2 comments Lowell Cohn Is Not Impressed With the Oakland A's Signing Billy Butler

Previously when covering a Lowell Cohn column on this site, he was angry over Colin Kaepernick's contractual demands. I wouldn't say Lowell is a Kaepernick-hater, but he's not a fan of the guy at all. Lowell seems pretty old-school, so he's taking a few shots at Billy Beane through the years as well. Lowell is not happy with the Billy Butler signing. On his personal blog, Lowell provides the same article, but uses the sarcastic title "A's Win World Series Early" as if Billy Beane had come out and stated that, yes, the A's will now win the World Series. The title is less sarcastic in his article on the "Press Democrat" site. Either way, Lowell is unimpressed with the Billy Butler signing. Obviously Billy Beane would have been better off simply not trying to improve the A's team. I'm sure that would have made Lowell much happier.

The Oakland A’s are a great offseason team. One of the best. 

Considering the A's are a team that generally stays out of the free agent market and don't make a splash in the offseason with big trades or throwing money around, I have no idea what this is supposed to mean. If anything, the A's are a great regular season team. That I can see. 

No club wins a pennant or a world championship in the offseason like the A’s. 

If Lowell is referring to teams that do great things in the offseason and then underperform during the regular season, he's factually incorrect. That's not what the A's do. If Lowell is referring to the A's making a splash with big trades and big signings in the offseason that don't pay off, he's still factually incorrect. That's not what the A's do either. Something about Billy Beane makes baseball writers crazy.

The A’s, under the stewardship of Billy Beane, just pulled off another major offseason coup. They signed former Royals DH Billy Butler to a three-year contract.

Considering Butler is 28 years old and was signed for three years at $30 million and his career line is .295/.359/.449, and last year was the worst year of his career, I would say it isn't a bad signing. Lowell will use terms like "coup" to try and overstate the case in order to disprove something no one else believes. It's his only chance to be sarcastic and misstate the opinion of Butler's signing as a part of his anti-Billy Beane agenda.

People are falling all over themselves praising Beane because he did it again, won the American League title before November came to a close. This is so special.

Really, Lowell? People are "falling all over themselves praising Beane"? Look at the fawning on this SB Nation site. Then if you do a search for "Billy Butler signed by A's" and the praise for Beane is vast that it is almost non-existent. Then if you do a search for "Billy Butler A's win American League title" and you find...umm...well, no one saying the A's have won the American League title. In fact, most of those articles point out that Butler is just one piece of the puzzle if the A's want to compete again in the American League.

The A’s also are a great pre-September baseball club. Take last season. They were 28 games over .500 in early August. Their phenomenal record was virtually unheard of and they were outscoring opponents by an obscene margin and many experts were calling them a great team and everyone was praising their platoon system of batting. Believe me, the A’s don’t get enough credit for what they do before September year in and year out.

Writes Lowell Cohn with only the slightest hint of condescension. He won't be giving the A's credit for much longer, that's for sure. Billy Beane has the reputation for using methods to build the A's that Lowell finds scary and new (even though they are old by now, of course) and Beane's method of building the A's team can't exist without every failure of the A's during Beane's tenure also being pointed out.

I would like to add something else. This signing of Butler — more on his stats in a moment — is Beane’s best offseason signing since he nabbed closer Jim Johnson before last season. 

There we go. There's a mention of an A's player who didn't work out. Of course, it wouldn't be Lowell Cohn writing this if he wasn't somewhat factually incorrect. Johnson wasn't signed by the A's, they traded for him. The A's gave him $10 million in arbitration for one season and then later released him during the season. It's not exactly a historically terrible blunder that will drag the franchise down for years to come.

But Lowell's point is that just last season Billy Beane paid a player $10 million and that player ended up being a disappointment. So Billy Beane isn't perfect. YOU GOT HIM NOW, LOWELL! Now go for the kill by pointing out that Beane has (gasp) probably signed other players who didn't make the All-Star team. Just be sure to ignore all the free agent signings and trades that Beane has made which worked out.

Johnson had 50 saves for Baltimore the year before Beane got him. And Johnson lasted almost to August before the A’s released him.

Fire Billy Beane! He made a mistake!

Maybe it’s unfair to compare the Butler and Johnson signings because, obviously, Johnson came to the A’s with more recent success than Butler. If I’m being unfair to Butler, forgive me.

You are not forgiven and you are being unfair. It's unfair to compare Butler to Johnson because one was a 30 year old relief pitcher and the other is a 28 year old DH/1B. It's unfair to compare Butler to Johnson because Billy Butler has had success every year in the majors except for 2014. It's clearly an outlier year on his resume.

Here’s the big point. A’s fans should no longer mourn the loss of Yoenis Cespedes because now they have Butler, a man who slugged, slammed, smashed nine home runs last season in 151 games.

I'm not sure if a person can smell sarcasm, but I am definitely getting a strong whiff of sarcasm from Lowell Cohn right now. Butler hit 21, 15, 19, 29, and 15 home runs the five full years before 2014 though. Of course, why would Lowell pay attention to Butler's entire career when he can choose one year of that career to represent his talent in an unfair way?

It’s an astonishing accomplishment. I mean, sure, Beane ruined the A’s chances last season when he traded Cespedes for Jon Lester and Jonny Gomes, 

Sure, this is an opinion and not a fact.

but now he’s back on track with Butler who, in addition to his nine big dingers last season had 15 the year before. It’s hard to find sluggers like that.

Comparing Butler and Cespedes by one statistic isn't exactly a fair comparison (which is obviously Lowell's intent). I'll dive deeper since Lowell is too lazy to do this.

Butler has a career line of .295/.359/.449. Cespedes has a career line of .263/.316/.464. You know what? Let's talk easy numbers that Lowell understands. Strikeouts are bad, right? Butler has struck out once every 6.2 at-bats in his career. Cespedes has struck out once every 4.4 at-bats in his career. Walks are good, right? Butler has walked once every 10.1 at-bats in his career. Cespedes has walked once every 14.0 at-bats in his career.

Billy Butler averages 38 doubles over his career in a 162 game season and Cespedes averages 32 doubles over his career in a 162 game season. Cespedes has more raw power and Butler is more of a gap hitter who gets on-base. There should be no real comparison between the two, especially since they don't even play the same position. Yet, in an effort to rub Beane's nose in the dirt, Lowell insists on a comparison. Butler isn't a slugger.

One other thing, Butler is making $6.667 million next year and turns 29 in April. Cespedes is making $10.5 million next year and turns 30 in October when he will be a free agent.

In a conference call, Beane explained why he made this epic Butler deal. “He’s a right-handed, middle-of-the-lineup guy, which is really hard to come by these days. His age (28), certainly his body of work over the last few years. He stayed very healthy his whole career. Bats are rare, not the easiest thing to come by these days.”

"Epic"? This isn't an epic deal. If Lowell wants to see an epic deal maybe he can pay attention to what Yoenis Cespedes will get on the open market next summer or look at the $36 million over four years that Beane gave to Cespedes when he had zero track record of success in the majors.

Beane acknowledged Butler’s nine big flies last season was a bit underwhelming. Beane admitted he didn’t know why Butler’s power numbers fell off. He referenced Butler’s 2012 season when he hit 29 home runs with 107 RBIs.

In fairness, 2012 wasn’t that long ago.

But why be fair when there is an agenda to be pushed? Lowell doesn't really like Billy Beane and wants to discredit any successes he has while also pointing out all of Beane's failures, as if the A's haven't been one of the most successful regular season MLB teams over the last decade with one of the lowest payrolls in the majors.

Beane kept talking about Butler’s “body of work” — like Butler was a novelist or composer — to deflect attention from recent history.

Sort of like how you aren't mentioning Cespedes home run and walk rate have decreased every year he's been in the majors and he's essentially becoming a powerful hitter who can't get on-base? How some of his comparables are Craig Monroe, Bubba Trammell and Larry Sheets? You don't mention how some of Butler's comparables are Harold Baines, Will Clark, John Olerud, Alvin Davis, and Nick Markakis?

Beane admitted Butler’s two so-so years in a row drove down his value so the impoverished A’s could afford him. Now, we understand the logic of this move. It was good Butler had only 66 RBIs last season and pretty much sucked. That made him available to Oakland.

RBI's are the product of having people on-base that can be driven in. Butler isn't a big RBI guy and isn't a big home run guy. Don't criticize him for what he isn't going to be, while ignoring what he can be.

To put middle-of-the-lineup Butler’s stats in context, compare him to Giants shortstop Brandon Crawford, that known power hitter.

I get continuously frustrated with these baseball sportswriters who have no fucking clue how to use numbers and notice outliers in a set of data. How terrible were the math teachers at public schools in the 1960's and 1970's? Prior to last year, Crawford had never hit more than 9 home runs in a season. Lowell is taking the best power year of his Crawford's career and the worst power year of Butler's career and trying to make them the same type of hitter. It doesn't work that way.

True, Crawford mostly batted eighth, just before the pitcher, which means he’s the worst hitter among the regulars.

Crawford actually batted seventh mostly. He had 212 plate appearances as the 8th hitter and 255 plate appearances as the 7th hitter. But again, what are facts when Lowell has a point he wants to prove? I bet he misses the days when everybody believed what he wrote and refused to do research to find out if Lowell was too lazy to do research in backing up his claims. Those were the good ol' days.

But a comparison with Butler seems warranted. Last season, Crawford hit 10 home runs, one more than Butler. Crawford’s slugging percentage was .389. Butler’s was .379.

Crawford's career slugging percentage is 0.359 and Butler's is 0.449. I know, I know, I am daring to use statistics from years prior to the 2014 while outrageously acting like neither Brandon Crawford and Billy Butler were rookies last year. How dare I act like two players who have played multiple years in the majors aren't rookies in order to allow Lowell to push his agenda!

Maybe Butler can help the A’s improve from September on. They are not so good at “from September on.” In 2012 and 2013, they got run out of the playoffs in the Division Series. 

Lowell thinks that Billy Beane should figure out how to build a team that wins in October. Since Lowell is so smart, maybe he can figure out how to build a team that will win every year in October and then share it with the rest of the MLB teams. I'm sure they would love to know how to do this.

Last season, despite having a terrific record for a long time, they finished 10 games behind the Angels and got dismissed — yes, dismissed — in the wild-card game by Kansas City.

They weren't exactly "dismissed" by the Royals. The Royals threw a late comeback on the A's to win the stupid one-game Wild Card playoff. In fact, if Lowell wants to talk about what Billy Butler has done most recently, perhaps he would mention Butler was 2-for-4 with two RBI in the American League Wild Card game. To do that would be giving Butler and Beane credit, so no matter if Butler helped the Royals win the one-game playoff against the A's, Lowell won't mention this. He sure as hell will mention the Royals beat the A's in that game, but won't reveal how. Narratives and agendas. That's all that matters.

It is distressing when a team wins the World Series in the offseason but can’t win the wild-card game on Sept. 30.

The A's have never won the offseason. I don't know where Lowell gets this from.

Some of the blame goes to Beane. He loused up the team by trading Cespedes. Hardly anyone knew it at the time. I sure didn’t. Beane should have known. It’s his job to know.

Yes, it's Billy Beane's job to predict the future and know that a risky trade he made would not pay off. I don't know if he loused up the team by trading Cespedes. He wanted a proven ace to carry the A's through the World Series. As seen by Madison Bumgarner's performance in the postseason, Beane clearly had the right idea about finding an ace. Again, Lowell won't mention Beane's idea to find an ace who would put the team on his back worked out for the Giants.

And there’s something else. Beane is more intrusive than other GMs. What does intrusive mean in this case? I believe Beane involves himself in the day-by-day managing of the club. He doesn’t phone manager Bob Melvin once the game starts and tell him what to do. Nothing like that. But he gets involved with the lineup. And I imagine he’s the one who insists on strict platooning — which sometimes takes a hot batter out of the order.

I don't know if this is true or not, but neither does Lowell. He has no idea if Beane is more intrusive than other GMs. He's just making a guess that (shockingly!) goes to prove the point he wants to prove. Look at the language Lowell uses here to make it seem like he knows something about Beane that he doesn't in fact know. He's guessing.

Beane is more intrusive than other GMs.

That is a statement of fact. Beane IS more intrusive than other GMs.

I believe Beane involves himself in the day-by-day managing of the club. 

This statement shows that Lowell is guessing and passing it off as fact. "I believe Beane involves himself..." He's guessing, he doesn't know like he indicated in the previous sentence.

But he gets involved with the lineup.

Another statement of fact. Beane gets involved with the lineup, which other GMs tend to do as well. Lowell appears to know this is a fact and not an opinion. But wait...

And I imagine he’s the one who insists on strict platooning — 

"And I imagine..." Lowell gives himself away that he's making statements of fact and then admitting that he doesn't know those statements are true. It's what he "believes" or "imagines," which is so clearly far from the facts that he presents them to be that no credible sportswriter could pretend he is doing anything here other than guessing.

But don't worry, here comes the kicker. All of the speculation, it leads to Billy Beane pulling hot hitters from the lineup and directly affecting whether the A's win games. Not only is Beane a terrible GM who can't win in the postseason, he is personally responsible for the lineup decisions that causes the A's to lose games. Lowell is taking his guesses and coming to the conclusion he desperately wants to reach.

which sometimes takes a hot batter out of the order.

You hear that? Billy Beane sometimes takes a hot batter out of the order because Lowell "imagines" that Beane is the one who insists on strict platooning and "believes" that Beane involves himself with the day-to-day managing of the club. Can you believe what Billy Beane does? Based on the potentially imaginary tale that Lowell has just spun, he is removing batters from the order, which causes the A's to lose games. WHEN WILL THIS MADNESS BE STOPPED?

And of course, Beane only gets intrusive and insists on strict platooning in the postseason, because otherwise Lowell would have to admit IF Beane is intrusive on Bob Melvin's decisions then they tend to work out a lot. But Lowell wants it both ways. He wants to blame Beane for being intrusive, blame him for the team's failures, while also shutting Beane out for getting any credit for the A's success in the regular season. What agenda? Lowell ain't seen no agenda.

This meddling is noticeable. I notice it. You notice it. The players notice it. There’s the rub. Beane runs the risk players will lose respect for Melvin, a perfectly respectable man and a fine manager. Beane should think about this.

But he won't think about this because HE'S A MONSTER! Beane insists on taking the A's to the postseason and running the team his way. What GM other than Beane would have such a huge ego?

But he doesn’t have to think about it right now. The baseball season is months away and life is wonderful and the A’s just won the World Series.

Nobody said that. You are setting the expectation so you can later knock Billy Beane down when/if that expectation isn't met.

Lowell's agenda in regard to Billy Beane is so transparent it's almost laughable. He sets a high expectation that no one else has set for the A's, just so he can brag when Beane doesn't meet this expectation. Then Lowell creates a narrative based on his own assumptions in order to make Beane look like a controlling overlord. What a joke.

6 comments Jerry Green Puns it Up, Goes to War on WAR: Part 2

Many of you may remember this column from October 2012. In that column Jerry Green advocated for Miguel Cabrera to be named American League MVP over Mike Trout, mostly because Jerry Green doesn't like the use of advanced statistics and advanced statistics were used by many to support Trout's argument for American League MVP. Jerry Green has written a sequel to this masterpiece where he again uses a bad pun in the title and continues to blindly and ignorantly argue against the use of advanced statistics. I say Jerry Green ignorantly argues against the use of advanced statistics because I feel like he doesn't completely understand how these statistics can be used to evaluate a player. He doesn't understand mostly because he doesn't want to understand. For Jerry Green to accept advanced statistics as being useful would be admitting there are parts of baseball he doesn't understand and would make him feel like less of an expert. It's a fear of being left behind that causes many of these baseball writers to have such disgust for advanced statistics. The train is moving though, so they better get on or get left behind.

He had all the five tools that make ballplayers excel, to reach stardom and above. Five tools in a single package are rare and precious. The five tools apply to Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Barry Bonds (in the before segment, not the after), Roberto Clemente, Ken Griffey Jr., Henry Aaron, perhaps Ty Cobb.

That weekend in Anaheim, Trout led off the first ballgame with a double, then the second and, again, the third with home runs. He ran the bases with the wind at his tail. He saved a ballgame by climbing above the fence to steal a home run from Prince Fielder.

Yes, but what Mike Trout failed to do was be drafted by a team in the AL Central so that his team made the playoffs. Big mistake on Trout's part. He's got to lead his team to the playoffs to be considered for the MVP race, and even though Anaheim won more games than the Tigers in a more difficult division, Mike Trout wasn't quite the winning winner that Miguel Cabrera was. 

It was September and the Tigers left Anaheim confronted by doom. They were marked as an overrated, defeated, pretender of a ballclub.

We prejudged.

You mean sort of like how you (Jerry Green) prejudge those people who use advanced statistics to evaluate a baseball player's performance as basement-dwelling, numbers-loving nerds? 

War between the traditionalists — the baseball purists — and the new-fangled Sabermetricians, those who contaminate the sport's statistics with contrived numbers.

I don't like how traditionalists are "purists," as if there is something pure in using elementary statistics and nothing pure about using advanced statistics. Also, all statistics used in baseball are contrived. Don't believe me, Jerry? Grab the dictionary from your "study" down the hall. Don't look at me funny, I know you have a hardbound dictionary you use down in your "study." It's probably on the top shelf next to a group of encyclopedias. Look up the meaning of "contrived" and see the definition is: 

Deliberately created rather than arising naturally or spontaneously.

All statistics, including Jerry's precious RBI's, wins, and ERA, are contrived because they don't arise naturally. They have to be calculated or figured by someone. So advanced statistics are more complicated, yes, but they are no less contrived than the calculation for RBI's or ERA. 

I left Anaheim that weekend last September convinced Miguel Cabrera deserved to be the American League Most Valuable Player.

The challenge hit me immediately from the Sabermetric fantasizers.

They claimed Trout should be the MVP.

The horror! Not only do people disagree with Jerry Green, but they disagree with him using a methodology he doesn't care to understand, and frankly, a methodology that is too damn new-fangled to be taking seriously by a student of the game like Jerry. Well, Jerry is a student of the game as long as you don't expect him to learn anything new from the past 30 years of advanced statistical methods. Jerry is a student of the game of baseball in name-only. In reality, he shuns any advanced statistical methods. Because these advanced statistical methods are part of baseball now, he really isn't a student of the game. It's hard for me to take the opinion of a person who absolutely refuses to acknowledge advances in his chosen professional field.

Of course, the traditional, old-fashioned MVP voters among the baseball writers selected Cabrera based on his Triple Crown — as batting champion, home-run champion and RBI champion.

I have a lot of respect for a guy who wins the Triple Crown. It's hard to argue against a guy who won the Triple Crown when discussing MVP candidates. I don't care about the AL MVP race at this point. I'm over Mike Trout losing the AL MVP award for three reasons: 

1. It's a postseason award which I only care about in regard to discussing arguments as to who should win the award. Otherwise, I don't care too much about postseason awards. 

2. I don't really care. Just overall. I'm not a Tigers or Angels fan. I have no dog in this fight. I do have a dog in the fight when writers start criticizing the use of advanced statistics to evaluate a player's performance.

3. Miguel Cabrera deserved the MVP. I don't think he deserved it over Mike Trout, but it isn't a travesty he won. I can't speak for others who like advanced statistics, but in late February I think many are over Mike Trout losing the MVP award. The same can't be said for Jerry Green. He still wants to take the time to bash Sabermetrics, because he's clearly not over the very idea of Sabermetrics existing. 

Plus carrying a ballclub to an unexpected pennant.

Plus, this is somewhat irrelevant. The Angels won more games than the Tigers. So while the Tigers played well in the postseason, they wouldn't have made the postseason if they played in the AL West. Facts are facts. 

But now loving baseball — and the spring training speculation and boasts — from afar, I wonder if Trout could ever duplicate his rookie season.

Jerry Green is afraid Mike Trout will suffer the dreaded sophomore slump, huh? 

The sophomore slump is a huge pile of baloney, in my judgment.

So Jerry Green doesn't believe in the sophomore slump, but he's afraid Mike Trout will never duplicate his rookie season? It may be unrealistic to expect Trout to duplicate his rookie season after pitchers have had an offseason to adjust to him and find ways to pitch to him, but I would assume (barring any injuries) Trout won't have a problem adjusting to what pitchers throw him and could easily duplicate his rookie season a few times during his career. It's not like he will peak at 20 years of age (barring injuries of course). 

Great ballplayers have outstanding second seasons.

DiMaggio did. Mays did. Al Kaline won a batting championship in his second full season.

We're talking about comparing Mike Trout to Hall of Fame players. Let's step back just a little bit and not necessarily expect him to be quite at that level on a consistent basis. I have to think Jerry Green is setting expectations for Trout excessively high in order to point out his regression when it happens. This will give Jerry Green a chance to say, "See, I told you Miguel Cabrera should have been the 2012 AL MVP," as if the MVP measures a player's career performance rather than an individual year's performance. I'm on to you, Jerry. You can't fool me.

"Willie Mays had six tools," Kaline once told me.

"Huh? Six tools?"

"All five, plus enthusiasm," Kaline said simply.

He played stickball in the streets with kids in Harlem. He giggled.

I didn't know Willie Mays was a 12 year old girl at a One Direction concert. I'm starting to lose respect for Mays now. Let's not say Mays "giggled" as if the idea of him playing the game like a child makes him more alluring. It creeps me out a bit when sportswriters insist on referring to adult men as children. There's just something a little "off" about this. I get that kids like to have fun and are enthusiastic, but it's insulting and slightly creepy to want grown men to be children. 

He ran from under his cap.

Mays wore his cap too big so that it would look like he ran faster. So he didn't run from under his cap, he just didn't wear his cap to completely fit. 

He reported in shape, conditioned for his second season.

Right now, according to all reports about Mike Trout from the Angels' spring camp in Arizona, the wind has more tail to push.

Mike Trout is now fat in the opinion of Jerry Green. Interestingly, this it seem to hurt Miguel Cabrera in any way when he got fat after coming up to the majors as a 20 year old rookie. If Jerry Green really wants to start comparing players who got fat as they got older, look no further than Miguel Cabrera. Notice Green doesn't compare Trout to Cabrera on this issue, because if he did then the reader may realize a player's weight gain doesn't always hurt him from being a great baseball player. 

The Angels list Trout at 210 pounds. He reported at 241.

Not so svelte.

Muscle weighs more than fat by the way. Trout may not run as fast as he used to, this remains to be seen, but simply because an athlete has gained weight doesn't mean he has lost his athletic ability. Look no further than college basketball and NBA players. The first thing a young player generally tries to do is put on some weight in the form of muscle. Basketball is a different sport, but the principle of weight gain not necessarily affecting athletic ability (especially if the weight gain is in the form of muscle) stands as true. 

Trout, himself, on several sites claimed he is not fat and he would lose poundage during spring training.

So basically it's a non-issue that Jerry Green thought was enough of an issue to bring up in this column. 

The Los Angeles Times sent a reporter across the country to do a feature earlier this month on Trout in his hometown, Millville, N.J. Trout snubbed the guy, refused to talk then to the LA Times, a publication that covers him with exaggerated passion.

Contrary to popular belief, it isn't the right of the media to speak with whoever they want to speak with whenever they want to speak with that person. Jerry Green is being a bit careless with his wording when he says Trout "snubbed" the Los Angeles Times. From the article: 

Obliging everyone would leave little time to eat and sleep — much less to prepare for a baseball season — which is one reason Mike Trout declined to meet with The Times. But ignoring everyone invites jealous whispers that Trout has gotten too famous for his homespun hometown.

If you read that article then you will notice the Los Angeles Times sent a reporter out to Millville, New Jersey to talk about Trout and the town he grew up in. It doesn't appear Trout agreed to an interview. Nowhere in that article is there any semblance of a sentence saying, "Mike Trout agreed to speak with us and then declined once we had flown out to New Jersey." 

The reason there is no sentence like that in the article is because it didn't happen that way. The Los Angeles Times flew a reporter out to Millville, New Jersey to do a story on Mike Trout without having an interview lined up and/or fully knowing they may never get an interview with Trout. I haven't snubbed anyone who shows up at my front door wanting to talk to me when I tell them I don't care to speak right now. In this case, there's no snub involved because Mike Trout apparently never agreed to speak with the Los Angeles Times or the Los Angeles Times never had an interview lined up before sending their reporter to New Jersey. 

The bottom line is Mike Trout doesn't have to speak to the sports media if he doesn't want to, so Jerry Green needs to stop acting like Trout does have this obligation. 

Hurrah, he did provide quotes to the Times after he arrived at the Angels' camp in Tempe, Ariz.

He was at Spring Training, so of course he provided quotes to the media then. In the offseason, when a newspaper reporter knocks on Trout's door he isn't obligated to talk to that newspapers reporter. 

But as spring training continues, Cabrera and Trout have become cover-page fodder for an issue of ESPN The Magazine.

Oh my God! Mike Trout did an interview with ESPN The Magazine but didn't do an interview with a Los Angeles Times reporter! How dare he pick and choose which media entities he speaks with!

"WAR is the answer," ESPN The Mag declares as the headline to the feature article.
It is the answer to what?

A bad pun. It is the answer to a bad pun. 

The Sabermetrics professors fail to get it straight among themselves.

Again, this is a CRITICISM of Sabermetrics. It's a criticism that those people who use Sabermetrics are educated and are "professors." Apparently ignorance is cool. I don't understand how indicating a person who uses Sabermetrics to evaluate baseball players is very educated can be a criticism, but it seems I don't understand Jerry Green.

Sites such as Baseball-Reference.com, FanGraphs.com and Baseball Prospectus have different versions.

But there are certain unifying principles that each of these sites use to calculate WAR. The results are slightly different, but the principles used are the same. This is important to know. 

Generally, WAR includes all the traditional batting vitals and meshes in speed, stolen bases, defense, ballpark configuration, contributions and so on into a whirling blur.

It's not a whirling blur. WAR is several statistics meshed into one larger statistic. I don't get why some people are so intimidated by WAR. It's like sportswriters have never taken a statistics or calculus class. Can you imagine one of these anti-advanced statistics sportswriters storming out of a statistics class because the professor is meshing in too many calculations into one statistic? 

And the replacement is regarded as the average bench dweller in the majors or some ordinary minor leaguer — nobody identified.

Because if someone was identified then it would ruin the metric. This is basic advanced mathematics principles. There is a fictional average "replacement player" upon which current baseball players are measured. It makes sense to do this in order to come up with a constant so that a player's performance can be measured around this constant. 

"For Mike Trout supporters, WAR was simple and unimpeachable evidence of a perfect player performing at a nearly unprecedented level," Sam Miller wrote in ESPN The Mag. "For Miguel Cabrera supporters, WAR was the joyless and inscrutable tool of eggheads, trolls, all of us who never played the game."

And thus, the blather rolled on, extolling the marvels of WAR.

How is saying Cabrera supporters (like Jerry Green) think WAR is "the joyless and inscrutable tool of eggheads, trolls, all of us who never played the game" an inaccurate statement? Guys like Murray Chass and others in the anti-advanced statistics crowd are using terms very, very close to what Sam Miller uses in this column. Miller has paraphrased much of what the anti-WAR crowd says about the statistic. This isn't extolling the virtues of WAR, but paraphrasing criticism made by those who use WAR to measure a player's performance. 

How many times have we read that baseball is best left to those who "have played the game" or had an "old school" sportswriter call the Sabermetrics crowd a bunch of nerds? Maybe it's not stated in not so many words, but we've all probably read something like this. Sam Miller seems to be accurately summing up the opinion of guys like Jerry Green, but Jerry sees it as extolling the virtues of WAR. 

And God forbid someone actually writes a column in favor of WAR, because we all know the 10,000 articles about how WAR sucks written by elderly baseball writers aren't readily accessible on the Internet. Jerry Green's monthly column about how advanced statistics stink is Pulitzer Prize-winning kind of material, but any column about how WAR isn't so bad is just blather. Way to be open-minded to change. It sucks how the Internet doesn't allow ignorant sportswriters to control the message anymore, doesn't it? 

Admitted again — I am old-fashioned, proud. I respect tradition and believe in baseball purity. The sport is an American treasure.

Hey, me too! I also respect different ideas and don't immediately shoot them down because I am too lazy or too much on an ego-trip to adjust to any type of change in ideas or methods of measuring a player's performance. I don't think using WAR takes away from baseball's purity in any way. To indicate using advanced statistics takes away from any sport's purity is just ridiculous. 

Defense, base running — and hitting home runs and driving in runs — matter.

Absolutely, and that's why the WAR formula takes these into account when calculating a player's wins above replacement player. 

What WAR misses, again, is winning pennants, reaching the World Series.

Every single category that makes up winning the Triple Crown (batting average, home runs, and RBI's) doesn't take winning pennants and reaching the World Series into account either. But good try at making a snarky point. I bet sportswriting was much easier when no one could respond in a public way to a writer's silly contention like this one. 

WAR, and every other individual statistics, doesn't take winning pennants and reaching the World Series into account because they are individual statistics, not team statistics. Time and time again it seems certain sportswriters don't understand this.

And WAR fails to factor in weight gain 

If it did, then Miguel Cabrera could have had a higher WAR than Mike Trout last year. If we factored in Miguel Cabrera's weight gain from the age of 20 then his career WAR would skyrocket.

— and sour attitude.

How in the world does Mike Trout have a sour attitude? He didn't do an interview with the Los Angeles Times? The sports media doesn't have a right to interview Mike Trout. This isn't an opinion, but a fact.

Mike Trout was a fantastic rookie in 2012.

That was last year!

What's your point? Miguel Cabrera had a fantastic 2012 season as well. Whatever Trout/Cabrera do in 2013 has absolutely no bearing on which player deserved the 2012 MVP. You don't need to understand WAR to understand that.

6 comments 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.

16 comments MMQB Review: Peter Works on Some Revisionist History Edition

Last week after writing the many truths that had been discovered about this NFL season in MMQB, Peter King is back this week to put more knowledge into his reader's brains. Did you know New York City is crowded and cabs are expensive? Well, you do now. Also, we find out you can't spell "elite" without "Eli" and Manning is "A Giant among men." Not that either of those statements are necessarily false, but Peter seems intent on channeling his inner Woody Paige in this week's MMQB.

But before I get into the two Games of the Week, Eli Manning playing at a postseason 2007 level (sweet music to Giant ears everywhere) and a very weird scene involving Rex Ryan and a Belichick bobblehead

I don't need to know about your and Brett Favre's sex life, Peter. Some things your audience doesn't need to read.

To Aaron Rodgers, who is halfway to the best season a quarterback has ever had in the 92-year history of the NFL.

Sure, Rodgers may be having one of the greatest seasons a quarterback has ever had, but has he played gritty and like a child would play football? What about Rodgers' beard? Is is grizzled? Is his wife's name Deanna? How about a child? DOES RODGERS PLAY LIKE A CHILD OR JUST AN ADULT? If he doesn't play like a child, he'll never be Brett Favre. Plus, Rodgers doesn't take those chances that Favre took which is what set Favre above every other quarterback who has ever played the game. Rodgers barely throws interceptions into triple coverage while just trying to make a play. So he can have his "historic" season, but he'll never be Favre.

The man hasn't had an off day. Sunday, in showery San Diego, he completed a season-best 81 percent of his throws -- in the pocket, pressured, on the run, wherever. He zinged one ball 38 yards in the air to Jordy Nelson while on a dead run right. He threw four touchdown passes. He ran for 52 yards.

Then Rodgers healed a nine year old wheelchair-bound boy simply by smiling at him, which really pissed off Tim Tebow when he heard about this, because spontaneous and miraculous healing of the sickly is supposed to be his area of expertise.

Every team that passed on Rodgers in the draft -- Miami, for Ronnie Brown, Minnesota (Troy Williamson), Washington (Carlos Rogers), Minnesota again (Erasmus James), Jacksonville (Matt Jones), and, just one pick before Green Bay, Oakland (Fabian Washington) -- has to be retching right now.

This revisionist history-type stuff really has always annoyed me. It doesn't happen with just Aaron Rodgers, but writers do this kind of thing a lot. Start talking about all the teams that passed on a player, while not determining whether that team had a need at that position or not. Yeah, most teams would want Aaron Rodgers right now, but some of these teams had no need for a quarterback in the first round of the 2005 NFL Draft. So while teams regret it now, let's do the logical, less knee-jerk thing and see if these teams needed a quarterback in the first round...

Minnesota had zero need for a quarterback. None. Zero. Daunte Culpepper was coming off a year where he threw for 4700+ yards with a 69.2 completion percentage and threw for 39 touchdowns to 11 interceptions. Peter is just plain stupid if he thinks quarterback was anywhere in the Top 10 needs for the Vikings at this point. To suggest the Vikings would have needed a QB at the time is incredibly stupid and Peter should be embarrassed. Sure, you can go back and make a case on how history worked out to say the Vikings should have taken Rodgers, as long as Culpepper's descent into mediocrity could have been predicted, but at the time they zero need for a quarterback.

Washington and Oakland probably could have used a starting quarterback, though Oakland had Kerry Collins and had gotten Randy Moss to pair with him. So it wasn't like the Raiders didn't feel they had a plan at the quarterback position. Miami got Ronnie Brown, who was pretty successful in Miami for a period of time, so I can't completely blame them. Of course, in retrospect there are tons of decisions like drafting a RB over a QB that could be second-guessed. The Dolphins made a mistake on passing on Aaron Rodgers, there's no doubt, but Ronnie Brown wasn't terrible. Who is to say Rodgers would have flourished like he did if he were thrust into the starting spot immediately?

Jacksonville had drafted Byron Leftwich just two years earlier and the perception was that he needed weapons around him to be successful. That's why the Jaguars drafted Matt Jones. So to think they should have drafted Rodger is ignoring their investment in Leftwich just two years earlier and the idea he needed weapons around him to be successful.

My basic point is that it is easy to go through the 2005 NFL Draft and rake teams over the coals for not drafting Aaron Rodgers. What isn't easy is taking the time to go through that team's needs in 2005 to see if drafting a quarterback in the first round was a team need at the time. If it wasn't, then it is hard to say a team should have drafted Rodgers, unless Peter King expects General Managers to also be psychics.

Projecting Rodgers' full season, with an asterisk next to what would be league records: .725* completion percentage, 5,238* passing yards, 48 touchdowns, 6 interceptions; 129.1* passer rating.

Minnesota twice?

This is stupid and Peter should be smarter than to print this crap. Daunte Culpepper was a Top 5 quarterback coming into the 2005 season. Top 5. Very little doubt about that. To draft a quarterback in the first round would have been one of the dumbest things the Vikings could have done after losing Randy Moss. Peter should be ashamed for thinking otherwise. I even sent Peter a strongly worded email asking him to explain this thinking, which I don't normally do...but I don't expect a response.

Eli: A Giant among men.

Thanks Woody Paige.

Then Peter shows the parallels between Sunday's Patriots-Giants game and the Super Bowl game. I find this fairly non-interesting, even though both games were very interesting.

"It's hard not to think about it,'' Manning told me from the locker room, after his biggest victory, all things considered, since that Super Bowl. "But in a way, before then, it was the complete opposite. Last time, it was the Patriots giving us the ball with three minutes left, up four. Today, after we took the four-point lead with three minutes to go, we're handing the ball to Tom Brady. And that's not a very good feeling.''

Don't screw with Peter's comparison, Eli, by pointing out how the latest Giants-Patriots game was actually the opposite of the Super Bowl.

He's right.

"I just made an extended comparison between two games by saying these two games are similar to each other. Who cares if it is gets pointed out my comparison is sort of wrong, I'm not editing all that work out even though it was proven incorrect."

Not to dramatize the throw, but FOX had a camera in the corner of the end zone focused on Manning's throw. There was no wavering. In the Super Bowl, he had to place the ball deftly over a New England corner into Burress' hands. Here, Manning had to rip it, and he did. It was a perfect dart.

This is the typical Peter King comment of where he states he isn't going to do something and then does exactly what he says he isn't going to do.

"No more talk about Brett Favre because I know everyone is tired of it." Followed by...

"One last thing about Favre..." Or he will say...

"I'm not going to make this game seem too important, but this was the biggest game in the history of the NFL."

Saw bits and pieces of Carson Palmer's starting debut with the Raiders. He threw two beautiful balls that I saw, a touch touchdown throw to Jacoby Ford and a laser to T.J. Houshmandzadeh over the middle for 28 yards. But in general, Palmer's first six quarters as a Raider are six quarters he'd like to have back.

There are still those who wonder why Mike Brown went back against his word to not trade Carson Palmer when he has said the same thing about other players and didn't trade them. The reason Mike Brown agreed to trade Palmer is because he got a 1st round and 2nd round pick for Palmer. That's a ridiculous amount of value for a guy who is probably only worth a 1st round pick at the very maximum.

The way I saw the play, William Gay had decent coverage on the speedy Smith, chasing down the right sideline, but safety Ryan Clark underestimate Smith's speed.

Clark underestimate Smith's speed. This make Peter mad. He know Smith be fast and his speed can not be underestimate in such situation like that.

In the span of six minutes in a game no one was watching, Julio Jones showed why the Falcons traded a ransom to move from 27 in the first round to six. His diving catch on the goal line for a touchdown -- first ruled incomplete by the officials -- was an example of his ability to be a physical and acrobatic receiver.

The amount the Falcons gave up to Cleveland to get Jones was completely justified simply by that one catch. Case closed, the Falcons got the better of the deal, even if it took eight games. No need for future information.

Who knows how history will view this trade.

Favorably for the Falcons. Jones made a great catch that one time.

Encouraging Sunday was Reggie Bush being an impact player for one of the first times of the year (142 rushing-receiving yards).

What's encouraging about a player having a great game when he hasn't proven he can be expected to this on a regular basis? So while ignoring Bush's entire history in the NFL until now, this one great game is encouraging, as if Reggie Bush has now magically turned the corner and will turn into the impact player he has never been on a regular basis. I don't know if I would call this game by Bush encouraging or just one great game in a sea of average games. It isn't like Bush has been in the league two years or so. He's a veteran. At this point, really great games feel like an outlier in his career.

"He's one of 25 college kids in shorts, just throwing,'' Mayock said. "Watching his throw, it still looked like he was warming up, and he threw a deep comeback.'' Mayock watched the throw and wondered if he was still warming up, or was that how Luck actually threw the ball? And Manning said, "But it gets there.'' And that's the thing with Luck. Mayock echoed Phil Simms, saying he doesn't have a howitzer, but the ball gets where it needs to go, and it gets there on time.

I will say that Andrew Luck's perceived lack of arm strength is not a huge, huge deal in the NFL. I will say the fact the ball gets there on time is fine. I will also say, in the NFL the speed of the defensive players is increased, so the ball may get there on time in college, but in the NFL "on time" may not be "on time" anymore. I'm just throwing this out there. I still think Luck will be a nine-time NFL MVP and marry a Hollywood starlet on the way to becoming the greatest NFL quarterback to have ever played in the NFL at the quarterback position in the history of NFL. I would never dare to doubt anything about him. There is simply less time for the ball to get there "on time" in the NFL.

Last summer, I got a call from a movie publicist friend of mine who asked if I'd like to come onto the set of an interesting movie being filmed in a suburb of Boston. "Rex Ryan's in it,'' he said. "I think you'd like it.''

Bill Simmons turns red with anger. He's supposed to be the one with Hollywood connections!

There was a catch: Writing about the movie would be embargoed until the week of the second Jets-Patriots game this season. I would be the print guy on hand, and ESPN would be there and cable nets that served the Jets and Patriots markets. Made sense to me. So I went over to the Lynn, Mass., site where the movie "I Hate You, Dad'' was being filmed.

It's an Adam Sandler movie! It's guaranteed to be terrible and only the addition of a good script, good acting and not-Adam Sandler in the cast would make it a good movie.

The second and third things I saw:

A Bill Belichick bobblehead doll on the desk. A Tom Brady MVP poster on the wall.

"Look at this little guy,'' Ryan told me, picking up Belichick off his desk and making the head bobble. "He's a sturdy dude."

The idea of the movie is that Adam Sandler's a former child star who's blown all his money. Rex is a seedy lawyer -- his name is Jim Nance -- with Sandler his client, and Ryan's job in his scene is to tell Sandler he hasn't been paying taxes, and now he owes the IRS $43,000.

You can't hear me laughing, but I'm really laughing hard right now. I wonder if Adam Sandler is forced to grow up in this movie, meets a girl who against all odds likes him and then eventually he proves his worth by being less immature and doing something very mature on a short term basis and then everyone loves him. If so, this movie could also be called "nearly every other movie Adam Sandler has done, except this one is less funny and much worse than the one that preceded it."

All in all, a fun day. Absurd seeing Ryan in this setting, of course, but you only live once. I watched Ryan do a couple of takes of a couple of scenes, and he wasn't bad. Knew his lines -- and he had a few -- and had the proper back-and-forth with Sandler in the scenes. Sandler's a movie machine, obviously (he's got one, "Jack and Jill'' out this week, with this movie slated for release sometime next year),

For the record, “Jack and Jill” looks like it could be one of the worst movies of the year. I have watched many of Adam Sandler’s recent movies and thought, “The only way this could be worse is if Adam Sandler cross-dressed at some point.” I’m just glad Sandler is giving me a chance to see if his recent movies can be worse with him cross-dressing. Of course, there’s no chance I will ever know if I am right or not since there is a better chance of me watching any other movie currently in theaters rather than “Jack and Jill.”

Not really. It's one of the most fascinating stories in recent football history, and with the fervor over the potential star-studded 2012 quarterback draft class, I thought I would take you back to the month before the 1998 draft. That May, I took a VHS tape of 30 plays from Manning's 1997 season with Tennessee and 30 plays from Leaf's last season with Washington State. I sat down with six men, independent of each other, and showed them the 60 plays, and asked each who they would pick.

There is no fervor over the potential star-studded 2012 quarterback draft class. There is a fervor over Andrew Luck and the other quarterbacks who may come out of the draft seem to be essentially overlooked by many people discussing the 2012 NFL Draft.

The six: brilliant offensive innovator Sid Gillman (since deceased), coach Mike Shanahan, analyst and former quarterback Phil Simms, then-Tampa Bay personnel czar Jerry Angelo, former 49er coach Bill Walsh and UCLA coach Bob Toledo, who had faced both quarterbacks in their college careers.

Points from my SI story the week before the 1998 draft that I find interesting today:

Let me guess, Peter thinks the Vikings should have traded up to get Peyton Manning?

Walsh said he wouldn't take either player with the first pick, though he favored Manning ... and said he had a better arm than Johnny Unitas. "I don't see Favre or Elway. I see those guys on the next level. But Manning seems to be more pro-ready than Leaf ... I'd pick another top player, and then I'd take [Michigan quarterback] Brian Griese in the second round. I think he could have the tools to be special."

Who says Bill Walsh got lucky in getting Joe Montana in the 3^rd round? Clearly, this man knows his quarterbacks. Walsh, much like Mike “The Genius” Shanahan, loved himself some Brian Griese.

(I’m just kidding…we all know Bill Walsh was a very smart coach. I just like how he didn’t think Peyton Manning or Ryan Leaf were worth the 1^st overall pick. I can’t help but wonder which “top player” he wanted instead with the first overall pick)

Simms was incredulous when the question about Manning's questionable arm strength was posed. "His arm's plenty good. You know how many times Drew Bledsoe really aired it out last year? I mean, 50, 60 yards in the air? Five. Ten, maybe. In the NFL, you make your living throwing the intermediate pass, and look at how many good intermediate throws we're seeing Peyton make."

If you think Peter King doesn’t bring this up to be not-so-subtle and show how Phil Simms judges Andrew Luck on arm strength, but didn’t do the same thing to Peyton Manning…well then you don’t understand the media’s infatuation with Andrew Luck. It is not a coincidence Peter brings up this quote by Simms in the same MMQB where he mentions Simms' comments on Andrew Luck's arm strength. It is interesting to me Phil Simms didn’t seem to care about Manning’s arm strength, but seems to think it will be a problem with Luck. I wonder what the difference from 1998 to 2012 is for him?

It is very passive-aggressive of Peter to defend Luck by using Simms’ own words against him in a way though.

13. Cincinnati (6-2). I have to say that I'd to switch to Andy Dalton as my offensive rookie of the year, a week after I chose Cam Newton in SI.com's midseason report. The rookie out of TCU is 6-2, Newton's 2-6, and like Newton, Dalton walks into the offensive huddle like he owns the place.

So Dalton beats the Titans and Newton doesn’t play this week and Peter changes his vote for Offensive Rookie of the Year to Dalton. I guess that was a really impressive 22 of 39 for 217 yards and three touchdown performance that caused Peter to change his mind. Postseason awards like this are stupid anyway, but Dalton’s record was 5-2 when Peter made his choice to pick Newton, so changing your pick after another victory by the Bengals seems really kind of stupid. It isn't like Dalton has been bad the rest of the season, and Newton didn't play, so this is kind of a weird flip flop for me.

14. Chicago (4-3). Bears lose tonight and they're four games out of first in the NFC North and two games out of second. That would be trouble.

This would absolutely be a huge problem for the Bears if they lost. We all know there isn’t such thing as the Wild Card in the NFC and the upcoming schedule with the Bears facing the Lions, Chargers, Raiders, Chiefs, Broncos, Packers and Seahawks looks super non-brutal. The Bears essentially should just give up if they had lost to the Eagles.

"I want to die. This feeling feels like death. Nothing else can describe this. The pain is that bad.''

-- Pittsburgh Phil, Phil Gennaro, a friend of mine and a 41-year-old claims adjuster from Monroeville, east of Pittsburgh, leaving Heinz Field early this morning. He went on to text that today "will be miserable. I will have to deal with angry people, all because of this game.''

This was this week’s entry in “People with no fucking perspective on life.” I hope you enjoyed it.

There are many things to get used to when you move to Manhattan. The art of getting a cab at peak times is one I'm struggling with. Friday night at 8, I got off a train from Stamford, Conn. (our Versus NFL preview show ends at 7, and I take the Acela back to the city right after that) and was in a rush to get home to the east side of town. Stupid me:

Well, there’s one thing we can agree upon.

But I went above ground, began signaling for a cab on 34th. Fruitless. Then I started walking to the east side, hand up in the air, seeking a cab. Two blocks, three, four. Finally, at the corner of 37th and Fifth Avenue, a gypsy cab, one of older black former limos, pulled up. I gave him my address, which would have been a $6 cab ride. When I got out, he said: "Thirty, plus tip.''

That’s almost as much as Hertz charges to refill a car with gas!

From here on out, it's the subway for me.

People of New York: Be sure to avoid the subway on Friday nights.

j. Great line by FOX's Chris Myers on Dallas-Seattle: "Why do I think of the Big Lebowski when I see Rob Ryan?''

Not a great line. A superb line. Give it to Adam Sandler to use in his next movie.

l. Tim Tebow's 2-1.

And to think people believe the backlash against Tebow is because of his religion. No, it is because Tebow is his own religion to many people. I wonder if Tebow's 2-1 record has anything to do with playing the Raiders or Willis McGahee's strong performance? Probably not. Tebow singlehandedly won the game.

5. I think Forte and the Bears are at least $10 million guaranteed apart. Unless Forte comes down toward the Williams neighborhood of guaranteed money -- or unless he continues to put up 175 rushing-receiving yards per week -- I can't see the Bears folding.

Just put Bill Simmons on the case. He fixed the NBA lockout just a few weeks ago. He can fix any disagreement as long as neither side has a say in how he fixes the disagreement.

6. I think, as I said on NBC Sunday (what, you were watching the end of the Giants-Pats?), Forte's not the only back looking for a new deal. Ray Rice is too. Very quietly. Both Forte and Rice have contracts expiring at the end of the year.

Does putting in a widely-read national column that Ray Rice is looking for a new deal count as looking “very quietly” or not? If Rice is quietly looking for a new deal, surprise, Peter King knows and has publicly announced it.

7. I think DeAngelo Williams' season is a mystery. He's not hurt, but he's averaging only nine carries a game, and Jonathan Stewart and Cam Newton are equal rushing threats.

Peter gives the answer to Williams’ struggles and then wonders what the answer to Williams’ struggles could be. There are three equal rushers on one team in a passing offense and there is only one football. There's the answer.

8. I think Colt McCoy cannot afford games like he played in Houston Sunday. You're on trial, son. Cleveland's scouting quarterbacks, and the 2012 draft will be full of them, and you can't go 6-of-12 for 54 yards and a pick and fall behind 24-3 at the half against anyone. No way Cleveland won't be looking long and hard at quarterbacks next April.

So Colt McCoy had better watch out because the 2012 draft will be full of quarterbacks. That’s what Peter is telling us.

9. I think there's black crepe paper all over Miami this morning. They just experienced The Day They Lost Their Real Chance At Andrew Luck.

In the very next "thing" he thinks Peter acts like the 2012 draft class only includes one quality quarterback. Earlier in this MMQB Peter mentioned a fervor over the quarterbacks in the 2012 draft class and just one “thing” he thought earlier he stated the Browns were going to scout quarterbacks in the class. So I don’t think it would hard to assume Peter thinks there is more one quality quarterback in the 2012 draft. Yet here, he seems to think the entire city of Miami is sad because they lost their chance at getting Andrew Luck. Shouldn't the fervor for other quarterbacks and the idea of the draft is full of them make Peter think Miami is sad, but happy this is a quarterback-heavy class?

c. OMG! Pam pregnant!

OMG! The show premiered a month and a half ago!

d. I mean, I caught 10 minutes of The Office the other night and saw a weird-looking James Spader and Stanley being way too congenial (what's up with that?)

How about you watch the show and figure it out?

f. Good luck in the job, Ben Cherington. One piece of advice, and the only one, and one you probably don't need to hear, from a Red Sox season-ticket holder (with others):

PETER’S SEASON TICKET HOLDER BROTHER-IN-LAW WON’T BE ASKING ANY QUESTIONS BECAUSE HE’S DONE WITH THE RED SOX FOREVER/UNTIL APRIL!

Don't take lightly the anger of the fans over this players-drinking-during-games issue. Not acceptable under any circumstances.

Maybe I am in the minority, but I don’t mind starters having a few beers in the clubhouse during a game if they aren’t scheduled to pitch that day. It may just be me. Maybe Peter thinks it is fun to get up on his high horse. I'm pretty sure Peter drinks a beer or so while he does his job...especially since part of his MMQB every week is a beernerdness.

Other than some CYA words from John Henry on the radio, the team has done an awful job of addressing the stories of players not taking their jobs seriously enough. You, or someone of great importance there, need to understand it's not going away. I mean it when I say good luck. You come highly recommended.

Yes, Ben Cherington…be sure to take advice from a guy who didn’t know who Josh Reddick was a few seasons ago.

i. A huge thank you to the hotel where NBC housed me for the last couple of years on NFL weekends, the Omni Berkshire Place on Fifth and 52nd. Great hotel. Friendly but not obtrusive staff, and comfy, quiet rooms. I'll be back to say hi.

Thank you Omni Berkshire for having coffee ready for Peter at 5am. You don’t make Peter King brew his own coffee! That’s a good way for a bitch to get all cut up by Peter.

k. Beernerdness: Tried the Captain Lawrence Pumpkin Ale the other day. Not my style. I want a pumpkin ale with a heavy bite of pumpkin, not a faint taste.

Perhaps you should try eating a pumpkin. I hear they have a heavy bite of pumpkin in them.

m. Fun event of the weekend: Riding through Central Park on a bike Saturday morning. I could get used to that.

Then maybe instead of paying $30 for a cab you can bike from place to place and skip the subway all together? Problem solved.

Philadelphia 23, Chicago 21. Something's got to give: Eagles back LeSean McCoy's gashing the opposition for 5.6 yards a carry, Matt Forte of the Bears for 5.4.

Peter does understand what “Something’s got to give” means doesn’t he? Nothing has to give here. LeSean McCoy could run for 5.6 yards per carry and Forte could run for 5.4 yards per carry. They aren’t mutually exclusive like in a situation when a team gives up 2.6 yards per carry but a running back averages 5.2 yards per carry. So, nothing has to give.

My money's on the Eagles to hold the line slightly better, and to protect the quarterback loads better.

“Quarterback loads?” Was that a Jay Cutler joke? He’s not fat, he’s big-boned!