MMQB Review: Let's Talk About Peyton Hillis' Hands

I thank God for the Cowboys for possibly the first time in my life. If it weren't for their weekly terrible performances then everyone would notice the Panthers are the worst team in the NFL, even worse than the Bills. Fortunately, the Cowboys are currently hogging the spotlight in that respect. Of course in Peter King's world this takes a backseat to Peyton Hillis' hands, some thoughts on Grace Kelly and any new updates on the Vikings quarterback/coach situation.

This is one of those weeks, covering the NFL, when you could write about 10 or 12 things in depth. Pick something. Anything.

Instead Peter talks about coffee, spends space doling out advice and comments to people when an email will work and discussing Tom Brady switching from Nike to Under Armour. You know, he focuses on the important NFL stuff.

The last two weeks -- with wins of 30-17 over New Orleans and 34-14 over New England -- have convinced me of a few things. One: It would be a mistake to fire the imaginative Mangini and his hungry staff unless the bottom falls out on this team in the next two months. Holmgren, if he really is interested in going back to the sidelines, should tell the owner of the team, Randy Lerner, that he's had a change of heart, and wants out to coach (pick one) San Francisco or Dallas or whoever.

Given the Cowboys' struggles and Jerry Jones wanting a good coach in there, I have to say the odds are incredibly good that Holmgren will be in Dallas next year. It's just a gut feeling I have. I would like to see him go to the Cowboys too...not really "like" it actually, but I think he will have success there which will make me not like the Cowboys, so I wouldn't actually like it.

Two: The Browns aren't far away from competing every week in their division. Three: Colt McCoy is afraid of nothing, and I think it's unlikely the Browns will have to spend their first-round draft choice on a quarterback in 2011.

Four: I think it is unlikely if the Browns keep winning like they are that the Browns will draft high enough to get one of the top quarterbacks.

Then Peter goes into a looooooong story about a trick play the Browns ran that lost my attention at about the third paragraph.

That's what a team with less talent than other teams has to do. Be smart. Draw things up in the dirt and say, "Why can't this work?'' Daboll, Mangini and defensive coordinator Rob Ryan have shown the ability to do that.

It always annoys me when journalists talk about teams "drawing plays in the dirt" like they aren't plays the team has practiced on occasion or just designed a few minutes before they actually run the play. Even trick plays get practiced and the plays are designed and utilized in the right spot of a game to work...unless you are the Panthers. They like to run a flea flicker on the first play of the game before they have established the run, even though it usually makes sense to establish some of sort of running game first in order to get the safeties to move in rather than stay back. The Panthers like to buck convention that way. Some may say they don't need an offense full of rookies at skill positions and to use their tight ends more, but that wouldn't fit "the plan" to go 2-14 this year.

I quit watching the Panthers game yesterday in the middle of the 3rd quarter, but my favorite part of the day was when Jim Mora Jr. referred to his one year stint at the Seahawks as his "internship" seeming to say that he was just there to learn how to coach. Obviously he was being sarcastic and just doesn't like how he was treated in Seattle, but when Dick Stockton gave him a chance to take it back, he did, sort of. He gave the least heartfelt comment about how he enjoyed coaching the Seahawks and it was pretty clear he was angry with how he felt he was treated. Bitter coaches are awesome.

"The interesting thing about Colt is he had a much more difficult time not being the man than being the man,'' said Mangini. "That's not the case with many rookies. When he wasn't playing, he was dying.

That's not really interesting at all in fact. One of the biggest adjustments college quarterbacks have to make at the NFL level is sitting on the bench and watching another quarterback play. Most college quarterbacks are used to being "the man" and want to be the man. These same quarterbacks are usually dying to get on the field in the NFL, so Colt McCoy isn't the only guy who experiences this.

And then there's the Hillis deal. The Browns dealt backup quarterback Brady Quinn to Denver for Hillis in the spring, and if that's not a big-enough piece of highway robbery, consider this: Denver has to give Cleveland a sixth-round pick in the 2011 draft, and I'm told the Browns will also get a conditional pick in the 2012 draft -- a sixth-rounder or better, depending on Quinn's playing time. I mean, should Cleveland be giving Denver draft choices the way this thing is working out?

I think really the only fair thing would be to give every NFL team a chance to trade with Josh McDaniels. If it is not trading a 1st round pick to get Alphonso Smith in the draft and then a year later trading Smith for a tight end with seven receptions in his career, then it is trading Hillis and draft picks for Brady Quinn. Every team should have to complete one trade every three years with McDaniels.

Hillis is 11th in the NFL in rushing with 644 yards, and he's averaging a gaudy 4.8 yards per rush. Who'd have thought that could ever happen?

No one thought Hillis would be this good, but if the Broncos had taken a look at the 12 games he played in 2008 they could have at least noticed he had a 5.0 ypc average on 68 carries and had 14 receptions. His numbers weren't gaudy, but the Broncos had to see him everyday in practice and notice he wasn't terrible.

If it had ended 24-10 with a wounded Favre limping off the field and Randy Moss smiling as he exited a private plane in Nashville, I think Vikings owner Zygi Wilf would have listened to the boos of the home crowd and seen the CAN CHILLI T-shirts and swallowed $9 million or so and dumped Childress, and given the job to Leslie Frazier for a nice half-season trial run.

I wonder if every other NFL quarterback gets tired of the media talking about how hurt Brett Favre is? There are other NFL quarterbacks who have minor/major injuries during the course of a season and cover it up so it doesn't become a distraction. Favre embraces his injuries and wants everyone to know just how hurt he truly is.

Moss had been a disruptive influence (my words, not Childress'), and loudly told Wilf that Childress should be fired after a loss at New England last week, and Childress wasn't going to have it.

Honestly, if I am a head coach and one of my players is disrupting the locker room and telling the owner I should be fired then I possibly would have thought about waiving Moss as well. Of course I would have handled the situation much better, but Childress is the head coach and trying to get Childress fired isn't admirable. Maybe Childress does deserved to be fired, but it isn't the place of a player to tell the owner that unless directly asked.

At the end of the game, Favre embraced Harvin and said, "I appreciate what you did out there today.''

"Have you seen how injured my ankle is? Do you mind mentioning that to the media a few times while you are being interviewed. I need them to know my ankle hurts."

The MVP race should be interesting, especially if Rivers continues on pace to break Dan Marino's passing-yards record for a season, and especially if the Chargers get some receivers healthy and make a run at the division title in the second half of the season. Rivers hasn't won one yet, and there's a reason: His competition is outstanding, as it will be this year.

Is it just me or are the postseason awards in the NFL the least most exciting postseason awards in any major sport? I don't care really about any of the awards like I do in other sports. Brees, Rivers, Chris Johnson, Peyton Manning...I don't care who wins the MVP award. I only get excited when they try to take an award away from a player, like they did with Brian Cushing last year.

Calm down. He's simply moving to Under Armour, the upstart outfitter. From Nike, the behemoth. Brady's apparel contract expired last summer and he decided to become the first superstar quarterback to sign with Under Armour, the 14-year-old Maryland outfitter that is one-20th the size of Nike. It's not a huge story in the football world, but it'll raise eyebrows in the business world because Brady's a big cheese, and Nike usually gets all the big cheeses it wants.

In a week full of interesting NFL stories, this story on Tom Brady changing from Nike to Under Armour makes Peter's second page in MMQB. Apparently Ray Lewis being the first major NFL endorser doesn't matter to Peter, because only when a white quarterback joins up does it become news that Nike doesn't have a stranglehold on the sports apparel industry.

Brady is not only joining Under Armour as a contracted endorser, but also he's getting a financial stake in the company. "Tom is a shareholder in Under Armour,'' said 38-year-old company founder and CEO Kevin Plank. "Equity was a part of our deal. That was important to Tom, that [a stake in the company] was a part of the deal.''

THAT's why Brady joined Under Armour. He's now a shareholder in a fast-growing company. It's really a no-brainer for Brady in that aspect.

He knows the future is with the kids, and he knows if he's going to invest in an apparel company, he's going to invest with a company he thinks has a chance to be the Next Big Thing. "At this point in my career,'' he said, "it's got to be about a product I believe in. I felt there wasn't anything better out there. This is such a young company to be where they are. This kind of tells you where the market's at.''

I love Under Armour gear. My favorite athletic gear (what I own, it's not like I have a ton) is Under Armour and you can pry my Under Armour hoodie off my cold, dead body and that's the only way you are getting it off me when it is cold out...so I may be a little biased against Nike.

I mean, really. "I don't think Wade [Phillips] survives this night,'' Cris Collinsworth said as the clock wound down on Green Bay 45, Dallas 7. I don't see how Phillips can. But then again, we're not Jerral Wayne Jones.

Corralled by the media after the game, Jones said he didn't know what he was going to do to address what ails the team, and was asked if he could put a finger on what's wrong. "I don't have enough fingers,'' he said. Well, the defensive coordinator is presiding over a unit that's allowed 121 points in the last 12 quarters.

I think the Cowboys should do what Peter suggested last week and hire a person from the current Cowboys coaching staff. It seems like it would be a great idea. Didn't the special teams coordinator get angry when his unit screwed up last week? THAT'S the guy, Joe DeCamillis, who should be running the team the rest of the year because he got angry with his players. This is the strict criteria Peter has for the next Cowboys head coach.

At least the Cowboys have an owner that wants to win football games and speaks to the media about accountability on this issue. I can think of other teams that have an owner which speaks to the media once a year (maybe), cut the veteran leadership on his football team in order to take a hard line in labor negotiations, kept a lame-duck coach that everyone knows is not going to be re-signed after this year, refuses to publicly comment on his decisions, raised ticket prices this year, and generally seems intent on alienating his fan base.

I envy the Cowboys have an owner that seems to give a shit about the fans and wants to put a good product on the field. There are certain other owners who don't care about that and he is getting a pass right now. If you are asking how long it will be before I start a "Fire Jerry Richardson" web site, it isn't going to be long at all. If a restaurant keeps making shitty food, it won't be long before patrons quit going to that restaurant. When he has empty seats at games the rest of the year, maybe he will buy a mirror and find the problem. So no matter how bad things get Cowboys fans, at least your owner still cares. You may not think he does by sending Wade Phillips out there to coach, but he will change that soon.

The most debate seemed to stir around the rating of the quarterbacks of the past 30 years, with six of them bunched together between 4 and 25. (I'd debate heavily about the rankings of the quarterbacks overall, namely that Otto Graham, at 16, was too low because all he did was win at a position where winning is the most important thing, but let's stick to today's players.) See if your position on the passers hardens, or if you get more exercised about them, after you look at how they were ranked, and how they performed, in a few important categories:

Rank/QB Reg-season Playoff All Pct. SB wins TD-Int differential 4. Montana 117-47 16-7 133-54 .711 4 +158 8. P.Manning 131-62 9-9 140-71 .664 1 +206 20. Favre 184-109 13-11 197-120 .621 1 +190 21. Brady 103-32 14-4 117-36 .765 3 +149 23. Elway 148-82-1 14-7 162-89-1 .645 2 +80 25. Marino 147-93 8-10 155-103 .578 0 +176

All Otto Graham did was win? That's a statement that is dependent on the other players around a quarterback too. I hope Peter knows this.

I'm surprised that Favre has such a large TD-INT differential. I haven't checked on that in a while, but it is much larger than I imagined (insert penis joke here). If this were me, and I was ranking these 6 quarterbacks I'm not sure how I would go about doing it. Maybe go Montana, Manning, Elway, Brady, Favre, Marino? That may be wrong though. It is tough to rank these QB's but I feel like I should rank Brady higher than I did.

One final note on the injustice of Elway ranked beneath Brady, thinking Elway took the Broncos to five Super Bowls without much help: Brady's gone to four and won one more that Elway, and he may have done so with a lesser cast. Elway, on his first Super Bowl-winning team, had Hall of Fame tackle Gary Zimmerman, a strong Hall of Fame candidate at tight end, Shannon Sharpe, and a Pro Bowl runner, Terrell Davis; Sharpe and Davis were on the second Super Bowl championship team with Elway as well.

Part of the issue and why I would rank Elway over Brady is that Elway went to three other Super Bowls (that he lost) without much help. It's very debatable of course, but I don't know if we can focus on the greatness of Elway just through the Super Bowls he won and ignore the ones he appeared in, but lost, possibly because of his supporting cast.

8. Oakland (5-4).
9. Philadelphia (5-3).
11. Indianapolis (5-3).

I don't know about this at all. I had the Raiders with a pretty good record this year, but I'm not sure they are a better team than the Eagles or the Colts right now.

"I don't think he's the type quarterback at this stage that Shanahan wants to move forward with. Shanahan wants someone that is a little more accurate passer as well as not carrying as many injuries from over the years, the extra baggage. You get beaten up over a period of time and McNabb today certainly doesn't move around as well as he used to and his accuracy hasn't improved as a passer.''

-- Hall of Fame quarterback Joe Namath, on Donovan McNabb and coach Mike Shanahan's controversial week-old benching of the player thought to be his franchise quarterback.

I'm not going to pick on Joe Namath again this week except to say that Donovan McNabb has never had a completion percentage for a full season lower than Joe Namath's career high completion percentage. I know the times are different, but I get tired sometimes of the old-timers chiming in on modern players. Fran Tarkenton is all about commenting on what the Vikings should do. I know these are respected ex-football players, but Namath is chiming in on a quarterback that doesn't even play for the team he played on when he was in the NFL. McNabb still moves better than Namath ever did as a player, and he moves better than most NFL quarterbacks, so that's not a hugely important point. As I said last week, I am not sure whether McNabb ever was really the franchise quarterback in Washington, but instead was a guy who had the job for a while until Mike Shanahan could develop another quarterback. So those who are criticizing Shanahan for believing McNabb was the franchise quarterback of the future may have this a bit wrong.

Peyton Hillis, RB, Cleveland.

The Browns beat the Patriots the way the Patriots have been beating teams for years -- by pounding them and physically dominating them. Hillis, who has surprisingly soft hands for a big man, accounted for 220 yards from scrimmage.

"His hands are incredibly soft. You can almost not feel them when they touch your body. I thought I like the rough hands of an everyday man like Brett Favre, but I also like the soft hands of any man named Peyton. If Favre's hands are like being touched by an old work glove, Hillis' hands are like the hands of an angel gliding on ice over your body."

MVP Watch

1. Philip Rivers, QB, San Diego. I'm stunned to have moved him to first overall, jumping over Brady and Manning.

Peter does realize he is in charge of selecting the players in his MVP Watch? I am not sure exactly how Peter's own conscious selection of a player as #1 in his MVP Watch can stun him.

3. Peyton Manning, QB, Indianapolis. Pretty soon, Dan Patrick and I will be running routes for Manning. In games.

Peter ran a marathon. You know, he's an athlete.

Flew the Delta Shuttle from Boston to New York Saturday afternoon for a weekend of work at NBC. I had a window seat and the woman next to me, maybe 22, fell asleep as soon as we boarded. She slept through the takeoff and didn't wake up until we were descending into LaGuardia Airport.

I didn't know quite how to handle a peculiar problem.

Peter fondled her while she was sleeping didn't he? Dammit Peter, hands to yourself on short flights!

This woman slept with her mouth wide open.

What did you do to her Peter? WHAT DID YOU DO TO HER?

and for much of the trip, her face was pointed in my direction. She'd apparently had a very long night the previous evening, or a morning with a few belts, because she smelled, well, all liquored-up. And for about 42 minutes, I had booze breath coming at me. I didn't do anything about it. For 42 minutes, you can stare out the window and read the paper and just hope your neck doesn't melt.

Or you could do what I would do and pop a breath mint or piece of gum in her mouth, which should would have to chew as she would woke up choking on it. Problem fixed. If she gets angry, at least you don't have her bad breath in your face.

a. Terrific nugget from Sunday morning's "NFL Matchup'' show: When Michael Vick was sandwiched five weeks ago and suffered a rib injury against Washington, a review of the coaches video found Vick should never have taken off to run. He had a crosser, from right to left, totally uncovered in the middle of the field and just never saw him. Great example of how Vick still doesn't see the whole field when he goes back to throw. For him to have a long career, he has to learn to scan the field better so he doesn't endure the kind of hits a quarterback is bound to receive if he takes off six or eight times a game, every week.

"For him to have a long career..." Vick is going to be 31 years old at the beginning of next season. If he isn't scanning the field better right now then I don't know if he is ever going to pick this up or not.

If you are wondering what games Peter watched this week (and he didn't watch all of them, which is fine, but that won't stop him from commenting in other parts of MMQB like he did watch them), let's look at what he did and didn't like this week:

What Peter liked (they go from C to K in his outline for what he liked from individual games):

c. Cleveland defensive tackle Ahtyba Rubin (bet you didn't know Ahtyba) beating a Pro Bowl-caliber guard, Stephen Neal, for a sack of Tom Brady.

d. What a catch by Aaron Hernandez, getting both feet down at the end line of the end zone to finish an acrobatic grab.

j. Wes Welker hit his PAT. His versatility knows no bounds.

From the New England-Cleveland game.

f. Not a bad set of hands on Raiders tackle Khalif Barnes, who caught a two-yard touchdown pass against the Chiefs for his first NFL catch.

k. Darren McFadden continues to dominate. He had 114 total yards Sunday. Where would the Raiders be without him?

From the Raiders-Chiefs game.

g. Santonio Holmes. Anyone else think he looked a little like Larry Fitzgerald in Super Bowl XLIII on that catch-and-run down the middle of the field in overtime?

h. Darrelle Revis held Calvin Johnson to one catch for 13 yards. Welcome to Revis Island, Megatron.

i. Nice try on the PAT, Ndamukong Suh. And not bad form, either.

From the Jets-Lions game.

So only one observation from the "like" category didn't come from one of three games on Sunday.

From the dislikes (they run A through E on dislikes from the individual game):

a. Cheap shot by Detroit corner Chris Houston, blindsiding Jets wideout Jerricho Cotchery way away from the ball at the end of a play -- with an official staring right at him.

c. Where is Santonio Holmes, Brian Schottenheimer? Call his number more often.

From the Jets-Lions game.

So of the 14 things Peter liked or disliked this week, 10 of them came from three games. This is an NFL expert who can really only speak to what he liked or disliked in 3 games in an admittedly busy week in the NFL...because he probably only watched enough of those games to comment.

7. I think I don't blame the Titans for picking up Moss. Not at all. This is the last-chance diner for Moss. There are already 20 to 25 teams that would never sign him to a multi-year deal in 2011 (his stated goal), and a few more teetering on the verge of never doing so. But it's worth the $3.3 million gamble for the Titans, whose coach has a chance (and I mean a chance -- there's no sure thing in the study of Mossology) to get a receiver who clearly will take some of the heat off an inexperienced receiver corps, and a group that will be without budding star Kenny Britt while he recovers from his hamstring injury.

I think it was a good move to sign Moss as well, but will Vince Young be able to throw the deep passes to Moss that he likes? The Titans offense is built around Chris Johnson, is Moss going to want to block for Johnson? More importantly, if Moss has a bad attitude, I don't know why the Titans are letting him potentially poison a guy like Kenny Britt. I know Britt is injured right now, but he's young and bringing Moss in takes away touches from Britt. It is a worthwhile gamble, but a gamble nonetheless.

9. I think Tom Brady has never forgotten where he's come from. I saw him the day after the World Series ended, which was also the day after Indianapolis and Houston played in the Monday night game. He said, "You see the game last night?'' I thought he meant the football game. I said I did see it. And he said: "How about those Giants!" Then I knew what he meant -- the San Mateo, Calif, native watched his Giants win the World Series for the first time in his life.

I'm a little confused as to why Tom Brady would give up on the San Francisco Giants because he plays for the Patriots? He's not a prince of a guy for still cheering for the team he grew up loving, that's what fans do. Peter has stated on repeated occasions that Brady goes back to California to be with his son and train in the offseason, so is it really that shocking and impressive he would be happy his favorite California-based MLB team won the World Series?

e. There simply is no actress alive with the skills, presence, beauty and grace of Grace Kelly. Saw Dial M For Murder' the other night for the first time. (Shame on me, after seeing Rear Window at least five times.)

What about Meryl Streep? Has Peter's love for Meryl Streep ended here? What has this world done to Peter's love for the versatile and wonderful Streep?

i. Ninety-four days 'til pitchers and catchers report.

Which means ninety-four days until we get more observations about baseball from Peter King. I can wait for this happen, no really I can. There's no need to rush it.

One side note: Roger Goodell will be at the stadium tonight, and if you have a hankering to see the commish or to ask him what magic bullet he has to bridge the labor gap, come on down to the parking lot outside Paul Brown Stadium. He'll be meeting fans around 5 p.m.

I'm sure that won't be a crowded scene at all. I'll just wander up to Goodell and ask him a question...like why is Jerry Richardson the only owner who values preparing for the lockout more than having a team worth watching on the field.