24 comments MMQB Review: The Westin Must Die!

Quick note: The BotB Yahoo Fantasy Draft is this Sunday at 1pm. We have 11 teams and need one more team to play without a bye. We will be getting 12 teams and not having a bye, if anyone wants to sign up, be sure to do so by Tuesday. I have a backup plan for a 12th team and want to give someone a shot at the spot if they haven't gotten a chance to sign up and wanted to.

It's Monday, which means we get a Peter King MMQB this morning. What are the odds he talks about Brett Favre? Would you have bet your house, your car, or your entire life savings on the fact we get at least a short discussion on the greatest quarterback to ever live? If so, you would have won.

First, Peter wants us to temper our expectations.

Don't get spoiled by the last two Mondays. I can't keep up the pace of 7,200- and 9,000-word columns in the preseason.

This week he doesn't talk at length about a lot of teams in the Upper Northeast part of the United States much, therefore he doesn't have that much to say. The other teams are so boring.

We got super long columns previously when he was discussing Mike Vick and other more interesting topics, but this week he just can't be that productive if he has to talk about other teams in the NFL.

I can't figure out whether it's more mind-boggling that the Titans punters were hitting the 60-yard-wide structure in pre-game warmups, or their just-out-of-college, free-agent punter would hit it in the fourth quarter. Or whether it wasn't hung 20 feet higher in the first place.

Agreed. You are building a massive new stadium specifically for a football team and you hang a videoboard in the field of play? Somehow I get the feeling this isn't the last we have heard from this videoboard in Dallas. It shows me just how little Jerry Jones actually cared about actually having football played in the stadium, he would prefer to show it off, so that is why no one seemed to catch this slight problem.

I was told Sunday night the Cowboys definitely got the green light from the NFL for all football and competitive aspects of the stadium, including the positioning of the board 90 feet above the field.

I guess the NFL is a bunch of idiots as well on this issue.

The NFL: Where not understanding how high punts go happens.

The league could do a number of things: Order the videoboard raised, have commissioner Roger Goodell unilaterally impose a rules change of some sort to account for punts hitting the board, or leave the rule the same. If a ball hits the board now, it's essentially a do-over; the play is played over as if it never happened.

I am opposed to the rule changes for hitting the board. This isn't baseball, there should not be different rules for every stadium football games are played in. I don't think that is an option. Keeping the rule the exact same is completely stupid. I don't want to watch a game where a ball hits a scoreboard two, maybe three times in a row, and the play has to start over continuously. How is that practical or even smart? The NFL needs to grow some balls and force Jerry Jones to do something about this.

The videoboard has to be raised, I don't see another option...unless the NFL is convinced another punt can't hit the board, which I don't believe they are convinced of, and if they are convinced of this they are idiots because another punt is going to hit hte board.

"The irony is that our stadium architect [at new Lucas Oil Stadium] wanted to hang the videoboards the same way in our stadium,'' Polian said. "So we put a metal beam about 90 feet above the ground and had our punter at the time, Hunter Smith, punt the ball up there trying to hit it. He hit it the majority of the time. That's why we put our replay boards on the wall.''

I don't want to be hard on Jerry Jones for this, but I can't believe there was no one involved with the situation who could not have not thought or mentioned a football may hit the videoboard. I feel bad for the Cowboys football team. It just shows me how little those who were building and designing the stadium were more focused on creating an experience and less focused on creating a place to actually play football.

"So you don't like the move,'' Childress said to me Wednesday.

It's not that I don't like the move to get Favre, I said; I just don't like it now.

Come on Brad, this is Peter King you are talking to. He LOVES the move to get Brett Favre by the Vikings, he just doesn't like hearing about how you and Brett Favre lied and deceived to get him on the team. The way this was worked reflected poorly on Brett and that CAN NOT AND WILL NOT happen again.

Favre, if needed, could have joined the Vikings near the Week 9 bye, and been fresh for the final eight games, five of which are in the friendly confines of the Metrodome.

Instead of starting the season off with Brett Favre on the team hijacking a roster spot and the starting quarterback position, Brett could have hijacked a player's roster spot in Week 9 after that player had worked hard all season and through training camp to play well for the team...then he could have been handed the starting quarterback position after some other poor asshole kept it warm for him. That was much more preferable in Peter's mind.

If you are going to be a real asshole about just giving the starting quarterback job to Brett Favre, you may as well just go all out and be a super duper big asshole and let him sit out half the season before just handing him the starting job.

I repeat: I'd have liked this move if Sage Rosenfels or Tarvaris Jackson struggled, and Mariano Rivera had to come in for the season save.

Brett Favre is not Mariano Rivera. Not even close Mariano Rivera is still performing at a high level and Brett Favre has been on the level of an elite quarterback but one season in the past 5 years. Get your head out of Brett's ass Peter and realize Brett Favre is not even close to being a parallel to Mariano Rivera.

He is more of a Roger Clemens. The guy who gets to sit out half the year because he gets special treatment and then comes into the team and gets to leapfrog all the players who have worked harder than he has that season, just because of name recognition and the fact he used to be good. Brett Favre is Roger Clemens.

I don't care that Favre struggled Friday night, and I don't care that he started after being in camp for 15 minutes; all pretense of having to earn anything with the Vikings has been thrown out the window after Childress bent every rule on the team to get Favre in-house.

See, these are the things Peter should care about. If Peter King had any ability to be impartial when it comes to Brett Favre these three things would drive him to question the motives of Brett Favre and the reasoning behind the Vikings signing him. In a realistic world, Peter King would talk less about the fairness of the situation and talk more about how Brett Favre's performance level doesn't merit being handed a starting QB job. We won't get that though, because he is in mad love with Brett Favre.

I am not even sure Favre is the best QB on the Vikings roster. I know it was just a preseason game but Tavaris Jackson looked pretty good the other night. Of course he has spent a lot of time with his receivers, while Favre has not, which is another reason I think this is a bad idea.

In time, he'll learn his receivers, and he'll make some beautiful music with them.

And this is just a given based on how well he played last year? I like how Peter just assumes Brett Favre is going to be successful in Minnesota even though he has had one good year in the past 5 years. A quarterback who has thrown 54 interceptions over the past 3 years...does that sound like a good quarterback for a ball control, run-based offense to you?

This one tempts fate -- and the longest starting streak a quarterback has ever had.
So in summary, Peter King doesn't like this move of Favre to the Vikings because he doesn't want Brett Favre's records to be potentially messed up and he thinks the Vikings should have kept Favre in their backpocket a little bit longer as a backup plan. I am sure it would not have affected the Vikings team at all to have the thought of Favre stepping in and being the savior at midseason hanging over the team all preseason and at the beginning of the regular season.

The team is a quarterback away from serious Super Bowl contention, and he didn't trust Rosenfels or Jackson to be that quarterback.

Peter can't see because of the Favre-colored glasses he has on, but Brett Favre may not even be the quarterback who can lead the Vikings to Super Bowl contention.

I just think it shouldn't have been now or never. If Childress wanted Favre today, he'd want him next week. Or the week after.

How can Peter not see how completely unfair this would be to the Vikings players who have worked hard during training camp and the off season to get ready to play the season? If Childress had taken Peter's suggestion, Favre would come back when the season is halfway over and have skipped training camp, preseason, and just taken over the team he had no familiarity with in Week 9.

What Peter is really upset about is that he wants Brett Favre to play well this year and he doesn't think Brad Childress has set that up to happen. Peter doesn't care about anything except making sure Brett Favre has a good year and he will suggest the Vikings do anything that puts Favre in that position.

Quote of the Week I

"Michael, you can't do that.''
-- Mentor Tony Dungy to Michael Vick, after Vick was spotted by the New York Post drinking a Grey Goose and pineapple juice at a Philadelphia hotel bar.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with drinking alcohol in public but this just goes to show me that Mike Vick hasn't quite gotten it yet. He is saying and doing the right things but it's pretty much all talk.

It is perception that Mike Vick is really fighting right now and even little things like this don't help that perception.

Enjoyable/Aggravating Travel Note of the Week

Regarding the non-guaranteed, guaranteed reservation that got me booted from the Westin Hotel in San Diego nine days ago: I am not boycotting Westin Hotels. I probably should, but I realize the ultimate futility of it all, because Westin (and the hotel industry) is not going to change its policy of overbooking hotels in hopes of selling out every night.

This policy is ridiculous! If Peter King wants to roll into a hotel at 11:30 pm and be able to get a room when every other person at the hotel arrived much earlier and claimed a room, that should be his God-given right as an American. How dare this company try to make a profit and reward those people who get to the hotel first?

I wonder how long it took Peter's ego to realize they were not changing this policy? I bet it was at least early Saturday or early Sunday.

Avril's point, in brief, is that hotels allow guests to reserve rooms weeks in advance and then cancel hours before the day of arrival -- 24 hours at Westin's -- without incurring a charge.

Exactly. I sort of get what Peter is trying get at, but if he would spend less time pitching hissy fits and more time thinking the problem through he would realize unless he wants hotels to charge people for rooms they never use, this is the best system that is fair to both parties. I can imagine how much of a fit Peter would throw if he got charged for a room he never used.

The biggest thing I told Avril: When you reach the point of saturation at the hotel, it's idiotic to wait for those with guaranteed reservations to come in and be furious and then get sent somewhere. When the hotel is full, if there are four people still expected, call or text or e-mail them immediately -- or call the travel agent who booked the reservation, who theoretically can contact the traveler and tell him where he now is staying.

I know this would make Peter feel better if the hotel texted or emailed the person expecting to get a hotel room, but this doesn't even really make sense for a lot of business travelers. I know it is 2009 but not everyone has email or text messaging on their phone. Throw in the fact if a person is on a business trip then they will not be able to respond to either form of communication to resolve the problem immediately, thereby causing the same problem Peter had.

Not to mention texting or emailing just gives a heads up the hotel is booked and at that point the traveler would be in the same position Peter was in here. It solves nothing except tells you know before you arrive you don't have a hotel room. Not everyone is in the line of business, like Peter is, that would allow them to do something about it before they reach the hotel.

Let's speak English here: Just call or text or e-mail the loser who's on the street, or his travel agent, and give a free room somewhere else in town. That's the solution.

Or just tell the person in English when they get to the hotel and then give them a free room...which is what they did for Peter. I don't see how giving a heads up to a traveler they don't have a room is a better policy...they still don't have a room.

When I talked to Brady in the spring, he remembered --a bit ruefully -- what the Giants' rush had done to him in the Super Bowl, the last complete game he played. Watching a chunk of Thursday night's game against the Bengals on tape the other night, when Brady got hit hard twice, I was reminded of the hits and torment he took against the Giants.

You mean poor little Tom Brady got sacked a little bit? How sad...

Here's the deal. He is going to get hit many, many more times in his career and some of them are going to hurt. The odds are not good that he will miss another entire season. I would also like to add as great as the Patriots 19-0 season was and as great as Tom Brady was that season, the excellent offensive line play had a lot more to do with it than anyone has ever cared to acknowledge. The line was blocking so well the only way a team could beat the Patriots is rush 4 guys and drop the rest in coverage, which the Giants did well in the Super Bowl.

Brady was great that year, but when you have great protection it helps a lot.

e. Matt Forte is underrated as a cutback runner.

Patrick Crayton runs a beautiful stop-and-go-route...but he is overrated when it comes to running a slant.

What the hell does this all even mean? Who under/over rates running backs when it comes to specific moves or runs?

2. I think we're on the way to a desperately needed streamlining of the Hall of Fame ceremony, and hopefully reducing it from the three-hour range to maybe two hours and 15 minutes.

What is Peter's fascination with getting everything that inconveniences him changed immediately?

Eyes rolled particularly on Carl Peterson's 26-minute miniseries as the speech-maker for the late Derrick Thomas. I received lots of critical e-mail for saying the event needed to be streamlined, but anyone in attendance -- except for the new Hall of Famers and their families -- understands nothing will be lost if the speeches are kept to 15 minutes.

There you go people like me who thought Peter was being an asshole by not giving Hall of Fame inductees as much time to speak as they needed...apparently IF YOU WERE THERE you would know how long it felt. I guess since we weren't there, we have no damn perspective on how recognition for the highest achievement a NFL player can achieve would just seem tedious.

The Hall of Fame induction ceremony is actually for the new Hall of Famers and their families. Who gives a shit whatever everyone else thinks? The ceremony is not for Peter King, it's for guys who have achieved something in the NFL and their family. Everyone else should go fuck off if they don't like the length of speeches.

b. Recent history says a Super Bowl team will come, relatively speaking, out of nowhere. Arizona last year, the Giants the year before, sixth-seed Pittsburgh in '05, Carolina in '03, the Ravens in 2000. So I picked one logical team in the magazine and one illogical team.

I bet Peter picked New England and Philadelphia. I have no money, but I would bet some if I had it...or maybe New England and Minnesota.

6. I think the preseason is tough to judge anyway, but the Panthers left me guessing after watching three quarters of their game against Miami.

I know I sound stupid but...................three quarters? He couldn't even watch a whole game?

Good: DeAngelo Williams had the best run of any NFL back in the preseason (that and $4.14 will buy you a grande hazelnut latte) with his electrifying, 25-yarder in the first quarter.

Other than that he ran 6 times for about 6 yards...not that impressive. 25 yard runs don't always make up for crappy 1 yard runs.

Bad: Julius Peppers didn't get a sniff all night, and though much of that came against a terrific young tackle, Jake Long, it's the classic example of why no one beat the door down to get Peppers when he was on the market in the offseason. To pay a first-round pick and $16 million a year for a guy who's going to get you 10 sacks a year ... let's just say there are better ways to spend your salary cap money and draft choices.

You don't care and I am not going to link you to anything but Julius Peppers is overrated. He is a great defensive end but he is not a top 3 defensive end. This is a major argument among Panthers fans and if you look at the numbers he gets a greater portion of sacks against bad teams than any other "top" defensive end, including Justin Tuck, Jared Allen, Dwight Freeney, etc.

If you put Julius Peppers against a great tackle, he gets shut down. Yes, I realize it was one preseason game but this is a career long trend. Peppers isn't a horrible defensive end but it is beyond frustrating to hear him get called an "elite" pass rusher when "elite" or "great" tackles shut him out in a game.

He may never be as good as his reputation says he is or as good as he thinks he is.

c. Said it before and I'll say it again: Derek Jeter's the best baseball player of my lifetime.

Really? The Jeter? I have finally begrudingly accepted that Jeter is a great baseball player but the best player of Peter's lifetime? Peter is around 50 years old, which means his lifetime spans from 1959-2009.

That means he think Jeter is better than Albert Pujols, Mickey Mantle, Alex Rodriguez, Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Frank Robinson, Tom Seaver, Steve Carlton, Nolan Ryan, George Brett, Rickey Henderson...and that is just naming a few.

As much as I respect The Jeter, I think it is pure hyperbole to even believe he is the greatest player of Peter King's lifetime. I can usually respect someone's opinion, but it's hard here.

h. Great Sears commercial about Favre being unable to make up his mind about a big electronics buy. The kid waiting on him tells him about the wafflers who come and can't decide whether to buy what they really want. "Those guys drive me crazy,'' he says. Art, or something, imitating reality.

Hahaha! Brett Favre is making fun of himself. How self deprecating! Making fun of himself for doing something he can completely control but chooses not to because his massive ego requires other people bow down to him...hilarious.

Though if that commercial was actually reality Brett Favre would have decided to not make a big electronics buy and then later go back to the store and said he wanted the big electronic gadget after all, offered the store more money and then literally have taken the big electronic gadget off the back of someone else's truck in the parking lot. Then he would have returned the gadget a few days later, and then when someone else is looking to buy it, steal it again. That would have been much more realistic.