MMQB Review: If a Bar Closes and Peter Doesn't Leave, Does the Bar Really Close? Edition

Last week Bill Polian presented a "What-if" scenario to Peter King about how the Colts season would have turned out differently if the trade deadline had been moved back to Week 8 during the 2011 season. The Colts would have given up a third round draft, would have won 2-3 more games, Bill Polian could have possibly kept his job, and the Colts still would have missed the playoffs. Most importantly, if the Colts had won a few more games, Bill Polian would have possibly kept his job, even if it was the expense of the long-term health of the Colts franchise in giving up a 3rd round pick for a one-year rental quarterback. I've always been a bit on the fence about whether Bill Polian is the genius General Manager he's been made out to be and his willingness to give up a 3rd round pick for Kyle Orton to quarterback a team that has no shot of making the playoffs seems like an interesting decision to me. This week Peter reviews the offseason changes the Texans has made and apparently isn't very good at taking non-verbal cues.

Before I get to the state of the Texans, and the running back driving fantasy football players crazy

Any running back who shares carries with another running back?

Six years shouldn't be forever in the NFL,

The average player's time in the NFL amounts to 3-4 years if I am not wrong. So six years is a long time in the NFL.

The top 10 players in the 2006 NFL draft have been employed by 19 teams through six seasons -- the smart teams don't stay married to guys when either the marriage isn't working or the priorities have changed.

How the mighty have moved since 2006:

Player, Position: Teams (current one in bold)
1. Mario Williams, DE: Houston, Buffalo
2. Reggie Bush, RB: New Orleans, Miami
3. Vince Young, QB: Tennessee, Philadelphia, Buffalo
4. D'Brickashaw Ferguson, T: New York Jets
5. A.J. Hawk, LB: Green Bay
6. Vernon Davis, TE: San Francisco
7. Michael Huff, S: Oakland
8. Donte Whitner, S: Buffalo, San Francisco
9. Ernie Sims, LB: Detroit, Philadelphia, Indianapolis, Free agent
10.Matt Leinart, QB: Arizona, Houston, Oakland

This is the story in nearly every draft after 5-6 years. A few lottery picks end up not being franchise players or being too expensive for the team that drafted them to re-sign. The 2007 draft looks bad too since it happened only five years ago:

1. JaMarcus Russell- Oakland (out of the league)
2. Calvin Johnson-Detroit
3. Joe Thomas- Cleveland
4. Gaines Adams- Tampa Bay, Chicago
5. Levi Brown- Arizona
6. LaRon Landry- Washington, New York Jets
7. Adrian Peterson- Minnesota
8. Jamaal Anderson- Atlanta, Indianapolis, Cincinnati
9. Ted Ginn Jr- Miami, San Francisco
10. Amobi Okoye- Houston, Chicago, Tampa

That's 17 teams over 5 years.

Look at the 2008 draft:

1. Jake Long- Miami
2. Chris Long- St. Louis
3. Matt Ryan- Atlanta
4. Darren McFadden- Oakland
5. Glenn Dorsey- Kansas City
6. Vernon Gholston- New York Jets, Chicago
7. Sedrick Ellis- New Orleans
8. Derrick Harvey- Jacksonville, Denver, Cincinnati
9. Keith Rivers- Cincinnati, New York Giants
10. Jerod Mayo- New England

That's 14 teams for these 10 players. That's from 2008, which was four years ago. These high draft picks either stick with their team or have moved around because they are perceived to have talent. In the NFL, four years is a fairly long time. That's my point.

The 2007 draft has something in common with 2006: Four of the 10 top picks in each remain starters for the teams that drafted them. And there isn't a quarterback among the top 10 in those two drafts (Young, Leinart and JaMarcus Russell in 2007) still with the team that drafted him.

It's almost like the draft is a crapshoot in some ways.

But I bring you this list to make a point about the Houston Texans. They had a chance to re-sign the first pick in the 2006 draft, the man they hoped would be their defensive centerpiece and lead them to multiple division titles, Mario Williams. They let him walk.

A larger point that would also need to be made is the Texans have done a good job of drafting defensive players over the last few years. So they could afford to let Mario Williams walk, even though he's talented, because he has also had injury issues and they can come close replicating his production with other players on the roster. So he could have been the centerpiece of the defense, but his value slipped slightly to them once they drafted Cushing, Barwin and Reed.

For a team that finally won a division and a playoff game in its 10th season, the Texans certainly made a lot of changes. Two-fifths of a stalwart offensive line (right guard Mike Brisiel and right tackle Eric Winston) were allowed to walk. The right side of the linebacker group, Ryans and Williams, are gone too.

I personally believe the loss of two members of the offensive line is a bigger issue for the Texans than not re-signing an injury prone defensive end-turned-linebacker or a linebacker who doesn't fit the 3-4 defense. I think offensive line continuity is important, so I'm surprised Peter threw the fact the Texans lost the right side of their offensive line into this sentence so matter-of-factly.

Smith said he's studied NFL history at length, and he's studied business models of different business leaders. One that he's adopted is former GE boss Jack Welch's 20-70-10 philosophy: the top 20 percent of your employees are standouts and must be nurtured. The majority, the 70 percent, are the working class -- needed but still able to move if the right situation arises. The lowest 10 percent have to be churned and replaced, because a company always is looking for ways to get better by importing new blood.

This is an excellent business philosophy by the way. Jack Welch was always pretty good with business philosophies and as brutal as the 20-70-10 philosophy seems, it is a philosophy that translates well to sports.

As Brooks Reed and Barwin developed, Mario Williams suddenly became a part of the 70% to the Texans, but to the Bills he was part of the 20%. Since I don't harp on this enough, this is why Drew Brees signed the 6 year $60 million deal with the Saints in 2006 and the Chargers didn't make a bigger effort to give him a large contract. Because the Chargers had Phillip Rivers as the quarterback of the future, Brees had moved to the 70%. I think most of the NFL understands this, but I think it makes more sense if you think about it in business terms like this.

Smith didn't want to lose Williams, but it was a matter of economics; he had young guys who could get to the quarterback, maybe not as well as Williams. But all three combined wouldn't make what Williams was going to demand in free agency this year (he got a six-year, $100 million deal, with $50 million guaranteed).

This isn't a completely different concept from some of the Sabermetric principles some baseball teams use. If this were baseball, upon hearing this philosophy veteran baseball writers would grumble something under their breath about statistics taking over the game and then accusing Rick Smith of living in his mom's basement. Because there is a hard salary cap in football, using three players to replace one makes more sense to veteran writers. In baseball, where apparently money is limitless due to no hard salary cap, the allocation of players in this manner by using WAR causes veteran writers like Murray Chass to lose their shit.

History lesson with Norv Turner: He likes his backs to run a lot, and he doesn't care if the rest of the league is going to this consistent two-back business.

History lesson about Norv Turner: He is a great offensive coordinator. He is currently employed as a head coach, but he is a great offensive coordinator.

I'm going to have a little bit of a hard time thinking Norv Turner is a running back genius when over the past few years the Chargers have alienated LaDainian Tomlinson, let Michael Turner go in free agency, and let Darren Sproles go in free agency. I realize not all of these losses were preventable, but my larger point is they are all running backs who either weren't happy with the Chargers or had a great amount of success with another team, while the Chargers were looking for a consistent running threat.

Look at Turner's track record.

I sort of just did.

When he took over as Jimmy Johnson's offensive coordinator in 1991, Emmitt Smith's carries rose from 241 in 1990 to 365 in Turner's first year. In 2002 in Miami, the Dolphins had just acquired Ricky Williams and had just signed Turner as coordinator. Williams had his two biggest seasons for carries (383, 392) with Turner in Miami. And Frank Gore hit his career rushing high for attempts (312 carries) in Turner's only 49er season.

Not to pick nits, but these running back numbers were all accumulated when Norv Turner was an offensive coordinator and not a head coach. It probably doesn't matter, but I felt the need to add it.

"I really think this year's my time,'' Mathews said. "I see myself as one of the top backs in the league. Now I've got to go out and do it.''

I see myself as this nation's greatest writer, a humanitarian and the current leader for the 2016 Presidential race. Now I, much like Ryan Mathews, just have to match my own overly-optimistic belief about myself with reality. I'm guessing this won't be an issue.

The Chargers intend to feed Mathews as much as any back in the league. It'll be up to him to handle it.

Seeing as Mathews has had fumbling and injury issues in the past, I can't fathom what could go wrong with giving Mathews 400 touches in a season.

Now, more solid evidence that players were paid off the books in New Orleans

(Some New Orleans residents stick their fingers in their ears and scream) "Lalala, there's no proof."

As Williams handed some of the envelopes out, some players would chant: "Give it back! Give it back! Give it back!" Some would, to increase the pot and make the stakes bigger as the season went on. I also wrote that the NFL had evidence that one Saints player, late in the NFC title game in January 2010, when Brett Favre had been helped off the field, was heard on the sidelines to say: "Pay me my money!"

(Let's look at some of this evidence presented and see what excuse I would bet New Orleans residents or Saints fans could come up with to explain this so-called "evidence." I'm sure they would argue all of this is very innocent.)

See that last sentence is just street slang, not an attempt to collect on a bounty. "My money" means "my superior" or "my boss," much like money is what rules the world...hence the player refers to his boss as "my money" because the money rules him, much like a boss rules a person. This player was simply asking for a contract extension in the offseason. That's all. It's a money issue spoken about in street-slang.

Documentarian Sean Pamphilon, who was in the room during Williams' infamous speech to the team before last season's playoff game in San Francisco, had previously said Williams passed out money "for forced turnovers and big plays.'' He also said Williams rubbed his thumb and first two fingers together referring to putting a big hit on quarterback Alex Smith and saying, "I got the first one."

Not at all what Gregg Williams meant. Williams was rubbing his fingers together signifying Alex Smith was the #1 overall pick in the 2005 draft and got a huge contract as the #1 overall pick. Smith was also a free agent after the season. Williams was talking about ROSTER turnover and was telling the defense to not hit Smith too hard because he is going to come out of his own pocket to help pay for Smith's contract this offseason to secure Smith as Brees backup. Hence, "I got the first one," meaning I will help pay for the 2005 #1 overall pick to join the team as a backup next year. It's just a misunderstanding and concerned free agency.

Pamphilon, in a rambling blog entry the other day,

Really? Peter is criticizing someone else for rambling?

described Williams passing out envelopes for bonuses. Those payments are illegal by NFL rules, whether they were for performance-based accomplishments like turnovers or for bounty-related hits.

These envelopes weren't for bounty-related hits. These envelopes included a letter that was full of compliments to the players about how they played in the last game. Williams wrote a complimentary letter to each player and put it in an envelope with a piece of chocolate. These envelopes were about chocolate and team-building through politeness.

Pamphilon also confirmed how, while the envelopes were passed out, players chanted, "Give it back! Give it back!''

Easily explainable. The Saints players were chanting "Give it back!" because they wanted the players receiving the envelopes to compliment Gregg Williams on how well he coached the previous game. Really, this is just an issue of cordiality.

On Friday, Jason Cole of Yahoo! Sports reported the league has evidence that the Saints kept a ledger for each player, including tracking each player's number of cart-offs ($1,000 per debilitating hit) and "whacks" (hard hits), with money subtracted for mental errors.

It wasn't real money being used and this was not money for real games, but for cart-offs and "whacks" on the John Madden Football '92. We all know NFL players love playing video games and it gets pretty competitive. So Saints players were merely playing Madden '92 and paying each other in Monopoly money. I don't know why the NFL is punishing the Saints. Can players not participate in video games and use fake money from a popular board game in an attempt to incentivize victories on said video game?

Don't buy your dad, or your favorite father, anything for Father's Day (June 17) until you read the column next week.

Of course. Waiting until Monday to order something for Father's Day on Sunday is easily the most prudent course of action. After all, why figure out now what you want to purchase for your father when you can pay extra for 3-4 day shipping by waiting to see what Peter King thinks you should buy for your father?

In order to get the books you want, you'll have plenty of time to order via Amazon (I do it a lot, and the books, even via regular mail, take three days at the most)

And if your book happens to take longer, just blame Peter King. I'm sure your father will understand.

or by going to your hometown bookstore (my preferred mode of book shopping).

You mean all of those stores with books in them that are closing because everyone buys books online now?

"There was no bounty program in place. I never paid anybody, intended to pay anybody. That's the truth. Never sought out to injure people. That's the truth. That's really about it. I can't really go into detail."

-- New Orleans linebacker Jonathan Vilma in an impromptu interview with NFL.com's Ian Rapoport at the New Orleans airport last week. Good hustle by Rapoport.

Jonathan Vilma can't go into more detail because if he did go into more detail then he would really, really be lying instead of just sort-of lying.

Speaking of lying...here's Jim Harbaugh doing some lying:

"One other thing. There's the perception out there, and it's an erroneous perception, that we were flirting with Peyton Manning. I keep hearing that over and over and over again. It's silly and it's untrue. It's phony. Even the perception that we were pursuing him. We were evaluating him.

They were evaluating him with absolutely no intention of signing him of course. Head coaches and offensive coordinators often travel across the country to evaluate a quarterback they have absolutely no interest in signing.

Alex Smith is our quarterback, was our quarterback, and we had every intention of always bringing him back. There would be no circumstance that we would have let Alex Smith go.

Under no circumstance would the 49ers have let Smith go, other than if signing Peyton Manning, which is what the 49ers were actively attempting to do.

"Now, were we out there seeing, evaluating if we could have them both? Heck yeah.

Right, because quarterback is a position where you can have more than one starter. So by "having every intention of bring him (Smith) back" Harbaugh means "we were going to sign Peyton Manning and then have every intention of offering Smith a contract amount below what he wanted to receive as a starter in order to be the backup to Peyton Manning." If it came down to Manning or Smith, we know who would have been the starter. The answer is Peyton Manning.

And further evidence, we would not have given any player that was out there in free agency a sixth of our salary cap, and let six, or seven of our own guys go here.

So the 49ers weren't going to overpay for Peyton Manning? So I am to believe if Manning had chosen the 49ers they were going to say, "Thanks, but you are asking too much money?" Come on, they got in the Manning sweepstakes knowing he would be expensive. If Manning had chosen to play in San Francisco, the money would have worked itself out.

So, hopefully that sets the record straight and you don't have to keep reporting the silliness and phoniness."

-- San Francisco coach Jim Harbaugh.

As long as Harbaugh stops talking about Manning v. Smith, then no more silliness or phoniness will be reported.

Peter King then calls out Harbaugh for basically lying, except Peter doesn't call it lying. Of course the 49ers wanted to keep Smith and get Manning. That's natural, but Harbaugh knows if the 49ers had signed Peyton Manning they would never keep Alex Smith. Signing Manning to a large contract and then giving Alex Smith a chance to be the backup isn't wanting to keep Smith around. It's wanting to sign Peyton Manning and then hoping Alex Smith will stick around as the backup quarterback.

Mr. Starwood Preferred Member Travel Note of the Week

Otherwise known as "Peter King doesn't how to understand non-verbal cues."

Red-eying home from Los Angeles last Tuesday night. Flight leaves at 11:45 p.m. I get to the airport at 10:30 and go to the fish place/bar near the gate. I sit at a table for four and get my computer out. I have already eaten, so I order the most interesting of a group of drab beers on tap, Stella Artois.

A Stella Artois? BUT WHAT DID YOUR HUSBAND HAVE TO DRINK PETER?

At 10:50, a busboy comes around and starts putting chairs up on the tables. You know, the way chairs are put up at the end of a school day,

Or perhaps when a restaurant/bar is about to close?

The guy puts all three chairs up at my table, as if to say, Drink up, schmoe. We're closing soon. Except no one says anything.

Most likely because there wasn't anything to be said. As an experienced bar-closer, I know this is the universal way of saying, "We are closing. Drink fast because you will be leaving very soon."

Nothing needs to be said. This is the polite, non-verbal way of saying, "Get the hell out of here."

I give the guy a look and say, "Closing soon?'' He evidently doesn't speak English. He just shrugs.

That shrug, which apparently was another non-verbal cue, says the bar is indeed closing, as seen by freaking chairs being placed on the tables upside down, and he wishes someone had told you this before you got your computer out. Either way, the chairs being lifted upside down on the tables is a clear indicator the bar is closing.

Then, about five minutes later, the TVs go off.

This means, "please leave...now."

A minute later, about half the lights.

This means "Holy shit asshole, the only reason you aren't leaving right now is because you are just being a dick. Get the hell out of here."

A waitress goes to the front door and pulls down a metal gate to the place, then positions herself at a side door, which she loudly opens, and then just stands there.

At this point, Peter is just staying in the bar purely to piss the employees off. He knows this place is closing, but he just wants to be difficult and stay until they grab him by his head, look him in the eye and say, "Sir, we are closing." These are all non-verbal cues and Peter was confused by them at first and now he's just being an asshole about it all by not leaving.

I get the message. I pack up, walk out. Wouldn't it have been a little more civil to say, at 10:45, "Ladies and gentlemen, we'll be closing at 11. So everyone, please finish up. Thanks."

Perhaps the bar did that and Peter missed it because he was too busy typing away on his computer? Nah, this could never be Peter's fault he missed the announcement or can't seem to understand non-verbal cues.

"browns fun fact, Brandon Weeden will turn 29 this year, same age as Bernie Kosar when he was cut by Belichick in 1993 #Browns''

-- @phyland341, Patrick Hyland of Cleveland, with a good observation on a quiet Saturday.

I'm not sure this is a fun fact for Browns fans. Nothing like drafting a 28 year old quarterback in the first round. By the way, Aaron Rodgers also turns 29 this year. Like I've said before, this is good news for Colt McCoy. He is younger than Brandon Weeden and could still theoretically be the quarterback of the future.

2. I think that sound you heard Sunday morning around 11 Jacksonville time was the sound of the entire Jaguars ownership/front office/coaching group doing a collective "What the $#%&*@?''

Blackmon's breathalyzer test measured at .24, and according to the Tulsa World, he had a previous DUI arrest in 2010. Driving under the influence of three times the legal limit, and with a prior incident, will certainly put Blackmon in the NFL's substance abuse program, and rightfully so. Talk about questioning the intelligence of a player in which you've placed so much hope for your franchise.

The annoying part for Jaguars fans is that this is Blackmon's second DUI in the past two years. You have to wonder if an athlete is stupid before he becomes a millionaire, is money really going to make him any smarter? Blackmon should at least go through training camp with Blaine Gabbert passing him the ball before he starts drinking while attempting to forget the passes that will be one-hopped to him all season.

4. I think the first thing every NFL player should know is that most teams -- and perhaps all by now -- have programs that allow players access to rides 24 hours a day if they feel they're too impaired to drive.

Regular people have access to a similar program when you feel too drunk to drive. It is called "a cab" or choosing a designated driver. That's your social message for today.

a. Almost a very big day for Rex Ryan in Los Angeles today. It's the red carpet premiere of That's My Boy, the Adam Sandler movie in which Ryan makes his big-screen debut. I wrote about it last fall. Anyway, Sandler put two more scenes of Ryan's work in the final product than he'd originally planned, which may mean Rex should quit his day job.

I wish Adam Sandler would quit his day/night/weekend job of making movies. His last good movie was probably a little under a decade ago. Still people go to see his films and the quality seems to be declining very rapidly. At this point, I think Adam Sandler is seeing how bad of a film he can make that some people will still go see.

e. Daniel Bard Sunday in Toronto: 13 batters, six walks, two hit batsmen. Hope he's not getting Steve Blass disease.

Or he could just be a really shitty starting pitcher and works better coming out of the bullpen.

f. One of the best nights I've spent in a long time happened last Wednesday, when my wife and I saw the Broadway play Clybourne Park. Plays that make you think are good things. Great things, actually.

This one opens in a Chicago neighborhood in 1959, with the first black family buying a home there, and the second act is exactly 50 years later,

So the first black family EVER bought a home in 1959? There were no black families before 1959? You learn so much reading MMQB.

with a white yuppie family buying the beat-up home so they can, in effect, begin the gentrification of the neighborhood. A fabulous look at who we are and how we think about race relations. In my best theater-going voice, I'd say: Run, don't walk, to Clybourne Park.

Buying tickets for a flight to New York on short notice probably isn't very expensive at all. Let me go book one right now.

l. Coffeenerdness: If I had one selfish wish for New York City, it'd be that Peet's Coffee proliferated here. Being in L.A. reminded me how lucky you on the West Coast are, to be able to get Peet's in so many locales.

The best part about Peet's Coffee, and this is something everyone I know seems to universally agree upon, is how when you open the coffee bag up the grounds smell exactly like a pile of horseshit. After being brewed, the coffee is pretty good, but the grounds smell like someone left a pile of turds in the corner of a male locker room.

m. The mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg, is under attack because he wants to eliminate the ability of fast food places to sell super-sized sugary drinks. Under attack is putting it nicely. The papers are killing him. I think Bloomberg's doing the right thing. You can't fight the obesity epidemic in this country by suggesting mild solutions. You've got to fight it. And Bloomberg's trying. Good for him. And if people don't like it, then tax soda. Tax the daylights out of it, the way we tax cigarettes.

I'm fine with taxing the soda. I drink two sodas a day and am completely and utterly addicted to them. I would possibly switch to one soda a day if the price was jacked up. I don't particularly agree with trying to fight the obesity epidemic by preventing McDonald's from selling the super-sized sugary drinks. Mostly because if someone is eating at McDonald's it isn't necessarily the sugary drink that will hurt them, it is the food they are eating as well. I don't think you can stop people from becoming obese. If it isn't super-sized sugary drinks it will be something else that make people obese. For some reason, Americans love to over-eat or eat food that is terrible for them. I don't know how to stop this without creating a food police state.

n. Buddy of mine told me the other day, "Remember when we used to have the classic eight-ounce bottle of Coke that people used to drink? It was kind of a special thing. All Bloomberg's trying to do is to ban people from drinking more than twice that in the same sitting. What's wrong with that?''

Other than you are banning them from being able to choose what they get to eat and drink...nothing is wrong with this. If sugary drinks are legislated, people will find another way to get fat.

o. I'm not the biggest basketball fan, as you know. But I'd pay to see Rajon Rondo play, and I might pay quite a bit.

Well gosh, as a basketball fan this means nothing to me.