8 comments Rick Reilly Says Tiger Woods' Legacy is Being Ruined by Tiger Woods' Professional Success

Rick Reilly has decided to write another one of those "Why can't Tiger win a major tournament?" columns after the US Open. Actually, Rick spends a lot of time thinking in this column thinking about Tiger's legacy and basically wondering if Tiger's success has ruined his legacy. It seems that Rick has set high expectations for Tiger based on Tiger's early-career success and because Tiger can't reach those expectations anymore then this makes Rick wonder what Tiger's legacy will be. So basically Rick is defining Tiger's legacy as being a somewhat disappointment because of how successful Tiger was early in his PGA career. Rick also manages to slip a Bruce Jenner reference in, which is always an unwelcome surprise. It is unreasonable to expect Tiger to be as great as he was early in his career and it seems he will have to be known as one of the greatest golfers ever rather than the greatest golfer ever. This type of article annoys me because Phil Mickelson is older than Tiger and he has won five majors, while Tiger has won 14 majors, but it is Tiger Woods' legacy that we are so unsure of? 14 majors, no matter when they were won, seem to speak for themselves. I am sure now that Tiger didn't win the Open Championship that Rick is going to start to double up on the "Is Tiger Woods washed up" talk.

It's crazy, but let's say Tiger Woods never wins another major.

That would be so crazy if Tiger never won another major. He would then be considered one of the greatest golfers in PGA history. That's madness! What kind of disturbed mind could ever fathom such a thing?

Let's say he is done at age 37. Let's say he stops at 14, four short of Jack Nicklaus' record.

Let's say we won't use the phrase "let's say" anymore. Let's say we do that, then I would then answer this hypothetical by saying Tiger Woods will be considered as one of the greatest golfers ever whose rise was only matched by his fall. Then I would say he had a meteoric rise and a meteoric fall. Then I would curse Rick Reilly's name.

I don't want to constantly compare Tiger to Phil Mickelson, but Tiger has nine more major wins than Mickelson and Mickelson is older than Tiger. Say Mickelson never wins another major after the Open Championship, why isn't his legacy being questioned?

Or as a colossal disappointment?

The only way Tiger can be seen as a colossal disappointment is if you compare his early-career success to his late-career success. So essentially to call Tiger a disappointment a person would have to be using Tiger's success as a reason why he is so disappointing. This makes not of sense. Tiger exceeded expectations early in his career, so this doesn't mean he is a disappointment for not consistently exceeding the limits he himself has set for...himself.

As a brilliant star? Or a star that burned out halfway across the sky?

He was a brilliant star who had injuries, a scandal, and then struggled to win a major. I think we are being a bit harsh on him, because Tiger has won seven PGA tournaments since he last won a major.

Do you realize that this Tiger tailspin is older than his younger child? It's true: Sam is just about to turn 6. Charlie is 4. And Skid is 5.

Do you realize that you are cherry-picking data that has absolutely no meaning as to the legacy of Tiger Woods? It's the nature of sportswriters to overreact when Tiger wins a tournament and then overreact when Tiger has a poor showing in a tournament. It's not their fault, it's just their nature.

Sunday at the U.S. Open marked five years to the day since his last major triumph -- maybe his best -- the one-legged legend of Torrey Pines. 

Five whole years. Tiger can't match up to what he did early in his career, so he is obviously a disappointment. It's just like an NFL quarterback who puts up 5-6 years of being the best quarterback in the NFL only to fade into being just one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL for the rest of his career. Would we call that quarterback a disappointment? Probably not.

He has gone through the Mount Vesuvius of sex scandals, gotten divorced, moved his home, had more surgeries than Bruce Jenner,

Not hilarious and not-timely.

Now there's this little mumbling you hear in golf circles that (pssst) Tiger might have (keep it to yourself) lost a little of his (gulp) nerve.

So Tiger is now like other golfers on the PGA Tour. How could that be?

The scandal, the surgeries, the slow sucking of time might have turned him a little (cough-cough) scared.

How else do you explain a guy who wins all kinds of minors (13 during the streak) but no majors?

You could explain it by saying his surgeries and time have caught up to him where he no longer has the physical advantage or consistent swing that he once had over his fellow PGA Tour players. You could explain that Tiger just hasn't done well in majors for whatever reason, but it's not like many of the other best PGA Tour players have won multiple majors over this same five year time period. There are other explanations other than chalking it up to Tiger having lost his nerve.

Before this year's Masters, he had won three tournaments of his past four, then he finished a quiet fourth in Augusta.

It was a "quiet" fourth place. Not one of those loud fourth places finishes, but a "quiet" fourth where Tiger had 25% of his prize money reduced for the volume of his finish not matching the decibel requirement for a fourth place finish in a major.

In the 16 majors he has played in this five-year nuclear winter, he has won his last start before a major eight times. Yet never the major itself.

Which obviously means Tiger gets a lot of nerve up the week before the major and then loses his nerve entirely the week of the major. The fact Tiger has won eight times prior to a major isn't impressive, but just a sign of how disappointing Tiger has become.

Even more telling, he's often been The Old Tiger in majors when the pressure was off (Thursday and Friday) and The New Tiger when the pressure was on.

So Tiger is a disappointment because he doesn't play well in eight rounds during the golf year? He still wins minor tournaments, still plays well on Thursday and Friday in majors, but can only "quietly" place fourth in major tournaments because he can't handle the Saturday/Sunday pressure. Maybe he cracks under the pressure now that he doesn't have multiple women on the side. It's the lack of consistent sex from multiple partners that is bringing Tiger down. Just like Aerosmith can't write a decent song now that they are clean and not using drugs.

So what about it? If he's done winning majors now, what should be his legacy?

I'm not sure this question should be asked for a variety of reasons. Most importantly, Woods is 37 years old so his legacy is far from cemented. Next most importantly, this legacy that Rick Reilly is so intent on figuring out is assuming Tiger never wins another major, which isn't a point I am ready to concede. Next to that in importance, is that Tiger's early-career success helped cement most of his legacy. He is one of the best golfers in PGA Tour history.

Well, if Tiger Woods is really done, I think he would go down as the most gifted golfer in history and the golfer who wasted the most gifts.

How can you claim he wasted his gifts if he won 14 majors? Maybe that was the extent of his ability to use his gifts. Maybe I'm wrong, but the idea Tiger Woods wasted his gifts doesn't jive with his PGA record. He has won a lot of tournaments and holding him to the standard he set in his 20's doesn't seem fair to me. He set the bar high, so it seems reasonable to expect he can't always reach this bar he has set.

To win 14 majors in only 13 years, then to never win another? That would be like swimming the English Channel and then drowning in the hotel pool.

I realize it isn't an apples-to-apples comparison, but are the Patriots a disappointment because they haven't won a Super Bowl since 2004? Is Peyton Manning a disappointment as a quarterback because he has only won one Super Bowl? He starts the season off strong and then starts to fade in the playoffs, isn't that some criticism Manning receives? That makes him somewhat like Tiger, so does that mean Peyton Manning's NFL career is a disappointment?

14 majors in 13 years IS a career. It almost doesn't matter what Tiger Woods does after that, because for a decade-and-a-half he was easily the best golfer in the world. Also, Rick is still assuming Tiger will never win another major in an effort to ponder Tiger's legacy, which is not only ridiculous given Tiger's age but is also still a huge assumption in my opinion.

If Tiger Woods is really done, he'd be remembered as a strong man who wrecked his career with his own weakness. He'd be thought of as an immortal and an immoral.

If only Tiger had worn Ed Hardy shirts and spent his time taking pictures of him pretending to choke Rick Reilly then he could have avoided the women and immorality that ruined his career.

Tiger Woods was hit by an out-of-control Tiger. He'd be lumped with Mike Tyson, two men whose hunger for greatness was sunk by their hunger for lust. 

Yeah, these two athletes aren't comparable at all. Mike Tyson went to jail for raping a woman and Tiger Woods had multiple affairs. I know Rick has taken on the role of the moral majority since he suggested Colin Kaepernick needs to reconnect with his birth parents because it worked out so well for a member of Rick's family, but there is a difference in going to jail for rape and having multiple affairs. A pretty big difference. Notice how far this assumption that Tiger won't win another major has taken us. Rick just compared Tiger to Mike Tyson. This is what happens when you assume.

If Tiger Woods is really done, he would be remembered among the three greatest who ever played: along with Nicklaus and Bobby Jones. All three of them owned not only golf but the entire American sports landscape for a time. All three won tournaments at a dizzying rate. Yet neither of the first two could touch Woods, who won four professional majors in a row, a feat unlikely to be topped.

So why would it even be considered that Tiger could be a disappointment? How could this even be suggested if Tiger is one of the three greatest golfers ever, except he had even more extraordinary short-term success than the other two golfers considered the best ever? If Rick believes Tiger is among the three greatest golfers ever then there's no way he can be considered to have been a star that burned out halfway across the sky, could he? If that were true, what would that make Nicklaus and Bobby Jones?

He'd be placed alongside Arnold Palmer, who brought golf to the truck drivers and the waitresses. Woods brought it to people of color.

"People of color." I didn't know it was 1980 where Rick lives.

He is Kobe Bryant in long pants: awesome and feared and perhaps best viewed from a distance. 

Rick compares Tiger to another athlete who was accused of sexual assault. I'm not entirely sure Rick understands that having an extramarital affair is not considered sexual assault.

Do you realize that in the Merion media center, Tiger Woods had his own leaderboard? There was only one name on it: his. America might pull for Phil Mickelson, 

I don't cheer for Phil Mickelson. For some reason he annoys me. It may be his hair or how commentators act like he is the only golfer ever to have to balance his work with his family. Did you know one time he had a pager on him during the US Open in case his wife went into labor? He attended his daughter's graduation and then flew back to play a round of golf this past weekend. Every family issue involving Mickelson is treated like the first time a professional athlete has had to balance work and life.

Lastly, and this is unfair but no less true, but if Tiger Woods never wins another major, he'll be remembered not for what was but what could have been.

Perhaps by people who insisting on writing the narrative of Tiger's career before it is truly over and in the most dramatic way possible. Maybe I'm stupid, but I don't get the whole "What could have been?" narrative that Rick Reilly is furthering. We know what could have been and what was. Tiger showed us what he could do for 13 years and it was very impressive. Don't compare Tiger now to his early success as if it is reasonable to expect him to rip off winning a major every single calendar year. No other golfer in PGA history has done this, so why expect this from Tiger? He peaked and now he isn't peaking anymore.

My God, he had eight majors by the time he was 26. Even if the next 15 years of his career was going to be only half as good, he'd end up with 20, wouldn't he?

Rick needs to ask himself if these were reasonable long-term expectations for Tiger. He was going to get older, injuries would happen, and no other golfer has kept up this pace so why should he expect Tiger to keep up this pace? Tiger not living up to the unreasonable standard he set for himself does not make him a disappointment.

If Tiger Woods stopped winning majors now, it would make him a ghost walking among us, a living, breathing cautionary tale.

And the cautionary tale would be, "don't grow older and don't get injured, but also don't have success early in your career because people like Rick Reilly will always expect this from you."

He'd be trapped in a cage of his own design, living every day being compared to the incomparable -- himself.

But you, Rick Reilly, are the one who is comparing Tiger Woods to himself. You are doing this on your own accord, so couldn't you stop the cautionary tale by simply stop comparing Woods to himself and stop just assuming he won't ever win another major?

It's like the media can't stop themselves from creating narratives and then forcing themselves into the story. Rick states Tiger Woods is a cautionary tale because he will always get compared to himself earlier in his career, but Rick is the one creating this cautionary tale by comparing Tiger to his earlier self. Just stop holding Tiger to the expectations he has set for himself and the only cautionary tale about becoming worse at your job as you get older is that tale of Rick Reilly's writing career.

5 comments MMQB Review: Why Can't Major League Baseball Control the Weather? Edition

Peter King praised Jon Gruden for being a quarterback expert last week in MMQB, which got my anti-Gruden rhetoric started as it pertains to him being a quarterback expert started. Peter also called Kevin Costner cuter than Mike Lombardi, thereby showing his readers that he can come off creepy by using another word to describe a grown man that isn't "precocious." This week Peter reveals what he thinks he knows about the NFL Draft, even though he is very clear in stating he is probably wrong or being misled in some way. Peter also talks about the Masters, criticizes golf commentary for containing too many cliches (because we all know the NBC Sunday Night Football crew would NEVER overuse cliches), has comments on the weather in regard to MLB's schedule and manages to force-feed us a Brett Favre quote because why not?

Lord. How great was that golf? Angel Cabrera's approach shot on 18 and Adam Scott's putting and Cabrera's excruciating near-miss putt and Scott's winning putt ... and the sportsmanship. The real sportsmanship.

Sportsmanship like Peter has only seen overseas when it comes to how fans of opposing cricket (I think that was the sport) teams treat each other. Why can't the world be more like Angel Cabrera and Adam Scott?

That's one of the best 40 minutes of sport I can recall, in any game, any match.

Let's take it easy for a few minutes now. It was exciting, but I don't know if I would call it the best 40 minutes of any sport, in any game, any match.

How many of you said, watching that: "I've got to get to the Masters!'' And you do.

And the one thing we have all learned about August National is that it is easily accessible and always open to outsiders, so we all have no excuses for not attending the Masters.

I scratched that off the bucket list two years ago,

Well bully for you.

Anyway, enough with my Masters infomercial. The next big sports thing is 10 nights away. That's the first night of filming of Draft Day, the next Costner movie, in which he plays Cleveland GM Mike Lombardi. (Sort of.)

So Kevin Costner is basically going to name-drop Bill Belichick for two hours and then never actually wonder why if he is such good friends with and well-respected by Belichick that he hasn't appeared to ever get another job offer from Belichick to work for the Patriots? Or is Costner going to spend the entire movie with an actor playing Bill Simmons following him around all day? If Costner will be Mike Lombardi then it needs to be realistic.

It's also the night of the first round of the NFL draft, which occupied most of my time this weekend when I wasn't drooling at the TV over the Masters.

Peter was drooling over the Masters. Did they start to make the golf course out of donuts, the sand traps out of lemon cake, and the water hazards made out of a mix of Starbucks coffee AND Allagash white ale? If so, I can see why Peter was drooling at the television.

When Paul Zimmerman suffered a series of strokes four-and-a-half years ago, SI's Mock Draft was handed down to me. I've done one forever, just not with the pressure that comes from following Dr. Z.

It used to drive Zim crazy, the time he spent on the unknowable. Many's the Sunday afternoon before the draft we'd be on the phone, Zim trying to crack the code of just one more team and asking if I knew anything to help. How angry he'd be if he found out something about, say, the Vikings at 11, that swayed him to make a change there, and then of course the dominoes would fall and he'd have to change 12, 13, 17, 18, 20, 23, 25, 26, 27 and 28. Aaaarrrrrgggghhhhh! Not happy Sundays.

I realize Dr. Z was a huge professional and all, but there should be no pressure involved with making a mock draft. You are lucky to have half of the picks correct because NFL teams are not giving out complete information. Not to mention the readers don't always remember which "expert" mocked which player to which team after a few years. Mock drafts are supposed to be fun. Why so serious?

I talked in confidence to quite a few people around the league Friday through Sunday, so they could (I hoped) be relatively honest. I tried to barter some information as the calls went on, but mostly I was fishing. And the lines I cast over the weekend came up empty quite a bit.

What did Peter learn? He learned that Kevin Costner has a smile which can light up a room. Costner is so much cuter than Mike Lombardi, but not nearly as precocious as Trent Baalke.

"And,'' Mayock said, "you throw a Chip Kelly in there at No. 4. He could be so different.

How does Mike Mayock know Chip Kelly could be so different? Kelly has never been a part of an NFL Draft before. I think the "in" thing is to say that Chip Kelly is going to be different because that's what everyone else is saying.

Of the offseason moves Kelly has made, which ones are just so different? He signed Dennis Dixon, which makes sense given the fact Dixon played quarterback at Oregon. He signed James Casey, who is a tight end by trade and can also play fullback. Casey is perfect for Kelly's offense, but that doesn't mean Kelly is different anymore than it means Casey is a versatile weapon for a coach who knows how to use him.

I'm not sure they value things in Philadelphia the way everyone else does in the league anymore. So we don't know that.

No, what you don't know is how they value things in Philadelphia. You also don't know how any franchise with a new coach or GM values positions/players as it pertains to the NFL Draft, so Kelly could be different or he could be the same as other NFL coaches.

I'm in the same boat as Mayock. Here are a few things I know, or feel good about, in round one:

1.Kansas City hasn't found any takers for franchised left tackle Branden Albert -- I hear the Chiefs would take a high second-round pick for him -- and regardless whether Albert's moved or not, I don't see them doing anything but taking tackles Luke Joeckel or Eric Fisher first.

It's probably a smart move...but what about Andy Reid? He's so different and values things differently from other NFL coaches.

2. Jacksonville GM David Caldwell, choosing second overall, says he's narrowed the pick down to two names. (Well, I should hope so, if you're picking second.)

It really doesn't make sense at this stage for the Jags to have the pick narrowed down to two names. Do the Chiefs have their pick narrowed down to one name? Should the Raiders have their pick narrowed down to three names? Since the draft is over a week away it would make logical sense the Jaguars haven't gotten the pick narrowed down yet to two names, especially since the Jaguars have no idea who the Chiefs are picking.

3.Oakland. Reggie McKenzie wants out of this pick. He really wants to recoup the second that was blown in the Carson Palmer trade. I can't see it happening.

Nearly half of the teams picking in the Top 10 want to trade out of the pick this year. This isn't really news.

4. Philadelphia. Eagles have been nutty about getting players who fit the 3-4.

Isn't it weird how teams who run the 3-4 defense really, really insist on finding players who fit the 3-4 defense? Just hold on Philadelphia, don't be so pushy to find players who fit the type of defense you run.

Hear they like Star Lotulelei a lot to play all along the line, even at nose. Where they go -- Geno Smith, pass rusher, best corner in the draft -- I don't know, but my guess is pass rusher.

So by Peter's logic (the same logic he used saying he hoped the Jags had their pick at #2 narrowed down to two names) the Eagles should have their pick narrowed down to four names and two of those names have to be a pass rusher just in case the Jags pick a pass rusher, right? Or if the Eagles are interested in a pass rusher then they have no interest in any other position outside of a pass rusher? I think I'm confusing myself at this point, but if the Eagles are taking a pass rusher and Peter expects these NFL teams to have their picks narrowed down to the number of their draft position then the Eagles have to have four pass rushers on their board, right?

5.Detroit. One of the two good tackles, Joeckel or Fisher, or cornerback Dee Milliner.

Great, glad that pick is narrowed down to three players.

7.Arizona. How do the Cardinals not take Lane Johnson if he's there?

Maybe they don't take him because they don't think he is the best tackle prospect at this point in the draft? I probably shouldn't argue since I thought the Cardinals needed to draft an offensive lineman in the first round last year instead of Michael Floyd.

9.New York Jets. Rex Ryan might want a corner (is the Pope an Argentinean?) but I hear he's awfully smitten with Barkevious (brother of Hughtavious) Mingo of LSU.

Peter just can't get over how minorities name their children such funny names! They are so precocious! I want the Jets to take a corner here. It's not like there are other needs on the roster (OL, QB, for starters) or there is a really good OL prospect that will possibly be available in this spot (Chance Warmack). Go with a corner though, that'll win ya' a Super Bowl.

I did one mock draft Saturday night that ended with no quarterbacks in the first round. But I eventually put Geno Smith in my mock for the magazine, because there's just too much smoke about him going in the first round. I just don't know who's going to take him

Chip Kelly can be different. Maybe he will take a chance on drafting a quarterback rather than sticking Mike Vick back there for one more year to brutally disappoint Eagles fans? It would be so different to draft a quarterback in the first round.

Study history if you want to have the best chance to nail the Giants, at 19, and know they've taken four pass rushers high in the last 10 drafts and just lost Osi Umenyiora in free agency ...

And who hasn't wanted to nail the Giants at some point in the past? Like nail the entire team. They are so cute (unlike Mike Lombardi), it's just natural everyone wants to nail them.

At 20, Chicago seems poised to take a tight end or Brian Urlacher heir, with all the offensive linemen likely gone by this point ... 

Yes, the Bears should not draft an offensive lineman. That way we can start the "at what yard line will Jay Cutler finally get murdered by a pass rusher?" pool started before the actual season begins.

Clueless about New England at 29,

I would be shocked if Peter wasn't clueless about what player the Patriots would pick in this spot. I could probably have left the "about what player the Patriots would pick in this spot" part of the sentence out and still be correct.

but the Pats pick 29, 59 and 91, and then not again until the seventh round. You have to figure one of those, at least, is a receiver, and one's a corner ...

Peter is clueless, but that doesn't stop him from trying to give his readers clues.

Now for the Super Bowl participants. San Francisco coach Jim Harbaugh has been at a high number of receiver workouts, I'm told. "This isn't about 2013 for the Niners,'' one GM told me. "Harbaugh knows he'll be there for a while. They just lost Randy Moss, and Anquan Boldin is there for a year, and they don't know about [2012 first-round pick] A.J. Jenkins [out of Illinois]. Receiver's very logical for them there.'' Harbaugh is one who wouldn't be scared of Patterson.

Because Harbaugh could be different, he could draft a wide receiver this year that has a ton of talent. Not every NFL team has the guts to do this, but Jim Harbaugh isn't afraid. He inexplicably drafted A.J. Jenkins last year so this year he may choose a receiver with talent.

At 32, Baltimore would love a physical safety to play alongside free-agent acquisition Michael Huff, but it could be that all three big safeties here (Kenny Vaccaro, Matt Elam and Jonathan Cyprien) are all gone, and a tight end they love, Tyler Eifert, is gone too. Alec Ogletree wouldn't surprise here, but the guy I gave them in my mock draft is someone I haven't seen anyone else put in the first round.

Who did Peter mock to the Ravens? Brett Favre. It only makes sense that the Ravens draft Favre because they are trading Joe Flacco and just need someone to hold down the quarterback position for a few years until Alex Smith or Tyrod Taylor are ready to take over.

Finally: Quarterbacks Matt Barkley, Ryan Nassib and E.J. Manuel all should be gone by 41. (Buffalo picks there, and I expect the Bills to take a quarterback in the first two rounds.) The quarterback position is the toughest to figure in this draft. A sliding Geno Smith could make it more problematic if he's not taken in the first dozen picks -- and I cannot promise he will be.

So Peter picked only one quarterback to go in the first round and he expects three quarterbacks to go from picks 33-41?

Mayock-fest. When Mike Mayock did his pre-Scouting Combine conference call with the media in February, he answered more than 150 questions from more than 180 reporters. The call took two-and-a-half hours. This week, on Thursday at 1 p.m. Eastern, he'll do his pre-draft conference call with reporters ... and NFL Network is going to stream it live on NFL.com. Go to nfl.com/mayockdraftcall to hear it Thursday, if you have quite a bit of time. You know Mayock.

I actually don't know Mike Mayock. As much fun as it would be to hear Mayock guess (and Peter in this MMQB said Mayock doesn't seem to know much about the draft) about what picks each team will make, I'm pretty sure I am busy at 1pm on Thursday with the full-time job I have.

"I grew up a Dallas Cowboys fan. I loved Roger Staubach. I always dreamed of playing for the Cowboys, playing in the Super Bowl.''

-- Brett Favre, in an interview with Cowboys radio voice Brad Sham at an SMU-sponsored event in Dallas Friday.

It had been a few weeks since Peter mentioned Brett Favre. It's about time he shoehorned a Favre mention into MMQB. After all, it's not like Favre will reference himself. Well, actually Favre probably would reference himself since he adores the spotlight, but you get what I am saying. Peter has to work to keep Favre's name out there.

Cowboys fans should feel lucky Favre didn't end up in Dallas. They could have had one Super Bowl victory in the 90's rather than having three Super Bowl victories. I tell you, Brett Favre has been retired for going on three seasons now and Peter King STILL brings him up in MMQB at every possible opportunity. Not that his obsession with Favre is anything new of course. How many other retired players get talked about by Peter when they say absolutely nothing newsworthy more than Favre?

"This will cast a dark shadow over the entire day of golf, over this entire event, but more importantly over his entire career for the rest of the life."

-- Golf Channel analyst Brandel Chamblee, on the two-stroke penalty againstTiger Woods in the Masters Saturday, and what said penalty will mean for Woods in the future.

That is some pathetic golf analysis. Shouldn't these analysts go to Hyperbole School?

This is some major hyperbole, but it's no different from the "analysis" we hear from sports announcers and analysts all the time. I get this is a lot of hyperbole, but if Peter watches any type of sports or morons talking about sports then he should hear hyberbole like this all the time.

Mr. Starwood Preferred Member Travel Note of the Week

Well, now I've seen the other side. I spent three days last week in Boston, Detroit and Chicago talking to advertisers and ad agency reps about the new NFL-exclusive website SI is foolish enough to be giving me to play with. This week, I'll do more in Manhattan, and I'll travel to Seattle, Portland and Los Angeles.

So it is an NFL-exclusive site I guess. I'm excited that Peter is going to be traveling all week on SI's dime. This should give him a fair opportunity to complain about the minor inconveniences that life can bring to him while he is on the road. Prepare yourselves, Seattle, Portland and Los Angeles. Have your coffee hot and prepared and don't you dare to give him a fucking foreign cab driver. Make it Colombian and hot when it is coffee and make it American and polite if it is a cab driver.

The Five Things I Have Learned About the Business of Our Business:

1. Dress is pretty casual. I have never dressed well consistently, but I figured I should on this trip, and so I went in with a pinstripe suit to chat with the Chevy Silverado folks. Not a tie in the room. Oooops. Same on the tour of agencies and companies in Chicago.

That's just ad agencies though. It seems nobody at an ad agency ever dresses up, even if they work for Chevy. It's just the nature of the beast. I have a hard time believing that Peter didn't know business casual is prevalent in ad agencies, even ad agencies who are part of a large corporation.

4. Thought I'd be meeting in some pretty stuffy board rooms. Not. Met most of Casual Friday with different agencies, and their meeting places are just as casual. In one place they brainstorm on the wall (a giant dry-erase wall) with markers.

I'm astounded Peter wouldn't think an ad agency would have a loose environment. Even the stereotype of ad agencies is that the employees are mostly young and they bounce ideas off each other. This doesn't work as well in a boardroom atmosphere, and when brainstorming, sometimes the easiest place to put ideas is up on a board. I guess Peter just didn't know what to expect, but I'm surprised he is surprised about the type of environment he encountered in these ad agencies.

5. You do a better job if you can drink well out there. I have closed Ditka's. Now that is a point of pride. I'm not usually a bar-closer or a restaurant-closer, but when the Iron Mike's Icon Cabernet flowed, I got a pretty good second wind. Talk about emptying the NFL Story Saddlebag, those guys for four big companies got my best stuff that night. And when the party of 12 went downstairs, golly, everyone was gone and the place was being vacuumed.

What Peter is saying is that he got crunk with these ad executives and he ain't sorry about it. What are the odds 90% of the stories that Peter told were about Brett Favre?

"This one time, at Brett Favre's house..."

"Wow. I love golf."

-- @AaronRodgers12, after Adam Scott made a long putt, and it was followed by the incredible Angel Cabrera approach shot on 18, forcing a playoff at the Masters.

I'm glad Peter shares these insightful Tweets with his MMQB-reading audience. It's not like this one was pointless or a waste of space or anything.

Ten Things I Think I Think

2.I think Cincinnati-Pittsburgh games next season all of a sudden got more network-attractive, assuming the Bengals and James Harrison get their deal done today. Harrison trying to sack Ben Roethlisberger (and Harrison will be revved up in a big way for those games, having been cap-purged by the Steelers) will be eight must-see quarters.

Because we all know what a draw James Harrison can be. I know I will be tuning into this game just to see a washed-up Harrison try to sack Ben Roethlisberger, since they have such a fierce rivalry. A matchup between these two teams would have been boring, but now that James Harrison has been added to the Bengals roster this is definitely must-see television. Not that Peter is desperately searching for storylines of course.

4.I think a fifth-round pick for Chris Ivory -- if the Jets really want the Saints' undrafted running back, which they do, for the right price -- is probably fair to both sides. That's the 141st overall pick, and it leaves the Jets, pre-Revis trade, with all four top picks intact, with a veteran hard-running back there as the fifth-rounder.

Well, this would be a good move for the Saints using Kingian logic (the same logic used when discussing Darrelle Revis getting traded for a 1st and 2nd round draft choice). Ivory was undrafted and they could trade a 5th round pick for him? As long as they don't trade him for a draft pick that is lower than the draft pick used to select him, then that means this trade was smart for the Saints.

6. I think someone's going to have to tell me, if the Patriots really wanted Emmanuel Sanders in restricted free agency, why they signed him to a one-year, $2.5 million contract. That's like saying, "Well, we sort of want him, but we're really not sure, and we'll give him a D-minus deal, and maybe Pittsburgh will just take the third-round pick in return." I don't get the gesture. At all.

I think the understanding was that the Patriots had a long-term deal in place with Sanders, which they would have announced if the Steelers didn't match the one-year offer sheet. The Patriots thought the Steelers wouldn't match a one-year offer sheet, so there could be the reason for the gesture.

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

d. I don't know how I missed this, but what a cool gesture this was by the former president.

I clicked on the link and all I got was an error message saying the page I requested could not be found. Is this some kind of George W. Bush joke five years too late?

e. Memo to MLB: Maybe scheduling the Mets to start the season in Queens (six games), Philadelphia (three) and outdoors in Minneapolis (three, minus Sunday's sleet-out), and then Colorado (three), with temperatures for one game this week scheduled to be in the teens, wasn't such a great idea.

Memo to Peter King: Maybe when the MLB schedule-makers created the schedule they thought given the fact it was April the temperature would not be in the teens. Memo to Peter King: MLB can't just change the schedule because it's a little bit too cold outside and they certainly can't control the weather like your lunch friend Roger Goodell probably believes he can do. 

f. Memo to MLB II: Maybe scheduling the Yankees to start the season in the Bronx (three games), Detroit (three games) and Cleveland (two coldouts, one game) wasn't such a great idea.

Memo to Peter King III: Maybe because it is April MLB thought, "hey, it won't be a problem to give Detroit and Cleveland home games because it is going to be April and we have no reason to expect the weather to be cold."

g. Memo to MLB III: Maybe scheduling the Twins outdoors in the north for the first six weeks of the season wasn't such a good idea.

Memo to Peter King IV: So the Twins just don't get any home games for the first six weeks of the MLB season? That sounds just incredibly fair. The Twins do play in an open-air park, so because you are so smart I would love to hear why the Twins shouldn't get any home games until mid-May. It's okay, I have time and can wait.

Here's the real story behind this comment. Peter has NO IDEA the Twins don't play in a dome anymore, so he doesn't know they would get no home games until mid-May if they couldn't play games outdoors in the north (which last time I checked Minnesota was in the north part of the United States) for the first six weeks of the season. This is why Peter shouldn't give an opinion on every topic that pops into his mind and I am astounded at the fact he claims to love baseball so much, since he often comes off as a dunce when discussing the sport.

h. By the way, baseball needed to suspend Padres outfielder Carlos Quentin for five games longer than the period Dodgers pitcher Zach Greinke will be gone with his fractured collarbone (which will keep Greinke out for two months), which would be a revolutionary but justifiable penalty. Instead, Quentin got eight games. There was no need for Quentin, who clearly has some sort of anger-management problem, to charge the mound Thursday night in San Diego. And for major-league baseball to slap Quentin on the wrist is to say to him and all other outlaws who have made blood sport out of charging the mound in a misplaced-traditional rite of machoness, "Hey, go kill the pitcher. It's OK."

The union would have a fit. There's no precedent saying a batter/pitcher has to stay out as long as the player he injured in a brawl caused by a batter getting hit. So I understand the sentiment, but logically it doesn't make a lot of sense given the precedent MLB has set.

i. Coffeenerdness: You know you're drinking too much espresso when you have a Starbucks gold card in your wallet and on your Starbucks phone app. Different cards too. Gold at both. That means I'm over the top as a latte man.

The fact you have two of these cards and feel the need to tell us about them also means you are a douche.

The Adieu Haiku

Angel Cabrera
should instruct a class in class.
Wouldn't you enroll?

I would enroll, but just make sure it doesn't take place in April or else Peter will have a shit-fit if the weather is too cold. 

7 comments Tim Keown Hates the United States Military and I Hate Rick Reilly

Ok, so Tim Keown doesn't really hate the military. He does have a few questions about the military being present at sporting events though. Also, Rick Reilly has an article that is sentimental and shitty. Actually, he is just shitty overall. He's God-awful and terrible. He's a overly sentimental and it just comes off syrupy in this column...which is par for the course with him.

I will start with Tim Keown and his article that is sort of all over the place. This article had 3 comments on it and all three were in favor of what Tim Keown wrote. It's the first time all the comments on an ESPN article are positive, at least that I can remember. I don't give a shit, screw them, I disagree with what he writes in this article.

The scene at Nationals Park before the Philadelphia Phillies-Washington Nationals opener on Monday was a familiar one for the nation's capital: huge flags stretched out across the outfield, bunting throughout the stadium and President Obama on hand to throw out the first pitch.

Obama threw out the first pitch and immediately it was clear he was better than half of the Nationals pitching staff.

Teams have long used big events to honor the military, and it's a relationship that works well for both sides.

It's not really supposed to "work" in any fashion. The military presents the flag and an anthem is sung while the military stand there on the field. It's ceremonial and I don't see the problem with it.

It's rare for military members who sacrifice so much to be recognized in such a public setting, and the teams can feel good about making the gesture to a segment of the community that deserves it.

I think this is all we pretty much need to know about why teams do this. End of story. But no, Tim Keown has more problems with this public gesture towards the military.

(Members of the military also can serve as shields for politicians who know they can provide a buffer in a public setting.)

This is not the reason the military are present at games.

(On a side note, I live in a state that is incredibly populated with members of the military and I took satellite classes in grad school at Fort Bragg with military members. I am by no means an expert on the military, but I do have some experience in their company. I have never been in the military, so maybe I have no clue. By the way, driving around Fort Bragg for someone who never bothered to get a map to get around the place is difficult. It is a REALLY hard place to find a classroom. I drove around for an hour and a half before my class. Though the fact they made me open up my golf bag at the front entrance and peeked in there for weapons definitely made up for how I got lost after that. I also enjoyed how they checked under my car for any bombs. It made me feel safe knowing there was no bomb under my car. My rambling point is that I am used to military members being around me and so I am used to military at games presenting the flag and I like this tradition.)

However, as I stood in the press box and watched this particular scene unfold, I wondered whether the relationship has become too familiar, too cozy.

Right. Perhaps American like their military members too much? We honor them too much for the sacrifice they have made for this country. Perhaps we should let some other group of people come out on the field with guns and hold the flag. MENSA would be a good choice I think.

As Tim Keown stood in the press box eating free food and sipping on sodas out of the sun, he had the deep thought that perhaps there is no place for the military at sporting events. Shouldn't they be fighting somewhere?

We spend a lot of time and energy debating the efficacy of defining our sports in war terms. During the past eight or nine years, we've become less inclined to describe games as battles and athletes as courageous for playing with minor injuries.

I think everyone knows calling an athlete courageous for playing through an injury or using war terms is pure hyperbole. No one really thinks we can equate an ankle injury with an injury that may occur during a war. It's pure hyperbole.

We rise up in righteous indignation when someone like Kellen Winslow Jr. overstates his status in the world by calling himself a soldier and his sport a war. This doesn't fly with us -- he's disrespecting the troops, he doesn't know his place, all that stuff.

I don't think anyone was indignant at what Winslow Jr. said. We just thought he looked borderline retarded for yelling that he was a soldier in his college locker room, when he was clearly a football player and nowhere near a soldier. I don't think anyone took it seriously enough to get pissed off. That was the funny part. He was a college athlete and he was very, very firm that he was a soldier. It was very juvenile. It was more embarrassing for him than anything.

But I'm wondering whether it might be worse when the opposite is true, when we approach war as if it were a sporting event.

(Bengoodfella reading this sentence quizzically 4-5 times)

I didn't know we approach war like it was a sporting event. I can't recall saying someone was going to Afghanistan "to play a few rounds with his teammates" or saying a soldier who takes an extra tour of duty as "taking the game to overtime." I just don't see the world as a whole treating war like it is a sporting event.

The men and women who held the flags at Nationals Park were all veterans of Iraq or Afghanistan. The men and women who lined the red carpet were all injured veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Simply because they were at a sporting event, in their capacity as a veterans of the Iraq War by the way, does not mean what they are/were doing in Iraq and Afghanistan was being approached as if it was a sporting event. They are soldiers at a game in their capacity as soldiers and performing an act traditionally only active service members or veterans perform.

The veterans are not there because people believe they are athletes or taking part in an athletic competition in any fashion. Sports gets compared to war. I have never heard war get compared to sports.

As the injured vets were announced by name, they were cheered by the sellout crowd. As the cheering picked up, a chant started and ultimately drowned out the clapping. The chant, as you might imagine, was "U-S-A! U-S-A!"

The crowd was chanting "U-S-A!" because it is a way of saying they are behind the veterans and appreciate all they have done for the United States. It's a small token and is very nationalistic, but I think it has its place sometimes.

It says, "we know you may not hear this much, but regardless of whether we agree with the war you fighting in or not, we are behind you. Therefore we will chant 'U-S-A' to show you we have pride in our country and your sacrifices."

I preface this by saying I am sometimes accused -- and convicted -- of overthinking an issue. I'm also inclined to ascribe motives that aren't in evidence or inject too much meaning into the meaningless.

How about being accused of writing rambling articles and putting out an article that is pretty useless because you can't think of anything else to write...I wonder if anyone accused Tim Keown of that?

The "U-S-A!" chant, to me, is better suited to following a Shaun White performance in the halfpipe or a Mike Eruzione goal against the Russians -- not the introduction of a group that included a young man who lost a leg.

Why? Why on Earth is it not suitable to start chanting "U-S-A" at a sporting event where there are veterans on the field? I know of no better way, other than by monetary means, to let the veterans know we support them and are thinking about them in a situation like this. A moment of silence for soldiers not in attendance would be fine, but this isn't sufficient for the soldiers in attendance.

But to me, the chanting is tone-deaf. The moment called for something a little more somber than a nationalistic chant.

It is a nationalistic chant, but for a sport like baseball where so many of baseball's greatest players have fought in wars, I think it is appropriate. I don't think a baseball game when military veterans are on the field is a time to be somber, especially when veterans who have seen enough somber shit recently in their lives are present.

A good many baseball players missed seasons in the 1940's to go fight in World War II, even if the flag waving may be too much for people, I don't see how the "U-S-A" chant can't be seen as somewhat relevant at a baseball game in Washington.

It's not necessarily wrong, but the ground does seem a little slippery. It's not a question of supporting our troops but understanding and appreciating them in the right context.

I wouldn't disagree with this, but I think a chant at a baseball game with veterans on the field is an appropriate time. It shows their sacrifice is appreciated in the best way it can be shown at the moment. I think if I was a soldier who had lost a limb or something, I could appreciate this a little bit.

The gap between the military and nonmilitary -- in both understanding and shared sacrifice -- is bigger than it ever has been during wartime.

No one is pretending to understand what the military soldiers are going through, they are simply trying to show they support them with a chant. I don't think a chant of "U-S-A" should start every time veterans are on the field or anything, but I don't see a problem with the occasional chant.

There is a role for sports and athletes to play in closing that gap: Drew Brees, to name one, has been instrumental in raising awareness of the sacrifices and realities that members of the military face.

Anyone who knows a military member or the family of a military member already knows the sacrifices they face. Still, good for Brees.

But there are nuances involved, and those nuances make it uncomfortable to listen to a rousing chant while a brave man stands there with an empty pant leg.

I can see the problem, if you are overthinking the situation, because it appears everyone is cheering like the crowd at a gladiator arena as a wounded soldier is standing there. I can see how it would take someone back the dichotomy of cheering for a person who has given a limb in war at a baseball game. It may not seem right to cheer, but you aren't cheering or chanting because he/she got injured, it is because you appreciate they sacrificed for the country you live in (begins waving American flag). I just think silence or any other acknowledgment would fall woefully short of showing these people how we feel for their sacrifice.

What are people going to do? Not cheer? Cheering is really no different than chanting. They both involve loud noises in celebration, it's just a chant is more synchronized and stands apart more. I can see how it would feel like they are chanting in celebration when a person may not seem to have much to celebrate. I tell you, it is a big thing for that brave man on the field to be standing there and that deserves some sort of acknowledgment. Chanting was that acknowledgment at the time. That brave man isn't necessarily depressed or somber about this occasion, he is probably got a much better attitude towards his injury than one would expect him to have. I don't feel like this is a time for somberness and I don't feel this person would believe the crowd is out of line by chanting.

It may be uncomfortable to listen to a rousing chant in this situation, but this chant is no different than a celebration of a soldier, even an injured one, coming home. It's a happiness at all this person has done and a soldier has had enough negative shit in his life to be offended by a "U-S-A" chant.

-Rick Reilly is terrible. Most things he writes are so saccharine and his column on Phil Mickelson is no exception. Here he writes an article about how Phil Mickelson's victory is a victory for women.

Actually, Phil Mickelson won, but for millions of women around the country, it must feel like a lipstick-sized victory. Mickelson, in case you forgot, is the guy who stayed true to his wife. He's the guy who's been missing tournaments the last 11 months while he flies her back and forth to a breast cancer specialist in Houston. He's the guy who didn't need reminding that women are not disposable.

Rick Reilly loves a sentimental sporting event. He hates sports, but loves sentimentality. Combine his hatred for sports and love for sentimentality and you have his weekly column.

So when Amy turned up on the 18th green Sunday at Augusta National for the first time in 11 months and Mickelson practically fell into her outstretched arms, you wanted to hug somebody yourself.

I am not saying this wasn't a great victory for Mickelson, but I can't get past the fact it almost seems like his victory at the Master's somehow makes the breast cancer his wife and mother-in-law have more bearable or takes a weight off the family in some way. It doesn't. Women didn't win at the Master's, Phil Mickelson did. He has two family members who have breast cancer, their diagnosis have not changed and their lives are not any easier (outside of the check he won for winning the tournament), than they were if he had come in 3rd place.

I had to get that off my chest.

You figured a guy who came into this Masters having played only seven tournaments this year -- and never placing better than eighth in any of them -- would have a snowball's chance.

It's not like Mickelson had forgotten how to play golf or anything. It is the second full week of April, Mickelson has played in half of the overall tournaments, so we have to keep that in mind when knowing he only had participated in seven so far. The season isn't that old, so 7 tournaments is still a good amount.

"He just had this peace to him that I haven't seen in awhile," said Bones.

I heard Mickelson say twice that he was more relaxed this week because he knew he could make mistakes on the golf course, due to Augusta being a forgiving course and him feeling comfortable taking risks. So the peace had something to do with his wife AND the golf course from what he said during the tournament.

"It's been tough," Mickelson said. "The meds that she's been taking have been very difficult and she didn't feel well and she doesn't have energy and she's not just up for a lot. But to have her here, man …"

It's awesome that he won the Master's and his wife got to be there. It was a pretty special moment, especially given Tiger Woods has gotten so many headlines for being the anti-Phil Mickelson. Still, it is partially ruined by Rick Reilly writing any column about it. He has the special way of writing that seems to demean an event by fitting it into his neat little sentimental and cute world.

Amy Mickelson is the kind of walking rainbow that could put a smile on a mortician's face, so when she showed up, everything started looking up. The golf gods started raining favors down on Mickelson's curly hair. On Saturday, golf balls started going into tiny little cups from great distances. Sunday, it got even better:

Mickelson was in the running for the lead the entire tournament. He didn't just turn it around when his wife showed up.

"I saw Amy just before I putted," Mickelson said. "That was so great. I mean, I didn't know if she would be there. To walk off the green and share that with her is just very, very emotional. We'll remember this the rest of our lives."

So he started playing better because of his wife's presence even though he didn't know she was there? For me, Reilly somehow trying to tie in Amy's presence with Mickelson doing better during the weekend is Reilly trying to add an emotional element that isn't there. This was already an exciting and emotional moment, nobody needs Rick Reilly pouring syrup over the situation and turning Mickelson's Masters victory into his own greeting card-type column.

Soon enough, though, Woods will win tournaments like this, pass Nicklaus, and order will be restored in the universe. But for this one Sunday in a flower-stuffed pocket of Georgia, the good husband, the good son, the good man actually got rewarded.

This was Mickelson's third Masters victory, and he is the best/second best golfer in the world. It's not like he is an underdog or anything.

Mostly, I just want to say this isn't a win for women, which is what the title of this article says. If Mickelson had lost the tournament, come in second place, or missed the cut entirely it would never make up for the fact his wife and mother-in-law have breast cancer. It's a bit dramatic and really actually wrong to say Mickelson's win was a win for women. It was a win for the Mickelson family and whether he had won the tournament or not, women with breast cancer are in no better shape on Monday than they were on Sunday morning before Mickelson won.

If the golfer who won the tournament was a woman and she had breast cancer, it would be a completely different story, but it is a bit wrong to indicate, and actually fairly demeaning to breast cancer survivors to indicate somehow a sporting event being won by the husband of a breast cancer victim is a win for everyone. This was a big and emotional win for the Mickelson family, but to try to turn into a win for women as a whole is at-best overly sentimental and at-worst is a trivializing the struggle women with breast cancer go through.

5 comments Gene Wojciechowski Has Trust Issues and Bill Plaschke Has Timing Issues

Recently, both Bill Plaschke and Gene Wojciechowski have written articles about the new fall-back option for sportswriters who don't have anything else to talk about. They write about Tiger Woods and his return to golf at the Masters. I am not sure if anyone has heard anything about this, but apparently Tiger Woods is making his non-triumphant return to competitive golf at the Masters. You may have missed this recently and just been confused as to why Rick Reilly was showing his face on television and actually being able to give an opinion. It's because he is an amateur Tiger Woods psychologist of course, plus ESPN has to get their money's worth out of Reilly at some point, and commenting on Tiger Woods seems to be the best way to do that.

Bill Plaschke has serious issues with where Tiger Woods has decided to return to the PGA Tour. He thinks Tiger should just ease back into golf at a different tournament, even though it is completely impossible for Tiger to ease into anything related to golf at this point. Bill still believes Tiger could ease his way back into golf and he says it in his own 1-2 sentence paragraph way.

Here's hoping it will be a more humble, humane Tiger Woods who takes his first official golf swings after spending five months mired in a sex scandal.

Here's to who gives a shit about a humble Tiger. I want to watch him hit a golf ball far and do fist pumps in excitement.

But, let's face it, only someone still bathed in delusions of grandeur would do so in a church.

Which is why he is doing it at a golf tournament. You wouldn't think a column that has 200 total words, 42 sentences and 39 paragraphs would need filler...apparently you would be wrong.

Good for him. But why Augusta?

Other than he loves playing in the tournament, it provides limited media access, and he is hoping the start of the baseball season and the end of the college basketball season overshadows his return? Also, other than it is a tournament which features a gallery that will probably not be heckling him too often? Other than those reasons, there is no reason to pick Augusta.

The Masters tournament is one of the last sports events that is bigger than any of the athletes who compete there. Woods' comeback will completely swallow it.

Unless you want to count the World Cup, the Super Bowl, the NCAA tournament, the Summer/Winter Olympics and various other sporting events that I can't think of right now, this is a true statement. More importantly, I would love to know where have some of the sports events that were bigger than the athletes gone? Did they disappear, and if so, I would love to know which sports events these were?

Forget the green jacket. The only article of clothing that will concern anyone will be something worn by Tiger Woods' wife Elin, if she attends.

She won't attend and it really doesn't matter. I never looked for her anyway and I bet 95% of the audience didn't give a shit if she was there 5 years ago and won't care if she is there for this tournament.

Forget Amen Corner. The most watched hole will be the one played by Woods, who will spend four days as the most witnessed landmark in Masters history.

As opposed to every other Masters when no one was paying attention to Tiger?

Bill Plaschke is completely ignoring the fact every hole Tiger Woods plays is the most watched hole and viewers watch tournaments on television and attend tournaments merely because Tiger will be present. So Tiger being the most watched golfer should have no bearing on whether the Master's was the correct place to start his PGA year. It was going to happen this way regardless of any outside circumstances because Woods is the most popular golfer in the world.

It is obvious why Woods chose this venue for his return. Remember his recent speech in front of friends and family, his completely controlled return to the public eye?

The following was the fourth paragraph and 4th sentence of this column:

Good for him. But why Augusta?

Bill has either answered his own question or he just can't remember what he has written a few paragraphs before.

It is obvious why Woods chose this venue for his return.

If it is obvious, then why does Bill Plaschke ask himself why Tiger chose Augusta?

Inside the Augusta gates, every move is regulated, every action monitored, every emotion corralled.

Is there any other golf tournament where spectators are expressly forbidden to ‘'run?'' It is surely the only golf tournament where running will result in the loss of your tickets.

It is the only sporting event where the number of credentialed media is kept at a low level and rarely changed. It is also the only golf event where the media is not allowed inside the ropes, allowing the golfers a sort of peace that they will not find anywhere else.

So now that Bill Plaschke has answered his own question, why would Tiger Woods not choose Augusta as the place of his return? As contradictory as this sounds, it is probably one of the lowest profile and least disrupting places on the PGA Tour to return to competitive golf for Woods.

Can we imagine the amount of press and disruption that would occur if Tiger had come back at the Shell Houston Open the week before the Masters or the Verizon Heritage the week after the Masters? Those tournaments aren't equipped to handle the amount of media coverage Tiger's return would have caused. There's no way it wouldn't have been a clusterfuck. Meanwhile, Augusta is well-equipped to handle this type of media pressure.

For Woods, this will be a sort of halfway house from heaven. But for the Masters, it could be four days — or maybe just two days? — of hell.

I am sure the Masters really hates the increased interest and focus on the tournament and CBS hates the ratings it will give them. How terrible! Everyone is interested in our tournament, what shall we ever do?

Every Woods news conference will be filled with the sort of talk that will stage the event as something other than a golf tournament.

This would have happened anywhere Tiger Woods chooses to make his comeback. This isn't a problem exclusive to the Masters.

His rounds will be taut with the expectation of distraction from a crowd that is famous for its forced etiquette. Yes, everyone is polite, but this is the Bible Belt, and they do serve beer, and who knows when this will become the U.S. Open in Bethpage?

I really have no idea what the Bible Belt and serving beer has to do with the crowd getting unruly. I realize Bill Plaschke gets most of his ideas about the South from movies like "Sweet Home Alabama" where everyone lives in a trailer, does Civil War re-enactments, has a dog, and is very kind but looks down on sinners...but outside of this Hollywood stereotype I don't think the moral police are going to be in the gallery looking down on Tiger Woods.

I hate to ruin his view of the South, but I don't expect there to be massive amounts of Tiger taunting going on from the gallery because they don't agree with his moral decisions. If I had to make a list of the most annoying Southern stereotypes, near the top of the list is that everyone in the South goes to church and passes judgment on others. I digress...

One can argue that Woods' presence would dominate any golf tournament. But it's not quite the same at the Masters.

One would also be exactly right if one made this argument.

While he's a four-time champion here, he has always been treated the same as everyone else here, just another stitch in golf's most glorious quilt.

Which is why they re-designed the course so that it would be more difficult for him to play well and give the other competitors a chance to beat Tiger. Other than re-designing the course for him, they treat Tiger the same as other golfers.

No Masters winner will ever be as forgotten as the guy who wins this year —and no, Woods is not going to win it. Every bit of fragrant air will be sucked up by the world's most famous fallen athlete looking for a soft landing.

Who won the Masters two years ago? I would bet 4 out of 10 people couldn't tell me. I had to actually look it up. My point is that Masters winners are forgotten for various reasons, like sometimes no one has heard of the winner prior to his Masters victory and also because time has a way of taking our memory away. Regardless, Masters winners will be forgotten and this year's winner would be no different if Tiger was in the tournament or not.

Hell, more people may remember who won this Masters because they watched since Tiger was playing in it.

Woods could have avoided turning Augusta into a circus by sending in the clowns a couple of weeks earlier. He could have started his comeback at next week's Arnold Palmer Invitational, which he has won the last two years and six times overall.

This event could probably not handle the media crush that would ascend on the tournament and this tournament would be turned on it's head. Plus, then Bill Plaschke would write an article about how it was wrong for Tiger to return to golf at a tournament named for the God-like Arnold Palmer. Bill would probably also accuse Tiger of smearing Palmer's name by coming back at his tournament.

I know he is filthy cheater (like 80% of athletes), but if Tiger wants to play at the Masters and they don't mind him playing...let him play.

It would have been nuts, but then it would have been over, and he could have walked into Augusta National in the quiet shadows of the pines and dogwoods like everyone else.

Bill Plaschke is living in a fantasy land if he thinks Tiger Woods could walk the grounds of Augusta National at any point in the past or future like everyone else. He was always, and will always be, the main draw. The same questions asked of him at the clusterfuck that would be the Arnold Palmer Invitational would be asked at Augusta.

Plaschke does realize Tiger Woods was the most popular golfer before this whole cheating incident doesn't he?

Then again, maybe the Augusta National nobles deserve this. After all these years of excluding women, their club is about to be stolen by a guy running from them.

Yes, maybe the Masters deserves the indignity of Tiger Woods making this the most-watched and relevant golf tournament of this year. How will they ever survive?

-Gene Wojciechowski just can't trust Tiger Woods anymore and he is greatly broken up over this fact.

For years, Tiger Woods deceived himself, his wife, his mother, his in-laws, his children, his friends, his sponsors, his peers, his entourage, his fans, the media and even his mistresses. So while I'd love to jump headfirst into the new Tiger Pond of Trust, it's going to take more than Monday's 34-minute news conference to make me a full believer.

Apparently this is Gene's first head-on collision with the fact people, lie, and cheat to serve their own measures. Really if he was jaded and negative about the world he probably wouldn't be so hurt by this.

I want to believe, I really do. It's in our DNA to see someone's better angels, to take the leap of faith from distrust to trust.

Actually, it is in the media's DNA to never believe someone even when they are claiming to be telling the truth. An apology is never good enough because it will either sound too rehearsed or not sincere enough.

There were 48 questions. But there weren't 48 answers. At times, New Tiger reverted to Old Tiger -- that is, he laid up on the truth.

I always find it hilarious the media somehow believes that Tiger Woods owes me and the rest of the world an apology or the truth. It is as if there is some warped sense that because we cheered for him in sports, he has done us wrong personally by transgressions in his personal life and our lives are forever changed. If true, this would be pathetic, but fortunately it is not true at all.

He hit a 3-iron when he could have, should have, hit driver with his explanations and words.

This is very simple. I just don't get what else Tiger has to say. Does he have to paint the world a fucking picture of what happened, does he need to bust out with a PowerPoint presentation and outline his transgressions, and why does he have to tell the world everything? Why can't those asking the questions just use their imagination on what happened on that November night and draw their own conclusions based on what Tiger has said previously? More importantly, why the hell should I care about the truth? This is a personal matter.

I want to watch Tiger Woods hit the golf ball and that's not shallow, that's his job. He is a fallible human being and any attempt to paint him in a different light is a fantasy. I treat Tiger Woods shallowly. I want to watch him hit a golf ball, fist pump and generally play golf well because this entertains me. I want to use him for this. Good for him if he works his personal stuff out, but the truth only distracts from the fact I want to be entertained and enjoy watching him play golf. All the other stuff can go away.

Monday is the day we discovered that Woods tore his right Achilles late in 2008. It's the day he admitted he took the painkiller Vicodin and the sleep aid Ambien. It's the day he denied ever taking human growth hormone or performance enhancing drugs.

See, this is the type of boring stuff I personally don't care about when discussing Tiger Woods. For me, the truth is boring and not relevant to my use for Tiger Woods...which is to be able to watch him play golf.

Exactly. Woods has a long and creepy history of deception. He didn't live a secret life; he lived a dozen of them. It took 16 months before we found out about the torn Achilles.

Why is the torn Achilles a big deal at all and why do we need to know the truth about that? Football players have injuries all the time they don't reveal publicly for competitive reasons, why should golfers be any different? Is it really that important he doesn't reveal he has a torn Achilles? Is there a golfing injury rule that I don't know about, where golfers are required to reveal their injuries?

My point is that Gene cares about Tiger telling the truth about shit that isn't even relevant to the Masters, Tiger cheating, or anything else. How can a torn Achilles in late 2008 matter right now? As far as showing a pattern of lying, this is weak evidence, because athletes cover up the true nature of injuries all the time.

It took weeks before we found out that federal investigators have contacted his agent about Woods' medical relationship with Galea. It took years and years before we found about the mistresses.

Are we his parents? Is the fan's role to condone or not condone an athlete's actions? I don't think so. Gene is acting like a 10 year old boy who has been let down by his favorite baseball player. I feel like he wants to curl up in bed and cry until dinnertime.

Isn't it fair to wonder what else Woods hasn't mentioned from his past?

Sure, but it is not relevant. What if we find out Tiger isn't deeply involved with making the video game that has his name on it? Will this change my life forever? Should I really give a shit? Am I asking too many closed-ended questions?

I don't need or want details of his affairs, or an Elin/marriage update.

Apparently you do require this.

I needed better than, "I did everything to the letter of the law," when asked why he didn't speak with Florida law enforcement investigators last December.

Maybe he is still hiding something. Most likely it doesn't matter.

And I definitely needed better than Woods saying he's learned the importance of perspective after the death of his father, the birth of his children and now the implosion of his personal life and carefully crafted public image.

Huh? If anything, Woods has shown an inability to learn from his mistakes. You can't rent perspective. Either you buy into it or you don't.

It seems like Gene is misunderstanding what Tiger was saying. He was saying after ALL of those events, he has learned perspective. He is not saying he learned new perspective after each single event.

Yes, in the past he has not learned from his mistakes, but this is also the first time he has been called on those mistakes, so this is the first time he has had to learn from them. So Tiger was saying after all of those events, he has now learned perspective and we can't really question that statement because he hasn't slipped up again.

Peace and Woods haven't been in the same tee box for who knows how long. He says rehab has made a difference, but, sigh, he wouldn't even say what kind of rehab program he completed.

"That's personal, thank you," he said.

Not to keep repeating myself, but why does it matter what rehab he went to? This is what I don't like about where sports journalism is going. I don't think journalists should turn a blind eye to what Tiger Woods does or this scandal, but there comes a time when the line needs to be drawn. He won't reveal what rehab he went to, it doesn't really matter in the long run, so let's all move on.

Now the fact Tiger Woods won't reveal the exact nature of the rehab program isn't a private matter, but a reason we can't trust him. Whereas in the past I think we could all move on past the exact nature of the rehab program, it can't happen during this point in time. Journalists feel like they have to know the full story or else they don't know any of the story. They don't have to turn a blind eye, but need to say, "okay he is not telling us the answer to this question, is it really important to get the answer?" I think this is the point where sports journalism becomes sports tabloid journalism.

People want to believe in Woods. That much was evident as he played his Monday morning practice round. The patrons were polite, supportive, but I thought a little more subdued than usual.

Right, because usually the Masters gallery is rowdy and excessively loud. The definition of a golf gallery is usually, "polite, supportive, and subdued." Especially for a practice round.

Honesty -- what a concept. Woods has gone from baby steps to fuller steps, but I'm still not prepared to take that full Tiger plunge. Let's see if he actually acts differently on and off the course.

If he plans on cheating again, he will be much more careful this time. So I don't think we are going to get a great glimpse at him acting differently off the course. Think about it, he was cheating IN PUBLIC with multiple women, some of which were semi-public figures, and it never really came out before late November of this year. What makes anyone think if he cheated again he wouldn't be more careful?

Talk is cheaper than an Augusta National pimento sandwich. Time for Woods to prove the actions match the words.

That's some tough talk by Gene. How about we don't care if we can trust Tiger Woods and just watch him play golf? Is that too easy?

The one part I don't believe Tiger Woods on is when he claims life wasn't fun when he was living his "double life."

"Look at what I was engaged in," Woods said to a packed interview room at Augusta National Golf Club, where Woods held his first news conference in more than five months. "When you're living a life that is a lie, life isn't fun ... that's been stripped away. It feels fun again."

I can't believe that living a life that was a lie and having sex with multiple women wasn't fun...or else Tiger Woods wouldn't have done it. Unless of course he was massively depressed and had some mental problems that caused him to do it...which as I said above I don't care about as long as he hits a golf ball far. Otherwise, he had fun with his life that was a lie.

14 comments Wallace Matthews Battles Reality and Peter King Answers Mail Bag Questions

I have fully recovered from covering Peter King's MMQB yesterday, that's the good news. The bad news is that we have to suffer through more of his musings in his MMQB Tuesday mail bag and Wallace Matthews has written another bad article. There are many other small stories out there that are interesting to me but aren't worthy of being written about fully. For example, the AJC's resident senile old man, Furman Bisher, believes the offensively lacking Braves should trade Chipper Jones.

The why or logic behind doing this really doesn't matter, he seems to think the Braves should do it because Jones deserves one more chance to win a World Series. Nevermind Jones just signed a contract extension, the Braves spent many millions on pitching in the off season or trading Chipper Jones could be the final straw that gets attendance down to 5,000 people attending each game...Chipper deserves another World Series. It's so dumb on so many levels I can't even write about it.

I wrote (when Peter King brought it up in his MMQB) a few weeks ago about the Dolphins had made a deal with Jimmy Buffett and Landshark Lager, but now the Dolphins are allowing Gloria Estefan to buy a stake in the team.

Maybe she just really likes football, but I didn't even know she was still making music or liked football. This seems slightly bizarre to me. Anyway, on to the main events.

-Wallace Matthews writes an article about how the "Tiger Effect" hasn't drawn more African-Americans to golf. This is a stupid article for several reasons, one of which is that Wallace only counts inner city kids as African-Americans, and he doesn't count the many other African-Americans in the world who have gained an interest in golf. His premise is wrong but that has never stopped Wallace from writing an article before though.

Quick: Name the second-best African-American golfer in the world.

Quick: Name the best African-American golfer in the world. Tiger Woods doesn't consider himself to be African-American. Much to the dismay of the mainstream media of course. It is so much easier to just classify him as African-American for them, so they have always pretty much ignored Tiger's wishes and just called him African-American. This has allowed them to write articles like this one Wallace is writing and accuse him of cowardice by being politically neutral.

This allows the mainstream media to write that Tiger should have done more to support Barack Obama in his bid for the White House because they are both African-American...nevermind the fact Tiger doesn't actually consider himself to be fully African-American, the media doesn't give a shit about that. They care about taking people and breaking them down into the smallest and most basic, easily digestable components possible. Hence, Wallace Matthews writes the sentence above.

Don't feel bad if you can't, because Joseph Louis Barrow Jr., the CEO of First Tee, a foundation largely funded by the USGA to introduce kids, preferably non-white, inner-city kids, to the wonders of golf, couldn't come up with one, either.

It has been an entire 12 years since Tiger came on the scene, which means there hasn't been that much time to draw kid's interest in golf. You have to give it all some more time.

I always found it interesting in the first place that somehow people thought Tiger would help inner city kids find an interest in golf. Tiger was not an inner city child, he grew up middle class in the suburbs. So he really wouldn't serve as the best example for these kids?

I never thought there would be too much of a "Tiger Effect" because how many golf courses do you see in the inner city? The courses are not easily accessible for these kids. Sure they can go play at the local country club or municipal course but at a certain point they are going to have to start paying for their rounds of golf. I can barely afford to go play golf and I was born into better circumstances than your normal inner city youth, so how would you expect inner city kids to get money to purchase clubs, balls, and pay for a round of golf? Foundations can't pay for these kid's golf expenses forever.

I always thought the "Tiger Effect" was going to be overrated. Golf is a rich man's game. You need time and money to play it and I don't think this is going to change too much in the future. So nothing happened to the "Tiger Effect" there was just never going to be one involving kids in the inner city or those who could not afford to play golf in the first place.

the battle to: a) convince inner-city kids that golf is cool, and b) to convince the rest of us that he, Tiger Woods and especially the USGA are not fighting a losing battle.

I am not saying there won't be more minorities on the PGA Tour, clearly that is going to happen, what I am saying is there won't be a massive undertaking of inner city kids and kids that normally would have no interest in golf all of a sudden developing a yearning to go play a round at the local course. It's not like basketball where a kid can just find a goal and a ball, then start playing, or even like baseball or football where all you really need is a ball (and glove).

The success of Tiger Woods may cause there to be more African-American golfers to be on the PGA Tour but to expect an onslaught of interest is really not very realistic. Not to mention, it is going to take some time...more than 12 years of time.

Woods has not helped matters by acting the diva. Last week, he left a practice round early to avoid mingling with spectators and Monday, was escorted to his getaway car by three state troopers

You mean the most famous golfer and one of the most famous athletes in the world was escorted off the course by some sort of security before one of the major golf tournaments of the week? I would never expect that to happen. How uppity of him to ignore others while he is trying to win a prize of over a million dollars.

Mr. Barrow said that between 22 and 28 percent of the kids, between the ages of 5-18, enrolled in the First Tee program are black, as opposed to only 6 percent in all of golf, a number that includes the tour, country club memberships and what the National Golf Foundation considers regular participants in the sport.

There you go Wallace. There is your "Tiger Effect" you so badly believe is going to happen. Those numbers are pretty impressive considering the fact golf doesn't appeal to many kids for the same reasons baseball doesn't appeal to many kids. Like the fact it can be boring at times.

In the meantime, in New Cassel, a neighborhood barely twice the total distance of the Black Course from Bethpage State Park - but where the population is 91 percent non-white - the U.S. Open and its rock star performer were barely making a ripple.

Ok, again...There is not going to be a lot of interest in golf from inner city children. Just accept this fact and move on. Any increase in interest in playing golf is most likely going to come from middle class African-Americans because golf is freaking expensive and time consuming to play. No one goes to the inner cities and tries to get children involved in lacrosse, polo, or any other traditionally middle to upper class sport because it just doesn't appeal to many people, and not just in the inner cities.

You know what else? There is nothing wrong with this. If inner city kids don't want to play golf they don't have to. It's not like golf is their only ticket for success in life. Why does Wallace insist on taking data from a sample that really has no interest in what he is researching?

"I like Jordan better, because of the sneakers," said Genaro Patricio, 16, of Westbury. "Golf? You just hit the ball and see how far it goes. Why do millions of people like to watch that? I like football, there's all that tackling and stuff."

If there is a "Tiger Effect" look for it in other areas.

His buddy, Elvis Sosa, also 16, disagreed. "Before Tiger, golf was all white men," he said. "The only black men you saw was the caddies. To see him up there like this, it's outstanding, man."

But Elvis also probably does not routinely play golf. Therein lies the problem. Tiger is a role model for many but they don't have an interest in his sport.

The consensus was that Woods was no better than anyone's fifth favorite athlete, behind Kobe, LeBron, Jordan and the Brazilian soccer star Ronaldo, a position that could change, say with something as simple as a visit to the park from Woods, while he's in the neighborhood.

So if Tiger Woods visits, kids will start to like golf? Excuse me if I find this a little bit hard to believe that Kobe, LeBron, Jordan and Ronaldo have all visited this area of New York and caused the interest of the kids in their sport. Also, Michael Jordan is very famous for playing golf religiously and these kids like him. Just thought I would mention that.

That's been the problem all along. Golf still expects the hood to come to it. Not vice versa.

For fear of sounding elitist, this can't and won't happen simply because golf requires certain monetary outlays to play. I don't understand what golf can do to "come to the hood" other than have golfers visit the inner city to drum up interest in the sport. Maybe I am being ignorant but assuming kids in "the hood," as Wallace calls it, want to play golf they still have to get a set of clubs, golf balls, and pay a green fee. There is no way a foundation can pay for all these items for hundreds of kids, and if the kids in the inner city could find someone to pay for all this for them, I would encourage them to use the money to make their and their parent's lives better and not play golf with that money.

Bottom line, I am a logical person and want people in inner cities using their money to make their own life better, not play a round of golf. So considering foundations can't pay for everything and many kids can't afford to pay a green fee, how are they supposed to play golf? There is the rub for the inner city "Tiger Effect."

Wallace Matthews needs to realize that there may never be a "Tiger Effect" in the inner cities of New York. I don't know why the "Tiger Effect" can't cause more African-Americans who don't live in the inner city to develop an interest in golf and that would count as a "Tiger Effect." That would be too easy I guess. Why are inner city kids the only ones that count in Wallace Matthews' world? I thought the point was to get more African-Americans overall involved with golf, not just inner city children...unless Wallace thinks all African-Americans live in the inner city, which knowing him is possible.

-Peter King follows up his MMQB column with his Tuesday morning mail bag where he answers a select amount of questions that meet the criteria necessary to make it in a Peter King mail bag. He has to be able to answer without doing research or it has to involve Brett Favre.

Re Nick Collins, the Green Bay safety, being dissatisfied with playing the final year of his contract at $3.045 million: Come on. You're kidding, right? When Collins did his five-year contract, the Packers put an escalator clause in his contract, adding a $2.5 million incentive clause if Collins reached certain performance levels. He reached those incentives, and so the Packers added the big bump to his scheduled $545,000 salary. So what exactly is the problem here? The clause was put in to make sure Collins would not get screwed in the final year of his contract, and he absolutely is not. He's a top-25, top-30 NFL defensive back.

Yet somehow Peter is under the illusion that Eli Manning, a top 15 quarterback needs to have his deal redone as soon as possible or it is "overdue" as he wrote. I realize there is a difference in a good quarterback and a good safety but the fact remains if Collins is in the middle of the pack as a safety, then Manning just above the middle of the pack at quarterback. I don't think either player's team should be in a huge rush to get a new deal done.

Re the Roy Williams lack of weight training until this year: I should clarify to say that, obviously, he has lifted weights before. What he hadn't done before this year with the Dallas Cowboys is stay in a program consistently for an entire off-season or be devoted to lifting during a season.

Ok, because it certainly sounded like you meant he had never lifted weights before. You did not say he did not stay on a program for an entire off season or was not devoted to lifting during the season, you said he had never done a consistent weight lifting program and then quoted someone who said, "Roy never lifted before..."

It just kind of sounded like Roy Williams had never lifted weights before based on that quote.

NBC will show the mini-tournament on July 4 at 2 p.m., after the Wimbledon Ladies Final. I walked that course last week. I'm no golf scribe, but an 81 at Bethpage Black ... that's absurd.

I have no idea what I am talking about, but that's not going to stop me from giving my opinion like I do know what I am talking about.

We'll start with Trent Green coming off the bench next Monday to spell me. Enjoy this wise man of football.

Really? You are making this easy on me Peter. I don't know whether to say this shows any moron can be a journalist and do your job or use this to prove that Peter gets too close to the athletes to really be able to do his job effectively. I think it is a little of both.

From Michael Bailey of Creedmoor, N.C.: "Peter, interesting comments early in your MMQB with Warren Sapp. Being a big Penn State guy, I followed Kerry Collins a lot when he got to the NFL and saw what happened to him. It's interesting what Sapp said, about the 'kids' not wanting to listen. My question is, do you not think that neither Collins nor Sapp weren't one of those same 'kids' 10-15 years ago themselves?

Good question Michael! No, neither was willing to listen when they were younger. Hence their young mistakes they made.

That's a good thought, and it's an interesting concept.

What the hell? An interesting concept and a good thought? It is a question that is based on the fact both those players made mistakes when they were younger and did not seem to listen to anyone who could have showed them the ropes. Interesting concept? The truth you mean?

Sapp ran his mouth his entire career and tested positive for marijuana at the Combine, hurting his draft stock. He barely listened to what he himself said, much less anyone else. We all know about Kerry Collins' history.

That well might be true. But I do think that Collins listened to the veterans he shared locker rooms with early in his career, including Frank Reich and Billy Joe Tolliver.

Yes, he listened to Frank Reich who apparently taught Collins to be a racist and an alcoholic in the one year he played for the Carolina Panthers with Collins. That one year must have been incredibly beneficial since it was BEFORE Collins made all of his mistakes. Clearly, Reich must suck as a mentor or Peter is making things up.

From Mark of Parker, Colo.: "Peter, I have a comment about Joe Buck's show in response to yours. I think the reason the Favre piece was second page has nothing to do with the show. It is that most of us don't really care anymore, we want to move on, Favre is old news, he has tarnished his career with the lousy decision-making and this story needs to have an end. To add to this I want to say that most football fans I know really don't understand the love affair the media has with Favre. Yeah he was a good QB but we have seen much better in the NFL. This is just my opinion of course. Keep up the good work. Thanks.''

These are actually good "questions" this week, even though this is not really a question. I could not agree more. What says Peter?

I've tried to not over-Favre the audience while at the same time covering a story that I think needs to be covered.

He mentioned him four separate times in his MMQB yesterday.

the fact is that it's a story that could have a major bearing on the playoff race in the NFL this year. So it gets covered.

Need me to make a list of other stories that will have a major bearing on the playoff race that have gotten little to no coverage compared to Favre's massive amount of coverage? Will do:

-David Garrard's progression as a quarterback
-Julius Peppers holding out of camp
-Whether Matt Schaub can play an entire year healthy
-Which Giants receiver can step up for Eli Manning
-Is LT really done as a running back or was last year a mirage
-Can Green Bay get their defense corrected this year
-Who is Tony Romo going to throw the ball to other than Roy Williams
-How bad will Jim Johnson's absence hurt the Eagles defense
-Is Matt Hasselbeck healthy
-Was Joe Flacco a one year wonder
-Kerry Collins was a one year wonder, who is going to QB the Titans after he collapses
-How is Peyton Manning dealing with his life long offensive coordinator leaving the team
-Will the Patriots pick up where they left off 2 years ago

Should I go on?...because I can. It's not that I necessarily want to hear about all of these issues but these are all issues that Peter King could dig into and find out facts, but he refuses to do so for his own various reasons. These all affect the playoff race very majorly and none of these issues have gotten 5% of the coverage that Favre has gotten. In fact Peter talked about only 1 of these issues (Johnson's absence from the Eagles) in his MMQB this past week and he barely talked about it, while he talked about Favre 4 different times. Give me a break. Don't lie to your audience. You love Favre.

From Mark Freeman of Holliston, Mass.: "Could Roger Goodell's stance with Donte' Stallworth have a negative effect on the NFL? I have not seen anywhere where Goodell commented on the stand-up nature Stallworth has handled his situation. I am not a Stallworth supporter and have alw ys thought of him as an over-rated player that never put in the time to become the player people believe he can be. The way he has handled himself during this tough situation has changed my view of him.

There was only one page today of mail...but this is the dumbest email by fair that Peter received. Yes, because Stallworth was polite and did not constantly act up after killing someone with his car, he should get more leniency. That makes no sense. Mark, you my friend are clueless. How does one handle killing someone appropriately? I would like to know that.

I think we do get 4 weeks off of Peter doing his Tuesday mail bag, so next week I am going after Trent Green and blaming everything he says on Peter King.