MMQB Review: Peter Speaks At the Hall of Fame, But Is Still Not a Hall of Fame Writer

Quick note: We still need one more team for the Yahoo Fantasy Football League. We have 11 teams and can't go head-to-head until we get one more team involved. If you are interested in joining, feel free to sign up. The ID is 316018 and the password is eckstein.

Peter King gets to vote for the Hall of Fame. If that is not enough to scare you, this week Peter reveals he got to speak at the Hall of Fame for three minutes...actually six and a half minutes. Apparently Peter had a few things to say to the Hall of Fame welcoming committee who was responsible for making the refreshments prior to the induction ceremony that caused him to go over his allotted time. I bet Peter got there at 6am and there was no coffee, then when he did get served coffee it wasn't strong enough for him because it had WAY too much cream in it and the danishes during brunch were too hard so he had to eat some Zebra Cakes he had hidden in his pants pocket. His speech was about how the Hall of Fame welcoming committee can do brunch better than that and they need to have coffee made by 6am. At least that's what I think he spoke about. Let's see.

By the way, I think CNNSI.com has embedded something in the site for when people copy and paste from the site because everytime I do copy and paste I get this link, along with what I am trying to copy and paste:

Read more: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/writers/peter_king/08/09/mmqb/index.html?eref=sihp#ixzz0NnEygzPc

I didn't copy anything to my clipboard and this has happened two separate times on two separate computers. It's annoying and if anyone knows how to get rid of it, please tell me.

We are ready for some football. Great to see it back Sunday night, with Vince Young beginning what he hopes is his resurrection (now, if he'd only quit talking about it)

I know! Vince Young needs to quit talking about how he is going to come back and be a great quarterback and try to work harder in practice. It's so old. Quit talking and just start doing it already. Peter thinks this story is so overplayed.

Does anyone have a Brett Favre update? Is he still retired?

The happiest man in New York Jets camp -- other than Rex Ryan, who waited 23 years to be a head coach and walks around most of the time grinning like a kid -- is all-purpose running back Leon Washington.

Rather, this is about Ryan's love for Washington and what he can mean to the Jets' offense and special teams. Washington touched the ball 123 times from scrimmage last year, a ridiculously low number for one of football's 10 most dangerous players.

Really? One of the NFL's 10 most dangerous players? I made a mental list of the most dangerous players in the NFL and Washington did not make it. I am not saying he isn't dangerous, but he isn't one of the top 10 most dangerous players in the NFL. I bet the Jets are Super Bowl bound with an All-Pro QB like Mark Sanchez and a dangerous weapon like Leon Washington who has all of 1,451 yards rushing and 838 yards receiving with 15 total touchdowns for his CAREER. If that is not one of the 10 most dangerous players in the NFL, then I don't know who is. All I know is the Jets felt so great about him, they traded up and drafted running back Shonn Greene in the 3rd round.

The knock on Washington is that he is too small, at 197 pounds, to withstand the beating an NFL running back must take if he touches the ball 15 or 20 times a game. Bad logic.

Is Peter going to argue with this logic with his well-thought out reasoning using common sense and statistics to show this is a misconception?

Over a three-year period late in his career, Tiki Barber had the most combined rushes and receptions of any back in football. He weighed almost 10 pounds more than Washington.

No, he is not. Peter is going to take one of the better running backs of the past ten years and compare Leon Washington to him. Somehow this one example of how one of the better running backs of the past 10 years with a similar build used his skill to do excel shows that Leon Washington can easily do it as well.

So, if you say to me that Washington can't touch the ball 300 times rushing and receiving, I say to you: You don't know.

So if you say to me that Tiki Barber did it for three seasons, so Leon Washington can easily do it, I say to you: You don't know either because he has never done it for one season as of yet. Pure speculation can not pass for actual journalism in my mind.

Looking for one reason Manningham just might be the guy the Giants have been looking for at wide receiver?

No, actually I am not looking for any more information on the Giants' passing game. I know the depth chart and I know that David Tyree will probably not make the team, which is about all I need to know about one of the 32 teams in the NFL. My needs have been met.

11:50 a.m., (Tuesday) One more thing about the Giants' passing game that will be warmly received by their fans, many whom believe Manning is too much of a dink-and-dunker. When I asked Manning what he had worked on to improve his game this spring and summer, he said, "The deep ball. It's something we have to get better at."

So after talking about the Giants passing game last Tuesday and discussing it again, this is the last time you will discuss it?

4 p.m., Tuesday (Giants camp): I have come to the sidelines of Giants practice with a premise for GM Jerry Reese: He and director of college scouting Marc Ross are the combo platter of Theo Epstein or Billy Beane, crazy in love with player development as the cornerstone of everything they do. I told Reese I felt strongly -- as I had written before the draft -- that the Giants should have dealt a low second-round pick to get disgruntled Arizona wide receiver Anquan Boldin.

Jerry Reese probably laughed at Peter for even attempting to tell him what to do and then offered him a croissant and a cup of coffee, which Peter quickly accepted. Also, I thought the note at 11:50 am on Tuesday was the last time we got to hear about the Giants passing game? What happened to that Peter? Is this your Brett Favre-ian way of writing a column? Promising you are done with something and then going back to it repeatedly?

All Giants fans should feel privileged to get so much great information from such a wonderful source like Peter King.

Quarterbacks in training camp are not supposed to be hit in camp, but in this pass drill, with Cassel setting up in the pocket, safety Bernard Pollard comes on a blitz.

You remember Pollard.

Yeah, he is the guy who ruined the entire NFL season after hitting Tommy Brady in the knee while getting non-blocked. I believe the NFL cancelled the season after that happened and I know for a fact whoever won the Super Bowl are not the real champs.

What makes the play even more amazing is that Brady got hit last year when a back missed a block on the onrushing Pollard. And as I'm watching, I can't believe what I see: Again, a back (I didn't catch his number) throws an Ole!block, and precisely the same thing that happened a year ago happens now: Pollard thought he was going to be blocked by a running back last year against New England, got low to take on the block, wasn't blocked, and fell into Brady. Now, he thought he was going to be blocked by a running back, got low, wasn't blocked, and stumbled and tried to avoid hitting Cassel, yelling at the last moment, "Move!" It was too late. He fell hard and rolled into Cassel's left leg.

Has anyone ever thought that maybe Bernard Pollard is just really, really hard to block when he is blitzing? Or maybe someone needs to teach the running backs on the Chiefs to block a little bit better?

How history would have been changed if Pollard tapped Brady's knee the way he tapped Cassel's. If it had happened like that, what would have happened to Cassel? Would he still be the permanent backup to Brady?

This may be the biggest "what-if" question in the history of the NFL...if not the world. What if Brady had not gotten injured and Cassel had never stepped in and played well? Would he have been signed by any team after this season, and more importantly, on which other player would the Chiefs have wasted salary cap money and a draft pick in the off season? Would the Chiefs have gone looking in another direction for a QB who has little experience to give $63 million dollars to?

Or would Cassel, whose contract expired at the end of last year, have been picked off by new Chiefs GM Scott Pioli, who was behind Cassel's drafting in the seventh round five years ago by the Patriots? My money's on the Chiefs taking him off New England's hands -- money being the key word. He parlayed his opportunity with the Patriots last year into a six-year, $63-million contract in Kansas City.

If Brady had not gotten injured then Bill Belichick would not have had a chance to get a 2nd round pick for Cassel AND be able to laugh as Cassel gets a $63 million dollar deal. The Chiefs could have gotten Cassel $60 million cheaper and still had a 2nd round draft pick. Now the Chiefs are stuck paying a guy, who I personally think is not as good of a QB as he showed last year because he was with a great team, a ton of money over a guy who actually showed potential at the end of last year on a shitty team and is affordable in Tyler Thigpen.

Why is it that Belichick always gets the better end of every deal?

Well, a parallel player to Cassel a year ago at this time -- a totally unproven backup with a little marketability -- was Brian St. Pierre, the third-stringer on Arizona who re-signed with the Cardinals this offseason: For one year and $1 million.

I don't even think Cassel gets that much money. If it's possible, he was less proven than even Brian St. Pierre.

The troubled Harvin, obviously, got investigated thoroughly before he was drafted out of the University of Florida in April. When Brad Childress went to Gainesville the week before the draft to meet Harvin and spend a day with him, he said he wanted Harvin to pick him up and drive him around. "I wanted to be in his car, and I wanted to smell the car,'' Childress said.

Who does Childress think he is, Harvin's damn father? Did he check the trunk for beer and make sure there were not condoms and cigarettes in the glove box as well?

The honeymoon is on. "Urban Meyer told me the young man is going to be a pleasure to coach, and he has a high football IQ,'' said veteran wide receivers coach George Stewart. "And so far, it's true.''

Well if Urban Meyer thought Harvin was a great young man, he couldn't be wrong. This from a coach who has had nearly 20 players get arrested or accused of an illegal act since the end of the football season. This man clearly knows something about great young men.

I wonder if Brad Childress smelled Urban Meyer's car?

1:45 p.m. Friday (Hall of Fame preliminaries, Canton, Ohio): I'm in town for one of the greatest honors of my life. Heck, the greatest professional honor -- the McCann Award, which is presented annually by the Hall of Fame to a writer for long and distinguished reporting on the game.

Again, to be honored as a sportswriter for anything all you have to do is two things. First, write for over 20 years and second, don't write anything overly racist or controversial at any point. You will be honored. This explains why Rick Reilly and Peter King keep winning awards. Oh, and if you are going to write something controversial just be Jason Whitlock and they will forgive you.

8:30 p.m., Friday (Canton): Did you know that when you look out at a crowd of 4,000 people you really can't see much of anything? Something about the lights in your eyes. Anyway, the folks at the Hall told me three minutes for my speech at first, then asked if I could do it in two. Of course, I took more than six.

Four of the minutes were undoubtedly dedicated to things that were not even remotely football related, like how good the ceramic looked in the bathrooms and Peter wondering why there aren't as many dogs hanging around in Ohio.

7:30 p.m., Saturday (Hall of Fame Induction ceremonies): "It feels like a Buffalo home game!'' Chris Berman says to the crowd in Fawcett Stadium.

Oh yes, I almost forgot about this blatant conflict of interest. You know, the one where an ESPN NFL announcer inducted an owner of a football team in the Hall of Fame. I am kidding of course, ESPN loves conflicts of interest. Whether it is having athletes in commercials, not covering certain stories or covering certain stories in a certain way to make sure they still have access to the athlete, ESPN knows how to shade the news better than a lot of other actual news shows.

4:05 p.m. Sunday (Browns Family Day, Cleveland, Ohio):If autograph-signing won quarterback jobs, Brady Quinn would be a Hall of Famer.

Unfortunately, football also requires knowing how to play the game of football. Bummer for Brady...I wonder if he knew the NFL involved more than signing autographs?

The Browns, however, were the first team I've been around this summer that I just didn't get a good vibe from. The players are still feeling out Eric Mangini, and more than a few think he's working them too hard.

This is exactly the type of information that I want Peter King to be able to tell us every week. Not necessarily negative information about a team but important information that actually tells us how well a team may do this year.

I don't care if Brady Quinn is struggling with his accuracy. He is Brady Quinn, he sucks, so of course he will struggle with his accuracy. That's not news to me. I don't care if David Tyree makes the Giants team, that is a personal interest story to me I have no interest in. I want to know the reasoning behind why the Giants did not trade for Anquan Boldin and how the new defensive guys will fit in on the team.

Point 2: Johnson is down to 225 pounds from his norm of 233. He looks good, very fit. "I include myself in this, but I think we were getting too comfortable in the Herman Edwards/Dick Vermeil era. I feel great right now. Nothing hurts. I know I'm not done. I still have the juice. I can definitely be a 300-plus carry back again.''

"Too comfortable in the Herman Edwards/Dick Vermeil era?" Were they too comfortable losing all the time?

Have you ever shaken hands with Adrian Peterson?

Yes Peter, I have shaken hands with Adrian Peterson. Because my job allows me the opportunity to shake hands with NFL players on a regular basis.

What kind of dumbass question is this? Is Peter King from the same planet or reality as the rest of us? When would 99.9% of his readers have shaken hands with Adrian Peterson?

Even when he didn't expect to shake, he figured out in a split-second what I was trying to do, and he death-gripped me, and I almost felt like, 'Now I know how he can change lanes so quickly and make people miss.'

Adrian Peterson is a great running back but I really doubt the fact he has a strong handshake is the reason why he can change lanes and run a football well. See Peter, the hands hold the football, they don't actually do the running. Sometimes people just overdo the handshake with too much strength, but it doesn't mean they would be a great running back. His legs are the reason why Peterson is a great running back.

Tweetup Of The Week

I'll be in Indianapolis tonight, along with baseball/football maven and injury expert Will Carroll, to meet and greet fans. Meet us at 6 p.m. at Victory Field in downtown Indy (prior to the Indianapolis-Columbus International League game). For tickets, call 317-269-3545, and ask for the King seats.

Don't miss your chance to pay to meet Peter King!

Had fun at the Albany Tweetup last week. After it ended, one of the fans in the crowd came up to me and asked, seriously, "Are you Peter King, the Congressman from Long Island?''

How stupid of this person to get these two men confused! This guy is from New York and hears the name "Peter King" and sees a middle aged gentleman talking with a group of people in a semi-Northern accent and just assumes it is his local Congressman of the same name. Dumbass!

How is Peter upset that someone got him and the Congressman confused? I am surprised this doesn't happen more often to him. He is in freaking New York and the other Peter King is from New York. It seems natural to get this confused to me. This probably really hurt Peter's ego.

a. Really happy for Ralph Wilson especially. I know it's a cliche, but it's so much better, if he's going to make it into the Hall, to have him make it while he's still alive.

I didn't know, "I am glad he made the Hall of Fame while he was still alive" had become a cliche. Is it really used that often?

e. Pot Calling Kettle Black Dept.: As I said earlier, I was supposed to speak for three minutes accepting the McCann Award Friday night. I went six-and-a-half. So I'm hardly the right guy to try to shorten the real program Saturday night at Fawcett Stadium. But the Hall has to do something to combine the four-minute video presentation and the presenter's (supposed time length of) five minutes. Too often they repeat each other. And the speeches themselves. The enshrinees are supposed to go 10 minutes. Okay, 15 maybe, or 18 ... Understood. But Carl Peterson went 26 in speaking for the late Derrick Thomas. That's simply too long. The program would be great at an hour and 45 minutes. At three hours, it borders on painful.

Peter admits he is being a hypocrite here because he went over his allotted time by three and a half minutes...and his speech was only supposed to be three minutes...but he still can't stop himself from being a hypocrite. These people are getting inducted into the Hall of Fame, which is a once in a lifetime honor, so I think they should get as much time as they want to talk.

I don't know if Peter realizes what an unbelievable whiny person he sounds like when he criticizes the Chiefs owner for "going long" when talking about one of his dead players who he is getting inducted into the Hall of Fame.

4. I think the Eagles have to be the most different team in the league from where they thought they'd be right now. Middle linebacker Stewart Bradley was lost on the first weekend with an ACL tear, and now rookie tight end Cornelius Ingram-- who'd been burning up camp with his athleticism and hands -- is out for his second straight year with an ACL tear. DeSean Jackson (MCL strain) is hobbling. With Jim Johnson gone too, the Eagles are the team with the toughest last two weeks of any in football.

I feel for the Eagles with all these injuries but Peter is making these to be bigger than they really are. All teams have these injuries, but Peter was very high on the Eagles before the year and now he sort of regrets it so he is blaming it on injuries. Every team has injuries and that's why you have backups. I know my favorite team lost it's best DT 30 minutes into the first practice. Without him they gave up 301 yards rushing last year to the Giants. Now both starting RB's are banged up and the Pro Bowl MLB is as well. See? These type injuries happen to every team.

Freak injuries like what happened to Bradley happen a lot in training camp, Ingram was a draft choice who has done nothing so far in his pro career so there wasn't much on-the-field loss, and Jackson is just banged up like a lot of other players. Quit feeling sorry for them and start realizing this happens to every team.

f. I hear Martellus Bennett makes a highlight-reel catch every day in San Antonio. Does any team have a better 1-2 combo platter at tight end than the Cowboys do with Jason Witten and Bennett, assuming Bennett produces this year in games the way he has in practice?

I think it is quite a big assumption to think Bennett will play in real games like he has played in training camp. Every year some players look a lot better in training camp than real games.

k. I've heard from a few of you about my selection of training-camp sites, and how East Coast-centric it is, and I hear you. Most years, I'll try to go to as many camps as I can in about a three-week period, and of course, that's easier when camps are in closer proximity, which they are in the East.

I am one of those people that whines about the East Coast-centricness of Peter.

This week, I begin to make my way west. I'm in Detroit today for the Lions, Terre Haute tomorrow for the Colts, St. Louis Wednesday, Bourbonnais, Ill., for the Bears Thursday, then out West for two preseason games this weekend: Denver and the Niners Friday in San Francisco, and Seattle-San Diego at Qualcomm Saturday night. I finish this trip next Monday in Denver.

Detroit, Indianapolis, St. Louis and Chicago are not exactly extreme "west." Of course there aren't that many extreme "west" teams. The only reason Peter is even going to the West Coast is to cover two football games, not to go to the teams training camps.

n. Saw that the Chargers fined Antonio Cromartie $2,500 for negatively Tweeting about the quality of food at training camp. That's absurd. Maybe he can earn the money back if he praises the oatmeal this morning.

Haha! If Peter got fined everytime he insulted food he would have to take a second job.

o. But I would say this about Tweeting: I'd be worried about it if I were teams too -- and what I'd do if I ran a team is ban players from Tweeting whenever they're on company property. Let them Tweet when they're home, or on the road, or on their own time.

If Cromartie Tweeted from training camp, then for the time being, that is company property. Can't we all agree with this?

8. I think, the more I watch football this summer, Vick's new team should be the Bills. Nothing against Trent Edwards. I just think the Bills are in it to win it this year.

Yes, T.O. and Vick on the same team. From a football perspective, this would be a great idea, but in what world does this make sense in any other way? I would feel very bad for the Bills PR Director.

a. The Yankees and Red Sox can't play nice, quiet baseball games. They have to play games that rip your guts out, or rip the other guys' guts out. My guts, in fact, are laying in a heap on the floor of this nice Residence Inn a few miles from the Lions' complex. I feel sorry for the housekeeper who will have to figure out what to do with a set of guts this morning when she cleans the room.

I don't want to hear about Peter's guts. Everything is so dramatic with those games, between Bill Simmons Tweeting like the Red Sox season is over and Peter King saying shit like this. They are a bunch of drama queens.

I am sure Peter can make it up to the housekeeper by not berating her and her hotel for not having coffee ready at 6am every morning or not taking up her valuable time with his thoughts on the shower head and how much water it puts out.

b. For Sox fans, David Ortiz is getting to be like Ilsa in Casablanca. Instead of "We'll always have Paris," we can say, "We'll always have '04."

What happened to 2007? Didn't the Red Sox win the World Series that year as well? Was it not as special?

c. I threw out the first pitch at the Oneonta-TriCity ValleyCats New York-Penn League game last Monday in Troy, N.Y., throwing it shoulder-high and a bit inside to TriCity's Erik Castro,a right-handed hitter. It was a fastball, but thrown at a Wakefield-like speed. I've never done it before, and I was so determined to not throw it in the dirt that I probably aimed a little high. One piece of advice for you first-pitch throwers: Don't think about it too much. Thinking and throwing can turn you into Steve Sax in a hurry.

Just like Steve Sax? I heard when a female reporter came into the locker room, Sax used to put a sock on his penis and then wave it around at the female reporter and try to get her attention. I did not do a Google search on this but I remember reading something about it.

I guess Peter may referring to Sax's inability to throw the ball to first base later in his career and not the sock incidences...

e. Why haven't we become technologically advanced enough to be able to go online on airplanes? Is any airline doing this yet? I'd love to hear if one is. Let me know.

Can't you get on your Blackberry on an airline? Peter has a Blackberry doesn't he? I also thought I saw an ad this weekend for an airline that will allow you to go online in the air. Either way, what's wrong going online with the Blackberry Peter is so fond of talking about?