7 comments MMQB Review:

Last week in MMQB, Peter King informed us the Vikings should have drafted Aaron Rodgers in 2005 instead of making two draft choices that were used (failingly) to fix two holes in the Vikings roster. Despite the fact the Vikings had Daunte Culpepper coming off a great year and had no need for a quarterback, Peter thinks the Vikings regret not being able to predict the future and drafting Rodgers to back up Culpepper. Later in his mailbag, Peter made it clear he wasn’t criticizing the Vikings, just pointing out what they did wrong. I’m sure there’s a difference, but it sure sounded like second-guessing and criticizing to me.

This week in MMQB, Peter identifies the most disappointing team in the NFL. It is the Philadelphia Eagles. Interestingly, just two weeks ago in one of the “truths” he wrote for MMQB Peter was wondering who the second best team in the NFL happened to be. Guess who is dark horse team was? The Philadelphia Eagles. Let's see what Peter said about them two short weeks ago...

2. Second-best: I don't totally trust anyone. Niners? Steelers? Patriots, assuming they can play a shootout? Or everyone's not-so-darkhorse this morning, Philadelphia?

Then Peter puts the Eagles 8^th in his power rankings and wonders how they lost four games in a row.

8. Philadelphia (3-4). I believe Arlen Specter will begin an investigation this morning into how on God's green earth the Eagles could ever have lost four games in a row.

Everyone can be wrong about a team, but this was two weeks ago. Two weeks ago Peter had them as the 8^th best team in the NFL and possibly the 2^nd best team. Two losses later they are the most disappointing team in the NFL. Losing to Arizona will do that to you.

Before we get to the teams still playing for something, I bring you the most disappointing team of recent years, the 2011 Philadelphia Eagles. In the span of seven days at home, the Eagles blew their season by doing what they've done all year: disappear down the stretch.

The 3-6 Eagles have been to fourth quarters what John Lackey is to baseball free agency.

OUR FREE AGENT BUST IS THE BIGGEST FREE AGENT BUST OF ALL-TIME!

Then Peter details the five 4th quarter losses for the Eagles this year. Of course, only one of the losses came after the Eagles were up more than 6 points, so it isn’t like the Eagles are blowing large leads. They just are getting outscored in the 4^th quarter, which I know doesn't make Eagles fans feel any better.

Victories since Oct. 23: Tebow 3, Tom Brady/Michael Vick/Philip Rivers (combined) 2.

I always dislike it when a writer throws out a meaningless statistic like this. What’s the point? Is Peter saying Tim Tebow is a better quarterback than these three quarterbacks combined? So what’s the point of the statistic if it isn’t intended to prove anything? It just shows three top quarterbacks haven't won a lot of games lately, while Tebow's team has. There's no solid conclusion attempting to be proven or no real information take away that tells us something interesting about Tebow/Vick/Rivers/Brady's performance in relation to why they haven't won more games. Therefore it is meaningless to me..

5.Get the ticker-tape ready, Indy: The 2012 Draft is 23 weeks away, and you can't lose Andrew Luck now. The Colts are one of the worst offensive teams the league has seen in years. Proof: They went to Dan Orlovsky Sunday for a spark. More proof: They've been outscored 137-27 over the last four weeks. But as I said on NBC last night, Indy's all but clinched the first pick in the April draft. The Colts have 10 losses, with games at New England, Baltimore and home with Houston remaining. No other team in football has more than seven losses. It's almost inconceivable that the Colts could lose the first pick now.

I can't lie. I want to see the Colts draft Andrew Luck and then see if there are any fireworks if Peyton Manning comes back healthy. Nothing may happen and we will get to read 4,329 stories about how Peyton Manning is tutoring Andrew Luck and will make him into the greatest quarterback in the history of the world we all know Luck will eventually be. There is a 5% chance of some fireworks with Manning not being ready to retire and Luck wanting to start immediately. I just can’t wait to see which side the media takes on this. Of course after about a week I would be tired of this Luck-Manning story and probably complain it is overblown, but that’s beside the point.

We media geniuses have had our fun in the last few weeks. Tebow will never make it. Tebow can't transition to the NFL.

He completed two passes yesterday. Two passes. You may have noticed, but I consider myself somewhat of a John Fox expert. I’m probably not, but I have watched him coach long enough to feel like I know what he’s doing on offense. Fox is a great coach, but yesterday’s game against the Chiefs reminded me of the Panthers-Falcons game where Carolina ran the Wildcat for most of the game and Chris Weinke threw 7 passes the entire game. The reason Weinke didn’t throw more passes is because Fox didn't trust Weinke to throw. I feel like that's the situation we have in Denver now.

Tebow's game is a college game. The Broncos are playing the guy just to show the fans it can't work, and then they'll move on to a real quarterback.

Yes, Tebow is playing well enough to win. At some point, teams are going to figure out the read-option offense and force the Broncos to play from behind. I saw it for quite a few years here in Carolina. John Fox is one of the best coaches in the NFL when his team has a slight lead or the game is even. He’s a great situational coach. Carolina always seemed to struggle (especially in the later years of the Fox era) when they got behind.

The problem with the Broncos/Tebow is a team (better than the Dolphins) are going to hit them in the face at the beginning of the game and the Broncos can’t come back (see the Detroit game from two weeks ago). Tebow is going to have to win a game by throwing more passes and once teams force him to do this, then we will see his real NFL prospects. Let’s not overreact to these last two wins just like we overreacted when the Lions blew the Broncos out. Congrats to Tebow for playing well enough to win (I hate that cliche), but the offense the Broncos are running will work very well as long as they aren't behind more than 10 points. I know Tebow already came back against Miami, but I don't think the Broncos can count on that situation happening again.

From my experience watching Fox, he is showing the fans what Tebow can do, but Denver is winning games. Tebow is playing well enough to win games, but he hasn’t thrown for a 50% completion rate, hasn’t thrown for 200 yards and is averaging 6.67 yards per pass attempt. Unless you believe the Broncos are going to revolutionize the NFL by continuing these numbers, Tebow will have to improve his passing if the Broncos will continue to win games. Tebow is one of those guys that cause an overreaction to everything he does. Teams adjust to quarterbacks and the way an offense is being run. The Broncos are playing very well to Tebow’s strengths right now, but the real question is what happens when these strengths are game planned against.

"We got shellacked,'' Fox told me. "We were so one-dimensional, and we were banging our heads against the wall. I remember back in '06 in Carolina, we had a bunch of injuries, we were losing and we had to go play a really good Atlanta team. We basically invented the Wildcat for Chris Weinke that week and went into Atlanta and won the game. So here, we just figured let's try to do what Tim's comfortable with.

Fox references the exact game I was referencing earlier. Shouldn’t it be a bit of a warning sign that John Fox just compared what he did with Tebow in Sunday's game to what he did with Chris Weinke as his quarterback? To me, as a Fox-ologist, it tells me he doesn’t trust Tebow to throw the football. I’ll let you decide how good of a long-term plan this ends up being. Tebow is growing as a quarterback, but let’s not act like Fox trusts Tebow or the current offensive game plan is going to be sustainable over the next few years. The Broncos have won a couple of games with a game plan built for Tebow's strengths, but I question whether it is sustainable over the season.

So in the last couple of weeks, practices have been different for the Broncos. "Lot of dive options, pitches, play action, trying to get Eddie Royal the ball wide,'' Fox said. "Practicing what Tim does well, and oh yeah, I'd say that part [of the gameplan the last two weeks] has grown.''

I give Fox and his staff a lot of credit for playing to Tebow’s strengths. I didn’t expect Fox to do this because he refused to do it in Carolina.

I expected to hear the "yeah but'' at some point from Fox -- like, This is great, but it can't last long-term. Instead, I heard in Fox's voice, Why can't we win this way?

Absolutely. Do it until teams prove they can stop it. It’s just at that point when Tebow starts passing the ball around the field when we can determine what kind of quarterback Tebow is. From an outsider’s perspective it looks like Fox doesn’t trust Tebow to pass the ball and that doesn’t bode well for the future. I’m worried about the obvious lack of trust Fox has in Tebow passing the ball and I think even in their glee of winning games Broncos fans should be somewhat concerned too.

The situation: Overtime, 23-23, Falcons ball, fourth-and-a-foot at the Atlanta 29. Smith sent out the punt team. Then he changed his mind and decided to go for it. He had a 245-pound back, Michael Turner, and an interior line he trusted to get a foot. Smith knew, of course, that if the Falcons failed, the game was over. If they gained nothing in the next three plays, the Saints would send out John Kasay to win it with a 46-yard dome kick; just a few yards would put him in the lock zone.

I liked Mike Smith’s move personally, just like I liked Belichick’s move to go for it on fourth down against the Colts last year. Of course, Gregg Easterbrook is going to criticize the Falcons for not using motion and he will say that’s why they didn’t get the first down. I’m sure the inability of the Falcons to get a first down had everything to do with a lack of motion and nothing to do with the penetration of the Saints defensive line.

Regardless, I wouldn’t want to give the ball back to Drew Brees in overtime. So while the move was risky, I saw why Mike Smith would choose to go this route.

• If Atlanta punted the ball, the numbers say New Orleans would start its drive on its own 33-yard line, and the Falcons would have a 42 percent chance of winning the game. If they went for it on fourth down, they had a 47 percent chance of winning.

• If Atlanta went for it on fourth down, they had a 74 percent chance of making it. But, as Burke pointed out, that includes all fourth-and-one calls, including fourth-and-inches and fourth-and-a-yard-and-a-half.

• If Atlanta went for it and got the first down, they had a 57 percent chance of winning. If they went for it and failed, an 18 percent chance of winning.

Regardless, I wouldn’t want Drew Brees to have the ball back in this situation and the Falcons have built their team to convert short yardage downs. They are a power running team. While the move by Smith was controversial, I very well would have made the same choice in the situation. The temptation is to punt the ball and make Brees drive 45 yards to get into field goal range, but I am with Mike Smith in believing the Falcons could have converted the fourth-and-one. To me, the decision for Smith was probably less about not wanting to give the ball back to Brees and more about having confidence his team could get the first down on a short yardage play.

Imagine some of the playoff matchups. Niners against Matt Forte. Niners against Michael Turner ... or the Niners shutting down Green Bay's run and making Aaron Rodgers throw it 45 times. I might pay to see that one.

Hey NFL fans, that potential 49ers-Packers matchup in the playoffs is so good that Peter may actually pay to see the game. He doesn’t usually have to pay to see NFL games because he gets that type of shit for free. Free food, free tickets to a game in the press box? The food in the press box is good. Don't believe Peter? Go ask Jerry Jones and he will tell you. 49ers-Packers sounds so good to watch that Peter may actually dip into his pocket as if he were just a normal person and not the NFL insider he is to watch the game.

OR...I could be overreacting and Peter was just using a phrase that describes how exciting he thinks this game will be.

Retired players not pleased with Legacy Fund

The NFL and the NFL Players Association announced Thursday a plan, pursuant to the July labor agreement, to distribute $620 million over 10 years to the men who played before 1993, the players who had been getting pittances for their pensions.

I’m very torn on this issue. The NFL pension isn’t very good when compared to pensions in other sports, so that part of it I completely can side with the retired players. There isn’t enough money coming to them. I guess the part I struggle with is the pension amounts were increased and it doesn’t seem like the retired players are happy about it at all. It didn't get increased compared to other sports, but the pension was increased and there is still complaining. So I think the NFL pension should be where other sports’ pension plans are, but I would think NFL retirees would be happy with the increase they got, especially since most companies in the real world don’t have a pension plan anymore. I'd almost be happy I even got a pension.

I put pen to paper over the weekend to figure out the increases for long-retired players. Hall of Fame running back Leroy Kelly, for instance, played 10 seasons, retiring in 1973. He is 69. Kelly had been receiving a monthly check for $176. (So low because he'd chosen to take his monthly pension at 45 instead of waiting 10 or 15 years for it to mushroom.)

I like the picture of Peter putting the pen to the paper. I can see him with a graphing calculator (do they still make those), amortization chart, and a blackboard, while wearing glasses and chewing on the end of a pencil trying to figure out a mathematical equation.

That was Leroy Kelly’s decision, so he can’t complain completely about the size of his check because he took money out of the account before it grew. If I take money out of my retirement accounts when I am in my mid-40’s I can’t start bitching I don’t get much money because there wasn’t much money in there to begin with. Unfortunately, this is a part of having a retirement account. Even if you retire early, you can't draw money out of the money or it could affect the balance you are able to withdraw in the future. So while I agree with the retired players’ position, they also have to realize if they took money out early they are going to have a smaller monthly disbursement to them every month.

That's a 945 percent increase. Now, instead of getting $2,112 a year in pension, Kelly will receive $22,080 annually.

That’s a substantial increase. Is it enough? Probably not, but for a group of people who are used to living on 1/10 of what they have now, I would think they would be happy. I would be wrong.

A minute later, Kelly finally said: "Anything is better than nothing, I guess. I think the [retired] guys are happy to get something more, but it's just not enough. The NFL takes in, what, $4 billion more than baseball in a year? Baseball players have a great pension. I can't understand why we can't get at least $60,000 a year for the work we've done in making this sport what it is.''

This is a valid point. One of the reasons Kelly can’t get $60,000 a year is because he chose to take money out early. I hope he realizes this. I'm not saying this excuses the small (compared to other sports) payment every month, but for Leroy Kelly this needs to be kept in mind.

I spoke with a baseball union lawyer, Rick Shapiro, on Sunday, and he told me a 10-year veteran baseball player who retired any season in the '70s would be getting a pension of between $112,000 and $200,000, depending on the prevailing rate of return on the pension plan's investments. Let's use $112,000. That's still $90,000 more per year than a similar NFL player would get.

I absolutely agree NFL players should be getting more money every single year from their pension. I guess my biggest issue why I wouldn’t side with them as much is the prevailing attitude from guys like Kelly who complain about their pension and chose to take money out of the plan early. I don’t know how many of these players there are, but those who took money out early need to also realize they had to pay a cost for doing so. Not to sound harsh, but many of these players have been managing to live for a few decades on the small pension so I would think any bump in monthly payments would be well received.

5. Baltimore (6-3). I give up. Wins over the Steelers, Jets, Texans and Steelers. Losses to the Titans, Jags, Seahawks (combined 11-16). You figure out where to put the Ravens. I can't. But I can't put them behind a team they've beaten twice.

Peter doesn't know where to put the Ravens. Peter does know to put the Ravens ahead of a team they have beaten once though (the Texans) and ahead of every single team that has beaten them. So he must have some idea of where to put the Ravens. Also, doesn't #5 in a power poll seem like a really high spot for a team Peter has no idea where to place.

Coaches of the Week

Denver coach John Fox and offensive coordinator Mike McCoy.

I love coaches who tailor their teams to their talent, and not the other way around. Fox and McCoy saw the holes in Tebow's passing game and began practicing options and pitches in the last three weeks in practice. On Sunday, they won a game with 55 of their 63 plays runs. Fantastic.

Five years ago when Fox did the same thing in a game his team won and this team ran the ball on 52 of the 63 plays it didn’t even merit a mention in MMQB. The power of Tebow gives this game plan more importance. His mere presence takes a situation from not even meriting a mention to making John Fox one of the “Coaches of the Week.”

Now for the MVP Watch:

3. Tom Brady, QB, New England. Pats haven't lost three straight since the first year Brady was a full-time starter. Doubt it's a coincidence.

Bleacher Report says any semi-accurate quarterback could run the Patriots offense and do exactly what Brady does. So I am sure this is a coincidence and isn’t attributable in any way to Brady’s skill level.

4. Justin Smith, DL, San Francisco.

Peter puts Justin Smith as fourth in the MVP voting? I have as much respect for Justin Smith and defensive players as any person, but this seems a bit high for him. This would make Justin Smith the Defensive Player of the Year in the NFL. Not sure I see that with 35 tackles and 4.5 sacks.

Walking down Second Avenue in Manhattan about 11:30 Sunday morning, I noticed three 25ish people walked toward me. A woman was flanked by a man in a black Maurkice Pouncey Steelers jersey and a man in a black Hines Ward Steelers jersey. They seemed to be in search of a Steelers bar to watch the Pittsburgh-Cincinnati game. The guy in the Ward jersey was singing, "Here we go, here we go, Pittsburgh's goin' to the Super Bowl.''

If you've been in Pittsburgh to see the Steelers, you know exactly what that song is.

Annoying?

1. I think this is what I liked about Week 10:

a. Aaron Curry looks reborn rushing the passer in Oakland. He's playing much faster and freer than he did in Seattle.

Maybe one day he will sack the quarterback more and become an NFL player worth a shit. Peter King still waits for that day to come.

g. Mister Alexander's in the game!

Non-white people name their children such funny things!

i. FOX had a good stat about Drew Brees in the second half: He's completed at least 20 passes in 30 straight games. All I could think when I saw that is that Tim Tebow has a long way to go.

Well to be fair, every NFL quarterback has a long way to go if this is the standard being set.

e. I don't like struggling all through the half, being down 16-0, having fourth-and-goal at the five ... and going for the touchdown. If you miss, you're demoralized. You kick the field goal, and you're on the board, two possessions away from the lead. Raheem Morris did it just before halftime -- and failed -- and went into halftime down 16-0.

Thanks Gregg Easterbrook.

h. Why passer rating is overrated (and maybe this should be the final straw for me to stop using it so much): When Tebow threw his fourth-quarter touchdown pass to Eric Decker, he was 2 of 8 for 69 yards, with one touchdown and no interceptions. His rating: 102.6. Brady's rating for the season: 102.0.

I can agree with the sentiment about passer rating, but this is another somewhat meaningless comparison. Peter seems to do this a lot. Throw a comparison out into the universe and never tell us exactly what he is wanting to prove by making the comparison. So what is the point here? If the point is that passer rating is overrated, that’s fine, but there is a difference in the sample sizes on passes thrown for 2011 in regard to Tom Brady and Tim Tebow. That in itself makes the comparison misleading and meaningless.

9. I think these are my Penn State thoughts.

Oh goody, I can’t wait.

Hanging on the way Paterno did was not gallant; it was selfish. I admire his giving and his devotion to the university, and I believe he deserved better than to be fired on the phone Wednesday night, particularly because there's so much we don't know about the case that caused him (justifiably) to be terminated. But he'd hung on way too long. The New York Times had a telling photo the other day of Paterno at practice last week, sitting on his golf cart -- and appearing to be asleep.

Damn, Peter is criticizing Paterno even outside of the whole Sandusky incident. I wonder when Paterno said something negative about Brett Favre to draw Peter’s ire?

Then Peter gives his opinion on Paterno and doesn’t really say anything new and poses a bunch of unanswerable questions (ex. What did Paterno know and when did he know it? Could he have done more?). It's not a knock against Peter, but we've heard many of these same questions over the last week.

c. I don't think this should be a country of guilty until proven innocent, and I'm having a little problem with the angry national supposition that Sandusky is suspect 1 and Paterno 1a.

I don’t know if the national supposition is this. Mostly it seems people aren’t making Paterno suspect 1a, but wondering he could have stopped more children from getting in Sandusky’s grasp if he had done more. Not ironically, this is one of the very questions Peter himself asks when discussing this situation. So Peter is asking many of the same questions he sees others asking which makes him think they are making Joe Paterno suspect 1a.

10. I think these are my non-football thoughts of the week:

a. St. John's starts a JuCo transfer named God's gift Achiuwa. He is from Nigeria. His father is a minister, and God's gift was named for the family's devotion to God.

Non-white people have the funniest names for their children!

I could not stop howling at Jerry Seinfeld's 50-minute set. Never saw him do standup live. Big mistake. "One thing I got out of the 2011 season as a Mets fan: Found out there are three Gatorades,'' he said, and revved into how, for years, the "green bilge water'' (his words) sufficed, and now we have to drink something before, during and after our workouts to survive. You had to be there.

Thanks for telling us the story you had to be there to get. I guess the important part Peter wanted to mention was he got to hear Jerry Seinfeld do standup live. I’d want to know more jokes, but I wasn’t there.

k. Jonathan Papelbon? I'll miss him. But at some point, I'm glad to see some slight fiscal responsibility for a guy who was pretty adventurous a quarter of the time, maybe more.

I am sure this isn’t just hyperbole considering Papelbon had a 0.933 WHIP this year. That’s a pretty low WHIP for a guy who was an adventure a quarterback of the time or more. Maybe there were a lot of really tough, adventurous at-bats this past year. I wasn't able to see every Red Sox game, but an adventurous save 25% of the time really unusual anyway? I guess it depends on your definition of "adventurous."

On a side note, excellent closers like Papelbon was last season, aren't incredibly easy to find.

Green Bay 37, Minnesota 19. In games like this one, which I don't expect to be competitive for four quarters,

Yeah, but we get to listen to Jon Gruden announce a game. Let me tell you, this guy is just a tough announcer. This guy knows exactly what to say when a play occurs and what does and doesn’t need to be said. For my money, he’s the greatest announcer I’ve ever heard until I hear another announcer, which I will then proclaim that announcer as the best ever. This guy's just fantastic.