16 comments MMQB Review: Total and Complete Drama Edition

It's Monday morning. Get your overpriced coffee, elitist attitude, and inability to understand the nature of the game of baseball together, it's time for Peter King's MMQB. There was so much drama that went on yesterday and everyone was having so much fun watching the games, as Peter would say...what recession are win again? You may not believe this, but Brett Favre gets a mention or two again this week in MMQB. Unfortunately, Brittany Favre must not have had any interesting Tweets because Peter did not include anything she Tweeted in this week's column.

Now that's what I call some drama, and some good stories.

Yes, I have enjoyed this season of Mad Men as well.

Remember how the locals wanted to give Josh McDaniels a one-way ticket out of Colorado before he ever coached a game?

(Pointing at Peter) Remember how Peter King didn't think Josh McDaniels would last long in Denver because of how he handled the Jay Cutler situation? It was mostly the locals though who doubted McDaniels because Peter never doubted McDaniels' ability to do that job. He would never do that. Of course when you play Oakland, Cleveland, and Cincinnati that certainly does help your team win football games. Cincy is not that bad this year but the Broncos won on a miracle against them, so they very well could have lost to the only average team they have played. My point is to call me when they play a playoff caliber team......meaning call me after next week's game against Dallas. Otherwise they have just beaten two of the crappiest teams in the NFL and get no credit from me.

Now he has as many wins this season as playoff veterans Bill Belichick, Mike Tomlin and John Fox combined.

I wouldn't call Fox and Tomlin playoff "veterans" since they have made the playoffs a combined 5 times. Also we are three games into the season, seriously everyone needs to freaking calm down with these statistics that are being used. I would bet by the end of this year one or two of those coaches will have more wins than Josh McDaniels. I am still blaming stats like this on small sample sizes and really they are fun to write but they mean absolutely nothing.

I'll tell you what I worry about with Vick. Greed. I'm not in the man's shoes, but I get a sense that at some point this year, he might want more than some Wildcat snaps and three or four passes a game.

Nooooooo! I don't believe it. You mean this experiment with Vick may not be a complete and utter success? Donovan McNabb completely supported Vick coming to the team, how could this happen? I can't believe Vick's poster boy for "the exciting new NFL quarterback," before being jailed for torturing and murdering dogs, actually delusionally still believes he is an NFL quality quarterback? Who would have thought Mike Vick would not accept a subordinate role on the Eagle's team three years after being the highest paid player in the game? It's almost like everyone should have seen this coming.

At the time I spoke to Vick, our NBC Football Night in America' was preparing for the evening show, and I asked Vick if he wanted to say hello to Tony. "Tony who?'' Vick said. And I said, " Dungy.'' Of course he wanted to say hi.

You can tell Mike Vick thinks of Tony Dungy as a mentor and friend by his "Tony who?" response. I am sure Vick just has short term memory loss. Everyone who reads here regularly knows I don't like Mike Vick for various reasons, so take this with a grain of salt, but has he really he changed? Do we really believe this? I am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, but I also think he is just being a good boy for the time being, and I would bet he's not that different of a person now. He is just more careful at what he gets caught up into.

The Vikings may be playing a risky game with Favre, who turns 40 in two weeks, because they don't know if he can last the full season at his age. But they've now officially won one more game than they'd have won with either Sage Rosenfels or Tarvaris Jackson playing.

Everytime I hear Peter King talk about Brett Favre it makes me sick feeling. It's not because of Favre, it is because I know that Peter King is so obsessed with Brett Favre, and even his family (Peter is a grown man who is following Favre's daughter on Twitter), that anything he has to say will be wrapped in a sugary Favre loving coating.

How do we know the Vikings have won one more game than they would have won with Rosenfels and Jackson? Maybe those two would have been playing so well they would not have had to come back in yesterday's game. I believe it was Peter who said it really didn't matter who started for the Vikings in the first couple of games of the year because the Vikings could win those games with any QB. I wish I had more time to search Peter's archives and pull the exact quote, but he really said something like that and now he thinks only Favre could have won yesterday's game.

Lay off the "Favre is magic" stuff. He played well, that's not the question whether he can play well for a short period of time, the question is what he will do in 4 more weeks and if he will perform his annual collapse at the end of this year. Don't give Favre credit for winning a game by saying no other QB on the roster could have won that game. You can't accurately predict how Rosenfels or Jackson would have played. The other two QB's may not have had to come back.

Good thing he was. And when he said that, I was left to wonder if Bill Belichick wishes he had kept Lewis and cut Joey Galloway.

But Peter, didn't you say Joey Galloway looked great in the New England system and predicted he would have a great year? I can't find it in Peter's archives (again) but I remember it clearly when he was talking about the Patriots and how good Galloway looked. Is this just another instance of him doing PR for an NFL team?

This is as good of a time as any I guess, but remember all that reactionary, bad journalism from this last week about how the Patriots are on a decline? Well, what happened to that stuff after the Patriots beat the Falcons yesterday? This is what makes me angry about sportswriters, they will write these stories and then never acknowledge they were over reacting and being reactionary.

But Delhomme, the amiable Louisianan, thinks the pressure's been lifted off him with his let-it-all-hang-out performance last week at Atlanta (25-41, 308 yards, one touchdown, one interception). It wasn't one of his best days in football, but at least he played football instead of thought football.

Hey Jake, your team is 0-2 and now faces a must-win game in Dallas on Monday Night Football in front of 100,000 fans...but the pressure is off you now? Look for the possibility of a 19-43, 187 yard 1 TD 3 INT night for him. Bad Jake feeds off feeling no pressure.

"And now,'' Delhomme said, "I feel great. I really do. Not just saying that. I just want to play. See the field, throw the ball, play, run the offense.''

See the field, throw the ball TO THE RIGHT TEAM, play WELL, and run the offense. Every time he completes a pass to the right team it is almost a small shock to the world right now.

Baltimore (3-0) at New England (2-1). Why shouldn't Tom Brady face every quarterback of the future. Trent Edwards, Mark Sanchez, Matt Ryan and now Joe Flacco.

Are we still doing this "Trent Edwards is a quarterback of the future" thing? I thought it was just a joke originally but now I think Peter is serious.

(Monday night) Green Bay (2-1) at Minnesota (3-0). The big storyline: Ryan Longwell tries to exact revenge on the Packers, who allowed him to leave the team he loved. Or something like that.

IT'S BRETT FAVRE'S RETURN TO GREEN BAY FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE FORCING HIS WAY OUT OF TOWN, MAKING A SHORT PIT STOP IN NEW YORK WITH THE JETS, AND THEN FINALLY PLAYING FOR THE TEAM HE WANTED TO PLAY WITH ALL ALONG! ON MNF! LET'S NOT CANCEL ALL OTHER GAMES NEXT WEEKEND AND FOCUS ON THIS ONE!

If there is anyone on Earth who didn't know Brett Favre is coming back to Green Bay next week, they will know by mid-Wednesday. Get ready for a barrage of Brett Favre-Green Bay stories this week. It's Brett's Favre and Peter King's dream. It's all about Brett, all of the time, and he gets to be in the spotlight all week, which is all he really wants. We'll be lucky if the MNF game tonight is even shown. They may just show highlights of Brett Favre talking at press conferences and his most memorable games instead of actually showing the game tonight.

The Fine Fifteen

Or as I prefer to call it, "15 team names randomly thrown together with numbers beside them and bizarre justifications for why that number fits that team."

3. Minnesota (3-0). Interesting Fine Fifteen nugget: Favre's current team is third, his old team is fourth, and his former Packers are eighth.

Here is another interesting fact. Peter King controls who makes the Fine Fifteen and where teams are placed, so this isn't interesting at all.

5. New Orleans (3-0).

When I said New Orleans was going 11-5 before the season, I really didn't actually believe I was right. I took a guess at the record, though I did think they would win the NFC South this year. I feel pretty good about this prediction now.

7. New England (2-1).

On the decline I hear...Guess what Bill Simmons? Your ability to reverse jinx teams still works, unfortunately good journalists don't use their weekly columns as a place to use silly superstitions to reverse a team's fortunes.

15. (tie) Atlanta (2-1).

#15? They have beaten two playoff teams from last year and lost to the #7 team in Peter's completely unscientific Fine Fifteen...and they get bumped down to #7 below Denver, San Francisco, and Chicago? There is absolutely very little reason behind Peter's rankings.

MVP Watch

5. Darrelle Revis, CB, New York Jets. After taking Andre Johnson and Randy Moss out of the first two games, Revis was the key to holding old pro Kerry Collins to a 41-percent passing day Sunday.

I am pretty open minded about who can get votes as MVP but I don't know how I feel about a cornerback being in the Top 5 and I certainly don't know about the cornerback if part of his candidacy is because he shut down the Titans passing game and Kerry Collins.

Difference Between Baseball and Football Dept.:

On Wednesday, in Kansas City for a series with the Royals, a group of eight members of the Red Sox traveling party -- including manager Terry Francona and infielder Kevin Youkilis -- spent a couple of hours at the Kansas City Chiefs' offices and training facility, across the parking lot from Kauffman Stadium. Francona is close to Chiefs GM Scott Pioli from his days in New England, and Pioli visited Francona in the Red Sox clubhouse prior to Tuesday's game. Youkilis and former major-leaguer Sean Casey, now a part-time TV colorman, kept commenting about the pace and fury of the midweek practice. Said coach Todd Haley: "They were very shocked how physical we were and how hard our coaches coached.''

Peter's ability to come off naive when it comes to his "first love" baseball never fails to astound me. Whether it is saying Derek Jeter is the best player he has ever seen his lifetime, not knowing who one of the top prospects for his favorite team is or feeling the need to tell his MMQB audience that football players practice harder than baseball players? Is this something anyone reading this did not know? Football practices are incredibly tough, while baseball doesn't even really have practice and what practice is done is at a very slow pace. I knew the two practices and team managing styles were like night, I have a hard time believing the baseball players didn't know this.

I got this started by telling people on Twitter the other day they shouldn't be all excited about Millen being on TV. Before he went down his destructive path with the Lions, he was considered by all to be the heir to John Madden as a pro football analyst.

Millen was going to be the next moderately overweight analyst who mostly used adjectives like "Boom" and only stated the obvious towards the end of his career? I hate we missed out on that.

Defensive Player of the Week

Singular. "Player" not "Players."

The Giants

Brandon McGowan, S, New England

...and we get two of them.

Special Teams Player of the Week

Percy Harvin, KR/WR, Minnesota

Lynell Hamilton, RB, New Orleans

Ray McDonald, DE, San Francisco

...and we get three of these. Don't name it a singular category if you are going to name multiple players to that category. I know Peter wants to be friends with all these players, so he doesn't want to leave anyone out, but change the title or just name one player. No one will hate him for leaving them out because it really doesn't mean anything. Peter is the only journalist I can think of who is actually good friends with active players he covers. Actually there are probably others but the other sportswriters either (a) don't talk about it or (b) don't make it obvious they are friends with the player(s).

Anyone recall a team this young and green playing as clean a game as Detroit did -- especially with the weight of a city on its shoulders?

I am pretty tired of all this talk about the Tigers and Lions having the city of Detroit on its shoulders. The city is having tough times and sports are a distraction, but that is all sports really are for them. It's not like if the Tigers win the AL Central Division that will mean everyone in the city has a job again, people aren't fleeing the city to move elsewhere or unemployment isn't still sky high. Sports are a distraction for the fans in Detroit, not a catalyst that is actually going to make their life infinitely better.

What has been the story of this preseason and early football season? Michael Vick. Vick this, Vick that. And so Vick had just touched the ball in a National Football League game for the first time in 33 months -- almost three years -- and then we hear from the booth, "Let's go to James Brown.''

What?!!! Let's go to James Brown?!! Unless it's for live coverage of Armageddon, you're not going to James Brown. MICHAEL VICK HAS JUST TOUCHED THE BALL FOR THE FIRST TIME IN FOREVER.

I don't understand why CBS would do this after they have publicized Vick's return so much, I get that comment by Peter, but otherwise this is a clear overreaction on Peter's part. "Live coverage of Armageddon" is the only reason to go back to James Brown? I am glad CBS understands the entire audience who was watching the game was not as infatuated with Vick's return as the media has seemed to be.

Two is a Quote of the Week, from Jey Harrington

Is that Joey Harrington's twin that was actually good at playing football in the NFL?

f. Three weeks into the season and the Colts have a three-game lead on the Titans.

Why do sportswriters love taking small sample sizes and try to show some sort of fact that has come out of them as if they will mean something at the end of the year?

Now, if the Redskins continue to play lousy football on the JV portion of their schedule (next three: Tampa Bay, at Carolina, Kansas City), I guarantee nothing about Zorn's future. But this week, next week? He's safe.

Peter, that hurts me...deeply.

c. Aaron Curry is starting to make impact plays for the Seahawks, like his strip-sack of Jay Cutler that led to a field goal and a 19-17 Seattle lead in the fourth quarter.

I can't believe the best defensive player in the draft, the same guy Peter King did not like for some reason in this year's draft, is actually playing well. Peter always took great pride in saying Curry could not sack the quarterback and that is why he didn't like him as linebacker in the NFL.

What's that, he did get a sack? But...but...I thought he couldn't do that?

I wish Peter had answered our repeated queries this summer about Aaron Curry and why he thought he had to sack the quarterback to be a good linebacker in the NFL. I would love to write him another question for his mailbag today.

d. Odd that Ray Rice scored his first NFL touchdown Sunday. Seems like he's had 10. I'll tell you this: Offensive coordinator Cam Cameron would take the combined product of Rice and Willis McGahee from Sunday (18 carries, 115 yards, three touchdowns) every game for the rest of his life.

I think every team in the NFL would take 3 touchdowns from their running backs in every game for the rest of their lives. It's not exclusive to just Cam Cameron.

b. What an embarrassing replay review by Alberto Riveron's crew at New England, ruling a Matt Ryan incompletion (as clear as day an incompletion and not a fumble), forcing the Falcons to throw a challenge flag,and taking away the New England momentum by making each team stand around for three minutes. And then, when he came back to admit the ruling on the field was wrong, he said, "New England will not be charged with a timeout.'' Atlanta, sir. Geez.

Don't mess around with New England's momentum, not on Peter King's watch. Once they get momentum there should be no person or object that shall impede New England's ability to keep momentum...this should be an NFL rule.

Here I go again...how many other teams have you heard Peter complain their momentum has been taken away by an official's call? Not that there is anything wrong with it, just admit it.

b. Should I watch the Strahan show? I suppose I should invest 30 minutes for my old Montclair neighbor, but the premise of the show holds no interest for me. I'd like to hear your feedback.

I'd watch it while it is still on the air...so watch this week and next week if it is still on. Could this be the worst idea ever for a sitcom?

d. Adam Dunn's career is the most interesting of any player in baseball by far. He hit 40 home runs in 2005. He hit 40 home runs in 2006. He hit 40 home runs in 2007. He hit 40 home runs in 2008. He has 38 home runs with seven games left. Bad news: Only problem with this wonderful symmetry is Dunn has three homers in Washington's last 25 games. Good news: He's got three games with the Mets today through Wednesday. Mediocre news: He's got between 164 and 194 strikeouts in each of these five symmetrical seasons.

I do love me some Adam Dunn, so let me defend him here. There is no difference in a ground out, fly out or a strikeout. I don't hold those strikeouts against him at all. His defense? That I should hold against him.

g. Swine flu is coming. We're not even in flu season and I know six people who've come down with it.

Peter is approximately 2 months late on this swine flu thing. Let's face it, we're all going to die. Fortunately I live in my mother's attic so I don't have any type of contact with human beings in any fashion, so I should be safe.

i. Hope you're OK, Tim Tebow. That was a scary thing, a violent concussion.

I don't dislike Tim Tebow and he really is a good role model compared to other athletes but ESPN over did the whole "Tim Tebow got knocked out of the game thing." They showed the hit about 10 times from every possible angle. He got hit hard and got a concussion. This isn't anything that hasn't happened to many other quarterbacks in the history of organized football being played. Maybe if his offensive line would block for him or he had enough quarterbacking "know-how" to feel for the pass rusher coming at him while he was in the pocket he could have avoided the sack (yeah, I said it...the guy did not even come from his blindside).

Tebow has that physical running style and likes to take a lot of contact and I think right now is the time when those who believe he is going to be a great NFL player (or go #1 in the draft as Peter suggested) need to face the idea he is going to get hit like this in the NFL, only harder, so if he is going to be a quarterback at the next level he isn't going to be able to do the things he can do in college.

l. Was it just my hotel TV in Manhattan, or was the sound awful on U2's "Breathe'' on Saturday Night Live?'I heard Sunday that U2 had its own sound-mixers for the performance, and that may have played a part in the awful distortion of the music.

I think the sound was awful because the music coming from the instruments wasn't that great. U2 hasn't had great music coming from its instruments for a few years now.

Who I Like Tonight

Dallas 33, Carolina 24. Romo channels his inner Dan Fouts and has another 300-yard game, getting the baying hounds off his doorstep for a few minutes.

But instead of previewing the game, I thought I'd review the Cowboys Stadium -- from a player's perspective.

Yeah, its a boring Monday Night Football Game there is no need to preview it. It's only Carolina (what city do they even play in?) and Dallas. No need to talk about the game, it's much more interesting to hear about how great the new Cowboys Stadium is from New York Giants players. Who needs to read about a game when you can read about NFL players using different adjectives that are all just another word for "huge?"