7 comments MMQB Review: Peter King Was Pretty Bored with Week 1 Edition

Peter King talked about the settlement of the concussion lawsuit in last week's MMQB. He also shared with us that he uses 9 shots of espresso during football season to stay awake, which makes it sound like he has a problem. Peter also threw the obligatory Tavon Austin mention into MMQB (he does not mention Austin this week), as required by Marvin Demoff in Peter's The MMQB contract. This week football actually began, which is always good news, and Peter is feeling pretty, pretty good about Anquan Boldin in a 49ers uniform (and no, I haven't changed my mind about the Ravens letting Boldin go...I get why they did it and it was never about Boldin's ability, but about his salary), gives us a Tweet of the Week that he says isn't very good and has other notes from the NFL games that Peter did not find to be as exciting as he thought they were going to be.

So the season-opener featured 76 points and a quarterback performance for the ages, and there was all this explosive-offense talk, and then, on Sunday, to open the 94th NFL season, this happened:
 
• The Patriots, who averaged 34 points a game last year, needed an Audie Murphy performance by Danny Amendola and a Stephen Gostkowski field goal with five seconds left to beat Buffalo 23-21.
 
• Seven of Sunday’s 13 games totaled 40 points or less.
 
• Pittsburgh’s offense was shut out at home for the first 58 minutes of a 16-9 loss.

It's boring when the NFL is unpredictable and there aren't enough points scored in certain games. If only the NFL were more predictable and no teams played defense, then that would be an NFL worth watching.

• Seattle, which scored 37 points a game on average in its last six games of 2012, managed 12 at Carolina, and still won.

I missed that game. Please provide more details about this one. No detail is too small.

But here’s my favorite stat of all from the weekend:

Baltimore’s four wide receivers Thursday night: 15 catches, 215 yards, one touchdown.

The receiver Baltimore traded away for a sixth-round pick: 13 catches, 208 yards, one touchdown.

“I think you earned that $2 million today,’’ I said to Anquan Boldin Sunday night.

We had to know it would be Anquan Boldin that was Peter's favorite Stat of the Weekend, though it isn't his official "Stat of the Week" of course, because that would be too logical. Boldin had a great performance and he obviously is a really good receiver. Was his great performance due to the poor defense by the Packers, having Kaepernick throwing him the football instead of Flacco, or just a great game? Probably a little bit of everything. I'm just a little tired of the talk about how that the Ravens got rid of Boldin and they are going to regret it. They probably will regret it, but Ozzie Newsome telegraphed that difficult decisions would be made back in February and Boldin was one of the difficult decisions. It's part of the Ravens long-term plan to avoid having cap issues.

The 49ers and Ravens, as you recall, had a marriage of convenience last March. Baltimore wanted Boldin to cut his pay from $6 million to $4 million. Boldin thought being the second-best Baltimore player in the postseason (next to Joe Flacco) did not merit a pay cut and stuck to his guns. When the Ravens knew they couldn’t re-do Boldin’s deal, Baltimore coach John Harbaugh got on the phone with his brother, Jim, the Niners’ coach, and they worked out a deal.

Even at the time the Ravens knew they weren't getting value for Boldin. It's just they wanted to cut salary and they had very little leverage. Obviously the Ravens didn't go into the offseason thinking "We have to get rid of Boldin, he's terrible."

The 49ers beat Green Bay in their meeting by the Bay, and Colin Kaepernick and Boldin were the main reasons. Eschewing the read-option and going to more of a pocket-passing game—offensive coordinator Greg Roman is becoming famous for throwing changeups at defenses,

(coughs) Hear that Jerry Richardson? An offensive-minded coach who has experience working with a mobile quarterback and has the ability to play to the quarterback's strengths. Boy, if there was a head coaching vacancy in January, Greg Roman might be someone to interview.

Man, that was a long cough, wasn't it?

I remember when Boldin signed with Baltimore in 2010, how the Ravens raved about how quickly he adjusted to the new offense and to quarterback Joe Flacco. I looked it up this morning: He had 20 catches for 287 yards in his first three games in Baltimore. And now, on the phone from San Francisco, he sounded like an avid reader of Who Moved My Cheese?

Said Peter King, who apparently is still catching up on reading motivational books from the year 1998.

And, Boldin said, don’t hold a grudge. “I’m not bitter at all,’’ he said. “This is a business. We all understand it. [The Ravens’ decision] was a little surprising, but you can’t let that stuff bother you.”

Was it surprising Anquan? The Ravens had publicly stated they were going to make tough decisions about veteran players, then they come to you asking you to cut your salary...so the fact they traded you, did they really surprise you, or were you more surprised a team that publicly stated they would make tough decisions on veteran players and had no interest in re-signing a pillar like Ed Reed would want you to take a pay cut?

Danny Amendola has a little Welker in him, and maybe a lot.

Men can't get pregnant, Peter. So there is no way Amendola has a little Welker in him. You must be confused from watching "Junior" too many times. Men can't get pregnant.

Late in the first half at Buffalo, Amendola, who entered the game nursing a groin injury, pulled up in the end zone in obvious pain, grabbing the inside of his upper leg. Well, that’s it. He’s gone for six weeks. The Legend of Brittle Amendola continues. But back he came in the second half with seven catches for 64 yards in the last two quarters, converting a 3rd-and-8 on the winning field-goal drive in the final minutes. “I knew he was a tough player,’’ Shane Vereen, his new teammate, said after the game.

This is the same Shane Vereen that played the entire game after breaking a small bone on the first play. So that's probably saying something. Of course, Sam Bradford and the Rams want to know where this toughness that Amendola showed came from.

What impressed me watching Pryor: the poise not to be rattled, even when he got hit and chased by a defensive front that often overwhelmed Oakland’s line. Now, he didn’t survey the field the way a veteran quarterback does, looking at three or four options; instead he ran when the pocket broke down. But on this day, it was his best option. For a first start, it was a B-plus, and I definitely want to see more.

No offense to the Colts, but they don't exactly have a speedy, athletic defense. Also, simply running when the pocket breaks down isn't a long-term option for a quarterback. At some point, an injury will occur. I'm hoping for the sake of the Raiders they found a quarterback, but I'm still skeptical.

You’ll recall that one of the last significant moves by Davis before he died in 2011 was taking Pryor in the third round of the 2011 supplemental draft. “I owe Mr. Davis,’’ said Pryor. “This man believed I’d be a star quarterback. He said that to me multiple times.

I'm not going to take digs at Al Davis, but when it came to drafting certain players Al Davis over the last 10 years was a lot more convinced in that player's greatness than the rest of the NFL. The Raiders ability to draft productive first round draft picks bears this out. Wait, so maybe that is a dig at Davis.

He took a chance on me when other teams wouldn’t.

Right, and I'm pretty sure for better or worse that phrase should be engraved on Al Davis' tombstone.

Geno Smith has at least one element of what it takes to be a New York quarterback.

Well, Smith has what it takes to be the quarterback for the Jets, namely that he is healthy and hasn't shown himself to consistently throw the ball to the opposing team on a regular basis.

Thick skin, apparently.

I guess so. He did fire his agent after he didn't go in the first round of the draft. I guess he has thick skin and high expectations for where he should have gotten drafted.

I asked Smith how he felt about playing against Tom Brady on a short week now, and his answer was either very practiced or very smart. “It’s not me against Tom Brady,’’ he said. “It’s the Jets against the Patriots.”

Very smart, but of course if Geno Smith helps the Jets win this game against the Patriots then Peter King will be very glad to describe the result of the game as being Geno Smith triumphing over Tom Brady. Plus, it will be Geno Smith versus Tom Brady if the Patriots start the game off strong and Brady puts up 21 points in the first half. At that point, there is pressure on Smith to keep up with Brady's ability to put points on the board. It's not Brady v. Smith, but the media is going to gladly paint it that way regardless.

And the great thing about NFL Game Rewind is being able to toggle between the TV feed of the game and the coaches’ video, so you can see—for instance—how utterly awful Ed Dickson was for the Ravens in the season opener.

He was certainly no Jared Cook, that's for sure.

I went back originally to try to judge whether Baltimore coach John Harbaugh was right in contending that NBC didn’t show a replay of the Wes Welker trapped catch before Payton Manning snapped the ball in the third quarter on a vital series of the game. (Truth in journalism here: I also work for NBC. So you’ll have to take my findings with that understanding, but I wanted to be clear about that before we start here.)

And as we know from Peter providing a truth in journalism warnings in the past, he is basically saying, "I have a bias here, so just remember my bias as you listen to my conclusion. I want you to consider me unbiased, despite the fact I clearly show myself possibly incapable of being unbiased."

Then Peter details everything the Ravens did wrong in a 10 minute stretch during their game against the Broncos. Apparently he really hates the Ravens for trading Anquan Boldin and wants the world to know the Ravens suck.

Play 1. Denver trails 17-14 with 14:13 left in the third quarter. Manning throws low to Welker, who appears to trap it. The officials call it a catch. Cornerback Corey Graham immediately motions to the ground that it bounced. Now, keep in mind that each coaches’ booth in every NFL stadium is equipped with a TV monitor that shows the exact feed that is shown in the replay booth; the only difference is the coaches cannot run a play back and forth the way it can be done in the replay booth. But the replay shown by NBC, with Welker clearly trapping the catch, comes either 10 or 11 seconds before the snap of the next play by Manning. (I was using the sweep hand on my watch, so it’s not precise.)

I know Gregg Easterbrook would be pissed off at Peter and myself for attempting to use such specificity, but I'm not sure if 10 seconds is enough to see the replay and then get word to challenge the call on the field. Tough to say.

And in the first half, when Harbaugh challenged almost exactly the same kind of trap by Demaryius Thomas, the Ravens threw the challenge flag six seconds after the first replay of the Thomas trap. So, unless there was a blackout or a TV malfunction in the Ravens’ coaches booth, the replay was shown up there in plenty of time for Harbaugh to have been told he should throw the challenge flag. The coach upstairs blew that one.

Maybe, but if the Ravens coach upstairs sees that Welker traps the ball and then immediately signals down to Harbaugh to throw the flag, then I can see where if either party (coach upstairs/Harbaugh) hesitated to throw the flag then the challenge wouldn't be received in time to stop Manning from hurriedly running the next play. Maybe the coach upstairs blew it. It's possible.

A nightmare series of 10 plays, out of 155 in the game. But there was enough bad—on the part of both the high-pick and marginal players, rookies in their first game and coaches—for the Ravens to chew on for days. The 10 plays exposed weaknesses at tight end (a major problem), offensive line depth, and replay communication from upstairs to the head coach.

Because I'm one to throttle a dead horse, which of these positions would keeping Anquan Boldin on the roster have strengthened? As well as Boldin played against the Packers, the Ravens weaknesses as described by Peter King aren't something Boldin could necessarily have rectified had the still played for the Ravens.

Fine Fifteen

Or as I call it, "The Random Placement of NFL Teams in Order of Strength from 1-15."

1. Denver (1-0). It’s a nice September schedule for the Broncos. With a half bye (10 days between games), Denver visits the Giants next Sunday. With an extra day to prepare in Week 3, Denver returns home to face Oakland on a Monday night. With a short week, the Broncos finish the month by facing defensively challenged Philadelphia. Get this: Four of the last 14 Denver foes had winning records in 2012.

Ah, to play in the AFC West and be scheduled to play Jaguars this year. Well, that and having Peyton Manning as your quarterback.

3. Seattle (1-0). I don’t rank the Seahawks here with conviction, because Russell Wilson had defenders buzzing around him all afternoon in Charlotte. But you looked up at the end of the game, and Wilson still had 320 yards passing against a pressure D, and the Seahawks played well enough to steal one.

I truly don't care if Carolina is ranked in the Fine Fifteen or not, but this is what I'm talking about when I talk about random placement of NFL teams by Peter. His 3rd best team scored 12 points, came a fumble away from being 0-1 and the team that got beaten isn't ranked in the Top 15. Seattle beat a team by five points who Peter doesn't consider to be a Top 15 team and the Seahawks are the 3rd best team in the NFL?

6. Green Bay (0-1). Good team, but I continue to wonder if the defense can mature during the season, particular as long as cornerback Casey Hayward is missing.

They did lose on the road to the team that Peter ranks as the 2nd best team in the NFL, so maybe it isn't so bad.

12. St. Louis (1-0). Love the fact that Sam Bradford engineered three scoring drives (okay, one was a two-yarder) that ended in touchdown, field goal and game-winning field goal in the fourth quarter. Also love the fact that the Rams are now 5-1-1 in, arguably, the toughest division in football since the start of the 2012 season.

Sam Bradford is clutchiness. I didn't check the box score, but it's safe to assume Tavon Austin had 10 catches for 902 yards and 8 touchdowns.

13. Tennessee (1-0). Maybe Mike Munchak’s right. Maybe you can still win by running the ball predominantly—in part because so many teams don’t work that much in practice to stop the run, because so few teams are big-run teams anymore.

Yeah, good luck with that philosophy. This sounds like some made-up bullshit that Gregg Easterbrook would come up with in TMQ. Teams don't work on stopping the run in practice so I'm sure they just forgot how to stop the run.

15. Arizona (0-1). Larry Fitzgerald touchdown catches last year: four. Larry Fitzgerald touchdown catches Sunday in St. Louis: two. The Cards are going to be a tough day for every team on their schedule.

Either that or the Rams secondary isn't as good as Peter thinks. Of course, this could never be true could it?

Defensive Players of the Week

Shaun Phillips, OLB, Denver. What’s the biggest fear any Broncos fan had heading into the season? The pass rush. And Phillips, more than any single Denver defender, did something about that Thursday night, sacking Joe Flacco twice by himself and sharing a third. “I took it personal that everyone was like, ‘Oh what are we going to do about the pass rush,’ but I’ve had like 70 sacks in my career. What am I some bum or something like that?” said Phillips.

No, you are very clearly not Bum Phillips. Bum Phillips is old and white.

Goats of the Week
 
Bill Leavy, referee, Green Bay-San Francisco game. When there are offsetting fouls after a play has ended, the down is not supposed to be replayed. But Leavy erred on this most basic of officiating tenets, and it played a major role in San Francisco’s victory...Matthews was flagged for hitting Kaepernick out of bounds, two steps after the play officially ended. A scrum ensued, with Matthews and Niners tackle Joe Staley going at it. Staley got a personal foul. But instead of ruling that the play should stand and it should be 4th-and-2, meaning the Niners would have attempted a field goal, Leavy ordered the down replayed. Kaepernick threw a touchdown pass to Anquan Boldin, making it 14-7 San Francisco instead of 10-7.

Man, the Packers just can't catch an officiating break when it comes to playing road games against NFC West teams can they?

Kyle Knox, LB, Jacksonville. Knox did something in the Jags-Chiefs game I’ve never seen before, and it showed such a lack of football instinct that it deserves mention in this space. Jags punter Bryan Anger kicked one downfield and it bounced once toward the Kansas City goal line. Knox, in full pursuit, grabbed the ball at the Kansas City 19 when it was bouncing in the direction of the goal line. Who knows? Maybe it goes dead at the 12. Or the two. But Knox stole yardage from his team, foolishly.

Peter had four "Goats of the Week" (presumably because three isn't enough and five is just overkill) and two of the "goats" and their actions had a direct effect on the outcome of the game, while David Wilson's fumbles certainly didn't help in a 36-31 game. Kyle Knox takes away a maximum of 18 yards in a 28-2 game and he's a "goat"? His play didn't even come to close to having an effect on the game that the other "goats'" plays had.

“Will the Lions cover four-and-a-half tomorrow against Minnesota?’’

—Brent Musburger, during an interview with Lions fan and rapper Eminem during Notre Dame-Michigan Saturday night. Want to define the look of paranoia? Check out Eminem’s face. That uncomfortable Q-and-A will be a case study in Weird Announcing History 101 in broadcast schools for years to come.

Eminem had to be high during that interview or he anticipated it was being taped and played at a later date. I'm voting high on something, because it was that odd of an interview. Though I like Musburger just saying "screw it" and talking about gambling because there was nothing else Eminem would respond to. Heck, Eminem didn't even really respond to the question about gambling.

My Week 1 guests on The MMQB Podcast With Peter King: Eli Manning and Matt Ryan, along with Greg Bedard and Andy Benoit of The MMQB. I asked Manning if he’d ever wondered what his career would have been like had he accepted being drafted by the Chargers in 2004, and stayed in San Diego. You’ll recall he and his father, Archie, pressed for a trade before the draft because he didn’t want to play for what he saw as a sinking franchise.

I think saying Eli Manning "pressed for a trade" is being a bit kind or taking the rough edges off the situation. Manning was refusing to play for the Chargers. I don't know if telling the Chargers "I'm not playing for you" is pressing a trade any more than it is simply refusing to play for a team.

Said Manning: “I really haven’t. Just because when I made my decision that this is what I’m going to do, and I felt strongly about everything that I said in the week going into the draft. I said, ‘This is my decision, and I’m going to make it right.’ I’m going to feel strongly about it, and wherever I end up I’m going to work hard and do everything I can and not look back or have second doubts. So, you know, I think you never know what would have happened if I went there.’’

Right, but what would have happened if you had "gone there" instead of "went there"?

Tennessee trailed 2-0 in the second quarter and took the ball on a short field at the Steeler 49. The Titans ran it 12 of the next 13 plays, the only pass an eight-yard dump from Jake Locker to Delanie Walker after seven straight runs to start the drive. Battle bulled over from three yards out to score just before halftime and give Tennessee a lead it would never give up. “That’s who we are,’’ said Munchak. “But, what I really like about the offense is that we’ve got the kinds of weapons—Kenny Britt, Kendall Wright, Nate Washington—that we can use to get in a throwing contest if we have to. Who knows? Maybe next week we’ll have to throw it 40 times to win. That’s okay too.”

It's okay when Jake Locker is your quarterback. Half of those throws are destined to be incompletions.

That means Locker will have to be better than a 56 percent passer, which he was a year ago.

Yeah, but remember Peter back when you reported Chris Palmer was trying to make Locker a more accurate thrower because Mark Brunell and Brett Favre became more accurate over their careers? You can make a quarterback who hasn't shown himself to ever be accurate a better passer by throwing at flags.

Mr. Starwood Preferred Member Travel Note of the Week

Now this is something that never happened to me before on an airplane: I had an aisle seat in a three-across row flying home from Denver and the season-opener on JetBlue early Friday morning. The man sitting next to me was asleep when I boarded. He slept the entire way to New York. He didn’t wake up when we landed. I got up and disembarked. He was still asleep. When I was walking off the plane, I looked over at the poor guy in the window seat who didn’t know whether to shake the guy or try to climb over him to get off the plane.

I'm not sure what it takes for Peter King to mind his own business while he is flying on a plane or riding on a train. Peter likes to note when a passenger is rude, when a passenger is on his phone too long, when a passenger (or two) are on a computer for an entire train ride, and now he is noting when passengers on a plane are asleep. What will it take for Peter to stop paying attention to other individuals and just mind his own business? Even when a person does nothing and just sleeps, Peter feels the need to note this in MMQB.

“‪@RSherman_25 yo story in sports illustrated was real I respect you a lot… I play QB at ‪#FSU and always was the nerdy athlete ‪#followback’’

—@Jaboowins, Florida State quarterback Jameis Winston, to Richard Sherman of the Seahawks on July 31. (Yes, it’s not exactly a Tweet of the Week, but I thought it was worthy, given how Winston exploded onto the national scene last week with a 25-of-27 college debut at Pitt.

Of course this isn't worthy of a Tweet of the Week, but Peter still feels the need to include it as one of his several Tweets of the Week. Also, he may want to close that italics at some point. I guess Peter nor his editor noticed the italics never got closed. That's assuming Peter has an editor, right?

Ten Things I Think I Think

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

Nothing, it was an unexciting week of football?

c. All offseason, the Bengals worked on Andy Dalton throwing the deep ball better. And boom—first quarter, at Chicago, Dalton threw it up deep downfield for A.J. Green. Complete. Gain of 42.
d. Green abused Charles Tillman, an excellent corner.

Why are these separate letters again? Peter hasn't changed the topic, so "d" should be the next topic and this sentence should be put up with "c."

f. Reggie Bush. At 28, he played with the verve of the 19-year-old USC weapon, diving into the end zone to cap his 77-yard touchdown catch-and-run.

According to Bleacher Report, Bush could very well breakout this year. I guess we'll have to wait and see.

h. Andrew Luck, for his eighth fourth-quarter comeback in 17 professional games. Think about that.

No, I refuse to think about it. I will not.

i. No question in my mind Brian Hartline will be a more targeted player than Mike Wallace—unless Ryan Tannehill begins forcing the ball to the unhappy Wallace.

Wait, this is what Peter likes about Week 1? He likes that Brian Hartline is more targeted than Mike Wallace? Why would Peter care which Dolphins receiver is more targeted?

l. Told you to draft Jared Cook, fantasians. Hope you listened.

It was one game, Peter. One game. There's no doubt Cook is talented, but it hasn't exactly translated to success on the field over his career. Maybe it will this year.

m. I knew Martellus Bennett would be a great signing for Chicago, and the leaping fingertip touchdown catch on the first Bears touchdown of the year just proved that.

"I knew I was smart, but one week of football just showed me exactly how smart I am."

2. I think this is what I didn’t like about Week 1:

b. And the safety. The ridiculous safety. No team was as unimpressive early as the Bucs in the first quarter at the Meadowlands.
d. The first big hit of Kenny Vaccaro’s career. He torpedoed into a sliding Matt Ryan, a clear penalty.

What I didn't like about MMQB this week:

a. Peter's inability to get the alphabet correct after the letter "b." This is the second really easy edit that has gotten missed. Does MMQB get rushed out, does Peter edit his own column or is his editor just really lazy? I make mistakes all the time, but I also don't have an editor who is supposed to prevent easily-fixable mistakes like going from "a and b" to the letter "d."

i. David Wilson needs to go to the Tiki Barber School of Ball Control. I might be serious about that. Barber should call him.

Somewhere in the United States, Tiki Barber perked up at hearing his name and immediately rushed to find out if he can find a way to get attention by helping David Wilson with his ball control. Upon finding out he can't really get attention, Barber quickly hangs up the phone.

j. The Panthers sure didn’t look explosive on offense against Seattle. They looked cautious.

Say what you will about Ron Rivera, but...actually there is no "but" because Rivera chose to hire Mike Shula as his offensive coordinator. According to Cam Newton, Shula called "an unbelievable game." I agree. It was unbelievable what a shitty, conservative game Shula called.

k. Brandon Weeden: three interceptions in the first 27 minutes. I didn’t watch that game closely. But there’s just something missing with Weeden, something about knowing when to take chances and when to play safe.

Well, maybe he will cut down on those mistakes once he matures a little bit more. Give him a few years Browns fans and you will find out that Weeden is 35 years old and holy shit the prime of his career is already passed and he is only in his second NFL season.

6. I think Mike Wallace has to look himself in the mirror today and say, “What a dumb thing I said yesterday about being ticked to not be a key guy in the gameplan. We won. I was selfish.’’ It’s patently absurd, after winning the first game of the season on the road, to complain about your role. It’s one game, dude. Can’t turn into T.O. after one game.

Yeah, dude. Come on dude, it's only one game, so don't overreact. That is unless you are Peter King, in which case this rule doesn't apply to him and all of these assumptions and knee-jerk reactions he is making in this MMQB are going to stand the test of the season as facts and not just the result of one week of football.

7. I think, as I reported on NBC over the weekend, that we can have whatever opinion we want about the fruitlessness of the mission Tim Tebow is on, but he is determined to give the quarterback position one more concentrated try.

I think now that Tebow is out of the NFL, sportswriters need to stop talking about him. Let's talk about active NFL players, please. Also, Tebow's insistence on being a quarterback is a little selfish, no? It's more about him proving something to his doubters rather than using his skills to help an NFL team win games, even if the skills he uses aren't being used in the fashion Tebow wants the skills to be used.

I still maintain in the right place—which the 2012 Jets were, if they’d done with Tebow what Rex Ryan and Mike Tannenbaum intended—Tebow can have a role as a changeup quarterback on a winning team.

Of course you maintain this. Tebow brings pageviews and when Tebow is out of the NFL he can't bring pageviews.

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

a. Remember one thing, all you Springsteenians, who wanted to see a more Jersey look for the Super Bowl halftime show and got Bruno Mars instead: Halftime shows are done to attract a non-football audience, including the international audience. Halftime shows are designed to hit a different demographic. I couldn’t tell you the difference between Bruno Mars and a Mars bar. But 56-year-old men aren’t the focus of the league when it comes to halftime shows at the Super Bowl.

So a note about the Super Bowl is a non-football thought? Interesting. Also, Bruce Springsteen is 63 years old. I'm not sure where Peter got the "56-year-old men" comment from unless he isn't talking about Springsteen. If he is talking about Springsteen, then is another example of an easily fixable mistake in MMQB.

b. I have to tell you it got quiet in the NBC Football Night in America Red Sox Wing when the Jacoby Ellsbury foot news came in Sunday. He’ll miss some time with an injury.

I'm not sure even Red Sox fans care about your reaction to Ellbury's injury.

d. Thanks, Lake Bell, for being a fan of The MMQB. You’re good at movies too.

Yes, Lake Bell, Peter is a huge fan of you ever since last week when he saw his first ever movie that had you in it. He's been a fan for a whole week and seen one of your movies.

e. Feeling stupid for ignoring Breaking Bad.

Have you thought it's not just a feeling?

f. Denver’s so underrated.

I'm not sure what this even means. This makes not of sense. Who is rating Denver to where it is under/overrated?

g. But the one thing about the city, if you’re there once or three times a year for short stays, is how dehydration just sneaks up on you. Last Wednesday, in mid-afternoon, I’m wondering why I have this headache. I never get headaches. And a friend said to me, “Drink water. Drink a lot of water here. That’s from dehydration.” He was right.

Wait, so when you are dehydrated liquids like water may help the dehydration? No way!

The Adieu Haiku

I know. Raiders lost.
But my Week 1 takeaway?
Oakland’s not boring.

It does not matter.
A loss is still a loss, no?
It's been one game, dude.

7 comments MMQB Review: Chuck Pagano Searches for Motivation Edition

Peter King told us a little bit about those foreign kickers who are looking to come to America and take American place-kicking jobs in last week's MMQB. It seems Peter was excited to see the Lions allow foreign workers come to Detroit (Detroit! What's more American than a city that builds American cars?), which is obviously un-American and should at the minimum put Peter on the "No-fly" list for the next 12 months. That's if I had my way. Peter also defended Jeff Fisher's honor from Bernie Kosar's insults towards Rams players and alerted us to the fact Brett Favre does indeed believe he screwed up by throwing the overtime interception that helped the Saints make it to the Super Bowl in 2009. This week Peter talks about "Chuckstrong," the magic feeling that allowed the Colts to win games last year and even caused the Packers to miss a field goal attempt, has thoughts from every training camp he attended, uses his Stat of the Week to remind us the Rams are going to have a young and potent offense since Peter hasn't done this enough already, and Peter breaks the news that Jon Gruden may end up coaching in the NFL again sometime maybe possibly next season. It's going to be hard for Gruden to choose which team to coach, since it seems from his time on television with ESPN that he likes every player on every team in the NFL. I guess he'll just decide which team to coach by seeing who gives him the most money. It's the only fair way to decide.

Much to do this morning, winding up the 20-camp, two-game, 11,969-mile tour of NFL training camps, and covering another costly injury (Dustin Keller’s knee in Miami),

I feel like every preseason sportswriters marvel at how many injuries occur and then once the season starts they forget about it completely, then the cycle begins again the next summer when sportswriters marvel at how many preseason injuries there are. Football is a violent sport and just like important players get injured during the regular season, important players can get injured during the preseason.

but we start with the inspirational story and unlikeliest playoff team from 2012, and what the Colts are going to do for an encore.

The Colts were a consistent playoff team for a decade before the 2011 season. Then they lose Peyton Manning and are coached by a head coach who is completely over his head (Jim Caldwell) in the situation he was suddenly placed in. They still had talent on the team, so when they got a competent head coach and a competent quarterback was it really that unlikely they could have made the playoffs? In retrospect, I have should have seen the Colts playoff appearance coming. Hindsight serves me well in this instance. I explain the Colts 2012 playoff appearance by explaining the 2011 Colts had talent on their roster, but didn't have a good quarterback or a good head coach, while Peter explains the playoff appearance by stating the Colts were so inspired by Chuck Pagano they played football better.

Pagano lords over it all. Sitting in a golf cart on the practice fields at Anderson University one day last week, he couldn’t stop smiling about it. A year ago, Pagano felt worn down, run down, just plain lousy, in training camp. He thought he was just working too hard. But his energy was down, even after a good night’s sleep. He was diagnosed with leukemia, cancer of the blood, in late September. You know the rest.

Peter grasped onto this as a somewhat lazy narrative and then tried to use it as an explanation for why the Colts made the playoffs?

I ask about what he can use to drive his team this year, seeing as though there will never be the kind of goosebumpy motivation of 2012 available to him—or maybe any NFL coach—this year, or in the future.

Perhaps the drive to win football games or the drive to perform well on the field? Why does the head coach have to get cancer for a team to feel driven? More importantly, what a stupid question.

“That’s a great question that I get asked all the time, and it’s tough to answer,” Pagano said.

That's not a great question and I can't believe it is asked all the time. There are really morons who ask Chuck Pagano how he is going to motivate his team now that he doesn't have leukemia? Maybe the Colts can get lucky and find a nine-year old boy who has cancer and use that to motivate the team. That's if the Colts get lucky and find a nine-year boy who has cancer, which doesn't happen often enough. Keep those fingers crossed!

“There’s always something, something that happens during the season—a devastating loss, an unfortunate tragedy, whatever it may be. To me, we play this game and make the sacrifices that we make for the love of the game,

Somebody needs to make sure a devastating loss or tragedy happens in or around Indianapolis so Chuck Pagano can motivate his team. Maybe there will be a school shooting or one of the Colts players/coaches will lose a spouse in a horrific accident. Something needs to happen, anything. Either way, there needs to be motivation provided or else Chuck Pagano can't motivate this team.

Said Luck: “I can’t imagine anyone on our team—anyone in the NFL—needing some kind of extra motivation to go out and win. We don’t need it. We’ve all got it. We want to go further than we did last year.”

Thank you, Mr. Neckbeard. You speak of truth.

Motivation’s a tricky thing. We in the media probably overrate it.

You don't overrate it. You grasp desperately on to it as a reason for why a team is winning in order to create a narrative you can write your columns around.

But I find it hard to believe there wasn’t something a little extra around this team last year when, 10 times a day, Pagano would text or phone from his hospital room or recovery bedroom at home to urge players on, with the littlest things.

Peter finds it hard to believe because there isn't "a little extra" around the Colts team because it fits the narrative he is pushing. Peter believes what he wants to believe basically.

Like the time Pagano phoned Grigson one night at dinner to remind him to make sure he got a ball painted for castoff cornerback Darius Butler earning AFC Defensive Player of the Week honors. Or the time Pagano, at the first game he attended while still sick, got up on a swivel chair in the GM’s box to rap on the window between that booth and the assistant coaches and scream at them to look up at the replay because they might want to challenge a play.

So Peter's point is that AFTER Darius Butler got AFC Defensive Player of the Week the Colts had special magic around the team that helped them win more games? Is that what he is saying? I don't get it. Butler had already won the award prior to Pagano reminded Grigson to get the ball painted. Maybe I'm trying to explain the unexplainable. My point is that Peter is looking to explain why the Colts played well by using a narrative rather than looking at the Colts schedule and how well the team played to explain why they made the playoffs last year.

“In the hospital, I met people who weren’t going home. For example, a kid named Cory Lane, who was one of those coin toss kids at one of our games. Cory had written me a note while I was in the hospital and sent me photos and things like that. Well, he lost his battle last spring. He turned 16 years old and he lost his battle.

YES! A dead child! That's the perfect motivational story to get behind to help the Colts play better than they ever though they could have played. Just when Pagano thinks things aren't looking good, a child goes and dies, helping him to provide a narrative that motivates the Colts team. What a blessing.

On this day, Pagano, one of the fortunate ones, took the field and moved from group to group—showing some technique to a couple of rookie linebackers at one point, talking to the visiting parents of Reggie Wayne for a while

Peter means the borderline Hall of Fame receiver Reggie Wayne, right? One of the holdovers from the Colts teams that made the playoffs for a decade straight, had one bad year due to injuries and then only made the playoffs because they were so inspired by their coach's cancer battle?

Memories from the road.

Getting to spend time with Jeff Fisher. That's the only memory that Peter needs.

Dallas (Oxnard, Calif.). I got there on July 19th, in the afternoon. The team arrived around 6 p.m. But Tony Romo, who didn’t need to travel with the team because he was already in California, was there at 10 a.m., throwing on an empty field to a few Cowboys staffers who arrived early.

The good news is that Romo was only intercepted twice while throwing to the Cowboy staffers on an empty field. The bad news is that Romo is still to blame for everything that has ever been wrong with the Cowboys.

Denver (Englewood, Colo.). Felt like I was watching the old Raiders at the Broncos’ first practice of the year. Wes Welker (32), Stewart Bradley (29), Quentin Jammer (34), Shaun Phillips (32), Dan Koppen (33) and the youngster, Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie (27), all here to help Peyton Manning (37) drive Denver to a Super Bowl.

Of course Manning is surrounded by Demaryius Thomas (25), Ryan Clady (26), Zane Beadles (26), Louis Vazquez (26), Orlando Franklin (25), Eric Decker (26), Ronnie Hillman (21), Derek Wolfe (23), Rahim Moore (23), Von Miller (24), Robert Ayers (27), and Wesley Woodyard (27) as well.

It turns out the Broncos around Peyton Manning really aren't that old, but again, it's no fun to ruin Peter's narrative that he wants to force down our throats.

New England (Foxboro, Mass.). Shane Vereen looks like the kind of multi-threat weapon the Patriots could use out of the backfield to take some of Aaron Hernandez’s touches. Soft hands, can break a tackle, makes linebackers miss.

Like really soft hands. Shane Vereen, when he touches your hand, it's like shaking the hand of a bunny if bunnies had hands and could make linebackers miss.

Baltimore (Owings Mills, Md.). No Ray Lewis. No Ed Reed.

Really? Because no one has mentioned whether the Ravens have Ed Reed or Ray Lewis around anymore. DOES ANYONE KNOW IF ANQUAN BOLDIN GOT TRADED?

Daryl Smith would have been a $7 million-a-year player in Jacksonville right now if he hadn’t gotten hurt, and Lardarius Webb was on his way to being a top-five NFL corner before shredding his knee last year. You watch. Those are just two of the guys who will upgrade this defense.

Don't talk to me, Peter. You are the one who insists the Ravens should have spent $6 million in cap space to make sure that Anquan Boldin stayed on the roster and don't seem to understand how the Ravens managed to sign Elvis Dumervil, Daryl Smith and a couple others with the money they saved by trading Boldin.

St. Louis (Earth City, Mo.).

I'll give you a hint. Everything in St. Louis is really fucking sunny and Peter will be surprised if Tavon Austin doesn't pass Jerry Rice's all-time receptions record this year, while Sam Bradford and Jared Cook combine to help Bradford break 7,000 yards passing with Cook catching 129 passes for 2,400 yards.

Very good practice for the Rams on offense. A year ago, the defense won most of the summer sessions. Not anymore.

This is the very first time we have heard the Rams might have a good offense this year. I can't believe it took Peter this long to mention it.

and there’s no question the pressure will be on Sam Bradford to form an instant bond with new weapons Jared Cook and Tavon Austin.

I think Bradford can do it. He's never had a ton of weapons around him in the offense and Austin is perhaps the greatest receiver to come out of the draft in the last decade and with a genius coach like Jeff Fisher in an easy division like the NFC West I can't imagine how another 8-8 year isn't possible for Fisher.

Cincinnati (Cincinnati). Everyone from Marvin Lewis to the TSA guy in security at Greater Cincinnati Airport (no kidding; he brought it up with me) knows Andy Dalton’s got to play better for the Bengals to play deep into January. The Bengals are working on Dalton getting the deep ball out quicker, and with more trajectory. In the practice I saw, Dalton lofts one into the arms of A.J. Green far downfield. They need about 25 more of those when the games start counting.

I always enjoy how there is seemingly pressure around Andy Dalton to play better while Sam Bradford has sort of been off the hook for his performance at times. I realize Bradford hasn't had the guys around him that Dalton has. Bradford doesn't have A.J. Green, but there's all this pressure on Dalton to play well and I feel like there isn't quite as much pressure on Sam Bradford. Maybe it is because Bradford doesn't play for a team that has made the playoffs the last two years. Either way, Dalton has been better in the NFL than Bradford has been. I'm interested to see what Bradford can do with Tavon Austin because overall I consider Bradford to be a semi-disappointment and don't see why he doesn't merit more criticism for not living up to expectations of being the #1 overall pick. The Rams (and Jeff Fisher) essentially traded Robert Griffin because they were happy with Bradford. Bradford has to earn and I'm not sure he has yet.

My point isn't to bash Bradford, I promise. My point is that even if the Rams have improved the skill position players around Sam Bradford I'm still not 100% convinced he can help these skill position players thrive.

“I’d like to semi-disappear. The game’s been incredible to me. But disappearing’s good too. Disappearing to me is not being on TV, not being on the radio. I’d like to coach somewhere at a high school, trying to help the next generation, trying to help the next kid overcome the odds and be the best he can be.”

—Aaron Rodgers, to me, Thursday.

Basically Aaron Rodgers wants to be the anti-Favre after he retires. Not such a bad thing to want to be. This is as opposed to being like Favre and Rodgers talking about retiring seemingly after every season once he turns 30 and getting off on the drama surrounding his possible return to the NFL.

The Yankees are, at least peripherally, involved in a pennant race. Alex Rodriguez is the third baseman on the Yankees. His appeal of the 211-game suspension is not going to be decided until the offseason. Which leads me to believe that of all the selfish acts of Rodriguez’s career, he is in the middle of the biggest one of all: doing his best to look out for his own image while at the same time being the biggest distraction in the recent history of baseball.

MMQB would not be complete without a half-assed thought from Peter about baseball. No one likes A-Rod and he is a cheating asshole, but I don't see how he is being selfish by trying to help the Yankees win despite the personal differences he has with Yankees management. Would it be less selfish for A-Rod just to sit out the entire season while he is appealing the suspension, as opposed to playing and making the Yankees team better by upgrading their third-base position? I don't think so. I think at this point the least selfish thing A-Rod could do is play with his teammates and try to help them make the playoffs. Of course I don't blindly hate everything A-Rod does and look for any reason to call him selfish. I find it funny that Peter calls A-Rod selfish when he is trying to help his team win games despite his differences with the Yankees organization. The alternative is even more selfish.

As MLB executive VP Rob Manfred told the newspaper: “I have yet to see Alex Rodriguez or any of his representatives say that Alex Rodriguez didn’t use PEDs. They’ve adopted a strategy to make a circus atmosphere of irrelevant allegations. I don’t know why anyone who represents Alex Rodriguez has any credibility or standing to complain about anyone’s conduct, let alone ours.”

Sure, A-Rod is the asshole for seeking his right given by the Collective Bargaining Agreement to appeal the suspension. So A-Rod is guilty for attempting to play with his teammates in order to help them make the playoffs and is selfish for taking advantage of his right to appeal the 211 game suspension. Got it.

Maybe it’s me. I find this amazing:

The Rams have 46 offensive players under contract at training camp this summer in Earth City, Mo. Sam Bradford, 25, drafted in the first round in 2010, is the longest-tenured St. Louis offensive player.

We’re still three weeks away from the season, but here’s the way the neophyte Rams could line up in 2013 at the offensive skill positions:

 

No, it's not just you Peter, but I do have to say simply because the Rams are very young doesn't mean they are young and talented. I get it though. You feel a lot of pressure to make the Rams look as good as possible. Marvin Demoff can be a real jerk sometimes. Sometimes it does seem like you go out of your way to make the Rams look really, really good. In fact, you have talked about the Rams A LOT this offseason and I'm not sure you have said anything negative about them. 

For example, the running game is a complete mystery. Can Daryl Richardson be a starting running back in a division where the Rams play the Seahawks and 49ers four times? If Richardson can't run the ball, doesn't that put too much pressure on the Rams passing game? Why hasn't Peter mentioned the Rams weakness at running back at any point this offseason when discussing the Rams potent offense? Who is going to play receiver on the outside with Tavon Austin on the inside? Brian Quick, Chris Givens? Austin Pettis? Are those receivers who will prevent teams from keying on Tavon Austin? Can Sam Bradford stay completely healthy behind an offensive line that stays healthy? Not to mention, it is only preseason, but all of this offensive talent the Rams have hasn't exactly translated into points so far.

So what I find amazing is that Peter King constantly tells us how talented the Rams are going to be on offense and essentially marvels over them in every MMQB, yet for some reason he hasn't touched on any of the Rams issues, such as the running back position without Steven Jackson and whether the offensive line can stay healthy. So it's hard for me to believe anything other than the Marvin Demoff connection has some sort of impact on Peter's coverage of the Rams. Peter has gotta be positive or he won't get another visit to an NFL team's draft room on draft day. 

“Must admit, Seahawks looking like more of a threat to New England in AFC than Denver is right now.”

—@RealSkipBayless, the ESPN commentator.

Seattle moved to the NFC in 2002.

We should probably just be thankful that Skip Bayless could name three cities with NFL teams. I would not be surprised if Skip sent out a Tweet that said, 

"No way Tim Brady is healthy for the game against the Wyoming Antlers next week. Won't be back until faces Orlando on the 13th." 

Ten Things I Think I Think

b. It’s totally unfair, because it’s not a quarterback versus quarterback game, and because Seattle scored a touchdown on special teams and on defense in the first half Saturday night.

"It's not totally fair to make the comparison I am about to make, but I'm going to make the comparison anyway and hope you all ignore the fact I just dismissed my comparison as pointless. It may not mean something, but I want you to pretend that it does." 

c. Passer rating by Seahawk quarterbacks Saturday: Tarvaris Jackson 141.4, Russell Wilson 141.3.

Exactly. 

i. Can’t make the team throwing like that, Tim Tebow.

Peter always has to mention Tim Tebow. Tebow can't make the team as a quarterback throwing like he has thrown his entire career. Nothing has changed.

m. The Colts did so many things right Sunday night. The Reggie Wayne one-handed catch, the spot-on Andrew Luck touchdown throw, the consistent pressure on Eli Manning. Good night for Indy.

Perhaps they've found the proper motivation through tragedy to play well this year. 

3. I think this will be Jon Gruden’s last year in the ESPN booth—assuming there is significant interest in him as an NFL head coach. And there will be.

Well, Gruden certainly hasn't said anything to offend anyone and narrow his options during his time in the ESPN "Monday Night Football" booth. Every player on every NFL team is a great guy that Gruden would want on his football team. 

Then Peter moves to point #4, which is still a discussion about Jon Gruden. I'm not sure why this shouldn't be included in point #3, but I guess Peter has to stretch out the things he thinks this week. 

4. I think there are only so many games a coach who still is a coach can do in the booth, and only so many times driving to an office to watch tape without a team to boss around, before Gruden says No mas, and takes the reins somewhere next year. Dallas, Carolina, Detroit, Tennessee, Jets. Who knows?

More importantly in my opinion, who cares? I can bet one thing. It won't be Carolina, so mark that team off your list. Jerry Richardson isn't paying $8 million or more for a head coach. He devotedly wants to follow the way of successful teams like the Steelers and that isn't how the Steelers would hire a head coach by hiring a head coach at $8 million or more per year. 

6. I think the longer Arian Foster (calf, back) misses time—and he hasn’t practiced in training camp, or since spring OTAs, and he’s stuck on the Physically Unable to Perform list—the more I’d worry about his ability to play 16 games this season. And you know how valuable he is to the Texans.

This is the kind of information you can only find in MMQB. The longer Arian Foster can't play because he is injured, the more concerned the Texans should be with his ability to be healthy for the entire year. I bet Peter will tell us next week that the more Mark Sanchez throws interceptions in the preseason the more concerned Rex Ryan will be with his quarterback situation. 

9. I think if Champ Bailey misses the first couple of weeks of the season with his foot injury—and Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie remains out with his high ankle sprain—the position Denver thought would be such a strength could have Tony Carter and Chris Harris (the normal slot corner) starting against Joe Flacco in the opener. That’s not good.

It's good for the Broncos because the Ravens don't have Anquan Boldin anymore and Dennis Pitta is injured. So the Ravens don't have any weapons for Flacco to throw the ball to. Isn't that what Peter keeps telling us to worry about when it comes to the Ravens? 

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

b. Funniest thing about the A-Rod beaning by Ryan Dempster, after Dempster threw behind Rodriguez once and inside the next two pitches, was Red Sox manager John Farrell saying the pitch got away from Dempster, and he had to establish the inside of the plate, and blah blah blah. Good one, John. Most amazing thing about it was the corners of your mouth didn’t curl up even slightly when you said it.

A-Rod is an asshole anyway for daring to help the Yankees win games, so he deserves to be hit in the head with a baseball. A-Rod probably deserves to be hit in the head with a baseball and then die. This tragedy could help Chuck Pagano motivate his Colts team.

f. Miguel Cabrera could have a significantly better season than his Triple Crown year and not win the Triple Crown this year. What an amazing player.

It's almost like a player winning the Triple Crown is relative and dependent on the statistics other players in that league are accumulating. 

h. The MMQB has its one-month anniversary on Thursday. I hope we get more sleep in the second month.

Non-football related? Really?

The Adieu Haiku

No Champ, DRC?
No Pitta or Anquan B?
One scarred opener.

Let it go, Peter. Anquan Boldin doesn't play for the Ravens anymore. We may as well not watch the Baltimore-Denver game now since it will be so boring. In fact, let's just cancel the NFL season because Peter doesn't think one game during Week 1 will be exciting enough.

6 comments MMQB Review: Did You Know Anquan Boldin Got Traded? Edition

Peter King launched The MMQB last week with his inaugural MMQB column that appeared on the The MMQB site. It turns out that Peter believes The MMQB to be the "thinking man's football site," which is always a nice change and I took it to mean Peter would not be writing at The MMQB...but it turns out I was wrong. It seems the "thinking man's football site" involves talking about pizza with Colin Kaepernick and three things that Tom Brady thinks. I guess we'll see how the site plays out, but MMQB is the exact same (not The MMQB, but MMQB the column) as it always has been. Peter complains about having to deal with the public and gives us insider information on his favorite beers. This week Peter tells us the most overlooked storyline of training camp (which most likely will boil down to "Does Colin Kaepernick like mushrooms on his pizza or does he just like plain cheese pizza?"), advises airlines to work on their boarding procedures (Peter is Zone 1 dammit! He's not sitting nor boarding with people who make less than six figures and you can't make him do it), and compares Wes Welker to Jerry Rice out of spite for his readers. 

What I love about NFL training camps was on display Sunday, around 4:30 in the afternoon, as the sun beat down on the fields where the Super Bowl favorites (in the eyes of many) went through their fourth practice of the summer.

Was it the sound of a person being thrashed with a cane for having the audacity to talk on their cell phone in your presence while you washed down an Allagash White and wondered why servants just aren't as affordable as they used to be?

From the right slot, Anquan Boldin, the uber-valuable Ravens wideout who broke so many Niners-loving hearts with a 100-yard receiving game in the Super Bowl fewer than six months ago, cut across the middle of the first-team Niners defense. Nnamdi Asomugha trailed, but just barely, in tight coverage on him. The quarterback, Colin Kaepernick, went elsewhere with the throw. But just seeing Boldin in Niners red, wearing his familiar No. 81, was notable for a couple of reasons:

So what Peter loves the most about training camp is the lack of continuity in the salary cap era and how non-guaranteed contracts can cause veteran players to be traded on the cheap?  This is a long treasured training camp tradition.

One, the best receiver in the 2012 postseason moving from brother (John Harbaugh) to brother (Jim) in a lightning-fast trade has gotten far too little attention in the NFL world. Two, with the Achilles injury to top San Francisco wideout Michael Crabtree knocking him out until at least midseason, Boldin, traded for a pittance (the 199th pick in the April draft) could be the most important receiver on two different Super Bowl contenders just months apart. And nobody’s talking about it. It’s the NFL story hiding in plain sight.

I think there was a fairly big to-do about Boldin going to the 49ers back when he actually got traded. I remember Peter writing a column about it and I remember reading other columns about this trade. Boldin was traded on the cheap, but I'm not sure why there has to be an uproar about his leaving the Ravens team to go to San Francisco. Boldin hasn't had a 1000 yard season since 2009 and hasn't caught double-digit touchdowns since 2008. He had a great postseason, but I think this is a case where the last thing being remembered is the only thing being remembered. Boldin is going to be 33 in October and he was never the fastest receiver as it is. I don't understand how this is an NFL story hiding in plain sight. It's really not that exciting unless you are the type of writer who gets aroused at the idea of an NFL player being traded from one Harbaugh brother's team to another...which apparently is the type of writer Peter King is.

Also, don't say Peter didn't warn you The MMQB wouldn't have hard-hitting stories! Anquan Boldin has changed Harbaugh brothers. Why doesn't anyone talk about the Harbaugh brothers? What an underrated storyline they are. Do John and Jim have parents? Why hasn't anyone talked to Jim and John Harbaugh's father about how he feels to have two sons that coach in the NFL? I wonder which brother they cheered for in the Super Bowl last year?

“It’s amazing how quiet it’s been,” 49ers offensive coordinator Greg Roman said after practice Sunday.

Not really. I'd like to talk more about how quickly Nnamdi Asomugha has gone from being considered one of the top cornerbacks in the NFL to being cut by the Eagles for a reason that wasn't completely salary-cap related. Can we talk about how three summers ago Peter King made Asomugha seem like he was on par with Darrelle Revis and reported breathlessly on his free agency, only to find Peter got quiet with a "nothing to see here"-ness about it when Asomugha's performance didn't merit the free agency attention he gave it? Oh, we can't talk about it? Great, then.

But first, the two things about the Boldin deal, and its aftermath here, that interest me the most:

1. The story at the time was how quickly the March 11 deal between Baltimore and San Francisco came together, after the Ravens decided they’d rather cut Boldin than pay him the full $6 million he was due in 2013. Just how sudden did the deal get done? “From start to finish, about 40 minutes,” Jim Harbaugh said in his office Sunday.

Is this really shocking? The Ravens were going to cut Boldin and the 49ers were getting a great deal on a proven receiver. This deal should have taken five minutes, but I'm sure the Ravens spent 35 minutes seeing if any other NFL team would want to take Boldin off their hands for more than a 6th round pick while also paying Boldin's $6 million salary.

“I was told to be myself from day one,” Boldin said as the Niners opened defense of their NFC title in the shadow of the quickly rising stadium that will be their home beginning in 13 months. “So I feel comfortable to speak up if I see something that can help this team.”

Why aren't more people talking about how Anquan Boldin can talk? What an underrated story this is.

And there he was Sunday, rambling across the middle and exchanging ideas with Kaepernick after plays, rushing to get on the same page.

Why are more people not talking about Anquan Boldin's ability to exchange ideas? This is the overlooked story of this decade in sports.

One more thing about Niners camp Sunday: Anyone who watched practice understood why Jim Harbaugh chose Kaepernick over Alex Smith last November.

Anyone who saw Alex Smith play quarterback over the last two seasons and saw that Harbaugh had maxed out Smith's abilities understood why Harbaugh chose Kaepernick over Alex Smith. My question is why it took so damn long to get in Kaepernick in there for Smith.

News of the Weekend.

Allagash White is still a great beer. That is all the news Peter cares to share. Well, also sitting and drinking beer is underrated. Why don't more people do this?

On Percy Harvin. Harvin flies to New York to be examined by a hip specialist Tuesday after feeling some restrictions while running last week. Harvin got nervous about it, saw the usually conservative Seahawks doctors (who believe the injury isn’t season-threatening), and decided to exercise his option to have a second opinion.

Alex Rodriguez is jealous that Percy Harvin has the right to a second medical opinion.

That leads the Seahawks to think they’ll escape a season-ending injury for Harvin. I’ve got a little different opinion on this than most.

Peter's opinion is the Zone 3 folks just need to fucking wait their turn and not get near the Zone 1 folks trying to get on the plane! Wait, sorry I jumped the gun on that one. That's not until later in this MMQB.

Harvin had trust issues with authority in Minnesota, dating back to a poor relationship with head coach Brad Childress. So now the Seahawks can establish that they’re going to be different—they’re going to give their blessing on getting the second opinion, and they’re going to tell Harvin, We want you to have peace of mind about your hip.

Harvin has trust issues so the Seahawks are going to cater to Harvin's trust issues by saying, "Our doctors could be wrong. It's best not to trust us. Go get a second opinion on your hip from your own doctor." Perhaps I am thinking too logical, but if Harvin's poor relationship with Brad Childress and Harvin's problem with authority caused him issues in Minnesota, then couldn't it be possible allowing him to see his own doctor (IF the doctor comes back with a different diagnosis) feed into those trust issues? It seems to me like this could go really well or really badly for Seattle if Harvin really has difficulty with authority and then the Seahawks doctors and Harvin's own personal doctor disagree on treatment for his hip.

Opening day is 41 days away, and aside from the fact that Russell Wilson and Harvin need to be building familiarity, there’s not a major issue with a guy who has a history of missing time (10 games in four seasons) getting as healthy as he can in the preseason and feeling good about his physical condition entering the season.

At least the Seahawks aren't asking to smell Harvin's car.

On Von Miller. I’ll be very interested to see what Miller’s defense in challenging a four-game league suspension will be.

It's never that interesting really to hear these appeals. Usually it involves the player blaming someone else or saying he accidentally took the substance that he tested positive for.

On Jeremy Maclin. What’s most hurtful about Maclin being lost for the season with a torn ACL after collapsing at practice Saturday is that Eagles coach Chip Kelly needs the quickness and playmaking Maclin surely would have provided the offense.

Yeah, that's pretty obvious. I'm pretty sure that is what is most hurtful about Maclin being lost for the season, the fact he is fast and very good at playing football. I guess this is the type of hard-hitting, in-depth reporting The MMQB will provide.

"What hurts the Broncos most by Peyton Manning's head falling off during practice is that he is a Hall of Fame quarterback and the Broncos were really counting on him being their starter this year."

This GM said one of the reasons Kelly would be in such high demand is because he consistently took players other colleges didn’t want and turned them into high-functioning players in a fast-paced offense. I wouldn’t count out the Eagles.

Peter, it's late July. No one has counted out the Eagles yet. Calm down.

I just figure Kelly will use the summer to test two or three guys down the depth chart (Greg Salas, Cooper, Arrelious Benn) and find a way to make plays. I still think who the quarterback is, and how fast the offense can play competently, will be a bigger factor in Philly’s success or failure than the loss of Maclin.

Peter believes whether the Eagles have a competent quarterback may play a bigger role in how successful the Eagles season is. Who knew competent quarterback play was so vital to a team's success? Who knew that whoever Chip Kelly chooses as the Eagles quarterback could have such a large impact on the Eagles season? I have learned so much on The MMQB reading MMQB.

On Amber Theoharis. You recall from last week’s column (or maybe you don’t) that NFL Network anchor Amber Theoharis had a baby by Caesarian section four hours after going off the air hosting NFL Total Access July 17. Theoharis was in labor during the show. Now for the rest of the story, from Theoharis, via email: “We weren’t expecting her to come while I was still working. I should have known better. My first girl, Dylan Mattea, was 12 weeks premature. I began labor with her in the Chicago White Sox press box while working as a beat reporter for the Orioles in 2010. That time Jim Palmer held my hand, 

Jim Palmer, always the pimp. Hopefully he was fully clothed and not just wearing his briefs while holding her hand.

Never in my life would I believe Willie McGinest and Warren Sapp would be part of my child’s birth story. They were. Willie McGinest was sitting next to me during that break when I knew the contractions were getting stronger. As a father of three. he knew what was up.

Let's be honest, does it require having three children to figure out a woman over 8 months pregnant who appears to be having contractions could be going into labor? It seems like it's not a tough deduction to get this point where you think, "This woman is about to have a baby," whether you are a father of three children or zero children.

This is why we love Warren. He just kept yelling across the set. ‘She’s going to have that baby!’ 

Then Sapp called the baby "a snitch" and offered to eat the placenta in the delivery room if that is what Theoharis wanted him to do.

So on Friday of draft weekend last April, Wisconsin running back Montee Ball and his family rented a room in a Madison hotel to celebrate his being drafted. It happened in round two, when the Broncos chose Ball.
“My phone started blowing up,” Ball said the other day. “You know, friends and family all texting and calling to congratulate me. I couldn’t read ‘em all, there were so many. Then this real long one came in, from a number I didn’t know. Like, Congratulations, so proud of you, you worked so hard to get to this point, you made your mark at Wisconsin, and now this is what we expect of you. Stuff like that. I scrolled all the way down, and at the bottom, it said, ‘P. Manning.’ Whoa! Peyton Manning texted me. I said, ‘Hey! I got Peyton Manning’s phone number!’ 

I am not surprised.

Yes Peter, we know you aren't surprised at Peyton reaching out to Montee Ball. You know Peyton Manning and you know that Peyton Manning does stuff like this. You are an NFL insider with access. That's why people read your column.

What I want to happen is an enterprising person to text the Broncos first round draft pick next year pretending to be Peyton Manning (before Manning can contact the player) and ask him to do some crazy stuff. Tell him to get on a plane immediately and head to Denver to practice, but he is expected to practice in women's clothing only. 

Manning did the same thing after the Colts drafted Donald Brown in 2009, and I’m sure if I asked every offensive guy drafted by his team in recent years, they’d say Manning reached out to them and began laying the plan for the guy to get to know the offense.

This is basically Peyton's polite way of saying "Get your ass on the field, I want to work with you."

Manning, 37, and I spoke for The MMQB when I was in Denver on Thursday (more coming soon in our every-weekday 3Q Interview),

Yes, we need MORE Peyton Manning. God knows we don't get enough of him in the Fall when he is in every fifth commercial.

Ten things I learned out West.

Never draw your gun if you don't intend to use it?

1. Coaches watched the Jason Garrett speech. A couple were surprised that the Cowboys allowed the 35-minute tape of Garrett’s pre-training-camp speech to his team to be shared with The MMQB. Two coaches I’ve spoken to watched the entire 35 minutes. “A good resource,” one said.

The best part of this resource is knowing that Jerry Jones gave approval for Garrett's speech to be run in MMQB and Garrett probably has no control over the team. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if Jerry Jones wrote that speech. I'm kidding of course. Jones' personal assistant would write the speech and then give it to Garrett to deliver to the team.

4. Eric Mangini’s back. Hidden, quiet and understated, Mangenius watches practice as a Niners offensive consultant—he, of course, has been a longtime defensive coach—and tries to absorb Greg Roman’s offense.

I think that "Mangenius" nickname probably shouldn't be used anymore. Doesn't seem appropriate at this point.

5. Quentin Jammer could be reborn in Denver. The Broncos are looking at him at safety in the nickel and also at slot corner. His impact could be felt most in his versatility. And by the way, John Elway loves him some Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie. Thinks he’ll be reborn playing next to Champ Bailey and Chris Harris.

Is "reborn" Peter's "Word of the Day" or something. Has "Word of the Day" been reborn?

If this doesn’t make you feel old, nothing will.

Seeing this line on the camp roster of the New York Giants:

Experience: 10.

Eli Manning, a 10-year veteran. Same for Philip Rivers and Ben Roethlisberger, of course.

Just another reminder of how time marches on for everyone in this game, and how it won’t be long before the Giants, Chargers and Steelers have to start thinking of life after their franchise quarterbacks.

Oh by the way Peter, the Steelers drafted Landry Jones and the Giants drafted Ryan Nassib in this past year's draft. So they are way ahead of you on this thought. Good looking out on the whole "Look for the Steelers, Chargers, and Giants to start thinking about life after their franchise quarterback" thing though.

In Praise of Wes Welker Dept.:

Receptions by Wes Welker over the past six seasons: 672.
Receptions by Jerry Rice over the most productive six-year period of his career: 604 (from 1991 to ’96).

Is that right? It doesn't feel right.

That’s right:

So it is right.

Well, let’s run the numbers. Rice was 33 years and 3 months old when he finished that 604-catch run. Welker was 31 years and 8 months old when he played his last regular-season game for New England and finished his six-year roll.

Peter is not directly comparing Jerry Rice to Wes Welker, but he is also making some sense of a comparison of Jerry Rice to Wes Welker. Welker is a great receiver, but he and Rice are just completely different types of wide receivers who played in different types of offenses. I recognize the strength of Welker as a player, but he's asked to do different things from Rice. So whether Peter means to or not, he is comparing these two players. I am not sure I would even know where to begin when discussing a comparison of Wes Welker to Jerry Rice.

There are 11 players with 900 or more catches who are not in the Hall yet—some either still playing or not eligible—and the field will be teeming soon, with Andre Johnson, Jason Witten, Steve Smith and Larry Fitzgerald likely to go over 900 in the next couple years. I believe 15 years down the road, there will be 15 receivers knocking on the Hall doors with 1,000 catches on their resumes. A grim task faces the 46 Hall voters at receiver, to be sure.

It sounds like 1000 catches shouldn't be the whole criteria for whether a player makes it into the Hall of Fame. Perhaps other factors should be considered like the quality of the quarterback the receiver played with for his career, how tall he was (the shorter the player is, the better chance he has of making the Hall of Fame), and whether he had another great receiver on the other side of him that helped to make his 1000 catches less or more impressive.

I'm kidding about making these criteria part of the Hall of Fame consideration (by using criteria that would get Steve Smith in the Hall of Fame). Well sort of, these factors should be somewhat considered, but I think 1000 catches shouldn't be an automatic qualifier for the Hall of Fame as it once seemed to be.

To underscore the historic impact Tony Gonzalez is having on the tight end position:
 
Gonzalez has 427 more receptions than any other tight end in NFL history. Mike Ditka had 427 catches in his Hall of Fame career.

This says more about how the game of football has evolved and how certain offensive players who were inducted in the past are going to have puny looking numbers in the future compared to modern players.

Mr. Starwood Preferred Member Travel Note of the Week

This section is named after a gentleman that Peter ran into at a hotel who referred to himself in a pretentious manner as a "Starwood Preferred Member." This guy thought he was special because of this, but in the following story Peter is going to basically do the same thing and believe he is special because he has a Zone 1 boarding pass. Let's just say Peter is not self-aware.

LaGuardia Airport, New York, Wednesday afternoon, gate B1, Frontier Airlines, pre-flight announcements and reaction for a flight to Denver:

Feel the tension and drama!

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Frontier Airlines and our flight to Denver. We will be boarding by zones today. Any families with small children who need some extra time to board, please approach the gate.

Four or five families approach the gate. Twenty or so other people, adults traveling without children, clog the gate area. 

The audacity of these people to not immediately move aside fully knowing they are in the presence of Peter King. What an audacious display. Peter does not feel re-born when he sees displays like this.

Now if we have any Ascent members, you are free to board. Ladies and gentlemen, please step aside to allow our families and Ascent members room to board.
No one steps aside. The moochers have to be walked through. Now there are more of them. Thirty, maybe. Two minutes pass. The frequent Frontier flyers excuse themselves repeatedly to move through the louts who don’t belong there.

This is madness. It only gets worse for Peter too. He is Zone 1. Zone 1, dammit, and these louts aren't going to move so he can get by. Where are the police when you need them?

Now ladies and gentlemen, if your boarding card is marked with Zone 1, you may board.

The non-Zone-1 people are eight-deep. I have a Zone 1 boarding pass.

Now these louts have poked the bear. Peter is going to angrily drag his rolling suitcase up to the counter, mumble about them under his breath and then get these people back by writing about them in his weekly NFL column. That'll show them real good.

I excuse myself through the mass of people, over and over. The man in front of me has a midsized rolling suitcase, a bulging hanging bag fastened and slung over his shoulder, and a fat black backpack. “Sir,’’ the gate attendant says, “you’re in Zone 3. You have to wait. Please stand to the side.” He starts saying there won’t be overhead space when he boards, and asks if he could please board now. The attendant says, “No.” Sanity prevails.

What an inconvenience that Peter had to be bothered with this man. Peter has a Zone 1 boarding pass. He should have his own waiting area for the plane, but no, he doesn't make a big deal about not having his own waiting area as long as no Zone 3 passengers would come near his person. Yet, that's what happens. Peter had to wait an extra 30 seconds to board the plane because of these people and that's just absolutely unacceptable. He has a Zone 1 boarding pass, dammit! In 30 seconds, Peter could transcribe a few sentences of a complete stranger's cell phone conversation. You are ruining his life's work now by making him wait an additional 30 seconds.

Over the years, the airlines have slowly lost control of the boarding process. And this crap is what happens. It’s aerial line-cutting. Would you try to cut a line at, say, a movie theater?

Yes, people do this at the theater. They do the whole "I know that guy and am going to jump ahead and talk to him while also buying my ticket with him" move all the time.

If you’ve got too much luggage and are afraid you won’t be able to store your bag, check it.

I'm not going to defend this guy for cutting in line, but checking a bag is expensive. Still, three bags is too many, that I will agree with and I've never had a Zone 1 boarding pass.

And airlines, get control of the process with better pens to separate us cattle.

Or every airline will lose Peter as a passenger and then he will use trains to travel all around the United States. The train industry is struggling enough as it is, do you really want Peter pointing out everything the United States rail system does wrong?

“I would like to thank the Cardinal organization for 3 amazing years, my teammates, my media buddies and more importantly the fans. Thank you”

—@Ob_Scho, veteran NFL linebacker O’Brien Schofield, after being let go by the Cardinals.

Normal, everyday tweet. Nothing special about it. So why’d I use it?

Did Schofield sign with the Rams or something? 

To show you the class of O’Brien Schofield. On Thursday, walking out to practice with his team, Schofield was stopped by a Cardinals employee. Schofield needed to go see the GM, Steve Keim. And right there, at the same time the rest of his mates were practicing, Schofield was cut, after a full offseason of training. Turns out the Cardinals, after signing veteran pass rusher John Abraham, deemed Schofield expendable

Schofield will have a shot to make the Seahawks now. Seattle picked him up Saturday afternoon.

It's easy to be kind like this when you know that you have been claimed by another team after being cut. I'm not taking away from Schofield's class, but he thanked the Cardinals at 5:01pm and Tweeted he was a Seahawk at 5:04pm. It's easy to thank your prior employer once you know you have another job. So I still wonder why Peter used this Tweet because it's easy to be classy to your former employer knowing you already have a new job lined up.

Ten Things I Think I Think

a. And so you say, regarding all the training camp injuries: Why are teams so willing to risk injuries to vital players by practicing full-speed so often during the summer? I say: It’s the game. Would you want Miguel Cabrera opening the regular season in baseball having faced nothing but soft-toss in spring training?

I'm not a Tigers fan, so yes, I would want Cabrera opening the regular season ("in baseball" Peter adds, just to differentiate from Cabrera opening up the regular season playing for the Red Wings I guess) having faced nothing but soft-toss in spring training.

e. Tim Tebow caught three passes in the first practice of Patriots training camp. I see him being in the mold of a utility player if he makes the team, active some weeks and inactive others, not playing one set position.

Peter has to put at least one mention of Tebow into MMQB. I'm sure Peter is one week away from going on a rant about people who have made Tebow going to New England a big deal and feel the need to constantly update us on everything Tebow is doing at Patriots training camp.

i. Eight Washington players suspended for drug violations over the past three years, according to the Washington Post. Not good. Sounds like it’s time for GM Bruce Allen to chat with his scouts about character.

Why don't the Redskins just have Senator Robert Griffin III talk to them? He's just like Bill Bradley, you know?

2. I think it’s foreign to most of us that a player can significantly improve his speed, but Colin Kaepernick thinks he’s done just that this offseason.

It's probably all that pizza Kaepernick ate in the offseason.

4. I think the star turn of Seattle cornerback Richard Sherman may be just beginning. Not just because of his appearance on the cover of Sports Illustrated this week (if you haven’t, read the first of a series of guest columns he’s writing for The MMQB). But walking through the terminal at Denver International Airport late Thursday, I saw a young boy with a “YOU MAD BRO?” t-shirt.

This was a "thing" before Richard Sherman posted it on his Twitter account. I was a little confused by the "Sports Illustrated" article that seemed to indicate Sherman had created the "You mad bro?" saying/meme, but I'm pretty sure it was around long before he used it in reference to the Seahawks beating Tom Brady.

6. I think, speaking of the Eagles, give Chip Kelly credit for having an open mind, which I believe he does when it comes to his quarterback competition. “I think we’ve got to figure out who our quarterback is before we understand the direction of where our offense is going,’’ Kelly said after running his first NFL training camp practice Friday. “Tell me who’s going to stand in the pocket against a full rush. I haven’t seen them do that.”

Part of the appeal of Mike Vick is that he doesn't stand in the pocket against a full rush and has the ability to roll out of the pocket and scramble if necessary. I'm not an Eagles fan, but if I were, I would be a little concerned the direction of the offense is up in the air until the quarterback competition is decided.

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

a. It’d be hard to get used to having medium-to-loud music of all sorts playing at every camp and in-season practice, the way Seattle coach Pete Carroll does. His theory: It’s going to be noisy every week in the NFL, at every stadium, during every game. So let’s get used to dealing with noise at all times. Carroll’s an eclectic music guy. I thought a polka might break out at some point Friday.

This is a non-football thought? This sounds like a very football-related thought.

d. No one in baseball deserves big money more than Dustin Pedroia. That comes from someone who watches him 40 times a year and who is never disappointed.

BREAKING NEWS: Red Sox fans like Dustin Pedroia. Would Peter still like Pedroia if Pedroia had a Zone 3 boarding pass and tried to board a plane before people with Zone 1 boarding passes though? 

e. Told you the Rays would be great. Man, they can pitch.

You certainly did tell us. No one else thought the Rays would be any good this year.

i. Coffeenerdness: Two tries at a vital 6:10 a.m. Macchiato at two different Starbucks at the Seattle airport. Two fails. That’s my biggest Starbucks problem: the inconsistency of the espresso shots. Sometimes rich and perfect, sometimes bitter or watery.

I wonder if Peter realizes what a whiny person he sounds like? He considers the inconsistency of the espresso shot at Starbucks worth a complaint in his weekly NFL column. Does this really merit a public mention? He has absolutely no perspective or ability to deal with being even the slightest bit frustrated while out in public. The world must continue to revolve around his every whim. If these are the big inconveniences in Peter's life I would hate to see what would happen if he had a real problem.

j. Beernerdness: I’d been familiar with only one New Belgium Brewery beer—Fat Tire—before seeing the Rockies at Coors Field the other night. Now I have two I like. Ranger IPA is among the best IPAs I’ve had, flavorful and with the slight bitterness that characterizes all good IPAs.

Son of a bitch. That's probably one of my 5 favorite beers and now Peter has to go and like this beer also.

k. I don’t say this because we had the pleasure of Olivia Munn on The MMQB Wednesday. I say it because it’s true: Last week’s episode of The Newsroom was the best in the short history of the show.

I'm surprised Peter King doesn't absolutely love "The Newsroom." I have never seen the show, but it seems like the kind of show that Peter would absolutely love.

The Adieu Haiku
Pitta, Maclin. Shame.
Brutal July injuries.
War of attrition.

Because injuries like this that occur in the regular season and not training camp are so much better.

6 comments Ten Things I Think I Think Peter King Has Not Thought Of: Everyone's A Jerk Edition

I am still recovering from trying to dissect an entire Gregg Easterbrook column. I have a backload of columns that I want to mention just a few things about, so I thought today would be a good day to cover those. I realize some of these stories are a few days old but just stay with me.

1. You can't go wrong starting with a Woody mailbag. Except this time, instead of Woody being the sole idiot, he gets help from readers.

Woody - I think the Broncos should shift to a 3-4 defense, move Champ Bailey to FS, draft USC linebacker Rey Maualuga, draft or sign a beast nose tackle, draft or sign a beast SS, and sign Ray Lewis. That would go a long way to solving our defensive problems. What do you think? -- MJ, Phoenix

Sure, moving arguably the best cover cornerback in the league to a different position, signing a great MLB, then drafting another great MLB (or what he projects to be), and signing two other great defensive players sounds like a great idea. I wonder why the Broncos have not thought about this yet? They should just go do this.

I just found a way to fix the Bengals! Trade Chad Johnson for Albert Haynesworth and a 1st round pick, franchise tag T.J. Housmananandnddndzzzzzzzzz then trade him for a 1st and 2nd round pick, sign Matt Cassel, trade Carson Palmer for a 1st, 2nd, 3rd round pick, and then use those picks to draft all of the good players in the draft at each respective position. Simple as that and the Bengals will be in the playoffs for years upon years.

I love these fantasy/Madden moves that people can think are easily made...and by people I mean, Bill Simmons thinks this is possible also.

Woody - What was your favorite sports story of 2008? Mine is a tie between the Chauncey Billups trade and the Miami Dolphins. Thanks. -- Mike, Denver

Favorite sports story? Gosh, the Miami Dolphins and the Chauncey Billups trade are up there at say, numbers 145 and 398 respectively for the past year, but I would have to say either Michael Phelps winning 8 gold medals, the Tampa Bay Rays making the World Series, or the other tons of things that happened this year that would come to mind before those two events.

Not a bad question but this reader gave two stories that were way low on the list of good sports stories for 2008, even if they were his favorite, I am nitpicking him.

Dear Mr. Paige - We get "Around the Horn" here in Israel, and I have become a big fan of yours over the past three years. So much so, that I have named my fantasy football team "Would he Paige?" We play in an ultra-competitive, 14-team league with people who are football junkies. And guess what? "Would he Paige?" have been crowned champions! So thanks for inspiring a great championship team. Who knows? Perhaps you could do the same thing for the Nuggets and help them become bound for glory this season. From your biggest Israeli fan. -- Tal, Jerusalem

How sweet, Woody has fans in other countries.

Tal - I've always wanted to come to Israel, until I found about the fantasy football team and that name.

I'm humbled; I'm honored. But please change the name to something more appropriate than "Would he Paige?"

And Woody Paige is an ungrateful dick.

"Thank you so much for taking the time to read my columns and watch me on television. I just wish you were not such an uncreative dumbass. You are a stupid foreigner and I hate you."- Woody Paige

2. Maybe Marvin Harrison IS evil. Somewhere Gregg Doyel nods knowingly.

But over the course of Marvin Harrison's 13 years in the NFL, the Colts receiver has built an All-Pro career behind a firewall of privacy. Quiet precision defines his every move. On the field, he starts each route identically, forcing defenders to guess where he's headed. In the locker room, he sits facing his tidy booth, away from the media and teammates. At home, he keeps each touchdown ball he's ever caught in its own box.

So he runs precise routes, is quiet, and keeps all of his career memories in their own box to maintain their pristine condition? Hmmm...doesn't this sound a lot like Jeffrey Dahmer, who made precise cuts to his victims, was quiet so the police would not catch on to his crimes, and kept his victims in the fridge to maintain their bodies in pristine condition?

The parallels are eerie.

He once told a Philadelphia Inquirer reporter that he loved Anita Baker—then refused to divulge his favorite song.

If I said I liked James Blunt, I may also refuse to tell someone my favorite song, because I would be kind of embarrassed about it. Doesn't make me a bad person.

I heard Marvin Harrison also said he liked Pizza Hut but would not tell anyone the kind of dressing he puts on his salad at the salad bar. He is hiding something.

The QB said he didn't know Harrison well until he visited him in Philly one off-season. "There's a Marvin in Philly and a Marvin in Indianapolis," he said.

Some people are different in their hometown. I would say popular athletes are more prone to having a different persona in their hometown, simply because they are not only athletes there, but also grew up as children in that city, so everyone knows them, or thinks they do. I am making enough excuses for Harrison, where did they find the bodies he had hidden again?

More than nostalgia brings him back. Over the past six years, Harrison has been buying up his childhood stomping grounds. In 2003, he acquired the West Thompson Street garage now called Chuckie's for just $10,210. The next year, he added a bar a few blocks away, on North 28th Street, which he runs as Playmakers—the place where his feud with Dixon began. In all, Harrison owns 20 North Philly properties, many clustered around the block where he once lived. And he is no absentee landlord. Kids on their way to school recently saw Harrison fixing the shutters on one of his places. In contrast to other stars who've invested in urban real estate, though, Harrison hasn't announced grand revitalization plans. The businesses he supports—the garage, the bar, his mom's Italian restaurant, his aunt's soul food place—are neighborhood joints. And while he's well-known in the area, he isn't known well.

Unbelievable. He gives back to his community with not just money, but also actually works to support the businesses as well. What's his angle, this quiet and incredibly suspicious man?

Why do I feel like everyone who writes about Marvin Harrison thinks he is the elderly neighbor from "Home Alone," where everyone peeks out the window at him and just assumes something suspicious is going down?

Here is a turn that makes my defending him look stupid. Is everyone ready for crazy ass Marvin Harrison? Here is comes...

On Jan. 4, 2003, before kickoff of an AFC wild-card game at the Meadowlands, Harrison was catching passes from Manning as Jets ball boys shagged punts from New York's Matt Turk. One of them, a 23-year-old Long Islander named Matt Prior, threw a ball downfield that bounced near Harrison. According to a New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority report—and two people on the field—No. 88 felt the toss violated his personal space. He charged Prior, bumping him in the chest.

Ok, Marvin Harrison clearly has a temper.

Prior asked Harrison to back away. Instead, Harrison grabbed Prior by the throat and lifted him off the ground. While fans watching on the stadium's video screen chanted for their ball boy to fight back, players and workers tried to separate the two.

I guess maybe this is why Marvin Harrison is quiet and keeps to himself. If he talks to anyone, he has an insatiable need to fuck them up.

On the evening of Feb. 10, 2005, three nights before the Pro Bowl, he and two men were walking along a row of stores at the Hilton Hawaiian Village hotel in Honolulu. According to a police report—and a witness—Harrison was talking on his cell when a group of teenage fans asked for his autograph. Harrison declined, and when the fans kept pestering him, he and his friends turned on them. The Pro Bowler took a swing at one fan, then grabbed him by the throat and put an arm around his neck.

The lesson to be learned here is to wear a turtle neck when confronting Marvin Harrison...and also never talk to, look at, or breathe the same air Marvin Harrison breathes. Seems pretty easy enough to me.

In the end, the seeming contradiction between Harrison's statements about his gun and ballistics tests placing the gun at the scene were not enough for Abraham to move forward. So Harrison can sit back in his beach chair on West Thompson Street and keep watch on his block.

I am willing to admit maybe Marvin Harrison has a little temper and I really, really wonder why I have never heard these stories before this. I still don't think Harrison should be more like T.O., like Gregg Doyel wants him to be, but I do think Marvin Harrison keeps to himself for a reason. He has uncontrollable rage or maybe he has an urge to kill, either way, I will never talk to him if I see him in public.

3. I think we can all agree Anquan Boldin is a jerk. What I don't get is the team is doing fantastic without a huge contribution from him, so I don't know why he thinks he has a ton of leverage.

I just wonder if Boldin isn't costing himself some money here, too. He doesn't want to be a Cardinal anymore. I think he's made that pretty clear. But who's going to want to give a guy a huge contract when he's fighting with a coach when he should probably be happy about going to a Super Bowl?

I would think that Anquan Boldin is costing himself tons of money with his antics on the sidelines. Teams can put up with players who have hissy fits and get into it with coaches at times. As long as it is perfectly clear the player wants to win and that is why he is getting emotional, teams and fans accept behavior like this. Boldin was playing in the NFC Championship Game and his team won that game and he still acted like a baby. I don't know how he could make it any more clear he is out for himself.

In the game, Boldin got into a heated argument with offensive coordinator Todd Haley. After the game, instead of celebrating with his team, Boldin abruptly left the field, then abruptly left the locker room.

This just confuses me. I remember Boldin was not happy with his contract in training camp but then I did not hear anything about this for the rest of the season. Then he chooses one of the 3 biggest (by people watching and media coverage) games of the year to throw a hissy fit that he was not getting the ball? I don't know how he could have worse timing. Terrell Owens and Dallas have proven that team chemistry has a little bit to do with the success of a team over the season. What team is going to want a player who is not happy his team made the Super Bowl for the first time?

It's disappointing to see from Boldin. He showed such unbelievable selflessness and courage by coming back from a catastrophic injury earlier in the season.

My theory is the head injury Boldin suffered made him realize he was not going to be playing this game forever and he wants to get paid while he can. I have no idea why he decided to show his frustration on national television in the biggest game of the franchise's history. Maybe he is mad Larry Fitzgerald would not show him where he gets his dreads braided at.

4. Mike Freeman thinks Tiger Woods should not be an athlete but an activist. Somehow I get the feeling if Tiger supported John McCain, Mr. Freeman would think quite differently.

I have a dream: That one day Woods will care about something other than making money.

I have a reality: Tiger cares about being the greatest golfer that ever lived and he seems to care about his family as well. He seems to want to do whatever it takes to make sure his family is taken care of and he is known as the absolute greatest golfer ever.

Woods is usually so relentlessly apolitical and position-phobic, he borders on cowardly. Taking stands jeopardizes commercial dollars, Q-ratings and selling cars. Being meek jeopardizes nothing.

Why does he have to take a position on everything and why does he need to jeopardize something? I can't stand it when one person tells another person what to think or gives a suggestion on how one should live his life. Shut up.

Woods' meek appearance had the smell of bandwagon jumping. Too late, Tiger. Some of us know what you're doing, which is being overtly opportunistic.

So Tiger is taking a position by supporting Obama and is jumping on his bandwagon? Sounds like that is what you are criticizing Tiger for not doing, but yet saying he is doing. Interesting way to JemeHill this argument.

Mike thinks Tiger is being opportunistic by supporting Obama as well. Unlike the countless other athletes and celebrities who have come out supporting either candidate, those are just people who geniuinely cared. You know how you can tell the difference? You can't, only Mike Freeman can.

In this matter and this matter only Woods is not so different from uber-opportunist Don King, the boxing promoting clown who has been parading around in recent days waving American flags and proclaiming his love for Obama. King is a staunch Republican who backed McCain.

So backing the other candidate and then reversing course and supporting Obama is "not so different" as not saying anything at all and then showing up at a pre-inauguration rally for Obama? In what world is this true? In "I want to cause a discussion and make sure my column gets read, so I am going to say something completely controversial" World?

When you take some out of their comfort zone, it frightens them, and they react unkindly, even violently. If you want to see the reaction to what it's like to take a position, look at the message board below this story.

Wow, Mike Freeman can't understand the difference in saying something unprovoked and untrue and taking people out of their comfort zone. He thinks if you say something borderline untrue then you are taking people out of their comfort zone, when in fact you couldjust be starting an argument for no reason.

I have always thought that 95% of men who have Korean descent in them are horrible drivers.

If I got 10,00 emails saying how dumb I am, I am being truthful, just taking you out of your comfort zone and the fact many disagree with me just proves that. At least that is what Mike Freeman thinks.

I think it is funny how the media wants certain athletes to shut up and others to speak out, but which one they want to do each of these all depends on their opinion on a subject.

5. Everyone thinks Pete Carroll is such a jerk for wanting Matt Sanchez to stay in school. Gregg Doyel disagrees and I agree with him...for once.

Me, I heard something different. I heard Carroll being fed up with Sanchez, and with the people around Sanchez.

You mean the people who stand to make a few bucks from Sanchez going to the NFL this year? I am sure they are being completely impartial.

He said, "We don't see this decision the same. Mark's going against the grain, and he knows that." And he said, "I am disappointed the information we have wasn't compelling enough to make it clear to him (to stay)."

I think college coaches generally have their player's best interests at heart and also are able to better decipher whether a player should enter the draft than family members. Pete Carroll has never stopped a player from going professional before and so if he tells me, as a player, I am not ready to go, I would respect him and listen. Carroll just doesn't want to see Sanchez go to the draft when he is not ready. I believe that, because he has plenty of good backups that can play well at USC, and the fact he has never stopped a player from going pro before this supports that he is not just looking out for his program.

Coach K advised William Avery to not go pro after his sophomore year and it wasn't because he wanted to keep him around for his own purposes, it was because he did not think he was ready. Same thing with Josh McRoberts. Where are they now?

Kris Humphries was told by the ex-head coach for Minnesota he was not ready for the pros, he went anyway, and I think he is out of the league now.

Those are two examples but I am sure there are others. College coaches have no reason to lie to a player, especially a coach who runs a player factory like USC does.

In April of his freshman season, Sanchez was arrested after a female USC student accused him of sexual assault. I'm not accusing Sanchez of anything. Guilty, innocent, I don't know. The charges were eventually dropped, but Sanchez's arrest was one in a long line of negative off-field stories Carroll and the USC program had to endure.

Carroll stood by Sanchez during that whole ordeal, and stood by him over the next two seasons as Sanchez battled a broken thumb in 2007 and a dislocated kneecap in '08. Sanchez spent just one season as the Trojans' starter, this season.

One season as a starter? Does he sound ready to you?

Me, I heard something else. I heard Carroll being fed up. Carroll knew Sanchez had initially been leaning toward staying. Carroll knew that he then told Sanchez, based on conversations with NFL people -- and Carroll knows NFL people; he once was head coach of the Jets and Patriots -- that Sanchez's pro career would be better served with one more year of college. And still Sanchez turned pro early.

Maybe a little bit of it is selfish for Carroll because he wants to coach Sanchez next year, but if he truly believes he made the wrong decision, why does he have to publicly support him? Considering Carroll has placed Carson Palmer, John David Booty, Matt Leinart and (yes) Matt Cassell in the NFL over the past 8 years, it seems he knows a thing or two about Sanchez's chances in the draft.

I don't think Carroll has to publicly support Sanchez if he thinks it is a bad decision.

6. JemeHill complains about her own coverage of athletes.

I wish I'd seen the Myron Rolle interview in which he expressed his desire to bring specialized medicine to underdeveloped countries as much as I've seen the grainy footage of Adam "Pacman" Jones frequenting yet another strip club.

It's funny, you actually have the power to interview Myron Rolle. You are a journalist and can do this.

I'm as guilty as most columnists. I've written twice about O.J., once about T.O., and once about Brett Favre, giving selfish athletes a platform when Rolle has done something so extraordinary it's worth 100 columns.

Yep, exactly. I am surprised JemeHill did not start the column off with this following premise:

"Most people think Myron Rolle is making the wrong decision to go to Oxford, but I don't think he is."

It's a nice change from the wrong premise set up she usually uses.

It would be one thing if Rolle were just a scrub, but he has started virtually every game since his freshman year and was the Seminoles' third-leading tackler this season.

Oh yeah, if he was just a scrub, the fact he was a Rhodes Scholarship recepient would be much less impressive to everyone. Only really good athletes should get good coverage for Rhodes Scholarship, while the backups, well that is expected of them because they are backups. The backups need something to fall back on since they are not going to play in the NFL after all.

Of course we basing this on the assumption that all starting college athletes are stupid and the backups are geniuses, which is also the assumption JemeHill makes.

I only wish there 20 million more people like him. I'd rather read 1,000 more stories about Rolle than one more about whether Plaxico Burress should remain a Giant.

Maybe you should start doing more of this. I think there is room for feel good writers on the ESPN staff, let's check and see if you can get the feel-good beat:

Bill Simmons- Boston area beat
Rick Reilly- Anything non-athletics related beat...actually should not be on the site
Gregg Easterbrook- Lack of football knowledge beat
Gene W.- Chicago area beat
Scoop Jackson- Urban beat
JemeHill- incorrect premise/Detroit area beat

I think there is room.

It's too bad our infatuation with talented athletes who are hopelessly immature and irresponsible prevents us from fully appreciating someone like Rolle and giving him the attention he deserves.

By "our" you must mean "mine and ESPN's" infatuation. Don't drag me or anyone else into this. I saw a front page story about how Steve Smith punched Ken Lucas in the face but I did not see any mention there about how he donated $25,000 to the local band that performed at halftime of the NFC Divisional Playoff Game. That is the first thing that came to my mind as an example but there are tons of other similar examples.

"Your" infatuation, not ours. Don't drag everyone into this argument when you are the one who writes the columns.

7. How about a Peter King MMQB Tuesday Edition follow up?

VERY INTERESTING THOUGHT. From Bill W., of Boston: "I think Mike Martz should come to the Patriots to either be offensive coordinator or receivers coach/assistant head coach so Bill Belichick can focus on the defense. He got a bum deal at his last two stops with bad players and bad upper management. This would be the place to vindicate himself and his career. Running his system with our personnel would be mind-numbing. Would this ever happen?''

Knowing what little I know about Bill Belichick and Mike Martz, I don't care how great of friends they are, this would never work. Granted, Martz has been two very bad places recently but I don't see the problem with the offense New England is currently running and I think anything Martz would do would get in the way.

Well, Bill, you and I know both know how much Belichick loves Martz, and vice versa. I think this is an interesting thought, and I wouldn't dismiss it, not at all, because Belichick is not afraid of new ideas and, in fact, looks for them all the time.

Peter King knows Bill Belichick is not afraid of anything, especially new ideas. Actually, Belichick is afraid of Peter King and that is the reason for the restraining order he has against him.

TOUCHÉ. From Tip, of Springfield, Mass.: "Maybe the reason Julius Peppers wants out of Carolina isn't because he wants to play in a 3-4. Perhaps he wants to play on a team where the QB doesn't give up the ball six times in a playoff game.''

Hahaha!! Great stuff, Tip. Not your comment, but your name is Tip. Hilarious.

It would not surprise me if Peppers has grown weary of the Panthers falling just short.

The Panthers are always just falling short. The three times in the 7 seasons Peppers has played for them, they always are on the cusp and fall short. When I think teams that always just fall short (from the Super Bowl? I am going to assume that is it), I don't think the obvious teams like Philadelphia, Indianapolis, or even Seattle, teams that seem to always get in the playoffs from year to year, yet haven't won multiple titles, I think of the team that has made it three times in the past 7 years and other than that is pretty mediocre. The Panthers have been a consistently average team during John Fox's reign as head coach but every year 31 teams fall short of the Super Bowl, so I doubt that is Peppers' reasoning. I could be wrong.

DRIVE, IDIOT. DON'T TALK. From John Murdzek, of San Diego: "You should read an article by Tara Parker-Pope on the New York Times Web site entitled 'A Problem of the Brain, Not the Hands: Group Urges Phone Ban for Drivers' before your next road trip to Pittsburgh or anywhere else. According to this article, "Drivers talking on a cell phone [hand-held or hands-free] are four times as likely to have an accident as drivers who are not. That's the same level of risk posed by a driver who is legally drunk.' You seem like a reasonable person, so is getting work done on your drives more important than somebody else's life?''

Wow. Very interesting. Thanks for the advice. I will read the story.

Peter won't ever stop doing this, but he will read the article, which should do...........nothing.

8. Apparently someone, somewhere is writing off the Patriots and Don Banks will have none of that.

At least that was the conventional wisdom circulating around the league last week, with some speculating that we had just witnessed the eve of destruction for this decade's only NFL dynasty.

Thinking the Patriots are not going to be good next year does not count as "wisdom." They will be very good. They won 11 games without their starting quarterback after all.

Longtime New England special teams coach Brad Seely left to become Eric Mangini's new assistant head coach/special teams coordinator in Cleveland, and just Monday the brain drain continued when Dom Capers, who served as the Patriots special assistant/secondary, signed on as Green Bay's defensive coordinator.

Is Bill Belichick still there? How about Tom Brady? Even coming off an injury, Peter King tells me they can franchise Matt Cassel, I think the Patriots are going to be fine.

I just want to know who is saying the Patriots are not going to be good next year. They miss the playoffs one year, a year they win 11 games, lose a couple of coaches, and all of a sudden they are a team on the downswing.

The competition is no doubt tougher in the AFC East these days, but the Patriots still can look at their division and see the rival Jets starting over to a degree with a new head coach (Rex Ryan) and a new quarterback (likely no Brett Favre). Miami is a force to be respected and reckoned with again, but you have to think the Dolphins won't be slipping up on anyone in 2009, and thus their 11-5 record of this season might not be easily matched. And in Buffalo, the disappointing Bills can't seem to break out of their 7-9 funk. The days of 2007-level domination might be over in New England, but this isn't a division or a conference that has left the Patriots behind.

Sometimes I wish writers could just leave well enough alone and not write about obvious subject matters. They went 11-5 in a year where they did not have Tom Brady, things can only go up from there for them next year. I really would like to know who thinks the Patriots are done now they have lost coordinators and other coaches on the staff.

4) The Patriots still have Belichick. That means they still have at their disposal the league's best all-in-one package of coaching skill and personnel evaluation.

Exactly. They don't appear to be going anywhere. I am glad we got this cleared up. I think this article needs to go under "articles that did not need to be written."

9. Rick Reilly gets paid millions of dollars for articles like this, often called puff pieces.

Looks like he is trying to write the feel good stories at ESPN. Back away JemeHill!

Obama is a football freak, so he'll be watching next Sunday when the world finally gets a load of Fitzgerald's son—the anti-T.O.—a receiver who catches everything and brags about nothing, who climbs his own invisible staircase to get to footballs, who dresses and speaks impeccably and travels the world alone in the off-season, taking in museums.

Larry Fitzgerald is the anti-T.O. Partially because T.O. has never been accused of hitting his baby's mama. Of course Fitzgerald may be innocent but when Rick Reilly writes his puff pieces he doesn't really pay attention to anything that detracts from the picture he wants to present.

Just like in the Kerry Collins puff piece he did a few weeks ago about how Collins did not make excuses in the past for his behavior at any point, yet was quoted in the past as saying he thought the racial epiphet would cause the team to bond closer. Larry Fitzgerald is probably innocent because it seemed weird these allegations came out in early January when the event happened in mid-October, but you would not know much about it, because Reilly doesn't even mention it in passing. I don't expect an expose or anything like that but this just proves to me Reilly is the worst kind of reporter, he picks and chooses facts to include in his columns.

10. In college basketball, I think the Big East is the best conference in the nation, but I am afraid they are going to be so busy beating up on each other all year, there may not be much left for March. If you forced me to choose a Final Four at this point, I would say UNC (I am not giving up on them, we will see a good amount of stories about how others gave up on them after those two loses to WFU and BC, but I won't do this), UConn, Oklahoma, and Louisville.

What do I know though?