MMQB Review: Peter Makes His Triumphant Return...For One Week

I am going on vacation this week (I am a blogger so that means I get to leave my mom's attic for a few hours) so I won't be keeping up my normal one post a day pace for a week or so. Never fear, for I have written and scheduled some smaller posts that contain just as much anger and snark as my encyclopedic posts do and I plan on posting those while I am gone. I know it will be tough for everyone to get through this painful time, but never fear because I will be back next week and all will be right with the world again. I am just glad I get to see sunlight for the first time in seven months and leave my mom's attic.

Peter King wasn't supposed to write MMQB this week, but he decided he had to comment on some of the things happening in the NFL...namely absolutely nothing of anything with real importance. He is writing MMQB for one more week and then taking his vacation, so this week is just a huge tease. This week is full of Peter mourning his brother and emotional reunions with Dr. Z and Brad Childress' son, so it isn't our typical MMQB, but it will fill the void left in my heart for MMQB by Peter King for now.

I hadn't planned to write this weekend, but I wanted to talk about Bob a bit among some other things. Thanks, by the way, to Oakland cornerback Nnamdi Asomugha and Jacksonville running back Maurice Jones-Drew for their prescient columns while I was covering the World Cup, and to Texans tackle Eric Winston for doing such a great job filling in for me on short notice last Monday after Bob's death. I loved their columns.

Even if I don't like Peter's opinion in MMQB every week, I can at least say he did a pretty good job of choosing replacements. I thought Asomugha's column was the best and I am sure how well he wrote will guarantee a network will grab him up and force him to sound like an idiot "analyzing" football soon after he retires from the NFL.

I was thrilled to read about the Minnesota coach's surprise reunion with his Marine son, Lance Cpl. Andrew Childress, at an Afghan military base on Friday. This is the second year that NFL coaches have visited the troops in Afghanistan (Andy Reid, Childress, John Fox and Marvin Lewis also spent two days in Germany visiting the wounded),

Apparently the NFL's goal was to send only coaches who may get fired after this year or coaches whose fan base want them fired after this year to visit the troops in Afghanistan.

Then the two Childresses went to Brad's quarters and talked well into the night, and then the Vikings coach got on the phone with me. The connection -- cell from Afghanistan to cell in Boston -- kept cutting off, but we were on long enough for the message to come through: Father was incredibly proud of son.

I am sure Brad Childress was absolutely thrilled to have to talk to Peter King about seeing his son while in Afghanistan. He probably wondered if there was ever a time, whether it be while Childress is in Afghanistan or while Peter is mourning the loss of his brother, that Peter ever leaves a person alone and doesn't try to get a quote to write in his MMQB.

For those of you not too familiar with Childress' interests, he's a huge military buff.

I can tell from the way he runs his football team. He knows the key to a strong military and a strong team is to never actually know if your leader will join his men in battle or not. Maybe your commanding officer (quarterback) will show up to join the rest of the team or maybe he won't. Who really knows? The real focus needs to be on catering to your leader's every need.

Childress also has a strict policy on creating a "team" by making sure each member of that team is held to a different standard and allowing some members of the team to avoid attending a mandatory minicamp because he isn't "sure" if he wants to be a member of the team or not (even though that is bullshit and that player knows he is coming back), while punishing others (Adrian Peterson) for trying to skip mandatory minicamp.

Childress also knows a good leader lets his subordinates choose the direction of the team or unit. When in doubt, just let your subordinates make the tough decisions. There is nothing about Brad Childress that doesn't scream "military buff" other than the fact he runs his NFL team the complete opposite way a person who is a military buff would stereotypically run an NFL team.

NFL coaches don't get many weeks to spend away from football, and I applaud these four for taking a week of their lives to raise the spirits of the troops. "One of the things that humbles us, all of us, is how excited they are to see us,'' John Fox told me.

"It's the complete opposite of how I feel in Carolina, where they have released all my favorite players and refuse to give me a new contract even though I am the most successful coach in the history of the franchise," Fox went on to add.

My buddy Don Banks had a very good profile of the Payton book on SI.com last week. The two books are different. Payton's discusses the four-year trek from Katrina to the Super Bowl, with great anecdotes particularly on the home stretch of the championship season. Brees' is more about overcoming the doubters (because of his size) and his devastating 2006 shoulder injury (which caused him to pick New Orleans over Miami) on the way to winning the Super Bowl.

My favorite anecdote in Payton's book was about how Sean Payton illegally obtained drugs from the Saints pharmacy and then had the General Manager of the Saints help him to try and cover it up. Wait, did that story not make the book?

The most enlightening thing about the Brees book, I thought, was the one final conversation he had with Nick Saban before he decided to pick the Saints over Saban's Dolphins in the spring of 2006. We've all heard that the Saints believed unconditionally in Brees' ability to come back from his shoulder surgery, while the Dolphins were skeptical about it.

I swear if I hear this story again, I am going to scream. I better get ready to scream.

I have said it 100 times. The Dolphins screwed up in not signing Brees, but he was coming off major shoulder surgery and they signed Dante Culpepper instead, and he was also considered a great quarterback at the time.

I understand Brees still has his panties in a wad for some reason that the Dolphins passed him over, but let's not forget he completely rejected the Chargers initial offer to him and became a free agent on his own accord. It is not like the Chargers didn't make an offer to him. It was his decision to not go to San Diego and can you really blame the Dolphins for not being supremely confident enough in Brees' shoulder to give him a 6 year $60 million deal? If Brees' shoulder isn't in good shape, that's a terrible salary cap-eating deal for an injured quarterback when the Chargers also had an expensive first-round pick quarterback on the roster too.

So Brees picked up the phone and called Saban, who told him the Miami team doctors believed Brees had a 25 percent chance to come back and be the same quarterback, or better, that he'd been before the shoulder surgery.

According to the book, Brees said to Saban: "Coach, I know what your doctors believe about me. My question is, what do you believe?''

Wrote Brees: "Nick Saban paused. That was really all I needed to hear. His pause told me everything.

What is it about quarterbacks that they just NEED to be loved? It's like a disease many of the best quarterbacks have. Maybe it is just something unique to Brees and Brett Favre, but this happened four years ago and Brees is still rubbing the Dolphins face in it.

The doctors for the Dolphins told Nick Saban Brees had a 25% chance to come back as good as he was before. Nick Saban is a fucking football coach, not a doctor, so if his doctors tell him this then he has to believe them. Brees shouldn't get on Saban's ass about not signing him, but should instead be focusing on the Dolphins doctors who screwed up or didn't believe in him. What's the point of having team doctors if you ignore their advice?

'Well, Drew,' he said, 'I would still love to have you, but I have to trust what our medical people are saying ...' He went on from there, like he was reading from a script. But I was starting to tune out. By then I had all the information I needed. I had made my decision.''

This isn't a lie! For the one of the few times in his life, Nick Saban is not lying here. He has to trust what the doctors say or else he is stupidly taking a risk. I am sure the Dolphins would still have loved to have Brees, but not at the amount of guaranteed money he was asking for. Brees decision was that he went to the Saints, who not coincidentally were also offering him the most guaranteed money. Brees leaves that part out of course.

As Brees told me, "The impression I get from the Dolphins was I should feel lucky they were even looking at me. It just wasn't a welcoming feeling.''

This happened four years ago, which is an eternity in NFL years, and Brees is still focused on this. Should the Chargers be whining that Brees passed over their offer after they drafted him in the second round despite the fact he was "too short" to play quarterback AND were willing to re-sign him even after having Phillip Rivers on the roster? No, but for some reason even after winning a Super Bowl, Drew Brees is still pissing on teams who passed him over and refused to give him enough guaranteed money. Of course Peter King gives Brees a forum to air these old grievances and publicizes Brees book, which I am sure describes this situation in much more detail.

I like Drew Brees. I thought he was the best quarterback in the 2001 draft. His tiresome whining about not getting a good enough offer from the Dolphins is annoying. He turned down the Chargers offer and took the offer that involved the most money. Get over it and move on.

I'll sound like the Know-It-All American -- if not the Ugly one -- giving FIFA advice.

Peter has already sounded like the Ugly American by writing an entire column giving FIFA advice and taking shots at countries that aren't as fortunate as the United States. His visit to South Africa is not remembered kindly in my mind.

1. Make the game officials accountable.

This is one point I will agree with Peter upon. FIFA does need to at least have officials explain the call that was made or someone needs to explain why a call was made.

2. Improve the stadium experience

Because if there is one thing I know as a novice about soccer, it is that the stadium crowds aren't terribly into the game and sometimes it is easy to fall asleep during a game as well. When will soccer crowds wake up and enjoy the game?

The least these stadia could do is show the elapsed time and score, which none of the World Cup venues do, except occasionally when the international TV feed shows up for a short spell on the small stadia scoreboards.

Honestly, it doesn't make complete sense to me for a stadium to not show the time left in a soccer match, but it is not like it is hard to figure out. Just count down 45 minutes from when the game starts and that is the end of the first half, or close enough to it. Also, if you can't keep score in a soccer match then there is a good chance you are under the age of four years old. Usually there are a maximum of 5 goals in a game, so it is really, really easy to remember the score.

Some things, like the hand-operated scoreboard at Fenway Park, are cute traditions. Some things, like not knowing the time left in the game, are stupid annoyances.

In case you were wondering, the difference in something that is a "cute tradition" and a "stupid annoyance" depends on what Peter King's favorite baseball team does and what a sport he doesn't understand does. If Peter is used to the "tradition" then it is cute, but if he isn't used to the tradition then it is a "stupid annoyance."

The international feed of the games, which we see in South Africa, is the same for almost every game: helicopter shot of teams arriving, players getting off bus, players marching out to the field from the tunnel, Anthems and closeups of players, the game, bad studio halftime and postgame, quick on-field interviews with a player from each team. Lather, rinse, repeat. No in-depth stories on players or coaches, no players or coaches on the set,

You mean the media in South Africa attempts to let the sporting event speak for itself and doesn't try to trump up fake "stories" about the game to make it more interesting? How can soccer even call itself a sport?

no locker-room interviews (blasphemy ... media in the locker room!), no accommodation to follow news stories of any sort that arise out of the games.

How are the viewers supposed to get one news story beaten into their head by the media before and after a game if they can't follow news stories until the viewer despises the player involved with the story?

With the death of Don Coryell, the 44 Pro Football Hall of Fame voters will be on the spot in the coming months to give one more long look at his candidacy. Coryell was one of the 15 modern-era finalists for Hall induction last February, but he didn't make the first cut when the voters (including me) voted to reduce the list from 15 to 10. I felt that day, and still feel, that Coryell's candidacy was scuttled by his coaching record with St. Louis and San Diego, which follows:

W-L-T Pct. Regular season (14 seasons) 111-83-1 .572 Post-season 3-6 .333 Overall 114-89-1 .561 Conference title games 0-2 .000 Super Bowl 0-0 .000

I guess Don Coryell is the ultimate test of whether a coach should enter the Hall of Fame based on his coaching merits or how he affected the game of football.

That's not the record of a Hall of Fame coach -- if all you're looking at is wins and losses and playoff resume.

Let me guess...there are intangibles that Coryell had which no other coach in the history of the NFL has had? There are things Coryell did that you we just can't measure! He always used to have Kool-Aid prepared in the locker room after practice!

When I spoke with Dan Fouts the week of the vote, the one thing that stood out in the stories he told about playing for Coryell is what a thinker he was.

I didn't know Coryell was a thinker. Let him in the Hall of Fame then!

When the tight end got covered, he started advancing the concept of a hot receiver for the first time. He'd tell his quarterback, Fouts, that when his wides and tight ends were covered and the pressure bore in on him, look for the back veering away from his block at the lack second. "Don had an answer for whatever the defense threw at us,'' Fouts said. "And pretty soon, you started seeing other teams feature the tight end a lot more, and you'd see other teams use backs at hot receivers instead of the quarterback just throwing the ball away.

I'm not saying Don Coryell didn't have a positive effect on the NFL, but this story which is supposed to support Coryell's Hall of Fame candidacy is being told by Coryell's quarterback in San Diego and seems like a story that would be sort of unprovable. Maybe other teams used the tight end more because of Don Coryell or maybe there were more players in the NFL who played tight end during this era and were athletic so they broadened what the tight end normally did in an NFL offense. It also helped that Coryell's tight end was Kellen Winslow, so it is easier to look like a offensive genius when you have players that can make you look like an offensive genius.

You'd think maybe Coryell's playbook was encyclopedic. It wasn't. " 'Simple' was a big word with Don,'' Fouts said. "He liked to simplify and clarify.'' If his first-half plays were killing the opposition, he'd say, "Flip it in the second half.'' In other words, run the same plays in the second half -- just run to the other side of the field, in opposite formations.

He was a thinker.

"I realize Don didn't win a Super Bowl,'' Fouts told me that night. "Super Bowls are important, obviously. But I ask you this: Is it more important in football history to win one Super Bowl, or to influence the way the game is played for decades to come as much as any man?''

I don't know, it kind of helps to do both. He did perhaps influence the NFL, but I don't know if he is a Hall of Fame coach.

Aggravating/Enjoyable Travel Note of the Week

Example: My wife and I walked into a liquor shop to get a bottle of wine and some beer for an SI dinner hosted by the inimitable Grant Wahl one night at the house he was renting for the month. I noticed a Peroni beer glass in the front window of the place.

"Great glass,'' I said to the proprietor. "Are they for sale?''

"No,'' the man said. "But can you wait for a moment?''

The man went to the back of the store and was gone for two minutes. When he came back, he had a 12-inch-square cardboard box with him, and handed it to me. I looked inside. Four Peroni glasses.

"Fantastic!'' I said. "I really appreciate it. How much are they?''

He waved his hands. "No, no, no,'' he said. "Free for you. You wanted them, and I want you to have them!''

No Peter, the Peroni beer glass in the window of a shop where you buy alcohol isn't for sale. It's a decoration. The shopkeeper just likes to keep it there because he is too poor to afford cabinets to store the glasses in.

A different person might have left some money anyway since this shopkeeper probably doesn't have a lot of it and Peter King does, but Peter King isn't a different person.

3. I think I'd love to see you at the annual NFL kickoff event Monday, July 19, in Los Angeles, NFL 101, hosted by the Los Angeles Sports and Entertainment Commission and by Andrea Kremer, my NBC pal. I've been attending for the past three years, and this year's cast at this great variety show of an event is the best: Pete Carroll autographing his new book and answering all your NFL questions,

Pete Carroll won't be answering college football questions like, "Isn't it weird that you take an NFL head coaching job right as sanctions on the USC football team, from your time at USC as the head football coach, are being handed down by the NCAA? That timing is weird isn't it Mr. Calipari?"

6. I think I'm sticking with Green Bay and San Diego in the Super Bowl. For now. Maybe I'll get more wisdom while on vacation. I doubt it.

I doubt Peter will get more wisdom too. I keep hoping for it and keep getting let down.

7. I think you've got a future in this business, Eric Winston. The thing I liked most about Winston's MMQB was his suggestion that the NFL play the Super Bowl on Saturday night -- to maximize the event-ness of it all. Totally agree.

Maybe this is just me, but I don't know a single person that would watch the Super Bowl on a Saturday night that doesn't already watch it on Sunday night. I know a few people who wouldn't watch the Super Bowl on a Saturday night because it conflicts with other things they like to do on a Saturday night. I don't see the purpose of maximizing the "event-ness" of it all if it doesn't result in higher ratings.

I would love for the Super Bowl to be on a Saturday, but I also think the NFL would lose viewers.

a. Joey Votto got robbed. Votto in, Ryan Howard out.

How about Omar Infante out? Ryan Howard should be out in favor of Joey Votto? Joe Morgan is not going to be very happy with Peter King.

f. If the Red Sox get one more injury, Johnny Pesky's playing.

We're so fucking cursed! It isn't our fault our team isn't winning the AL East, it is the fault of MLB. They don't want us to win and keep having our players get injured. Johnny Pesky was a fucking hero, not like that dirty Mexican left fielder Manny Ramirez! What did Manny ever do for Red Sox Nation?

g. Happy July, everyone. Can't wait to hit the camp trail in three weeks. Well, I can wait, and the next three weeks should be warm and fun. See you later in the month.

Peter King is gone again. He only came back to tease us and tell FIFA and the soccer-loving world how the most popular sport in the world should be run.