Friday, May 30, 2014

2 comments MMQB Review: A Very Non-Specific Brady Interview

Peter King finally mentioned that Gregg Williams went to the St. Louis Rams as their defensive coordinator in last week's MMQB. I was wondering when he was going to get around to it. He also told his readers why St. Louis was the perfect place for Michael Sam and eased slowly into the mid-summer lull that will become MMQB. This week Peter talks about Tom Brady, Jim Irsay (while not acknowledging how he treats Irsay and a player differently when they both get picked up for driving while impaired), the Redskins name debate, and marvels at all all of the food trucks in Portland. 

On this Memorial Day, we pause to remember the 1.3 million American soldiers who have died in war since our founding, and the 1.5 million who have been wounded. Thank you. Thank you again, to all who have served and sacrificed, and to those who now serve and sacrifice.

These soldiers fight hard for American freedom so that Peter King can bitch about having to wait too long in line for coffee and have the freedom of speech to eavesdrop on the conversation of strangers while in public. I'm sure this is inspiring news for them to know.

American, land of the free, home of the brave, and that guy just took his shoes off on a plane right in front of Peter! No man should have to endure such an indignity while flying first class, drinking wine other people have served him and reading the paper! This is America, not some third-world country where they don't wear shoes!

Sometimes, Tom Brady gets slapped in the face that he’s still a pretty big deal, even with no Super Bowl titles for going on a decade now. His charity of choice, Best Buddies, which fosters relationships and employment training for those with intellectual and developmental disabilities, asked him to make a trip to Houston for a private Best Buddies dinner and auction. “I sat next to this man’s wife at dinner, and it was a really good night,” Brady said. “He’s been very supportive of Best Buddies, and he was that night.”...Not bad: Half a day in Houston, almost a million bucks for the charity he’s passionate about. Which left him grateful, and a little dazed about raising that much in Texans country, half a country away from his team.

Because it's impossible to believe someone from Texas who wants to support a charity would do so if the benefit of supporting the charity is to play in a touch football game with Tom Brady. I am not a huge fan of Tom Brady, but would I pay a lot of money (assuming I had any money) to play touch football with him? I probably would. So it's not weird in Texans country for a guy to want to play football with a Hall of Fame quarterback of an opposing team.

“I shake my head about a lot of things these days,” Brady said.

We know what you mean, Tom. We get it. I can't believe Blake Bortles went #3 in the draft either.

The other day he used his 6:20 a.m. drive from Boston to Foxboro to talk about his present and future, but not to dish very specifically about anything.

Oh great! Please feel free to re-print this entire interview. I love to hear athletes talk in generalities about what may or may not happen in the future without handing out specific information.

Said Brady: “It’s hard to explain this to people, but the commitment I make, in terms of keeping my body in shape and my nutrition right, should make me healthy. I feel better today than when I was 25, and I know that’s hard for people to believe, but I do. I work at it. Basically, I work all off-season to prepare my body to not get hurt. I can’t help the team if I’m on the sidelines. I’ve got to be durable.”

Smart man. Tom Brady remembers how he got the starting quarterback job for the Patriots and sees why Alex Smith is now playing quarterback in Kansas City and not San Francisco. He's a California boy and remembers the move from Joe Montana to Steve Young. Gotta stay healthy and gotta stay productive. That's the key to not getting replaced.

So he works with House, the former baseball pitcher and maestro to many pro quarterbacks and major-league pitchers, and he is diligent about his eating and fitness. But beyond that, he’s not going to help you with specifics.

Thanks for the interview then, Peter! It seems Peter interviewed Tom Brady and the biggest takeaway he wants to share with his readers is "You aren't going to learn anything." This is the sign of a real sportswriter, digging deep into a subject and refusing to run the interview until he is sure the reader has learned something new or---I'm just kidding of course. Peter got an interview with Tom Brady. That's all that matters when it's put in a headline. It gets pageviews. Day done, where's that Allagash White beer?

Does it work? You be the one to judge. Watch me play. Then draw your own conclusions.”

Don't yell at me! Would you dare talk to Gisele like that?

Then Peter shows numbers that explain Brady is better post-knee surgery than he was pre-knee surgery. What he doesn't show is why this proves he's overrated as a quarterback and the one season Matt Cassel started for the Patriots proves that!

(I'm kidding about that. My post from years ago about why Tom Brady is not overrated still gets randomly linked places from time-to-time, followed by the same argument that's been going on for six years now...I just enjoy re-hashing the argument from time-to-time)

Bill Belichick waded into the second round to take Jimmy Garoppolo of Eastern Illinois, his highest pick of a quarterback in the time that Brady has been his starter. It’s the second time Belichick has spent a fairly high pick on a passer in recent years. In 2011 he used the 74th overall selection on Ryan Mallett. This year Garoppolo was the 62nd overall choice.

There is a difference in Belichick drafting Mallett, who was considered a value pick at #74, and Garoppolo, who went a little higher than expected by some "experts" but still around the time he was projected to be drafted. Belichick has intentions with the Garoppolo pick I don't think he had with the Mallett pick.

Though Brady is entering his 13th starting season, he hopes Belichick’s just wasted another pick on Garoppolo.

Don’t expect Brady to ever say that. But there’s no question that’s how he feels.

Wait, so Tom Brady may not want to be replaced as the Patriots starting quarterback? I just learned something new. I was promised no specifics and no learning in this interview with Brady.

“I had a pretty good idea we’d take a quarterback,” Brady said. “Coach Belichick doesn’t care who the quarterback is here. He’s always going to play the guy who he thinks gives him the best chance to win.

I bet some Patriots fans wish they could say the same thing about Belichick's attitude towards the Patriots receiving corps.

Three other Brady quickies:

Author's note: This is much different from the Favre quickies and Manziel quickies (Peter hopes) that Peter can not talk about in MMQB. This is a family column and it's too early for Peter to hope that Manziel feels the same way Favre felt about him. Sure, he's older now and the age difference is even more pronounced. But feelings don't age at the rate humans do and Peter knows how he feels, even as Manziel prances around at parties with co-eds. That's temporary and what Peter feels about Johnny Manziel is real and permanent. It won't go away and it can certainly last through the advances of a few whore-ish 20-something girls who don't nearly have the amount of money and pull in the NFL that Peter has. Have your fun now, Johnny, Peter is coming for you later. He'll sweep you up in his arms and carry you away from Browns training camp when the time is right.

On the nine-year Super Bowl-win drought: “It’s hard to win. Thirty-two teams are working hard to try to win it every year, and we’ve been close … 14-2, the Super Bowl in 2011, the AFC Championship Game in 2012 and 2013. You get to those games, and you have to play your best to win, and we haven’t. I haven’t. We had too many opportunities we missed last year in Denver. And then what it comes down to is only one team really had a great season at the end.”

I recognize this is obvious, but it's really fucking hard to win a Super Bowl. A lot of things have to go right, few things have to go wrong, and it's hard to be on the right side in a one-off playoff game. Other teams practice and prepare for the games too. So if Tom Brady retires with three Super Bowls and never wins another one, then he's had a hell of a career. If winning a Super Bowl were easy, every team could do it.

Now he was in Foxboro. The clock struck 7.

And at 7, much like Cinderella, Peter turns into a cafe latte.

Last question: “How’s it been to work and throw against Darrelle Revis so far?”

“I’m tired of throwing against him, that’s for sure,’’ Brady said. “I did tell him, ‘Hey, we plan on building a couple of hotels on your island over there, so don’t be offended.’ “

Then after they build the hotels on Revis Island, Tom Brady and Gisele will frolic with their children on the island, riding jet skis, and holding hands walking down the beach.

Most prevalent question from the NFL public over the past four months: What’s taking Roger Goodell so long to bring the hammer down on Jimmy Irsay and Ray Rice?

He's so busy suspending guys for serious violations like smoking marijuana he doesn't have time to deal with players who do such menial things like strike their wife or drive around drunk.

I believe sooner, rather than later, Irsay will be suspended and heavily fined by Goodell for violating the league’s personal-conduct policy. Under Goodell, the NFL has almost always waited until the legal process played out on a first-offense with a player or other league or team employee.

Except for the case of Ben Roethlisberger of course.

This is Irsay’s first legal offense. But I don’t think Goodell is going to wait much longer, and I don’t believe Goodell will let Irsay have his day in court before he sanctions the Colts owner.

Wait, so Peter's excuse is that Goodell is waiting for the legal process to play out, but Peter thinks Goodell will suspend Irsay before the legal process plays it self out? Goodell is either waiting for the legal process to take its course or he isn't. It's A or B. If Goodell is waiting for the end of the legal process, then wait, but don't claim that's what he's doing and then say Goodell will suspend Irsay before the legal process plays out.

Goodell could choose to wait until the case is adjudicated; that has been his M.O. But there’s enough that’s solid now for him to make his call, and there’s the specter of letting an owner own while a damning case drags through the legal system, if it does drag.

So basically there is no real policy about letting the case play out and Goodell's reaction depends on each individual case and the evidence brought against a player/owner in that case, as opposed to waiting for the legal system to run it's course?

Early this month, when I was in Atlanta covering the Falcons’ draft, I ran into a retired player who launched into a screed on Irsay and how the NFL hadn’t disciplined him yet. “When that discipline comes, he ought to be tested daily,’’ the player railed. “If they can test a player 10 times a month, an owner should be tested more.”

Every time Jim Irsay pees, his urine should immediately be drug tested. In fact, if Irsay breathes then that breath should be submitted to a Breathlyzer.

Goodell has to be considering a large fine and removing Irsay from any involvement with the Colts for months. But any penalty that doesn’t included future random testing will be dangerous and wrong-headed.

Of course Goodell will have removed Irsay from any involvement with the Colts AFTER he gets to participate in the 2014 draft and AFTER he is able to attend the pitch to bring the 2018 Super Bowl to Indianapolis, but that's probably just me being nit-picky.

Does Goodell really want to risk the specter of an impaired Irsay staggering in after a three-game losing streak and firing his coach and general manager?

I'm not entirely sure this would happen. I would like to hear Peter explain why he discusses Irsay being pulled over for driving erratically in terms of him having a problem, yet discusses an NFL player like Josh Gordon or Greg Hardy's use of alcohol or marijuana purely in football terms?

There is a growing picture emerging of what happened that night. As Chris Mortensen has reported, sources say Rice and Palmer both were physically aggressive in the elevator. Who hit whom first? What does it matter? Palmer was the one who was knocked out and had to be dragged into a hallway. And there is no excuse for hitting a woman. None. Never. If she hit Rice 10 times, he has to hit her zero times. I don’t want to hear, “She hit him first.” Two wrongs don’t make a right. Ten wrongs don’t make a right, especially when it comes to physical abuse on a woman … especially physical abuse on a woman.

Unless she jumps in front of you at Starbucks or is standing in front of the Apple logo for too long. Then a kidney punch or tripping her would suffice as punishment for the wrong she has done.

What should have happened is, Rice should have said, regardless of who hit whom first, and who was responsible for tempers escalating: “I apologize to my wife for hurting her physically and emotionally that night, and I apologize to my team and those who have supported me so fervently since I’ve been in Baltimore. There is no one in this incident to blame but me. No man should ever raise a hand to a woman, regardless of the circumstances or what might have led to that moment. I am a better man than that, and I will work hard from this moment forward to try to earn back the trust that I have lost from everyone I know, and from every follower of the Baltimore Ravens. I am deeply sorry. Now I’ll answer any questions you might have.”

But Peter wants to add in the caveat that a woman who can't correctly stop at a four-way stop or get Peter's coffee latte order correct isn't a real woman anyway.

Rice likely faces a short (maybe two-game) suspension from the commissioner for being a first-time offender under the personal-conduct policy. He’s got a strong résumé and is greatly admired for his work in the community. He shouldn’t be thrown out with the trash. But he’s got to realize that the performance the other day was tone-deaf.

I guess Goodell is going to let the legal process play itself out before suspending Rice? After all, that's what Goodell does until he decides he doesn't want to do that anymore. It's his official policy unless the legal system is taking too long.

All owners get five minutes to cap their cities’ presentations. Benson capped New Orleans’ bid. Jimmy Irsay capped Indianapolis’.

Funny how Irsay's suspension may occur after he gets the chance to cap Indianapolis' bid for the 2018 Super Bowl. Weird how that works.

And Mark Wilf, owner/president of the Vikings and brother of principal owner Zygi Wilf, put a bow on the Minneapolis bid by saying, simply: “We need this now. The Super Bowl in 2018 will help us sell our stadium to our community far more than if we got the game two or three years later.”

"Give us the Super Bowl so we can justify spending the taxpayers money on a new stadium. It's obviously everyone else's job to justify the expense, not ours."

On the fourth ballot, requiring a simple majority, Minnesota won. The Saints thought they had 15 votes, so theoretically the vote could have been 17-15, Minnesota; the owners aren’t told what the vote was. But whatever it was, the upshot was easy. Sentimentality was out.

And of course that reasoning won out.

“From talking to the owners,” Roger Goodell said at the Atlanta meeting, “the determining factor was the stadium in Minneapolis, and the effort they made in bringing that stadium to completion.”

“It was so important,” Mark Wilf said Saturday, “because the competition for Super Bowls is not going to get less intense. New stadiums are getting built all the time. You never know after 2018 when our chance would come.”

And obviously Minnesota and the Wilf's had to get the Super Bowl to justify the expense of building a new stadium. It's typical Congressional-type thought. Spend a lot of money and then think of a way to justify the use of the funds. It's easier to say, "Hey look, we got a Super Bowl" as a reason why the new stadium was worth the cost, as opposed to saying, "Yeah, but look at the pretty new stadium we got for you...by the way, ticket prices are increasing."

It certainly would have come soon, because stadiums with domes in northern cities always get one game. But with the smooth and influential Arthur Blank getting spades in the ground in Atlanta last week for his new stadium—set to open in 2017—and Atlanta not having a Super Bowl since 2000, and with southern venues like Tampa Bay (last Super Bowl: 2009) and South Florida (2010) trying to break droughts that will be a decade long by the time the game comes around, it was no lock Minnesota would have gotten the 2019 Super Bowl.

And if the Vikings didn't get the Super Bowl then the new stadium would have totally not seemed worth it.

There are two ways to look at what the Seattle Seahawks did when they waived their sixth-round pick, Marshall tackle Garrett Scott, on Friday. You can say they blew it with their pre-draft investigative work on him. Or you can say it correctly—no one knew about the rare heart defect Scott had, and it never affected him in his college career, and, once the team found out, the Seahawks did a noble thing.

Seattle doctors found the heretofore undiscovered heart defect in Scott—one that hadn’t shown up at Marshall or in the NFL’s pre-draft screenings—once he came to Seattle last week. Instead of releasing Scott because he’s not going to be able to perform this season, and maybe ever again, Seattle GM John Schneider first signed Scott to a four-year contract, with a $100,000 signing bonus.

Maybe the Seahawks doctors blew during the pre-draft screening of Scott AND they did a noble thing by paying him the signing bonus they didn't have to give him. Mind blown.

In the debate about the name of Washington’s NFL team, there isn’t much common ground between the pro- and anti-Redskin side, but here’s one thing they can agree on: The conversation on the subject has never been louder. The two sides paint polar opposite pictures of the support for and appropriateness of the team name. What’s true, and what’s spin? Our take:

It's all part true and part spin. There, I just saved everyone time.

1.  Team says: An overwhelming majority of Native Americans do not find the name offensive.

The team and the NFL use as proof a 2004 survey by the Annenberg Public Policy center, in which 768 self-identifying Native Americans were asked this question: “The professional football team in Washington calls itself the Washington Redskins. As a Native American, do you find that name offensive or doesn’t it bother you?” Ninety percent of those polled said the name did not bother them. It’s a leap, though, to say the results of that poll mean an overwhelming majority do not find the name offensive 10 years later, particularly when there is significant evidence to the contrary: 

Well, public opinion usually doesn't change that quickly in a decade. That's quite the transformation for 90% of people to agree with something and then 10 years later more than 40% of these people have changed their mind.

3. Team says: The term “Redskins” originated as a Native American expression of solidarity.

The N-word is used as a term of endearment and solidarity among some people, but that doesn't mean there should be a professional sports team with the N-word as the team name.

I’ve thought this for some time. At some point, at some league function or some private moment, but probably not for some time because it’s not a tidal wave of native sentiment yet, Roger Goodell and perhaps another owner Snyder trusts will go to Snyder and ask him, “Why are you doing this? Is this worth it? If you’re offending even 15 percent of native Americans in this country—and that’s probably a low number—is it worth it?”

And Dan Snyder will respond by reminding this person the Redskins are his team and he can call them what he wants to call them. The Redskins management and ownership has dug in at this point. It doesn't seem like they will change the name, barring someone very important forcing them to (Congress, Robert Griffin getting very involved against the use of the name, etc) do so. I know nothing about Daniel Snyder, but I don't think he's worried about offending 15% of native Americans.

To me, it just doesn’t make much sense for Snyder to keep fighting a fight that’s on the wrong side of history.

Yes Peter, but you also find the name offensive and think it should change. Dan Snyder doesn't see himself as being on the wrong side of history. He sees himself as rightfully resisting the insistence of others that his team change their name.

You have gotten to know Andy Benoit, I am sure, from his exhaustive work at The MMQB over the past year.

Andy is a bachelor. He lives in Boise. He told us he has two cats: the quite unathletic Mister Fizzles, whom he inherited from his sister a couple of years ago (“Mister Fizzles might have been raised by potheads; that is just not an agile cat,” Andy said), and the athlete in the feline family, Othercat.

So I just started calling him ‘Othercat.’ Not ‘Other [space] Cat.’ One word: Othercat. It just stuck. One day my parents were over for dinner and they were aghast at the name, implored me to change it and that’s when I dug in my heels.”

But cats always have names! Change the cat's name. DON'T YOU KNOW YOU ARE ON THE WRONG SIDE OF HISTORY, ANDY?

Andy Benoit likes two drinks and two drinks only: water and skim milk. He recently had ginger ale for the first time.
“It’s like Sprite,” he reported. “Only more sophisticated.”

Okay. Only two drinks, huh? With the two cats and the inability to drink anything other than milk and water I'm starting to see why he is a bachelor. It's becoming a little clearer.

Mr. Starwood Preferred Travel Note of the Week

Because I have not been to Portland, Ore., much in my life, I didn’t know the city had a thriving community of food trucks and carts. Last Tuesday, on a walk through downtown Portland, I was amazed to see an incredible variety of food available in small trailers, all set up in an open-air parking lot in the center of the city, facing out on a square of sidewalks surrounding the parking lot. Transylvania food. Iraqi food. Georgian food. (Not Georgia the southern state; Georgia the country, halfway around the world.)

Thanks for clearing that up, Peter. Because your readers are all morons who think Georgia is only a state and not a country. If only we were as smart as you, then you wouldn't have to explain what Georgian food is. Peter wants his readers to know Portland, Ore. is "Oregon," not the type of rock that contains minerals that's often called "ore."

I was walking at about 7:30 in the morning,

Peter wants his readers to know that morning is often after night, which is the time when it's usually dark out.

But if you came back at lunchtime, 

That's the meal between breakfast and dinner. Peter doesn't want to confuse his readers.

Ole Latte, where the Brazilian roast was brewing, was thriving among the morning commuters going to work downtown. The 27-year-old barista, Rachael Metzger (“Barista is another word for daytime bartender,” she said),

Oh, so it must be a Portland thing to treat everyone like an idiot. I'm confused, WHAT'S A BARTENDER?

No time to chat. Customers.
“Hey David! Costa Rica today?” Rachael said.

Peter wants us to know that Rachael is talking about the coffee when saying "Costa Rica," not talking about the country.

David: “Nooooo. Brazil. My favorite. How was your weekend, Rachael?”

It's a community of food trucks that blows Peter's mind. All this food in this small little area. I wonder if Peter's sort-of-but-not-really nutrionist likes the idea of Peter being surrounded by various types of food like this?




News can't be supressed but news outlets could refuse to make public the name of the suspect in a shooting. This would serve two purposes. First, it would prevent the suspect's family from receiving national attention for a crime their child committed, and second, it would not get the suspect's name out there and make him/her famous. Still, I doubt every news outlet would agree to supress the name of the suspect and eventually the person's name would make it's way to the public.

The NPR host posed this question on Saturday night in the wake of another slaughter, this one killing seven and wounding six near a college campus in California, by another demented kid with a grudge against people and access to guns.

Peter loves his anti-gun statements and I'm sure this shooting is another strike in his mind against giving people access to guns. Much like illegal drugs such as cocaine or alcohol during Prohibition, if you prohibit access to a good or material then that means no one will have a chance to acquire that good or material, right? Get rid of guns by banning access to them. Hey, it helped the United States stop the trafficking of cocaine to a dead halt.

Ten Things I Think I Think

1. I think that was a great job by Tim Graham of the Buffalo News, going to Los Angeles and coming up with a depressing picture of the future of the NFL in L.A. two decades after the Rams and Raiders last played there. The money quote from Graham’s story, from long-time Los Angeles city councilman Bernard Parks: “I’ve finally, personally come to a conclusion. I have to resign myself to the fact the NFL is not coming.” Strong words from one of the biggest NFL flag-wavers in town.

2. I think, Sam Farmer, I will wait for your retort. Or your forecast.

It's the exact same line of thought about the exact same topic. There's no need for one part of this thought to be under #1 and the second part to be under #2. Combine them.

3. I think I hope Bill Belichick—as he did last week on SiriusXM NFL Radio—continues to press for replay on any call made in any game. For those who say it will lead to five-hour games, come on. It won’t increase the number of challenges each coach has per game; it will simply provide another bit of insurance against a blown call changing the outcome of a game.

It won't increase the number of challenges each coach has per game, but it will increase the chance each coach will use both of his challenges. This will further slow the game down, and if I'm being honest, the NFL already is running into issues in my mind with games going too long. The games have more action than baseball and so I'm not signaling that football is going to be considered boring in 10 years, but there's a lot of commercial breaks during a given game and the replay challenges already take five or so minutes. So while I'm not against Belichick's idea, Peter is missing the opposition's point. The point isn't that coaches will have more challenges, but that coaches will use all of their challenges.

9. I think—and this is not a football note, but a societal one—

Which obviously explains why this thought isn't in the "non-football thoughts of the week." 

following the Mark Cuban controversy of the past few days, what he said at worst was borderline racist. Borderline. I wouldn’t have said it, but I also wouldn’t have attacked him for it.

Peter wouldn't have attached Cuban for saying what he did, but he certainly would call him borderline racist.

Pretty soon, no public figure will say anything, ever, at all, that is borderline controversial. We’re forcing all free-thinkers and speakers to measure everything they say and then come out with pablum, or else risk facing some hurricane of anger in some social segment of this world—on Twitter, or some other forum—whether it’s truly deserved or not. 

Peter writes this after eviscerating Bernie Kosar last year for saying negative things about the Rams last year during a preseason game. Peter basically called Kosar a drunk. But this is totally different from that because Peter isn't the one making the comments.

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

Which is completely different from the societal thought above which was completely football-related.

c. Waking up Sunday morning, which of the following would you have believed more likely: Manny Ramirez named player-coach of the Triple-A Iowa Cubs, or Kim Kardashian selling everything to follow the Dalai Lama?

Manny Ramirez being named a player-coach of the Triple-A Iowa Cubs. By a longshot.

e. You mean there’s a race-car driver named Will Power and I’d never heard of him until the Indy 500 Sunday?

You mean you follow American Championship Car racing year-round? If not, then there's no reason you would have heard of Will Power.

g. I do not approve of the Stephen Drew signing. I approve of growing pains with a future star shortstop, Xander Bogaerts, instead of slapping him in the face after six weeks of mediocre play in the field at a time when his peers are juniors in college.

PETER DOES NOT APPROVE! THE RED SOX SHOULD IMMEDIATELY RELEASE STEPHEN DREW!

If only there were a way for Xander Bogaerts to play positions on the field other than shortstop. If only that seems to be the plan by Red Sox management to allow Drew's good glove on the field along with not impeding Bogaerts development by allowing him to play positions other than shortstop. If only, but alas it's not possible for Bogaerts to play any position other than shortstop in Peter's mind.

j. Did you know Adam Silver used to help babysit SI managing editor Mark Mulvoy’s kids in Westchester County, N.Y.?

Yes Peter, I absolutely knew that because I know every detail of every person's life. I believe Adam Silver and Will Power used to babysit children together if I'm not wrong.

k. One more story from the week that I absolutely loved: Joe Rhodes of the New York Times journeying to Vancouver to tell the tale of soccermania in nutty MLS markets Vancouver, Portland and Seattle. Always thought—and I told MLS commish Don Garber this—he should put the league office in Seattle, so it would be in the middle of three markets that treat the league closest to the way the English treat their major league.

Along with bringing the NFL Network back to the East Coast, Peter is all about putting a main office in the exact area where most of the news from that market is created. It's like he lives in a pre-Internet time where there's no way to cover sports news if a network can't get boots on the ground to cover that news.

n. Coffeenerdness: See my take on Portland coffee trucks on Page 4.

I wonder if Peter fell off the wagon and drank more than three cafe lattes this week and got fired as a client by his sort-of-but-not-really nutrionist. 

p. Johnny Manziel. Champagne rainstorm. TMZ. Las Vegas. Manziels will be Manziels.

I'm pretty sure that's not a phrase nor should it ever be a phrase. Manziel was hanging out with Rob Gronkowski too, which obviously bodes well.

Adieu Haiku

Memorial Day.
You can’t tell the story of
Pat Tillman enough.


Nor can Peter mention Johnny Manziel enough. You know, Peter hasn't mentioned Brett Favre in a while in MMQB. I wonder if they are quarreling because Peter doesn't like Favre's new homeless man look in retirement. 

2 comments:

Slag-King said...

He certainly celebrated the military in his MMQB column with 2 sentences worth. Did he forget about his pal from Afghanistan...that IED tracker?

Three other Brady quickies:

Wow, he certainly has lots of stamina for a closer to retirement middle-aged man! Must be all the Starbucks coffee he drinks. That's why he fights with his sort-of-but-not-really nutritionist because s/he is dead wrong!

Bengoodfella said...

Slag, they must not keep in touch anymore b/c he didn't mention McNeill (I think that was his last name at all). I'm just happy he didn't talk about Pat Tillman at length again. I love Pat Tillman but I assumed we would get a discussion of Tillman's decision to go back to the Army. I've heard the story quite a bit from Peter.

She wouldn't understand what it takes to keep up with Brady for three quickies.