MMQB Review: The Cowboys Are Pigs Edition

Now that Peter King has called Mike Vick a redemption story and basically jinxed the hell out of him, Peter is going to move on to jinx the hell out of another player. Ok, Vick isn't injured because Peter jinxed him or anything, but for Eagles fans it has to suck that Vick got injured because he was playing well so far this year. At least Kevin Kolb showed that those people who thought he was a terrible quarterback weren't completely right. He acquitted himself fairly well yesterday. This week Peter focuses on Donovan McNabb and LaDanian Tomlinson and gives us other NFL nuggets to chew and spit out.

Five very preliminary things I think:

1. I think I can't believe Kansas City is the only unbeaten team in the NFL on Oct. 4.

They had a bye this week. There was absolutely no doubt they would be unbeaten going into Week 5, therefore Peter had a full week to believe they could remain the sole unbeaten. It wasn't enough time for him to fully embrace this idea and now he can't believe it.

Now the Chiefs have to face the Colts. Let's see how long the Chiefs remain the only unbeaten after that game.

3. I think it's entirely possible Kyle Orton's better than Jay Cutler.

Tim Tebow should start for the Broncos this year! Tim Tebow's time is now!

4. I think the Ravens wouldn't be where they are this morning, and they wouldn't have won at Pittsburgh Sunday, without an excitable little competitor of a cornerback, Lardarius Webb.

I love the condescending-type tone towards Webb in calling him "an excitable little competitor." Why do I get the feeling Peter King would never call Brett Favre that? Is Webb 12 years old or something? How much would I bet that Peter King wanted to call him a "rascal?" The answer: a lot of money.

5. I think you can be 53, paunchy, skunk-gray of the hair -- and still pull off a little bit of an athletic feat. More later about the adventures of a newborn half-marathoner in northern New England -- yes, I finished, and there was no hospitalization involved.

The award winner for the fake award of "storyline Peter keeps running down his reader's throats I care the least about," is whatever story about Peter's family or himself he tells that week. You finished the race. Good for you. Let's talk football and focus less on you.

McNabb never delivered the voracious Philly crowd a championship, but he played his best and he showed class for 11 years, and on Sunday the fans responded -- stunningly, I thought -- with probably 85 percent cheers when he was introduced last in the pregame introductions.

There is no doubt in my mind that McNabb should have been cheered by more than 85% of the crowd. He was a great quarterback with the Eagles and even when he was tested with personnel moves he didn't like and given some competition at the quarterback position he rarely complained or created problems publicly. I don't know why Eagles fans would do anything but cheer for McNabb.

The Redskins could have done far more gloating than they allowed themselves after the 17-12 victory, but McNabb said all the right things, except the one sentence he allowed himself in the locker room when Mike Shanahan awarded him the game ball. "Everybody makes mistakes in their lives, and they made one last year,'' McNabb said in a moment captured by an NFL Films camera.

You mean Donovan McNabb has confidence in his ability to play quarterback at a high level in the NFL? I can't believe it! What a shocking thing McNabb said. I would have thought he would publicly claim he has declined drastically from being able to play quarterback at a high level. I can't believe McNabb has confidence in his own abilities.

Who knows? For one day he was right, and we'll see if for three or four years he turns out to be.

The test if the Eagles and Redskins did the right thing in the trade is being partially measured now. The move by the Redskins really wasn't a long-term move, but an attempt to be competitive now. For the Eagles, yes, three or four years is the time frame to measure the move.

Good thing it means nothing right now. Ranking the teams is an exercise in dart-throwing.

Ahem...Gene Wojciechowski.

Also, note how Peter says ranking teams is sort of pointless right now...yet later in this MMQB Peter will rank the teams in the NFL.

And isn't that great for the NFL at the quarter-pole -- that any of eight to 10 teams might have a legit argument to be the best right now?

(turns into Joe Morgan answering this question) No, it means there are no great teams anymore. There are no complete football teams like there used to be.

"You ever think you'd see a receiver running wide open in the end zone, in this stadium?'' I asked him.

"No,'' he said. "Not even close. That doesn't happen. But when he froze on the little pump, I knew it'd be open.''

(Peter King) "You know I am considered an athlete by some people. I ran a half-marathon the other day. Do my leg muscles look bigger to you Joe?"

(Joe Flacco) "I don't know Peter (begins walking away at a swift pace), they look fine to me. Congrats on the half marathon."

(Peter begins running after him) "I can catch you Joe...because I am an athlete. You can't get away from me because I am a runner." (Flacco breaks into a dead sprint and leaves Peter in the dust)

One postscript: Lardarius Webb is a very big reason the Ravens are waking up 3-1 this morning. With 10:13 left in the game and Baltimore up 10-7, Charlie Batch sent Mike Wallace deep up the right sideline into the end zone and lofted up a pass to him. Only problem was, Webb, the second-year corner from Nicholls (La.) State, ran with the speedy Wallace stride for stride. When the ball dropped down from the sky, it looked like it was right in Wallace's arms -- until Webb got involved.

"It hit both of our hands at the same time,'' Webb said. "I wanted the pick soooooo bad. Last year when we played the Steelers here, I didn't play, and it's such an exciting place to play I wanted to do something to help us win. It's such a pleasure playing here. And if I could have just intercepted that ball ... But to make the play, to stop him from catching that touchdown, was a great play. I was happy about it.''

The Steelers went on to score on the drive on a Rashard Mendenhall run, and so all Webb did was delay the inevitable.

Yeah...ummm...great play Lardarius Webb in breaking up that pass which changed the game by...making the Steelers use more plays to score a touchdown. Great game changing play that didn't change the game. I'm not trying to be down on this play or Webb's contributions to the Ravens team, but Peter used this play as an example of why Webb is a big part of the Ravens being 3-1, even though this play didn't change the game. I guess Gregg Easterbrook would say it was a "hidden play."

If I had an assistant coach award for the first quarter of the season, there's a good chance I'd reward secondary coach Chuck Pagano, because he has this group playing terrific football.

And if Peter had one meat he could put on a sandwich for the rest of his life, it would be salami. If Peter could choose one animal to ride into an NFL stadium upon, it would be a unicorn.

Very dissimilar to the last couple of years in San Diego. He rushed for 3.8 yards a clip in 2008 and 3.3 last year, and the Chargers had seen enough. We all thought we'd seen enough. Raise your hand if you thought Tomlinson was going to be anything but a relief pitcher for the explosive Shonn Greene with the Jets.

I did not raise my hand because I thought he would be even worse than a relief pitcher. I thought Tomlinson was done. I think I only said it 900 times. It wouldn't shock me if Tomlinson wore down some as the year went on, but right now he looks really good.

Agreed. Now I think the Jets need to make another good choice and make sure they don't burn out Tomlinson. He averaged 258 carries a year over the past two seasons, and it'd be smart if they kept him on a pace to get around 200, so he's the real Tomlinson come winter.

The real Tomlinson helps his team lose playoff games at home, so I am not sure the Jets want that Tomlinson.

I realize it might be an unfair day to make the comparison that Kyle Orton's better than Jay Cutler, but I'm not pitting the quarterbacks against each other on the basis of Orton's terrific road performance at Tennessee and on Cutler's feeble and concussed one in New Jersey Sunday night. This is about a body of work -- granted, not a deep body of work, but a 20-game stretch.

Oh how the sands of time and public opinion shift around Jay Cutler from week-to-week. Last week he was one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL and this week he is being compared to Kyle Orton...and losing the comparison. Who would have thought Mike Martz would run an offense that doesn't give a shit about protecting the quarterback? Shocking!

I thought it would be a good chance to take a 20-game look at the two passers. I was surprised by what I found.

QB W-L Pct. Yards TD-Int Yards per att. Rating Orton 10-9 .634 5,221 27-15 7.29 89.1 Cutler 10-10 .615 4,578 33-29 6.97 80.7

It doesn't look good for Cutler when compared to Orton.

You'll remember, this was supposed to be a lopsided deal favoring the Bears.

I don't remember it being a lopsided deal honestly. I remember it being a deal where the Broncos got back draft picks and a quarterback for a player who didn't want to be there anyway. I don't recall this trade being that lopsided honestly. I thought it was a good deal for both sides.

It's still very early, and we don't know if Orton can keep it up. He's going to have Tim Tebow breathing down his neck in a few months, I'd guess.

If by "months" Peter means "years" then I will say this is likely.

MVP Watch

This week, I'm going to do it a little differently. I'm not going to pick a one through five. I'm just going to pick five. There's not a clear number one, anyway. So here we go (listed alphabetically).

Peter will do anything to list Tom Brady and Peyton Manning first in the MVP Watch, including changing how he does it to list them first.

(I am kidding of course, but it is funny he ends listing them 1-2 in the MVP Watch when he probably thinks they are in that order anyway.)

Tom Brady, QB, New England.

Peyton Manning, QB, Indianapolis.

Haloti Ngata, DT, Baltimore. He's starting to have the kind of regular weekly impact the truly great ones have. His ability to be an athlete on one play and a brick wall on the next is very hard to find in the NFL.

Ngata is an athlete? Can he do a half-marathon? Probably not...though I am interested in his physical ability to morph into a brick wall. That's sounds interesting and possibly against the rules for him to do on the football field.

10. Chicago (3-1). Good Jay. Bad Jay. That first-quarter pick by Terrell Thomas at the Meadowlands last night was the classic bad play by Cutler, a risky throw in his own territory he never should have attempted. There haven't been many of those this year, but you never know when they'll rear their heads. That and Cutler taking way too much time to get rid of the ball led to seven New York sacks in the first 24 minutes of the game. Inexcusable. "I can't explain it,'' Cris Collinsworth said about Cutler's non-timeliness on the NBC telecast. "I just can't explain it.''

Dylan said in our podcast NFL preview a few weeks ago that he was concerned about Cutler playing in Martz's timing based offense. It sounds like Cutler still has a few things to learn work on, but I think he can get it at some point. Still, Dylan was exactly right because I think timing was a problem for Cutler last night.

11. Washington (2-2). I don't like the NFC East much,

No bigger lie has ever been told. Peter loves the NFC East.

Special Teams Player of the Week

Josh Scobee K, Jacksonville

The ball was spotted at the 49, making it a 59-yard attempt. Scobee kicked it perfectly, lofting it over the middle of the crossbar by three or four yards. Scobee ran around like Favre after his Super Bowl touchdown pass to Andre Rison 14 years ago. I don't doubt he was just as joyous.

Who else would you think Peter would compare running around the field in a fit of joy to? Only the most child-like player ever, Brett Favre.

Peter has to mention Favre in every MMQB, so sometimes it gets tough to do, but he manages to do it.

This doesn't deserve a monumental amount of coverage, but one thing should be said to the Cowboy veterans who delighted in spending about $2,500 per man (one estimate I heard for the 22 to 25 men who attended this dinner) as most of America struggles to pay for weekly groceries: Stop being pigs. It's disgusting.

Oh sure, now Peter is the everyday man. He must be taking a break from complaining about how difficult his chosen life of traveling around the country covering the NFL is to get down on the level of "the people." Yes, the same guy who complained his plane doesn't take off fast enough in Atlanta thinks the Cowboys are disgusting pigs. The same guy once complained about a hotel not providing complimentary coffee downstairs at 6am, when there is free coffee in the room, thinks the Cowboys should pay more attention to the struggles of the everyday person.

I came to a fork in the road in the middle of New Hampshire Saturday morning, orange- and red- and green-leafed trees on three sides of me, a half-hour into the New Hampshire Half-Marathon, and I saw this sign:

BRISTOL 10

As in 10 miles. My God! Ten miles to go. For a 53-year-old sedentary person, that was a slap in the face if there ever was one. All the while, smart runners like Amby Burfoot had told me entering my first half-marathon to run my race, don't think too far ahead, don't try to run a faster pace than you're used to. But no one ever said, Don't let the road signs beat you. BRISTOL 10. What a dagger.

Here is the Peter King I know. Fresh off telling the Cowboys to not spend as much money at a restaurant because there are people who can't afford groceries, Peter acts like 10 more miles in a half-marathon he voluntarily chose to do is the end of the world. "What a dagger."

But I had lots of help right about then. My runner brother-in-law, Bob Whiteley, is funnier out on the racecourse than he is in real life,

Oil check!

and he kept our six-man team pretty loose with a vivid (to put it mildly) story about, well, about his brother's loose bowels on a training run.

I'm guessing no one did an oil check on this guy's brother then.

In other words, we ran through rural New Hampshire and past choppy Newfound Lake and by some of the best foliage you'll see, down hills and up, and I never felt like I was working very hard -- because I had friends with me having a conversation like we were sitting around having a few cold ones.

What a dagger.

The sponsors of the run, Under Armour and Harpoon Brewery, and the town of Bristol, N.H., which put on such a fun half-marathon (and 10K and full marathon too), and Jon Kuniholm for coming from North Carolina, and my four other partners in the race, including my trainer Roberto Portocarrero, who makes difficult things happen, and my wife, Ann, for making the best pre-race meal ever made in a Residence Inn: pasta with her simple and wonderful basil-tomato sauce, swordfish and chicken breast, salad with a delicious vinaigrette, and sugar-free blueberry-raspberry Italian crostada.

Quit being pigs Cowboys players! You are disgusting! Quit throwing how much food you eat in the face of those struggling financially?

Anyone want to hear about the wonderful three-course meal Peter had before the race?

a. Jim Mora's interview of Mike Vick on NFL Network. Hearing Vick call prison "the best thing that ever happened to me'' was an incredible TV moment. It's the best interview in TV this year. And Vick adding he would never would have changed had he not gone to Leavenworth: "If that didn't happen, I wasn't going to change. I wasn't gonna stop fighting dogs. My mom tried to tell me, and it was in one ear and out the other.''

So Mike Vick DID know it was wrong to dogfight? This will be an important point later this week in a Bill Simmons post I am working on.

d. Haloti Ngata is such a force, and such a deceiving athlete, that I swear the Ravens could put him at defensive end in pass-rush downs consistently and he could get double-digit sacks.

Or he could morph into a brick wall upon demand. He's that kind of athlete...but not a runner-athlete like Peter.

f. Jimmy Clausen has to learn to throw the ball above the hands of the defensive linemen, not into their numbers. Sheesh.

I think it is clear that Peter King is not a Jimmy Clausen fan and that is fine. I would rather he not be. Clausen's numbers weren't great yesterday, but he as a rookie quarterback he almost went into New Orleans and pulled off a win against the Super Bowl champs in his second career start. He also converted a pretty fourth-and-four to keep the last drive alive (on a drive without Steve Smith). Normally these are things Peter King would compliment a rookie quarterback on.

For the second straight week Peter criticizes Clausen also for a problem that really wasn't the main problem in the game. The announcers repeatedly talked about how he needs to learn to anticipate his receivers moves a little better and get his team to the line of scrimmage faster in a loud environment. After last week's "stare down his receivers" comment and this week's talk about having to get his passes over the linemen, I am starting to think Peter should watch more carefully before criticizing NFL players because over the last two weeks his criticisms haven't really been on-point.

Clausen had three balls passes down and Drew Brees had two passes batted down. Clausen had a 90.6 passer rating and Drew Brees 90.2 passer rating. I'm just throwing that out there.

4. I think the quarterback crop for the 2011 draft is taking shape nicely, with one of the top prospects looking great for a half Saturday night in Eugene, Ore., before the roof fell in. I asked ESPN's Todd McShay to give me his top five college quarterbacks, and here's his list, complete with his projected overall pick in the draft in parentheses, or, in one case, a school returnee:

a. Andrew Luck, Stanford (1)
b. Jake Locker, Washington (10).
c. Ryan Mallett, Arkansas (17).
d. Blaine Gabbert, Missouri (return to school for senior year).
e. Christian Ponder, Florida State (46).

I'm going to prematurely and stupidly make myself look dumb. I don't think this is a strong QB class at all. I don't like Gabbert and I may be one of the few people who thinks Christian Ponder isn't an NFL quarterback either. I could be wrong and I may change my mind, but I'm not even that sure about Ryan Mallett. Locker has gotten a negative rap lately, but I still wasn't entirely high on him before that. Personally, if I had to rank these quarterbacks, it would be:

1. Luck
2. Mallett
3. Ponder
4. Locker
5. Gabbert

9. I think this could be Arian Foster's wakeup call --though I must say I didn't think he needed one. I had dinner in Houston with Foster 12 days ago, and I found him to be quite responsible and absolutely thrilled he was getting a real chance to be a big-time running back after his checkered past at Tennessee.

Here's what I mean about responsible: We sat at the restaurant for a good three hours. At the start of the evening, we each ordered a glass of wine. I knew we'd be there for a while, so after we'd ordered the wine, with the waiter still there, I asked Foster if he'd like to just order a bottle because we'd probably be there long enough to drink two glasses. Oh no, he said; he didn't want to drive after having two glasses of wine.

I like how Peter is giving Arian Foster credit for knowing how much alcohol he can drink and then drive a car under the legal limit. Some people may call this common sense and respect for the other drivers of the road and respect for the laws of the land, but it impresses the hell out of Peter King.

b. This is what I call paying it forward: A couple of weeks ago, I put two club seats to Friday night's Yankees-Red Sox game at Fenway Park in play for my www.runpeterkingrun.com fundraiser. The face value of the tickets is $340 for the pair. I asked for $500.

I guess it is isn't considered ticket scalping if the money goes to a charity? I will have to remember this next time I go to the ACC Men's Basketball Tournament.

h. I'll miss box scores for the next six months.

I guess baseball is over and no postseason is scheduled because Peter's Red Sox did not make the playoffs. I guess that means we can look for no Bill Simmons columns related to baseball too over the next six months.

e. Coffeenerdness: The most shocking thing about my run in the wilds of New Hampshire? I did it fueled by a non-Starbucks coffee. Dunkin' Donuts, you did just fine. Thank you.

Well Peter, the coffee all has caffeine and your body can't tell that much of a difference. I do think it is interesting (still) that Peter chided the Cowboys for spending that much money on dinner because of what the poor people of the world who can't afford groceries will think, but he doesn't mind talk about how he is spending $5 per cup on coffee.