not an open book.

Look everyone Peter can't tell you what is going on in Donovan's head but he can tell you that Donovan McNabb wants Mike Vick on the Eagles' football team and that he has zero problem with Vick being his backup.

Peter doesn't know the dynamics of the situation, like if there are other unknown motives for McNabb to want Vick on the team, or if he even really wants Vick on the Eagles' team...but he knows for 100% McNabb wants Vick on the team because someone else told him it was true.

"So many of the old guys are gone now," Reid said. "Donovan is taking it upon himself to do something that he feels is best for the team and best for Michael. I'm telling you, this is totally on the level.

Personally I am sold. I have never known an NFL coach to lie.

So when Reid met with Vick as he was trying to determine whether to offer him a contract, the most important factor to him was whether Vick was in that third phase. Could he look in Vick's eyes during a couple of long meetings and be convinced that Vick would never go back to his dogfighting days.

I wonder if Peter and his editor are aware that sentences in the form of a question end in a question mark? Actually, that last sentence, despite being an actual question, doesn't even need a question mark, it's a statement of fact. Andy Reid COULD look in Vick's eyes and know his dogfighting days were over. Vick is just sticking to trying to sneak marijuana past airport security and flipping off his home crowd from now on.

Reid is going to play his Vick-game-plan cards close to the vest for now. He was encouraged over the weekend that Vick knows much of the Eagles' base West Coast offense, like the snap count, some of the exact play calls and the footwork fundamentals.

We all know how well Mike Vick played in Atlanta in Gregg Knapp's West Coast offense. He was like Steve Young out there, if Steve Young couldn't complete 58% of his passes and couldn't run the West Coast offense effectively.

At some point, some fan or heckler in the street or some columnist is going to say something or write something that will make Vick fume. Vick is going to have to be Jackie Robinson when that happens.

Wow, really? Jackie Robinson and Mike Vick in the same sentence! Is JemeHill writing this column? You have to be one ignorant asshole to even think to compare these two in one sentence. Jackie Robinson and Mike Vick have nothing in common. Absolutely nothing. One is a hero and a brave gentleman, while the other called himself Ron Mexico because he got an STD and needed an alias for treatment.

I'm not comparing the two;

Even though you literally just did compare the two. Shame on you asshole...

I have just seen my first Matthew Stafford semi-wobbler, 90 minutes into the morning practice.

To be fair, the Lions receivers are used to catching wobblers, so this may have been for their own benefit.

Game management? No clue. Accuracy? Good in college but not great, which raises a red flag for me. Huddle management? I think good. Jim Schwartz told me that's impressed him. "He owns the huddle, from what I've seen,'' he said.

This is what irritates me about the Matt Stafford/Mark Sanchez debate. People seem to have questions about Stafford concerning his time as a starter in college, even though he was a starter for a couple of years and played in the toughest conference in the nation. I don't feel like anyone has those questions about Mark Sanchez even though he had much more talent around him and only started for one year at USC. I just don't believe this is fair.

So the draft history book says either Stafford or Mark Sanchez, but not both, will succeed. That's not set in stone, particularly with Matt Ryan and Joe Flacco playing boffo last year as rookies. But I'll be surprised if Stafford tanks.

Can I be honest with everyone? Joe Flacco wasn't that great last year in the playoffs. I think that may be a sign of things to come. He was great for a rookie, but it was pretty brutal to watch. I am not as high on Flacco's future as I am Ryan.

"I'm gonna kind of whisper this because I don't like rookies to read anything I say. But I think [third-round BYU receiver] Austin Collie's got a chance. He can run. He can really run. He is working the slot only. We haven't had anyone since Brandon Stokley to work the slot only. That's all he practiced. He doesn't have to worry about anything but the slot.

This is Peyton Manning speaking about the Colts new wide receivers. If Collie is only learning one position then what happens if Gonzalez or Wayne get injured? I know receivers normally only learn one position at first but they generally know what the other WRs on the field are doing as well. It doesn't seem that Collie would know what to do if he had to play another WR position.

"The other young guy, Pierre Garcon, can run, too. He's an outside receiver only. What we're doing a better job of with the young guys is we're saying, 'This is your position. You don't have to learn everything.'

Again, same thing. I am assuming these are the #3 and #4 guys. What happens if Gonzalez or Wayne go down?

Me: "And if the left guard has a golf tournament, the quarterback has to go.''

Manning: "Right.''

Me: "Jim Johnson died of melanoma. You're pretty fair-skinned. You take precautions against skin cancer?''

Manning: "I do. My dad always worried about it.

Me: "What's the SPF of the stuff you use?''

Manning: "Fifty.'

Peter: Will you put sun tan lotion on my back?

Manning: What??? You are wearing a shirt.

Peter: Brett Favre used to do it for me.

It's hard enough to last 12 years in the NFL anywhere, let alone in a place where in your first year you killed someone in your new pro town. But ask anyone here about the leaders on this team, and Little's name comes up quickly.

It IS hard to make it in a town where you killed someone. Take it from me. I know exactly what Leonard Little is going through. I remember when I was drunk and killed someone while driving my car. Everyone in the neighborhood kept glaring at me and looking at me like I wasn't a victim too. Fortunately I persevered through my struggles and was able to rise above all the hatred people had for me. Gosh, it's amazing how people turn on you when you kill someone while driving drunk and get no jail time. It's not like I have done it since either, so everyone should be proud of me and stop treating me like a pariah.

(End sarcasm)

In fact, he's tutoring (and schooling on the field) first-round tackle Jason Smith in the tricks of how to joust with the top defensive ends in the game. "There is no let-up in Leonard, and he's the perfect guy to be working with Jason,'' said Devaney.

Leonard Little is a good guy because he is teaching his teammates how to play the game of football! If I had known Little was going to tutor rookies on the game of football I wouldn't have been so hard on him all these times I have been.

"Something happened early in my career that I will always regret,'' he said, "but every since then, I've just tried to be the best player I can every day I come to work, and the best person I can be.

Read this sentence and notice how he is redeeming himself by listing that he tried to be the best player he could be and THEN listing that he also tried to be the best person he could be. I bet Leonard Little knew if he played football well there is a certain percentage of St. Louis that would forgive him for anything he did the off the field.

That first year, I thought my career might be over. I was out looking for a job -- a real job, not in football. At first, I didn't think people would ever allow me to forget what happened.''

A real job??? Oh God no, what horrible a thing to have to do. Go find a real job that doesn't pay millions a year?

Are we supposed to go cue the violins for him now? He says he didn't think people would ever allow him "to forget," not "get past," but actually fucking FORGET what happened. He not only doesn't want people to bring it up, he wants to have people let him forget what happened. You can clearly see what an impact the event had and how sorry he truly is since he is trying to play the victim here and actually wants people to let him forget what happened. I truly greatly dislike Leonard Little.

"Did you do it?'' I asked Urlacher. "You call him the P word?''

"Never said it. Guaranteed,'' he said, and he laughed

After this extremely harsh and tough line of questioning, Peter immediately drops the issue with Urlacher and relays an entire marathon conversation he had with Urlacher. Is there anything more pointless and wasteful of space in MMQB than Peter's relaying conversations he had with football players? I tend to skip them. They are so boring and useless. It's not like you learn anything new. If the player had a bad year, he wants to get past it and so he tells us how he will do so, and if he had a good year he wants to repeat it and will tell us how he will do so. Isn't it time to play football yet and quit talking?

I sidle up to Cutler and shake his hand and he says, "Howyadoin!'' I quasi-yell that he never returned my calls or texts back in the spring, and I just wanted to tell him I ripped the crap out of him then for the way he left Denver, and if there's anything he wanted to say to me, here's the chance.

This is the part where Jay Cutler blows Peter King off. Jay Cutler clearly read what Peter wrote about him during the Cutler-McDaniels soap opera, and in the spirit of being the baby Jay Cutler is, he is being a baby about it and will go about pretending he can't hear him. How did Peter hear what Cutler said but Cutler can't hear what Peter said? It doesn't make sense to me. There were people yelling his name but it's not like they were in the middle of a stadium with loud yelling fans. Cutler had to hear what Peter King was saying.

But I could tell he didn't hear everything I said. Maybe he heard nothing. How could he? And now he was being pulled in other directions, and so I just shook his hand again and said see you.

The Bears PR guy even called Peter later saying Cutler didn't hear what Peter said, but that is bullshit also. The Bears PR guy was probably covering for the incident and didn't want Peter to write that Cutler blew him off. Cutler probably heard Peter and blew him off because Peter "ripped" him in the off season, though it really wasn't that much of a ripping. The Bears PR guy saw or heard it happened and then went into full "Cutler didn't hear you" mode. That's my theory.

The lesson: Jay Cutler is still a little bit of a baby and Peter King is naive to think Cutler couldn't hear him.

5:15, p.m. Friday(Denver-San Francisco preseason game, Candlestick Park): I haven't been here in years; I can't remember the last time I saw the 49ers live at the Candlestick wind turbine.

For those people that think I am nitpicky and stupid when I am talking about how Peter only pays attention to East Coast teams, I think this last sentence speaks for itself. There are 32 teams in the NFL that Peter covers and he not only hasn't he been to the 49ers home stadium in years, he can't remember the last time he was there. It could have been a decade or more. When he says things like this last sentence, this is exactly why I am so hard on him for having an East Coast bias.

Almost half the jerseys I see pay homage to the defensive cornerstone of the franchise, the number 52 worn by linebacker Patrick Willis. I do not see a single Michael Crabtree jersey.

Considering Crabtree hasn't signed a contract with the 49ers and hasn't even been assigned a jersey number yet, I would think it could be hard for a person to wear a jersey with Crabtree's name and number on it at this point.

Gut feeling: I believe in the defense, which is totally sold on coordinator Ron Rivera's schemes and the teaching of the Rivera staff. If Philip Rivers gets protected well, and the Tomlinson/Darren Sproles/Jacob Hester (the big back who hurts you when he hits you) combo platter stays mostly healthy, no team will come within four games of the Chargers in the AFC West.

This may be less a testament to how good the Chargers can be this year and more of a testament to how bad the AFC West is going to be this year. If the Chargers can't win this division by at least two games then there is something wrong.

Factoid of the Week That May Interest Only Me

Tom Brady and Peyton Manning played golf together at Cypress Point in Monterey, Calif., recently. On the first hole, both slightly sliced their shots on the border of the first fairway and the club's driving range. Uh-oh. Needle-in-haystack, lost-ball time.

But it didn't take long to find them. Brady was playing a Titleist 12, Manning a Titleist 18. Get it -- 12, 18? Talk about your unique-to-one-person golf balls.

This could very well be the greatest story I have ever heard. Give me more Tom Brady and Peyton Manning stories, I don't get enough of those during the NFL off season and season as it is. Also, golf balls with the numbers #12 and #18 on them are not unique-to-one-person because any person in any sport who also wears those numbers in their sport could also have those golf balls. If Peter is saying with these specific two people those golf balls are specific to only them, but if one person used a Titleist 3 and another person used a Titleist 2 then those balls would be specific as well. There I go being nitpicky again.

Aggravating/Enjoyable Travel Note of the Week

Peter goes into a big long story about the Westin and how they overbooked and had no rooms available for him and then gave him the wrong directions to the hotel they had comped for him. Then Peter asks the public whether he should boycott the Westin or not.

Can't he make the decision for himself? I think the most aggravating part of the travel note is hearing Peter constantly complaining about being aggravated. You travel all the time. Things are going to go wrong. Fucking deal with it.

Enjoyable/Aggravating Chicago Travel Note of the Week II

And so I get to my room at the Hilton at O'Hare Airport Thursday evening, just in time to rush through a Michael Vick reaction story and hurry it on to SI.com, and I log onto the wireless in my room.

For $17.50.

I complained so loudly about the Providence Westin charging me $10 to use an elliptical machine a few years ago that it got onto my Wikipedia bio. But this is worse. Online for two hours, max, for $17.50. Shame on you, Barron Hilton, or whoever it is charging people $239 for a room and robbing them further to get online.

Sure it is a dick thing to do to charge people to use the Internet, but Peter is not actually paying for this use. I am sure he is going to be reimbursed for this charge and if he doesn't like this he can probably go to any cafe or library in the area and use the Internet for free. It's not like the hotel room is his only option for Internet.

Peter is the king of complaining about situations where there are other options to choose but he doesn't choose those other options because he is too lazy to do so. Another example is when there wasn't coffee ready in the hotel lobby at 6am. He very easily could have made his own coffee in his room or bought coffee somewhere, but he complained because he was being inconvenienced.

1. I think the Minnesota Vikings, should they struggle at quarterback, will call Brett Favre. It's a pretty strong feeling, based on knowing the people involved and based on the desperation of the Vikings to do more than win a division this year.

You would have to be ignorant to think this wouldn't happen. We all know Favre is going to come back in the middle of the season to play hero for some team. It's just a question of who.

You didn't really think we could go a whole week without Peter talking about Brett Favre did you?

With the exception maybe of Daunte Culpepper, neither team has fielded a top quarterback in the last 10 years. That's why a potential Cutler-Favre matchup on Nov. 29 or Dec. 28 is so appealing.

Culpepper had some pretty good years in Minnesota. That's a pretty big exception. That's like saying outside of Matt Hasselbeck, the Seahawks haven't had a good quarterback in the last 20 years.

5. I think one of the good things about preseason football (and there aren't many) is watching the maturation of the top rookies. The education of Aaron Curry was in progress Saturday night at Qualcomm in his first game at outside linebacker for the Seahawks. My observation: You can tell he's still swimming, trying to be in the right place at the right time.

Why does Peter hate Aaron Curry? He goes out of his way here to talk about how Curry looked lost in his first preseason game. First, he criticized Curry for not getting sacks and now he is criticizing him for not being on top of things in his first preseason football game.

b. The first play of Mark Sanchez's NFL career is one he'll remember for a while -- the 48-yard bomb called by offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer to speedy David Clowney while fans were still filing in from the parking lot. Said Sanchez: "I was joking with Coach Schottenheimer; I told him, 'I'm coming off the bench cold and shooting three-pointers. What's the deal?' It was a great call and we executed well.''

c. How Sanchez doesn't win the starting job ... that's beyond me.

I am not saying Sanchez did not play well, I am saying it was one preseason game, he played one series and Erik Ainge and Kellen Clemens played well also.

Why does everyone love Mark Sanchez so much? Is it because he is such a dreamy looking guy? SportsCenter actually broke into a program this weekend announcing that Sanchez will start a preseason game for the Jets. A PRESEASON GAME! Not a real game, but a preseason game. Then the anchor said, "...and he may not relinquish that spot for a long time." What? Is this all based on his performance in training camp and one series against the Rams in the preseason? Let's get a grip here people and have him show something before we crown his ass.

n. I can think of about 10 teams that need the special-teams presence and leadership of David Tyree if the Giants whack him.

d. I've never seen anything quite so violent in baseball as the line drive off pitcher Hiroki Kuroda's head Saturday night. I can't believe he's OK. After the second replay, I just couldn't watch it anymore.

Let me get back on my soapbox. Notice how Peter didn't mention anything about Kinsler and Wright being hit in the head, though they sort of got hurt as well. It's because there is a much greater threat to pitchers from a batted ball than a hitter getting hit by a pitch. I wish the media would just be quiet about all of these beanballs in baseball right now. They act like it is a new epidemic.

I think Bryce Florie getting hit was the most violent thing I have seen in baseball lately. It's weird Peter as a Red Sox fan doesn't agree with me. He had to have been watching the game where Florie got hit.