Quick blog note. I have had to slow down my posting due to time issues. Mainly, I've had precious little time to write. I post everything in my spare time that doesn't take away from time with my family. It's like a subset of a subset of spare time if you will. So I don't have any real spare time of late and work has made me more busy to where I don't have time to look for terribly written articles at work. So bitching about bad sportswriting is the first thing to go. As terribly written as many of these posts may be grammatically and sentence structure-wise, they do take a little bit of time. It takes effort to write run-on sentences. Sometimes, like writing TMQ and MMQB, they take a lot more than a little bit of time. Finding the right articles takes some time as well and it's just not time I've had recently. So I'm looking to pump it back up to four posts per week and keep coming back to the site.
Denver Broncos beat writers tend to think of some odd ideas this time of year that they believe are necessary to win the Super Bowl. A few years ago, Mike Klis found the key to the Broncos winning the Super Bowl was to lose as many regular season games as possible. This year, Mike Kiszla, with a little help from Broncos legend Rod Smith, says the Broncos can win the Super Bowl by having a little bit more love in the locker room. Ubuntu, if you will, but not calling it that. The Broncos have all the talent in the world, but they need to be close in order to win the Super Bowl. Everyone probably doesn't remember how the 2014 Patriots were seen as an extremely close team and that's how they won the Super Bowl. You don't remember, because I'm not sure this is a real thing that happened. The Seahawks weren't a divided team, but there were differing opinions on the release of Percy Harvin among the players on the Seahawks roster, yet they found a way to be close enough to almost win the Super Bowl. Perhaps it wasn't the fact the Seahawks threw the ball near the goal line that lost them the Super Bowl, but was instead that the team spent too much time playing on their phones during the bus ride to the stadium. That lack of closeness could have lost them the Super Bowl.
It's a cool $70
million contract. But what Demaryius Thomas wants, money cannot buy. He
envies the Super Bowl rings of Broncos legend Rod Smith.
No, literally...money CAN buy a Super Bowl ring.
"He wants a Super Bowl ring. ... And I kind of rub it on his chest," Smith said Tuesday.
You rub it on his chest? Why the fuck would your rub it in his chest? Don't normal braggarts rub things in the face of others?
If the Broncos want
to get back to the Super Bowl and win it this time, Smith offered novel
advice for an NFL franchise he loves like family.
Play in 3-4 playoff games, all while scoring more points than the opposing team in every playoff game? It's a winning strategy. Bank on it.
In the estimation of
Smith, the Broncos have all the talent needed to win a championship. But
the difference between hoisting the Lombardi Trophy and going home
disappointed from the playoffs can often be attributed to the lack of
brotherhood in the huddle.
No Ubuntu, no Super Bowl win for you. This is some high-level analysis here. Here I thought the Broncos could win the Super Bowl by having Peyton Manning not wear his arm out before the season is over or have Rahim Moore jump just a little bit later so he can bat a deep pass from Joe Flacco down.
Denver players need
to stop living inside the cellphone and spend more time finding out what
really makes the heart of a teammate tick.
But Mark, you HAVE to have a cellphone in order to answer this question.
How else does Kiszla expect these Broncos players to get to WebMD in order to find out what makes the heart of a teammate tick if they don't have their cell phones? Bring a laptop into the locker room?
"Put the (expletive)
phones down and have real conversations with people," declared the
45-year-old Smith, so fired up he preached for more than an hour with
passion hotter than the sun dancing in the gray flecks of his beard.
I bet Demaryius Thomas rubs it in Rod Smith's chest that Demaryius doesn't have gray flecks in his beard yet.
"Today, with social media, nobody knows who the hell they're working with.
I know who I am working with better than I ever could have because of social media. I'm friends with some co-workers on Facebook so I get to see pictures of their friends, family, loved ones, quotes they like, political views, the food they ate, and their opinion on a variety of topics. I would actually like to know the people I work with LESS than I currently do. I'm not sure Rod Smith has a firm grasp on how social media works.
You all work
together, but you have no idea what makes him tick. This is the locker
room right now. This is why the locker room is so divided. Everybody
worried about 'likes' versus worried about what (a teammate) is going
through at home.
Yes, because Von Miller is going to open up to Demaryius Thomas about his struggles at home. Perhaps they can talk about male impotence and figure out how to fight this battle together, as opposed to facing this issue alone.
But seriously, again, people put on Facebook the things they are going through all the time. I don't know if professional athletes do this, but I doubt they would open up in the middle of the locker room either.
I need to know that, because I've got to go to battle with this dude. But they're all disconnected."
They are connected through social media.
From linebacker Von
Miller to receiver Emmanuel Sanders, the Broncos sent 10 players to the
Pro Bowl after the 2014 season. They were also eliminated after one sad
game in the playoffs. From the beginning, however, the Broncos were
better at fantasy football than on the field, when the going got tough.
And of course, the reason behind the Broncos not being good when the going got tough is that they weren't close enough to each other. Were previous Super Bowl champions really close teams or something? Is there some sort of proven correlation that teams that like each other win more Super Bowls that I don't know about? Like the Patriots were super-close all year and that's how Malcolm Butler managed to intercept a pass on the goal line?
"The answer is not putting more pieces in. It's taking the pieces you have and putting them closer together."
Yes, but what if the pieces you have don't fit closer together? What if the pieces fit how they fit and success isn't determined by how these pieces fit anyway?
It's a simply
powerful idea: What the Broncos need is not more talent in the locker
room. It's more genuine love for one another.
It's a powerful idea and it's a very anecdotal idea that lacks the anecdotal evidence for me to even believe it. In fact, the very idea a team won a title because they were close is too anecdotal for me to ever believe. It seems too much like "Here is a result and let's fit in a narrative that explains this result."
while lamenting these
kids in the league today don't know the meaning of true commitment,
there's an expectation the final exclamation in his rant will be: Get
off my lawn!
Despite the growling,
what makes Smith a cuddly bear is knowing he was the same curmudgeon
while earning his first trip to the Pro Bowl at age 29 that he is now in
middle age.
This isn't a "Get off my lawn!" rant because Rod Smith has always wanted people to get off his lawn.
To this day, there's
not a soul in Broncos Country who wants to see Denver back on top more
than Smith. To help the cause, Smith has served as a mentor to Thomas,
first in the refinement of receiving skills and later in the development
of the quiet, unassuming D.T. as a leader.
Maybe Rod Smith and Mark Kiszla can help create a fictional "Broncos Way" and then state that is why the team will win the Super Bowl. Then any variation away from this "Broncos Way" will result in a few columns churned out about how the Broncos have lost the "Broncos Way" because failure occurred.
"As long as Peyton Manning's here, it's always going to be Peyton Manning's team," Smith said.
"Thanks," says Gary Kubiak.
But here's my theory: Since the Broncos signed Peyton Manning in
2012, the team has leaned so heavily on his Hall of Fame ability that
when former coach John Fox told me for the umpteenth time that Manning
raises all boats, I began to wonder who was in charge of this clambake.
So Mark Kiszla's theory is that the Broncos leaned on Manning so much that Kiszla wondered who was really in charge. His theory is that he has no theory but a question that he's wondering about. My theory about this column is whether it is really such a slow news day that writing about how the Broncos need to love each other more seemed like a good idea.
they raised him to
such mythical status as a leader that Manning has lost touch with the
common grunt in the Broncos locker room.
PEYTON MANNING IS THE HILLARY CLINTON OF THE NFL!
I've listened as too many teammates speak about Manning with hushed reverence, as if Manning were Santa Claus,
Yes, the same hushed reverence that Santa Claus receives in most NFL locker rooms.
What an odd statement. Santa Claus?
"I've listened as too many teammates speak about Demaryius Thomas with pure amusement and joy, as if Thomas were Dora the Explorer..."
omnipresent and the final arbiter of who's naughty or nice.
This is stupid to call Santa Claus the final arbiter of who's naughty or nice. Everyone knows that person is Roger Goodell.
When all the best
plans go to pieces as the snap sails over the QB's head at the Super
Bowl, however, there needs to be a strong voice that can rally
downtrodden teammates,
Hey, how about the quarterback? I mean, the offense goes back to the bench and Manning can be a strong voice to rally his teammates.
while Manning sits on the bench and studies the All-22 photographs to analyze how it went wrong.
Ah, I get it. In order to become a close team, the Broncos offense should exclude Peyton Manning from any leadership opportunities and sneak off to meet while he's reviewing film from the previous drive. This, undoubtedly, will bring the team closer together. It moves the pieces closer together, almost like Manning and the rest of the Broncos offensive players are the Santa and Mrs. Claus of the NFL.
When Thomas insists
his lucrative contract only makes him hungrier, it's music to the ears
of Smith. His hunger is for championships. To get that ring, Thomas
must instill the hunger in teammates.
This hunger must be instilled. And obviously "this hunger" is directly related to "being super-close with your teammates." It's pretty much the same thing, you know, since this entire column is about how the Broncos should be closer to each other and now Mark Kiszla is randomly discussing how the Broncos need to be hungrier.
"It pays off,
honestly, when you're down in the fourth quarter and you've got a minute
and a half left to win the game," Smith said.
Like when things got tough in the Super Bowl and the Broncos needed a first down, so John Elway ran for the first down to keep the drive alive? So when the leadership came from someone who happened to be the quarterback?
That's more than leadership. That's a band of football brothers, sharing the love.
Put down the phone, get to know your teammate, then win the Super Bowl. What happens if all 32 NFL teams do this? Will they all win the Super Bowl?
The best part of this column is one of the comments from a "macomment" who says in a very articulate way:
I think Rod has a good point. Drop that twitter, facebook, instagram,
snapchat, tumblr crap for the season and focus on football. PLEASE! I
dumped facebook a couple years ago and never looked back.
And "maccomment" won the Super Bowl THE VERY NEXT SEASON. Coincidence? Probably not. He dumped Facebook and his life became much more fulfilling and obviously this anonymous Internet commenter's professional life is analogous to the professional life of an NFL player.
It's great not
seeing ugly baby photos and closeups of your neighbor's dinner while
being bombarded with focused advertisements.
You mean seeing things that help you to know more about your neighbor and friends? Those things that Mike Kiszla says the Broncos need to do more of by getting away from social media?
That being said, Fox
showered the Broncos with love.
Yes, ugly babies aside, AND WITH THAT BEING SAID...
These guys don't need that kind of love
...
Not the John Fox kind of love. More of a tough love. Perhaps love bordering on the edge of child abuse. Instead of taking pictures of an ugly baby, go out and beat the shit out of an ugly baby until it chokes on it's pathetic baby tears and can't breathe through it's stupid baby mouth. THAT is the kind of love the Broncos need.
they need the type of love that Adrian Peterson delivers to his 4 yr
old son so that none of us ever has to endure a half-baked effort like
that playoff game against the Colts.
I agree. In order for the Broncos to play better as a team, they should all be beaten with a switch. I mean, obviously this is something that should occur. Nothing will bring the Broncos together closer than to know they each have the same scars from where Gary Kubiak bent them over his knee and beat them until they bled with a switch.
Showing posts with label improper touching. Show all posts
Showing posts with label improper touching. Show all posts
Saturday, September 12, 2015
Tuesday, June 10, 2014
7 comments MMQB Review: Peter Is Humble About the Award He Received, The Same Award I Wouldn't Know He Had Received If He Didn't Bring It Up
Peter King relayed second hand the story of one woman's fight with her defecating service dog on a plane last week in MMQB. Peter also relayed the speculation that this woman didn't really need her service dog on the flight, which was really kind of him. He also got a few more shots at Josh Freeman in, as well as bemoaned Greg Schiano getting fired too soon. This week Peter talks about the focus on the ethnical culture (wait, nevermind...that's "ethical culture") in the Bears locker room by signing Jimmy Clausen (okay, kidding about that too...the Bears really signed Clausen though), Peter shows a picture of Dr. Z who actually looks pretty good, recommends Father's Day books, reveals the MMQB replacement writers for the month of July, and there is no travel note this week. Maybe after last week's bashing of a lady who may or may not have a condition requiring her to have a service dog on a plane has led Peter to get rid of the travel note. More than likely he just didn't have anything to complain about this week in regard to traveling, though one could hold out hope he has gotten rid of the travel note.
Notes from the last pre-vacation MMQB—including Marc Trestman the people person, Jay Cutler the leader, and the first annual “Paul ‘Dr. Z’ Awards” by the Pro Football Writers of America—on the eve of tonight’s 55th annual National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Awards ceremony in this real-life Mayberry place.
I don't know why the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Awards Hall of Fame is in Salisbury, North Carolina. I know of no good reason for this other than someone lost a bet and the result is the NSSA awards ceremony and Hall of Fame are in Salisbury. More importantly, it isn't "real-life" Mayberry. Mount Airy, North Carolina is actually real-life Mayberry...at least they claim to be. Salisbury is nothing like the fictional city of Mayberry, though I'm sure every city below northern Virginia is just another small, dumb hick town to Peter King.
Good news, Bears
GET IT?
But I give special points to Chicago Bears coach Marc Trestman and quarterback Jay Cutler for their efforts. And I’m learning more and more about how wrong we were that Trestman was some Xs-and-Os monk who couldn’t deal with players on a human scale.
(Looks around the room in confusion) Who said that Marc Trestman was "some X's-and-O's monk who couldn't deal with players on a human scale"? He was a pretty good coach in the CFL. I guess Peter has taken to Bill Simmons' use of the word "we" to describe when Peter's own personal thoughts were wrong, but he can't accept that he personally was wrong, so he says "we" were wrong, because obviously Peter's own personal thoughts reflect the thoughts of the sports loving population as a whole. Peter is OUR football voice and our thoughts are his thoughts.
Another example: Trestman and Cutler recently flew to New York to meet with the league’s new values-meister, Dov Seidman, to exchange ideas about fostering a more ethical culture in the locker room. I’ve heard of players and coaches working on football in the off-season, and maybe even on better forms of leadership. But for a coach and his top lieutenant in the locker room—who has never been considered a classic locker-room leader—to get on a plane and spend a day working on new techniques and dialog … that goes beyond the call of duty.
It also makes sense. I don't necessarily believe in the "high-fiving and hanging out with each other" stuff to the extent Bill Simmons believes in it, but I do think a team that likes each other can perform at a higher level because of their increased level of engagement in wanting to succeed for each other.
“In our locker room, everyone should feel safe. For some of the guys in Chicago, it was kind of new to them. There’d be no hazing. Lovie Smith had a great group of players—a great group—and he did a great job with them. There were some subtle things I wanted to add.
Things like stop showing pictures from the Smoking Jay Cutler tumblr to Jay Cutler and making jokes about how many men have slept with his wife by pretending they were filming a reality show and offering her cocaine? It's unbecoming and very rude.
Seidman, the CEO of the LRN Company, a company that works with businesses to stress principled performance, addressed club and league officials at the annual meeting in March, and has remained an adviser to the league...“You don’t just flip a switch on something like this,” Seidman said. “It’s about a journey. It’s about progress. I think teams are figuring out there’s a new way to win, and that includes caring for the player as a person, a father and a husband.
It all sounds so very sweet and kind. I'm sure this philosophy would fit in perfectly with the locker room of a sport where the purpose is to collide violently with the opposing player.
Then Peter shows a picture of Dr. Z, who looks pretty good.
All my snark about how Peter used the money from his readers to fund an expensive, experimental treatment for Dr. Z and then there was almost no follow up in MMQB aside, it's good to see him at least look healthy.
If you notice, Peter King the diehard Boston Red Sox fan, has a Washington Nationals shirt on. This isn't the first time I've seen a picture of Peter wearing apparel of a team he doesn't recognize as his favorite sports team. It's just odd to me. Maybe I'm weird, but if I'm a big fan of a certain athletic team I'm not going to go around sporting shirts with the logo from a competing athletic team in that same sport.
Rodgers came to lunch and brought with him an Emmy—for Paul. The gold statuette sat on the table in front of Paul throughout the meal. He beamed. Rodgers choked up a couple of times talking about Zim and the experience of doing this wonderful story. “My favorite moment,” said Rodgers at one point, “was listening to an old interview of Paul with him in the room, and thinking how emotional it would probably make him, and I look at him, and he’s rolling his eyes as if to say, ‘Blah, blah, blah. Just shut up, will you?’ ”
That picture is Dr. Z with his Emmy, with Peter looking on wondering where he can get a Tampa Bay Rays knit shirt to wear with his Toronto Blue Jays Starter jacket, Detroit Tigers socks and Arizona Diamondbacks sandals.
It’s long past time that career assistants, who don’t make the Hall of Fame and most often work deep in the shadows of their head coaches, are memorialized for what they do. PFWA leaders Ira Miller and Dan Pompei pushed to honor Paul Zimmerman in conjunction with the award, seeing that Zim for so long chronicled these men in the shadows and was constantly drawing attention to the previously invisible work of so many of them. So the PFWA decided to christen the award “The Paul ‘Dr. Z’ Zimmerman Award” for lifetime achievement for NFL assistant coaches.
I can't wait for 10 years from now when Peter pushes the PFWA to honor quarterbacks named Brett Favre who have contributed to the game of football and he will call it "The Brett Favre Award" which will go to Brett Favre and then never be handed out again.
The inaugural class of four winners:
Howard Mudd, who worked for 39 years as an NFL offensive line coach with eight teams.
The late Fritz Shurmur, a veteran of 24 years as an NFL coach, 20 of them as a defensive coordinator.
Ernie Zampese, a 24-year NFL assistant and one of the architects of the modern passing game.
The late Jim Johnson, a master of the disguised blitz, a 23-year assistant and defensive coordinator.
When is Mike Shula going to finally be honored for his dedication to the short passing game and obvious play-calling? It's past time he gets his due. His offenses don't stay in the lower half of the NFL in terms of total offense without all the hard work he puts in.
Mudd said. He’s best known for his 12 years with the Colts—particularly for his patch job in 2008, when Indy had Manning coming back from tricky summer knee surgery and a dangerous infection, and center Jeff Saturday was hurt, and Mudd had to get rookie Jamey Richard ready to play one of the most complicated center positions in football, with all the changes Manning makes at the line. The Colts won 12 games.
I'm not trying to take anything away from Howard Mudd, but this story followed by "The Colts won 12 games" seems to indicate that Peyton Manning wasn't the quarterback for the Colts and Mudd's work with Richard is why the Colts won 12 games. I understand Mudd just can't run any old guy at the center position out there and have success, but the fact the Colts won 12 games has a lot to do with Peyton Manning and his ability to avoid sacks.
Ask Barry Sanders about Fritz Shurmur: In a 1994 playoff game against Shurmur’s Packers, Sanders was held to -1 yard on 13 carries.
Oh sure, I'll go ask Barry Sanders about Fritz Shurmur. (goes through his phone looking for Barry Sanders phone number) It turns out I don't have Barry Sanders' phone number because I don't fucking know Barry Sanders nor would he have any reason to give me his phone number. But yeah, I'll go ask him about Fritz Shurmur should I run into him while he's walking around my hometown.
I greatly dislike it when sportswriters say/write "Go ask Famous Person X" about something, as if his/her readers can really ask that person the question they want to ask.
Zampese has the distinction of running for the winning touchdown as a USC tailback against Notre Dame in 1956 (bet you didn’t know that)
If only I were as smart as Peter King and knew information such as this little morsel of a factoid that I really don't care about (bet you didn't know that).
My annual look at books I’d recommend for dad/brother/uncle/grandfather/male friend/male whoever, with Fathers Day just six days away, is a bit abbreviated this year.
It's a bit abbreviated in that it takes up an entire half page of MMQB. 10% of the page space is dedicated to the Father's Day books with Peter recommending five books. I would hate to see what it would look like if it wasn't abbreviated at all.
Sycamore Row, by John Grisham (Doubleday). Fiction.
I never get tired of John Grisham. I believe this is the 28th Grisham book I have read, because it is the 28th book he has published (not including his teen-book series).
Peter has read Grisham's teen-book series five times now. The way Grisham writes is just so precocious. He's like a child in how he writes books and has so much fun putting words to paper.
In “Sycamore Row,’’ the richest man in his Mississippi county, the same setting for Grisham’s first book, hangs himself because he doesn’t want to suffer through terminal cancer. He leaves a will that shocks his family and the entire county, and dredges up one of the worst hanging stories there ever was, and leads to a harrowing cleansing, and if I tell you much more, I’ll be spoiling a typically spellbinding Grisham tale.
If Peter told any more then there would be no reason for anyone to read the book because he's already spoiled the ending of the book.
Good writers tie them together so you look forward to the tying-up of loose ends on one story as you’re getting pulled into the second and the third and the fourth. I’m not a daily reader or what anyone would call an avid reader. But of the authors I read, Coben is the best at making six or eight tributaries flow into one body of water sensibly.
Ah yes, it is Peter's typical "I know nothing about this subject but here is my opinion that I expect you to take seriously as if I did know a lot about the subject." Usually he makes these statements in regard to the NBA, but he's expanded to making statements like this in regard to books.
I’ll be taking two weeks vacation starting tomorrow, then returning to work for one week, for some unique coverage of Canadian football during the week of June 24.
Watch out Canada! Peter King is coming for you! Your Starbucks aren't safe and he's going to comment about just how stupid you Canadians act in public, as well as search for the Canadian version of Josh Freeman, so he can take his anger out on some innocent quarterback who has committed the sin of making one of Peter's friends lose his job.
I'm assuming Peter has friends in Canada of course.
We’re going to cover the opening week of the Canadian Football League season, assuming the players and owners have their labor (or should I say, “labour”)
Oh, the insufferability.
Assuming the league is playing in week one, we’ll be covering it at The MMQB. When that coverage ends on July 1, I’ll be away until July 17.
I will be writing Monday Morning Quarterback, live from Regina, Saskatchewan, on Monday, June 30. The Saskatchewan Roughriders, defending Grey Cup champions, open their season on Sunday, June 29 (assuming they’re not on strike), and I’ll be there. Unless I screw it up, my MMQB on Monday the 30 ought to be a CFL spectacular. I’m looking forward to my time in Canada.
Canada looks forward to deporting you after you have been warned multiple times about leering at their citizens while riding on public transportation, criticizing local coffee shops for having too long of lines or weak coffee and transcribing entire conversations strangers are having on the street.
As is our usual custom, we’ll have replacement “Monday Morning Quarterback” columnists for four of the next five weeks. San Francisco tight end Vernon Davis will write one, and Chicago coach Marc Trestman will write another to kick off our Canada Week festivities;
What a shock! A person that Peter compliments in this very MMQB is going to end up writing a MMQB this summer. Who would have thought Peter would compliment a person and then have that person write a MMQB? It's like when Peter named Coby Fleener one of his favorite interviews and it just so happened Fleener wrote a MMQB last year or when Nnamdi Asomugha wrote a MMQB several years ago and then Peter acted like his free agency was the biggest deal since Reggie White became a free agent (which is something Peter actually said). Nothing like friends helping friends to increase interest on the free agent market.
Oakland first-round pick, Khalil Mack, is slated to write another one of the MMQBs, with Rich Eisen of NFL Network rounding out the fearsome foursome.
Hopefully Eisen can bring along his NFL Network buddy to take shots at people who are in wheelchairs or make a few comments about how Stevie Wonder is supposedly blind, but he plays keyboards pretty well for a guy who "can't see."
I am privileged, and humbled, to accept the National Sportswriter of the Year award tonight here in Salisbury, home of the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Hall of Fame.
So maybe next the Marriott doesn't have fresh coffee at 6am they will change their stance once they are reminded a Hall of Fame member wants that fresh coffee. It's not that Peter is important now, it's that he now has proof of his importance the next time a Starwood Preferred Member tries to jump in front of him for the elevator.
Rick Reilly and Marv Albert will be inducted into the Hall of Fame tonight,
As I've said before, sometimes I feel the best way to get recognized for being a good sportswriter is to be sure to have friends, work at a large national publication and don't die. At some point, you will probably receive an award for being a good sportswriter. There's no reason Rick Reilly should be receiving any type of award, but yet, he is in the Sportswriter Hall of Fame. I would consider him to be more of a compiler than one of the best sportswriters of all-time. I hope someone shows up and asks him to pee in a cup to prove he didn't use PEDs.
Then Peter thanks everyone who helped him get there and those who helped THE MMQB win the best blog in the Time Inc empire. So even though I can't be there to hear him get his award I already have read Peter's acceptance speech.
I still can't believe the Sportswriter Hall of Fame is in Salisbury, North Carolina. Just a random place for it to be.
“The time I spent with him, I don’t think I would have been able to be at this point so quickly, if he hadn’t been such a great mentor with me and help me along.’’
—San Francisco quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who signed a six-year contract worth up to $126 million last week, crediting former 49ers quarterback Alex Smith with a good mentoring job in Kaepernick’s first two years with the team.
Kaepernick appreciates you getting that concussion, Alex Smith! What a great team player you are to get a concussion and then allow Kaepernick to take your spot as the starting quarterback for the 49ers. He's so grateful.
Tremendous is from Kansas.
And Ken Tremendous is a fan of the Red Sox and (I believe) the other teams around the Boston area, so it's a little interesting he likes it when a team from Los Angeles and New York lose because it's probably how many people feel about his favorite teams.
Ten Things I Think I Think
1. I think I’d love to hear what an NFL locker room, or a big-league locker room in baseball or basketball or hockey, would say to a coach who said this publicly: “We cannot win our league this year, because we are not at that level yet.” U.S. soccer coach Jurgen Klinsmann said to Sam Borden of the New York Times: “We cannot win this World Cup, because we are not at that level yet.” In the last few days, since I derided Klinsmann for saying we cannot win an athletic competition that we, as one of 32 World Cup teams, begin to compete for starting next Monday, I’ve heard all of the theories about why he said it.
Peter is like Michael Wilbon and wants Klinsman to get out of America. Show us your green card Klinsman!
My point is simple: It’s absurd for a group of players, who have been practicing and drilling and (I’m sure) watching all kinds of video on first-round foes Ghana, Portugal and Germany, to hear from the man leading them into the World Cup that they have no chance to win. I’d love to hear what Herb Brooks would have thought of that form of “motivation.”
Yeah me, too. What would a hockey coach have to say about a World Cup soccer coach motivating his team in the way he sees fit? He would probably say, "If that's how he wants to coach his team" and then go back to staring at his gold medal.
The U.S. opens World Cup play a week from today against Ghana. I’ll be watching, even though we don’t have a chance.
That's not what Klinsman said in the quote. He said they "cannnot win our league this year, because we are not at that level yet." The key word is "yet" in that sentence. Who is to say he won't feel the US team won't be at that level by the time play starts?
And who knows Klinsman's motivation for saying this? Klinsman wouldn't be the first coach to publicly say his team will probably lose while privately telling his team they are going to win. I feel like some of the criticism of Klinsman comes from the fact there are certain people (ahem, Peter?) who view him as a non-American coaching the American World Cup soccer team. That's just my opinion of course. There are quite a few head coaches in various sports who have publicly stated their team can't win (or will struggle to win) and then said something completely different in private to his team. Maybe Klinsman is just trying to manage the expectations of the general public who are casual soccer fans at best and expect the United States to be good at everything, no matter what.
2. I think Bruce Arians has no prejudice against playing rookies, and he certainly wants to improve his deep receiver speed from 2013, and he has been more impressed with third-round wideout John Brown of Pittsburg (Kans.) State with his 4.34-in-the-40 speed and his quick pickup of the Arizona offense … all of which leads me to believe if you’re drafting your fantasy football team in June, taking a late-round risk on Brown would be a smart idea on a deep roster. The Cardinals, so far, love him.
It's June. The Cardinals haven't played another team nor have they really gotten ready for the upcoming season. Probably a little too early to suggest drafting a rookie wide receiver based on how much the team likes him. Does Peter know how many receivers look great in June and disappear once the time comes for real training camp to start? The answer is 35. 35 receivers disappear every year after being loved in June.
7. I think the funniest headline of last week was one about Andrew Luck not being concerned about Colin Kaepernick’s new contract. People: Andrew Luck is not concerned about much of anything that is outside his Colts universe, and he certainly isn’t concerned with what anyone else’s contract is.
Well, thanks for clearing that up for us all Peter. I was concerned that Andrew Luck was concerned about making enough money in his next contract. Thank God that Luck isn't concerned and is only worried about things that are within his Colts universe. Though I am sure this will change once Luck's agent presents comparable contracts paid to NFL quarterbacks to the Colts when the time to discuss a contract extension does come.
He knows when it’s time to sign a contract, he’ll get what the market rate is for a player playing his position at whatever level he’s playing at the time. For him to worry about something like that would be incredibly anti-Luck.
Thank you for clearing up WWALD. It's very important that Peter clear up the headline that stated Luck wasn't concerned about Kaepernick's new contract by pointing out that Luck isn't worried about Kaepernick's contract. The misunderstanding that wasn't present is now completely cleared up. I wonder if Peter would take the time to point out Russell Wilson and other quarterbacks up for a new contract in the next year or two aren't worried about Kaepernick's contract or is it only Andrew Luck who gets this treatment?
8. I think Monica Seles would be one heck of a first lady of Buffalo football.
I think Peter doesn't know enough about Monica Seles to make this claim.
10. I think these are my non-football thoughts of the week:
a. That Belmont was really, really fun to watch.
As long as you are in to a three hour lead up to a moment that lasts barely two minutes (no jokes, please) and are in the mood to watch an animal get beaten with a whip in order to get him to move faster. Then yeah, I guess it was fun.
h. Coffeenerdness: I give up. I can’t drink any drip coffee but Italian Roast. I am officially the snobbiest coffee snob of all time.
Because a person who goes to Starbucks every single day should accurately be described as a coffee snob and all. Starbucks is the place a person goes to get a cup of coffee they know will be consistent, while I think a coffee snob would choose to go somewhere a little less commercial. Perhaps Peter is confusing believing he is a coffee critic with being a coffee snob. I wouldn't consider him to be a coffee snob based on how often he goes to Starbucks. Maybe it's me.
i. Beernerdness: Always happens this way—it’s hot out, it’s near summertime, and I move from heavier to lighter in beer selection.
It probably happens that way because brewers tend to make more lighter seasonal beers during the summer season than they make heavier beers during the summer season.
l. Think of this: Cranston plays LBJ at 8 p.m. Friday, at 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday, and at 2 p.m. Sunday. That’s four times in the span of 45 hours. Just watch Cranston’s exertion level and tell me that’s not an incredible task—particularly for his vocal chords.
You know what? I'll call Barry Sanders and we will go watch Bryan Cranston's exertion level together.
The Adieu Haiku
Why can't it be "Adieu to the Haiku"?
Kaepernick got paid.
Sort of—but it’s a good pact.
Play well, get rich. Good.
Anytime a player gets paid in the double-digit millions I don't think it's fair to say he "sort of" got paid. Not to over-analyze Peter's haiku but can a person "sort of" get paid and then be described as "getting rich"? I guess Kaepernick didn't really get paid but is now rich. I wonder how Peter would feel about Andrew Luck getting a deal where he doesn't have to play well, but gets rich? I imagine he wouldn't have an issue with it.
Notes from the last pre-vacation MMQB—including Marc Trestman the people person, Jay Cutler the leader, and the first annual “Paul ‘Dr. Z’ Awards” by the Pro Football Writers of America—on the eve of tonight’s 55th annual National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Awards ceremony in this real-life Mayberry place.
I don't know why the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Awards Hall of Fame is in Salisbury, North Carolina. I know of no good reason for this other than someone lost a bet and the result is the NSSA awards ceremony and Hall of Fame are in Salisbury. More importantly, it isn't "real-life" Mayberry. Mount Airy, North Carolina is actually real-life Mayberry...at least they claim to be. Salisbury is nothing like the fictional city of Mayberry, though I'm sure every city below northern Virginia is just another small, dumb hick town to Peter King.
Good news, Bears
GET IT?
But I give special points to Chicago Bears coach Marc Trestman and quarterback Jay Cutler for their efforts. And I’m learning more and more about how wrong we were that Trestman was some Xs-and-Os monk who couldn’t deal with players on a human scale.
(Looks around the room in confusion) Who said that Marc Trestman was "some X's-and-O's monk who couldn't deal with players on a human scale"? He was a pretty good coach in the CFL. I guess Peter has taken to Bill Simmons' use of the word "we" to describe when Peter's own personal thoughts were wrong, but he can't accept that he personally was wrong, so he says "we" were wrong, because obviously Peter's own personal thoughts reflect the thoughts of the sports loving population as a whole. Peter is OUR football voice and our thoughts are his thoughts.
Another example: Trestman and Cutler recently flew to New York to meet with the league’s new values-meister, Dov Seidman, to exchange ideas about fostering a more ethical culture in the locker room. I’ve heard of players and coaches working on football in the off-season, and maybe even on better forms of leadership. But for a coach and his top lieutenant in the locker room—who has never been considered a classic locker-room leader—to get on a plane and spend a day working on new techniques and dialog … that goes beyond the call of duty.
It also makes sense. I don't necessarily believe in the "high-fiving and hanging out with each other" stuff to the extent Bill Simmons believes in it, but I do think a team that likes each other can perform at a higher level because of their increased level of engagement in wanting to succeed for each other.
“In our locker room, everyone should feel safe. For some of the guys in Chicago, it was kind of new to them. There’d be no hazing. Lovie Smith had a great group of players—a great group—and he did a great job with them. There were some subtle things I wanted to add.
Things like stop showing pictures from the Smoking Jay Cutler tumblr to Jay Cutler and making jokes about how many men have slept with his wife by pretending they were filming a reality show and offering her cocaine? It's unbecoming and very rude.
Seidman, the CEO of the LRN Company, a company that works with businesses to stress principled performance, addressed club and league officials at the annual meeting in March, and has remained an adviser to the league...“You don’t just flip a switch on something like this,” Seidman said. “It’s about a journey. It’s about progress. I think teams are figuring out there’s a new way to win, and that includes caring for the player as a person, a father and a husband.
It all sounds so very sweet and kind. I'm sure this philosophy would fit in perfectly with the locker room of a sport where the purpose is to collide violently with the opposing player.
Then Peter shows a picture of Dr. Z, who looks pretty good.
If you notice, Peter King the diehard Boston Red Sox fan, has a Washington Nationals shirt on. This isn't the first time I've seen a picture of Peter wearing apparel of a team he doesn't recognize as his favorite sports team. It's just odd to me. Maybe I'm weird, but if I'm a big fan of a certain athletic team I'm not going to go around sporting shirts with the logo from a competing athletic team in that same sport.
Rodgers came to lunch and brought with him an Emmy—for Paul. The gold statuette sat on the table in front of Paul throughout the meal. He beamed. Rodgers choked up a couple of times talking about Zim and the experience of doing this wonderful story. “My favorite moment,” said Rodgers at one point, “was listening to an old interview of Paul with him in the room, and thinking how emotional it would probably make him, and I look at him, and he’s rolling his eyes as if to say, ‘Blah, blah, blah. Just shut up, will you?’ ”
That picture is Dr. Z with his Emmy, with Peter looking on wondering where he can get a Tampa Bay Rays knit shirt to wear with his Toronto Blue Jays Starter jacket, Detroit Tigers socks and Arizona Diamondbacks sandals.
It’s long past time that career assistants, who don’t make the Hall of Fame and most often work deep in the shadows of their head coaches, are memorialized for what they do. PFWA leaders Ira Miller and Dan Pompei pushed to honor Paul Zimmerman in conjunction with the award, seeing that Zim for so long chronicled these men in the shadows and was constantly drawing attention to the previously invisible work of so many of them. So the PFWA decided to christen the award “The Paul ‘Dr. Z’ Zimmerman Award” for lifetime achievement for NFL assistant coaches.
I can't wait for 10 years from now when Peter pushes the PFWA to honor quarterbacks named Brett Favre who have contributed to the game of football and he will call it "The Brett Favre Award" which will go to Brett Favre and then never be handed out again.
The inaugural class of four winners:
Howard Mudd, who worked for 39 years as an NFL offensive line coach with eight teams.
The late Fritz Shurmur, a veteran of 24 years as an NFL coach, 20 of them as a defensive coordinator.
Ernie Zampese, a 24-year NFL assistant and one of the architects of the modern passing game.
The late Jim Johnson, a master of the disguised blitz, a 23-year assistant and defensive coordinator.
When is Mike Shula going to finally be honored for his dedication to the short passing game and obvious play-calling? It's past time he gets his due. His offenses don't stay in the lower half of the NFL in terms of total offense without all the hard work he puts in.
Mudd said. He’s best known for his 12 years with the Colts—particularly for his patch job in 2008, when Indy had Manning coming back from tricky summer knee surgery and a dangerous infection, and center Jeff Saturday was hurt, and Mudd had to get rookie Jamey Richard ready to play one of the most complicated center positions in football, with all the changes Manning makes at the line. The Colts won 12 games.
I'm not trying to take anything away from Howard Mudd, but this story followed by "The Colts won 12 games" seems to indicate that Peyton Manning wasn't the quarterback for the Colts and Mudd's work with Richard is why the Colts won 12 games. I understand Mudd just can't run any old guy at the center position out there and have success, but the fact the Colts won 12 games has a lot to do with Peyton Manning and his ability to avoid sacks.
Ask Barry Sanders about Fritz Shurmur: In a 1994 playoff game against Shurmur’s Packers, Sanders was held to -1 yard on 13 carries.
Oh sure, I'll go ask Barry Sanders about Fritz Shurmur. (goes through his phone looking for Barry Sanders phone number) It turns out I don't have Barry Sanders' phone number because I don't fucking know Barry Sanders nor would he have any reason to give me his phone number. But yeah, I'll go ask him about Fritz Shurmur should I run into him while he's walking around my hometown.
I greatly dislike it when sportswriters say/write "Go ask Famous Person X" about something, as if his/her readers can really ask that person the question they want to ask.
Zampese has the distinction of running for the winning touchdown as a USC tailback against Notre Dame in 1956 (bet you didn’t know that)
If only I were as smart as Peter King and knew information such as this little morsel of a factoid that I really don't care about (bet you didn't know that).
My annual look at books I’d recommend for dad/brother/uncle/grandfather/male friend/male whoever, with Fathers Day just six days away, is a bit abbreviated this year.
It's a bit abbreviated in that it takes up an entire half page of MMQB. 10% of the page space is dedicated to the Father's Day books with Peter recommending five books. I would hate to see what it would look like if it wasn't abbreviated at all.
Sycamore Row, by John Grisham (Doubleday). Fiction.
I never get tired of John Grisham. I believe this is the 28th Grisham book I have read, because it is the 28th book he has published (not including his teen-book series).
Peter has read Grisham's teen-book series five times now. The way Grisham writes is just so precocious. He's like a child in how he writes books and has so much fun putting words to paper.
In “Sycamore Row,’’ the richest man in his Mississippi county, the same setting for Grisham’s first book, hangs himself because he doesn’t want to suffer through terminal cancer. He leaves a will that shocks his family and the entire county, and dredges up one of the worst hanging stories there ever was, and leads to a harrowing cleansing, and if I tell you much more, I’ll be spoiling a typically spellbinding Grisham tale.
If Peter told any more then there would be no reason for anyone to read the book because he's already spoiled the ending of the book.
Good writers tie them together so you look forward to the tying-up of loose ends on one story as you’re getting pulled into the second and the third and the fourth. I’m not a daily reader or what anyone would call an avid reader. But of the authors I read, Coben is the best at making six or eight tributaries flow into one body of water sensibly.
Ah yes, it is Peter's typical "I know nothing about this subject but here is my opinion that I expect you to take seriously as if I did know a lot about the subject." Usually he makes these statements in regard to the NBA, but he's expanded to making statements like this in regard to books.
I’ll be taking two weeks vacation starting tomorrow, then returning to work for one week, for some unique coverage of Canadian football during the week of June 24.
Watch out Canada! Peter King is coming for you! Your Starbucks aren't safe and he's going to comment about just how stupid you Canadians act in public, as well as search for the Canadian version of Josh Freeman, so he can take his anger out on some innocent quarterback who has committed the sin of making one of Peter's friends lose his job.
I'm assuming Peter has friends in Canada of course.
We’re going to cover the opening week of the Canadian Football League season, assuming the players and owners have their labor (or should I say, “labour”)
Oh, the insufferability.
Assuming the league is playing in week one, we’ll be covering it at The MMQB. When that coverage ends on July 1, I’ll be away until July 17.
I will be writing Monday Morning Quarterback, live from Regina, Saskatchewan, on Monday, June 30. The Saskatchewan Roughriders, defending Grey Cup champions, open their season on Sunday, June 29 (assuming they’re not on strike), and I’ll be there. Unless I screw it up, my MMQB on Monday the 30 ought to be a CFL spectacular. I’m looking forward to my time in Canada.
Canada looks forward to deporting you after you have been warned multiple times about leering at their citizens while riding on public transportation, criticizing local coffee shops for having too long of lines or weak coffee and transcribing entire conversations strangers are having on the street.
As is our usual custom, we’ll have replacement “Monday Morning Quarterback” columnists for four of the next five weeks. San Francisco tight end Vernon Davis will write one, and Chicago coach Marc Trestman will write another to kick off our Canada Week festivities;
What a shock! A person that Peter compliments in this very MMQB is going to end up writing a MMQB this summer. Who would have thought Peter would compliment a person and then have that person write a MMQB? It's like when Peter named Coby Fleener one of his favorite interviews and it just so happened Fleener wrote a MMQB last year or when Nnamdi Asomugha wrote a MMQB several years ago and then Peter acted like his free agency was the biggest deal since Reggie White became a free agent (which is something Peter actually said). Nothing like friends helping friends to increase interest on the free agent market.
Oakland first-round pick, Khalil Mack, is slated to write another one of the MMQBs, with Rich Eisen of NFL Network rounding out the fearsome foursome.
Hopefully Eisen can bring along his NFL Network buddy to take shots at people who are in wheelchairs or make a few comments about how Stevie Wonder is supposedly blind, but he plays keyboards pretty well for a guy who "can't see."
I am privileged, and humbled, to accept the National Sportswriter of the Year award tonight here in Salisbury, home of the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Hall of Fame.
So maybe next the Marriott doesn't have fresh coffee at 6am they will change their stance once they are reminded a Hall of Fame member wants that fresh coffee. It's not that Peter is important now, it's that he now has proof of his importance the next time a Starwood Preferred Member tries to jump in front of him for the elevator.
Rick Reilly and Marv Albert will be inducted into the Hall of Fame tonight,
As I've said before, sometimes I feel the best way to get recognized for being a good sportswriter is to be sure to have friends, work at a large national publication and don't die. At some point, you will probably receive an award for being a good sportswriter. There's no reason Rick Reilly should be receiving any type of award, but yet, he is in the Sportswriter Hall of Fame. I would consider him to be more of a compiler than one of the best sportswriters of all-time. I hope someone shows up and asks him to pee in a cup to prove he didn't use PEDs.
Then Peter thanks everyone who helped him get there and those who helped THE MMQB win the best blog in the Time Inc empire. So even though I can't be there to hear him get his award I already have read Peter's acceptance speech.
I still can't believe the Sportswriter Hall of Fame is in Salisbury, North Carolina. Just a random place for it to be.
“The time I spent with him, I don’t think I would have been able to be at this point so quickly, if he hadn’t been such a great mentor with me and help me along.’’
—San Francisco quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who signed a six-year contract worth up to $126 million last week, crediting former 49ers quarterback Alex Smith with a good mentoring job in Kaepernick’s first two years with the team.
Kaepernick appreciates you getting that concussion, Alex Smith! What a great team player you are to get a concussion and then allow Kaepernick to take your spot as the starting quarterback for the 49ers. He's so grateful.
I like it when New York plays Los Angeles in sporting events because it's guaranteed that one of them will lose.
— Ken Tremendous (@KenTremendous) June 5, 2014
Tremendous is from Kansas.
And Ken Tremendous is a fan of the Red Sox and (I believe) the other teams around the Boston area, so it's a little interesting he likes it when a team from Los Angeles and New York lose because it's probably how many people feel about his favorite teams.
Ten Things I Think I Think
1. I think I’d love to hear what an NFL locker room, or a big-league locker room in baseball or basketball or hockey, would say to a coach who said this publicly: “We cannot win our league this year, because we are not at that level yet.” U.S. soccer coach Jurgen Klinsmann said to Sam Borden of the New York Times: “We cannot win this World Cup, because we are not at that level yet.” In the last few days, since I derided Klinsmann for saying we cannot win an athletic competition that we, as one of 32 World Cup teams, begin to compete for starting next Monday, I’ve heard all of the theories about why he said it.
Peter is like Michael Wilbon and wants Klinsman to get out of America. Show us your green card Klinsman!
My point is simple: It’s absurd for a group of players, who have been practicing and drilling and (I’m sure) watching all kinds of video on first-round foes Ghana, Portugal and Germany, to hear from the man leading them into the World Cup that they have no chance to win. I’d love to hear what Herb Brooks would have thought of that form of “motivation.”
Yeah me, too. What would a hockey coach have to say about a World Cup soccer coach motivating his team in the way he sees fit? He would probably say, "If that's how he wants to coach his team" and then go back to staring at his gold medal.
The U.S. opens World Cup play a week from today against Ghana. I’ll be watching, even though we don’t have a chance.
That's not what Klinsman said in the quote. He said they "cannnot win our league this year, because we are not at that level yet." The key word is "yet" in that sentence. Who is to say he won't feel the US team won't be at that level by the time play starts?
And who knows Klinsman's motivation for saying this? Klinsman wouldn't be the first coach to publicly say his team will probably lose while privately telling his team they are going to win. I feel like some of the criticism of Klinsman comes from the fact there are certain people (ahem, Peter?) who view him as a non-American coaching the American World Cup soccer team. That's just my opinion of course. There are quite a few head coaches in various sports who have publicly stated their team can't win (or will struggle to win) and then said something completely different in private to his team. Maybe Klinsman is just trying to manage the expectations of the general public who are casual soccer fans at best and expect the United States to be good at everything, no matter what.
2. I think Bruce Arians has no prejudice against playing rookies, and he certainly wants to improve his deep receiver speed from 2013, and he has been more impressed with third-round wideout John Brown of Pittsburg (Kans.) State with his 4.34-in-the-40 speed and his quick pickup of the Arizona offense … all of which leads me to believe if you’re drafting your fantasy football team in June, taking a late-round risk on Brown would be a smart idea on a deep roster. The Cardinals, so far, love him.
It's June. The Cardinals haven't played another team nor have they really gotten ready for the upcoming season. Probably a little too early to suggest drafting a rookie wide receiver based on how much the team likes him. Does Peter know how many receivers look great in June and disappear once the time comes for real training camp to start? The answer is 35. 35 receivers disappear every year after being loved in June.
7. I think the funniest headline of last week was one about Andrew Luck not being concerned about Colin Kaepernick’s new contract. People: Andrew Luck is not concerned about much of anything that is outside his Colts universe, and he certainly isn’t concerned with what anyone else’s contract is.
Well, thanks for clearing that up for us all Peter. I was concerned that Andrew Luck was concerned about making enough money in his next contract. Thank God that Luck isn't concerned and is only worried about things that are within his Colts universe. Though I am sure this will change once Luck's agent presents comparable contracts paid to NFL quarterbacks to the Colts when the time to discuss a contract extension does come.
He knows when it’s time to sign a contract, he’ll get what the market rate is for a player playing his position at whatever level he’s playing at the time. For him to worry about something like that would be incredibly anti-Luck.
Thank you for clearing up WWALD. It's very important that Peter clear up the headline that stated Luck wasn't concerned about Kaepernick's new contract by pointing out that Luck isn't worried about Kaepernick's contract. The misunderstanding that wasn't present is now completely cleared up. I wonder if Peter would take the time to point out Russell Wilson and other quarterbacks up for a new contract in the next year or two aren't worried about Kaepernick's contract or is it only Andrew Luck who gets this treatment?
8. I think Monica Seles would be one heck of a first lady of Buffalo football.
I think Peter doesn't know enough about Monica Seles to make this claim.
10. I think these are my non-football thoughts of the week:
a. That Belmont was really, really fun to watch.
As long as you are in to a three hour lead up to a moment that lasts barely two minutes (no jokes, please) and are in the mood to watch an animal get beaten with a whip in order to get him to move faster. Then yeah, I guess it was fun.
h. Coffeenerdness: I give up. I can’t drink any drip coffee but Italian Roast. I am officially the snobbiest coffee snob of all time.
Because a person who goes to Starbucks every single day should accurately be described as a coffee snob and all. Starbucks is the place a person goes to get a cup of coffee they know will be consistent, while I think a coffee snob would choose to go somewhere a little less commercial. Perhaps Peter is confusing believing he is a coffee critic with being a coffee snob. I wouldn't consider him to be a coffee snob based on how often he goes to Starbucks. Maybe it's me.
i. Beernerdness: Always happens this way—it’s hot out, it’s near summertime, and I move from heavier to lighter in beer selection.
It probably happens that way because brewers tend to make more lighter seasonal beers during the summer season than they make heavier beers during the summer season.
l. Think of this: Cranston plays LBJ at 8 p.m. Friday, at 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday, and at 2 p.m. Sunday. That’s four times in the span of 45 hours. Just watch Cranston’s exertion level and tell me that’s not an incredible task—particularly for his vocal chords.
You know what? I'll call Barry Sanders and we will go watch Bryan Cranston's exertion level together.
The Adieu Haiku
Why can't it be "Adieu to the Haiku"?
Kaepernick got paid.
Sort of—but it’s a good pact.
Play well, get rich. Good.
Anytime a player gets paid in the double-digit millions I don't think it's fair to say he "sort of" got paid. Not to over-analyze Peter's haiku but can a person "sort of" get paid and then be described as "getting rich"? I guess Kaepernick didn't really get paid but is now rich. I wonder how Peter would feel about Andrew Luck getting a deal where he doesn't have to play well, but gets rich? I imagine he wouldn't have an issue with it.
Tuesday, April 22, 2014
6 comments MMQB Review: Peter King is Angered That Starbucks Expects Him to Wait in Line Edition
Peter King followed up his shameless pimping out of Alex Mack at the request of Marvin Demoff by telling us that Demoff did great by getting the Browns to give Mack $18 million guaranteed in the first two years of the contract, then acted like the Browns did Mack wrong by not signing him to a long-term deal until the Jags had made an offer to Mack. Because letting the market set Mack's value is the wrong thing to do and all. Peter also told us how Tom Savage was climbing draft boards because he has a good arm and he's a real workout warrior. In five years, we will remember this is how teams make mistakes, by over-analyzing prospects and focusing on measurables over performance on the field. This week Peter tells us about the "torturous" 2014 draft, gives his readers some more "hot guys" (his words, not mine) that teams are feeding him in order to create a smokescreen, and puts Starbucks in it's place for one of their thousand locations having too long of a line. Peter stopped there twice and had to wait really long in line. This madness must stop, because there is no other place on Earth for Peter to purchase coffee and he's too entitled to be forced to wait in line.
In my travels over the past week to watch Johnny Manziel game tape with people who know quarterbacks and quarterback play (more about that next week in Sports Illustrated and The MMQB),
What this means is Peter followed Johnny Manziel all weekend in the hopes Manziel would speak to him and remember their luncheon together a few weeks ago, praying the passion could be re-ignited. Alas, he only got to talk to those who "know" quarterback play about Manziel. What this means is there are certain people who fancy themselves quarterback experts, though if they were really that good at recognizing a quarterback who would be successful in the NFL these people would be employed by an NFL team. After all, quarterback is the most important position on the field and if a person really "knew" quarterbacks then this knowledge would be pretty valuable to an NFL franchise, no? So these are people who analyze and evaluate quarterbacks but don't "know" quarterbacks well enough to take this information and make accurate enough projections about that quarterback's performance in the NFL to where an NFL team would want to hire that person.
I had a coach tell me that trying to figure out which passer to pick this year is “torturous.” I’ll have a good chunk about the quarterback dilemma with one under-pressure general manager’s view of the QB market … and why he agrees with the “torturous” description.
This is as opposed to every other NFL Draft when there are a ton of sure-fire NFL-ready quarterbacks? Like you know, every other NFL Draft except maybe 17-18 over the last two decades.
Peter is already starting his whole movement towards "This NFL Draft is so unpredictable" statements. It's starting with there not being quarterbacks that most scouts can agree are the best in the draft and will end with Blake Bortles falling out of the first round as Peter marvels at how shockingly unpredictable this draft has been.
But 17 days before the draft begins (Lord help us: Seventeen more mind-numbing days of this), here’s what I’m hearing:
Here are the players that teams are lying to Peter about.
Houston, at No. 1, isn’t set on Jadeveon Clowney.
What? I thought the entire first 10 picks were already set? Consider me shocked. There's no way Clowney falls out of the Top 10 because he is one of the ten picks Peter stated earlier this year in MMQB was set already.
I still think the Texans would go with a more sure thing with the first overall pick than a quarterback—and that sure thing could also be tackle Greg Robinson.
I'm sorry, there is no reason not to draft Jadeveon Clowney #1 overall and take "a sure-thing" like Greg Robinson. None. At worst, Clowney is going to be a decently inconsistent pass-rusher. Don't over-think this Texans. If you like Clowney, take him.
But imagine Mack, the outside linebacker from the University of Buffalo, being the first pick in a stacked draft. Wouldn’t that be something—a second straight Mid-American Conference player (Eric Fisher, Central Michigan, by Kansas City) as the top pick in the NFL draft?
Gosh, that would be real super-special.
Detroit taking a tight end? I doubt it, but North Carolina tight end Eric Ebron, the clear top player at the position in this year’s draft, was asked by one team he visited recently who he thought would pick him. “Detroit,’’ he said.
Unfortunately, because Ebron went to UNC and got the typical quality education their athletes get Ebron thinks Detroit is in Wisconsin and he meant that he thought the Packers would draft him.
Pittsburgh likes Odell Beckham and Brandin Cooks at wide receiver, and one or both should be there at No. 15 if that’s the direction the Steelers go—and they need to replenish the position after losing two receivers in free agency in two years. (I’d go corner if I were GM Kevin Colbert.)
Does anybody really believe Peter has accurate knowledge on which receivers the Steelers like? Why would this be public information at this point when every other NFL team is lying about who they want to draft?
Tampa Bay is partial to, among others, Texas A&M wide receiver Mike Evans at No. 7. I’ve watched a lot of Johnny Manziel tape recently, and I’ll say this about Evans: supremely talented, extremely hot-headed. He’d better cure his immaturity on the field, and fast.
Vincent Jackson and Mike Evans on either side of the field is just unfair.
Hot guys right now:
"Zac Efron, the guys from One Direction, Ryan Gosling sort of, and any those guys playing the male lead in the 25 movies about a girl in a post-apocalyptic world trying to overcome tyranny in order to save this post-apocalyptic world."
Ohio State linebacker Ryan Shazier, Notre Dame tackle/guard Zack Martin, Boise State defensive end Demarcus Lawrence. Cold guys right now: Louisville quarterback Teddy Bridgewater, UCLA linebacker Anthony Barr, Alabama tackle Cyrus Kouandjio.
Considering no NFL teams are telling the truth this time of year, who is "hot" and who is "cold" doesn't mean shit. All this tells me is Teddy Bridgewater may go #1 overall since I know teams are lying right now.
Oakland? Clueless there. Sorry, Black Hole people.
This is as opposed to the other spots in the draft where Peter knows EXACTLY which players will be drafted.
It is a torturous decision, as the coach of a quarterback-needy team told me. As a GM, if you take a quarterback in the first round, any of them, you’re going to go home and not sleep well that night. If you pass on a quarterback with some spellbinding tools—Manziel, for instance—you’re going to go home and not sleep well that night, fearing what you’ve passed up.
It's like this in nearly every other draft as well. There are very, very rarely "sure-thing" quarterbacks available. Andrew Luck was a sure-thing and Peyton Manning was also. Otherwise, there has been no quarterbacks a team can draft and sleep well at night knowing they have chosen the right guy with no regrets.
“The torture part of it,’’ said Spielman, “is you see a player sitting there when you pick who you know can help you right away, a significant player at another position, an impact player as a rookie. Then you ask yourself, ‘How do we feel about our options at quarterback in the second or third round? Is it close? Is there a big separation, or is it close?’
Nearly every team has to do this with the draft choice they make. My favorite team has about six needs they need to address in the draft (guard, tackle, wide receiver, defensive end, cornerback, safety) and if they see a guy sitting there late in the first round they have to ask themselves how they feel about their options at the other positions of need. It's life as a GM and Rick Spielman seems to be working hard to pretend it's a huge deal, most likely because he knows if he fucks up another pick (I know he wasn't the GM when the Vikings drafted Ponder but he "oversaw" the draft where Ponder was taken...whatever that means) at quarterback then someone else will be choosing the next franchise quarterback for Minnesota in the next 2-3 years.
“That’s a big reason why we made it a high priority to sign Matt Cassel back. Every one of these quarterbacks … nothing is a sure thing. There’s no Andrew Luck, no Peyton Manning.
There very rarely is a Luck or Manning just sitting in the draft. Rick Spielman makes me laugh.
It is such a mixed bag with each player—every one of them has positives, every one of them has negatives.
Shut the hell up and choose your franchise quarterback. We understand your job is on the line if the Vikings quarterback situation doesn't get better. Don't use your media contacts to make it seem like you don't get paid to make these tough decisions.
“I agree with that coach, whoever it is. It is torturous this year.”
It's torturous every year when it comes to choosing a quarterback.
“Ideally,’’ said Spielman, “if we did pick a quarterback this year we would want to redshirt him anyway, and when he’d be ready to go, he’d play. But he’d probably use this year as a learning year.
Another year of Matt Cassel Vikings fans. Don't act like you're not excited.
I asked Spielman about the pressure of picking a quarterback in a year when all of them have zits.
“There’s always pressure,’’ he said. “This year, there’s more.’’
No, there's not. There's just more pressure on you because this is the year you have to pick a quarterback as the GM of the Vikings.
This year reminds me of 2011. In fact, GMs should learn from that year. Check out the quarterbacks picked in the top 100 that year:
1. Cam Newton, Carolina
8. Jake Locker, Tennessee
10. Blaine Gabbert, Jacksonville
12. Christian Ponder, Minnesota
35. Andy Dalton, Cincinnati
36. Colin Kaepernick, San Francisco
74. Ryan Mallett, New England
My point: Don’t put the pressure on Teddy Bridgewater or Blake Bortles by picking them so high. Pick a surer thing in the first round, then a quarterback from a large pool in the second round. Or third.
I like how Peter cherry-picks the year 2012 so that he makes it seem like quality quarterbacks can be found in Rounds 2-3 every single season. Here are the quarterbacks selected in Rounds 2 and 3 (and how many QB's drafted later than that have made an impact) since 2008:
2008: Brian Brohm, Chad Henne, Kevin O'Connell (Josh Johnson, Matt Flynn)
2009: Pat White (no other quarterback drafted has made an impact)
2010: Jimmy Clausen, Colt McCoy (Mike Kafka and John Skelton in Rounds 4 and 5)
2012: Brock Osweiler, Nick Foles, Russell Wilson (Kirk Cousins, Ryan Lindley in Rounds 4 and 6)
I didn't include the 2013 draft, but you can see that Peter's insistence quality quarterbacks are available in Rounds 2 or 3 isn't false, but it's pretty hit or miss depending on the draft. That large pool in the 2nd round may end up being a large pool of crap.
Just as in 2012, when the Seahawks (Russell Wilson, 73rd overall pick) and the Eagles (Nick Foles (88th) picked quarterbacks at the right time, teams could do the same this year. Should do the same, really.
Oh really, they should do the same? What about 2009 or 2010 when there were no good quarterbacks available in the later rounds. How about 2008 when the best it got after Round 1 was Matt Flynn? Of course, why wouldn't Peter use one year of data to try and prove a point he believes to be universally true.
To further prove my point, look at the pile of crap available after Round 1 in the 2006 and 2007 drafts. Interesting how Peter doesn't really go too far back to prove his point and only uses one year's worth of a sample size.
Remembering Pat Tillman … and his case for Canton
Tillman is a unique player, and man, in recent NFL history. The only time I ever spoke with him was an hour or so before a Cardinals practice in 1998, in Tempe, Ariz. Tillman was a rookie safety, drafted in the seventh round from Arizona State to the team that was just a couple of miles from where he went to college. And he showed up for work that day—and for our interview—riding a 10-speed bike.
Veteran Peter King readers will know that Peter took an immediate liking to Pat Tillman due to his precociousness of riding a 10-speed bike to an interview. The closer a grown man acts like a child, the more Peter likes that grown man. And no, that's not creepy at all.
That’s the only player I ever interviewed who arrived on a bike.
Though things did get awkward when Peter asked Tillman if they could rid tandem on the bike.
Now, I hadn’t thought of the Hall of Fame part of it in several years, until Cris Collinsworth Tweeted this on Sunday, after ESPN ran a tribute to Tillman:
Collinsworth and I have discussed this. He remains unconvinced by my argument, which is this: Should all 26 NFL players who have died in service to our country—either in World War II, Vietnam or Afghanistan—be enshrined in Canton? Is one NFL player’s service worth more than others’?
And of course this one Tweet had made Peter completely change his stance on this issue. Just something about Cris Collinsworth living to a million years old that put it in perspective for Peter. Or did it make Peter change his mind?
And what about others who played football and went on to great things? Byron “Whizzer” White, a running back in the NFL, went on to be a Supreme Court justice. Jack Kemp quarterbacked the Bills, then became a nine-term Congressman and Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. Should they be in?
I think football players and coaches and executives should be in the Hall of Fame for what they accomplish as football players and coaches and executives, and not for anything else.
But this Tweet it was so classy and well-put. If Cris Collinsworth had Tweeted this while riding on a 10-speed bicycle I bet Peter would change his mind about putting Pat Tillman in the Hall of Fame.
“I really just should have coached the team, but he [owner Randy Lerner] didn’t want me to.”
—Former Browns president Mike Holmgren to me last week, on whether he had any regrets about his years in Cleveland.
I'm sure that's how it went down. Mike Holmgren was all like, "I'll totally coach this team. Give me a shot" and Randy Lerner was all like, "Nah, I think we'll stick with Eric Mangini, but we are perfectly fine with you making key decisions about the organization's direction but definitely don't want you coaching the team. Because that makes sense given the fact you've been a successful head coach in the NFL and have less experience making key decisions about an organization's future." Then Holmgren was like, "Okay, well that probably works out well because I'm a quarterback guru and I am definitely taking Colt McCoy and then Brandon Weeden to prove my guru-ness."
But no really, I believe it was Browns management that held Holmgren back from coaching the team. They would much rather he have hired Pat Shurmur and have Eric Mangini on the sidelines rather than Holmgren coach the team. Sounds to me like Holmgren is still sort of trying to explain his failure in Cleveland by blaming Browns management. After all, no one would expect Browns management to be competent and it's easier to explain it's the fault of Randy Lerner that Holmgren didn't succeed in Cleveland than to blame himself.
Then for his "Stat of the Week" Peter puts up a chart showing which quarterbacks they have drafted in the first three rounds since 2001 and then shows a player the Raiders could have drafted instead. While his point stands, any NFL team could look back in a few years and see a few players they should have selected instead of a player they did pick. I do get Peter's point, but saying the Raiders could have had Calvin Johnson in 2007 over JaMarcus Russell ignores the fact the Raiders wouldn't have had a quarterback to throw Johnson the football and stating the Raiders could have had Nick Foles over Terrelle Pryor ignores that Pryor was a compensatory selection so the Raiders didn't actually choose Pryor over Foles. They just didn't get a chance to make a choice in the 3rd round due to have spent the pick on Terrelle Pryor.
Really the Raiders should just hire one of those people that Peter talks to who "know" NFL quarterbacks.
It was good to be in Boston Friday, watching the city prepare for such an important, healing event—this morning’s Boston Marathon. In the Hynes Convention Center, where runners and their families were picking up racing bibs and going from booth to booth to shoe and apparel and nutrition companies, the mood was bright. The One Fund, which had a goal of $10 million for those injured and affected by the terrorist attack last year, has raised $70 million and is still going strong. The city was packed with joggers and walkers and people excited for the marathon to be back. I met a San Diegan,
San Diego-ites? San Diego-ins? San Diego-uns? Either way, it means "a whale's vagina."
64 years old, who was new to marathoning and was surprised to find out last year he qualified for Boston because he ran a qualifying time in his age group in a San Diego race. “I had to come,’’
That's what she said.
he said.
No, that's what SHE said. Geez, Peter get it right. I thought you liked "The Office."
No, I think people get that Savage could be a good quarterback in 3-4 years (when he will be 27-28 years old by the way). It's just that there is some confusion as to why a developmental quarterback project would be taken in the first two rounds of the draft. Specifically since Savage skipped around in college and never really put up memorable numbers. No due respect to Adam Caplan, but Savage seems like the typical "he looks like a top-tier QB prospect so I'm sure it won't be a problem to turn him into one" candidate that gets over-drafted.
Ten Things I Think I Think
1. I think Arizona will take a quarterback in the first two rounds.
If you look at the history of quarterback taken in the 2nd round and beyond, then ignore that history and only pay attention to the 2012 draft then you could see there are always plenty of good quarterbacks available after Round 1.
2. I think the Rams will take a quarterback in the first three rounds.
And it will undoubtedly be the most brilliant draft pick in the first three rounds.
3. I think you shouldn’t be surprised at that last one.
I think you shouldn't be surprised that we aren't surprised. In fact, you probably shouldn't even have to tell your readers they shouldn't be surprised, because I'm betting a lot of them are not.
Has Sam Bradford done enough to be untouchable in his four seasons with the Rams (18-30-1 record, 58.6 completion percentage, 6.3 yards per attempt)? I don’t think so.
I think a lot of people know this and you may be one of the last people who need convincing that Bradford isn't "the guy" for the Rams. If I'm the Rams I may draft a quarterback in the 1st round if there was a quarterback I liked enough to do so.
5. I think I chuckle when the Lions say they are not concerned about Ndamukong Suh skipping Detroit’s off-season workout program as he tries to work out a new contract with the team. It is 111 days since the season ended and Suh was last with his team. The Lions have a new coach, and a new defensive coordinator, and a new defensive line coach. Suh is the best player on the defense. Not concerned?
That's what they say. Not that it isn't a big deal, but Suh is a defensive tackle, so while it is a big deal for him to work with the new coaching staff his job duties probably won't be terribly different since it doesn't appear the Lions are moving to a 3-4 defense. It's a big deal, but the fact Suh isn't with the team probably won't put him far behind come time for training camp.
More importantly, who will be the next Josh Freeman for Peter King? Who is the next NFL player who Peter rags on mercilessly every week for no good reason other than his mere existence doesn't match the expectations Peter has for that player? Will it be Ndamukong Suh?
The correct quote, if club president Tom Lewand was on truth serum, would be something like, Pretty lousy start to our off-season program when our best defensive player’s a no-show—particularly when he’s the guy who most has to buy into the new staff since he’s going to be the highest-paid defensive player in our history. Yeah, we’re ticked off. Wouldn’t you be?
This would be a valid point. Going from a football-only perspective as Peter just did, it's not quite as big of a deal.
9. I think the draft should be Thursday, not two weeks from Thursday.
Yes, we know Peter. You don't think the draft should be pushed back two weeks. If the draft wasn't pushed back two weeks then how would we ever know that "hot guys" like Tom Savage are shooting up draft boards? There has to be more time for NFL teams to over-think the draft process and then have Peter point out breathlessly which players teams claim are falling or rising in an effort to create misinformation.
10. I think these are my non-football thoughts of the week:
c. Great note on the FOX baseball telecast Saturday: The Angels have not been over .500 since opening day 2013. That is amazingly preposterous.
I don't understand why this is amazingly preposterous. Is it because the Angels are supposed to be good on paper, so that means it's preposterous that the expectations for them based on how good they look on paper don't match reality? If so, perhaps this is an indication Peter shouldn't base his expectations on how good a team looks on paper.
e. I’ve always felt the biggest thing wrong with the NBA, from very much an outsider’s perspective, is how bad teams embrace losing so it will help them rebuild.
MLB teams that aren't very good trade away their best players at the trade deadline every year in order to get prospects back. Every year, there are teams who quit prior to August and start embracing losing so that it will help them rebuild. For some reason Peter (and others) doesn't think about this when criticizing NBA teams for intentionally losing. I recognize there is a difference in the NBA and MLB, but every year bad teams consciously make themselves worse by trading their best players on the hopes they receive players in return who make them better in the future. Yet, this doesn't bother Peter. Maybe he just doesn't have enough of an outsider's perspective to be so intelligent about MLB as he believes he sounds about the NBA.
The 76ers used this year to get into the best situation for the future, which involved clearing out the roster and losing as much as possible to be in the best draft position in 2014. Imagine being a Sixers fan, knowing your team hopes it doesn’t win many games, and asking you to pay regular prices for tickets to see a bad team.
Does Peter mean sort of what the Marlins do every third year or so? Or does Peter mean what the Royals have seemingly done to their fan base for the past decade? Baseball teams trade their best players and get prospects in return all the time, yet they ask their fans to pay regular price for tickets to see a bad team. I understand it's no fun to watch a team who is tanking, but I often think a lot of this "I don't like the NBA because teams tank" talk is just a cheap excuse for why Peter (and others) doesn't like the NBA. It's okay to just not like the NBA.
h. Who’s going to start the Giancarlo-to-Boston-for-young-pitching rumors?
Probably some idiot writer who won't specify what "young pitching" the Marlins would accept in return. Also, REMEMBER WHAT I JUST WROTE ABOUT MLB TEAMS TRADING THEIR PLAYERS TO GET INTO THE BEST SITUATION FOR THE FUTURE? PETER, THE MARLINS WOULD BE DOING WHAT YOU CRITICIZE THE 76ERS FOR DOING, WHICH CAUSED YOU TO STATE THIS AS A REASON YOU DON'T LIKE THE NBA!
But I guess it's okay for the Marlins to do this as long as the Red Sox are the team that benefits from the Marlins clearing out the roster in order to improve their team in the future.
j. Coffeenerdness: Memo to Starbucks: If you care about quality, please address the situation at your BWI Airport locations. You’ve got some very long lines there, if a couple of stops last week are any indication.
"Starbucks: Fix this continuing problem at the airport location that I'm not entirely sure is a real continuing problem because I've only visited the location two times."
Starbucks, if you think Peter King is going to wait in line to get one of the seven cups of coffee he craves on a daily basis, then you have another thing coming. Well, he will wait in line, but he's going to be very angry because nobody puts Peter King in a long line. Long lines are for people who are applying for welfare, food stamps and someone who has time to stand around like a normal middle-class person. Does Peter look like a normal middle-class person? I think not.
m. Shouldn’t ESPN’s “Sports Reporters” show be called “Sports Columnists?”
Shouldn't CNNSI's "The MMQB" be called something different from the column "MMQB" that appears on "The MMQB" web site?
n. You’ve still got it, “Veep.”
I'm sure the creator is thrilled he has your appreciation and validation that he's doing a good job still.
The Adieu Haiku
Hey Mel! Mel Kiper!
I miss my “Draft Report” book.
Bring it back next year.
This haiku is weaker than the coffee McDonald's sells. Amirightorwhat Peter?
In my travels over the past week to watch Johnny Manziel game tape with people who know quarterbacks and quarterback play (more about that next week in Sports Illustrated and The MMQB),
What this means is Peter followed Johnny Manziel all weekend in the hopes Manziel would speak to him and remember their luncheon together a few weeks ago, praying the passion could be re-ignited. Alas, he only got to talk to those who "know" quarterback play about Manziel. What this means is there are certain people who fancy themselves quarterback experts, though if they were really that good at recognizing a quarterback who would be successful in the NFL these people would be employed by an NFL team. After all, quarterback is the most important position on the field and if a person really "knew" quarterbacks then this knowledge would be pretty valuable to an NFL franchise, no? So these are people who analyze and evaluate quarterbacks but don't "know" quarterbacks well enough to take this information and make accurate enough projections about that quarterback's performance in the NFL to where an NFL team would want to hire that person.
I had a coach tell me that trying to figure out which passer to pick this year is “torturous.” I’ll have a good chunk about the quarterback dilemma with one under-pressure general manager’s view of the QB market … and why he agrees with the “torturous” description.
This is as opposed to every other NFL Draft when there are a ton of sure-fire NFL-ready quarterbacks? Like you know, every other NFL Draft except maybe 17-18 over the last two decades.
Peter is already starting his whole movement towards "This NFL Draft is so unpredictable" statements. It's starting with there not being quarterbacks that most scouts can agree are the best in the draft and will end with Blake Bortles falling out of the first round as Peter marvels at how shockingly unpredictable this draft has been.
But 17 days before the draft begins (Lord help us: Seventeen more mind-numbing days of this), here’s what I’m hearing:
Here are the players that teams are lying to Peter about.
Houston, at No. 1, isn’t set on Jadeveon Clowney.
What? I thought the entire first 10 picks were already set? Consider me shocked. There's no way Clowney falls out of the Top 10 because he is one of the ten picks Peter stated earlier this year in MMQB was set already.
I still think the Texans would go with a more sure thing with the first overall pick than a quarterback—and that sure thing could also be tackle Greg Robinson.
I'm sorry, there is no reason not to draft Jadeveon Clowney #1 overall and take "a sure-thing" like Greg Robinson. None. At worst, Clowney is going to be a decently inconsistent pass-rusher. Don't over-think this Texans. If you like Clowney, take him.
But imagine Mack, the outside linebacker from the University of Buffalo, being the first pick in a stacked draft. Wouldn’t that be something—a second straight Mid-American Conference player (Eric Fisher, Central Michigan, by Kansas City) as the top pick in the NFL draft?
Gosh, that would be real super-special.
Detroit taking a tight end? I doubt it, but North Carolina tight end Eric Ebron, the clear top player at the position in this year’s draft, was asked by one team he visited recently who he thought would pick him. “Detroit,’’ he said.
Unfortunately, because Ebron went to UNC and got the typical quality education their athletes get Ebron thinks Detroit is in Wisconsin and he meant that he thought the Packers would draft him.
Pittsburgh likes Odell Beckham and Brandin Cooks at wide receiver, and one or both should be there at No. 15 if that’s the direction the Steelers go—and they need to replenish the position after losing two receivers in free agency in two years. (I’d go corner if I were GM Kevin Colbert.)
Does anybody really believe Peter has accurate knowledge on which receivers the Steelers like? Why would this be public information at this point when every other NFL team is lying about who they want to draft?
Tampa Bay is partial to, among others, Texas A&M wide receiver Mike Evans at No. 7. I’ve watched a lot of Johnny Manziel tape recently, and I’ll say this about Evans: supremely talented, extremely hot-headed. He’d better cure his immaturity on the field, and fast.
Vincent Jackson and Mike Evans on either side of the field is just unfair.
Hot guys right now:
"Zac Efron, the guys from One Direction, Ryan Gosling sort of, and any those guys playing the male lead in the 25 movies about a girl in a post-apocalyptic world trying to overcome tyranny in order to save this post-apocalyptic world."
Ohio State linebacker Ryan Shazier, Notre Dame tackle/guard Zack Martin, Boise State defensive end Demarcus Lawrence. Cold guys right now: Louisville quarterback Teddy Bridgewater, UCLA linebacker Anthony Barr, Alabama tackle Cyrus Kouandjio.
Considering no NFL teams are telling the truth this time of year, who is "hot" and who is "cold" doesn't mean shit. All this tells me is Teddy Bridgewater may go #1 overall since I know teams are lying right now.
Oakland? Clueless there. Sorry, Black Hole people.
This is as opposed to the other spots in the draft where Peter knows EXACTLY which players will be drafted.
It is a torturous decision, as the coach of a quarterback-needy team told me. As a GM, if you take a quarterback in the first round, any of them, you’re going to go home and not sleep well that night. If you pass on a quarterback with some spellbinding tools—Manziel, for instance—you’re going to go home and not sleep well that night, fearing what you’ve passed up.
It's like this in nearly every other draft as well. There are very, very rarely "sure-thing" quarterbacks available. Andrew Luck was a sure-thing and Peyton Manning was also. Otherwise, there has been no quarterbacks a team can draft and sleep well at night knowing they have chosen the right guy with no regrets.
“The torture part of it,’’ said Spielman, “is you see a player sitting there when you pick who you know can help you right away, a significant player at another position, an impact player as a rookie. Then you ask yourself, ‘How do we feel about our options at quarterback in the second or third round? Is it close? Is there a big separation, or is it close?’
Nearly every team has to do this with the draft choice they make. My favorite team has about six needs they need to address in the draft (guard, tackle, wide receiver, defensive end, cornerback, safety) and if they see a guy sitting there late in the first round they have to ask themselves how they feel about their options at the other positions of need. It's life as a GM and Rick Spielman seems to be working hard to pretend it's a huge deal, most likely because he knows if he fucks up another pick (I know he wasn't the GM when the Vikings drafted Ponder but he "oversaw" the draft where Ponder was taken...whatever that means) at quarterback then someone else will be choosing the next franchise quarterback for Minnesota in the next 2-3 years.
“That’s a big reason why we made it a high priority to sign Matt Cassel back. Every one of these quarterbacks … nothing is a sure thing. There’s no Andrew Luck, no Peyton Manning.
There very rarely is a Luck or Manning just sitting in the draft. Rick Spielman makes me laugh.
It is such a mixed bag with each player—every one of them has positives, every one of them has negatives.
Shut the hell up and choose your franchise quarterback. We understand your job is on the line if the Vikings quarterback situation doesn't get better. Don't use your media contacts to make it seem like you don't get paid to make these tough decisions.
“I agree with that coach, whoever it is. It is torturous this year.”
It's torturous every year when it comes to choosing a quarterback.
“Ideally,’’ said Spielman, “if we did pick a quarterback this year we would want to redshirt him anyway, and when he’d be ready to go, he’d play. But he’d probably use this year as a learning year.
Another year of Matt Cassel Vikings fans. Don't act like you're not excited.
I asked Spielman about the pressure of picking a quarterback in a year when all of them have zits.
“There’s always pressure,’’ he said. “This year, there’s more.’’
No, there's not. There's just more pressure on you because this is the year you have to pick a quarterback as the GM of the Vikings.
This year reminds me of 2011. In fact, GMs should learn from that year. Check out the quarterbacks picked in the top 100 that year:
1. Cam Newton, Carolina
8. Jake Locker, Tennessee
10. Blaine Gabbert, Jacksonville
12. Christian Ponder, Minnesota
35. Andy Dalton, Cincinnati
36. Colin Kaepernick, San Francisco
74. Ryan Mallett, New England
My point: Don’t put the pressure on Teddy Bridgewater or Blake Bortles by picking them so high. Pick a surer thing in the first round, then a quarterback from a large pool in the second round. Or third.
I like how Peter cherry-picks the year 2012 so that he makes it seem like quality quarterbacks can be found in Rounds 2-3 every single season. Here are the quarterbacks selected in Rounds 2 and 3 (and how many QB's drafted later than that have made an impact) since 2008:
2008: Brian Brohm, Chad Henne, Kevin O'Connell (Josh Johnson, Matt Flynn)
2009: Pat White (no other quarterback drafted has made an impact)
2010: Jimmy Clausen, Colt McCoy (Mike Kafka and John Skelton in Rounds 4 and 5)
2012: Brock Osweiler, Nick Foles, Russell Wilson (Kirk Cousins, Ryan Lindley in Rounds 4 and 6)
I didn't include the 2013 draft, but you can see that Peter's insistence quality quarterbacks are available in Rounds 2 or 3 isn't false, but it's pretty hit or miss depending on the draft. That large pool in the 2nd round may end up being a large pool of crap.
Just as in 2012, when the Seahawks (Russell Wilson, 73rd overall pick) and the Eagles (Nick Foles (88th) picked quarterbacks at the right time, teams could do the same this year. Should do the same, really.
Oh really, they should do the same? What about 2009 or 2010 when there were no good quarterbacks available in the later rounds. How about 2008 when the best it got after Round 1 was Matt Flynn? Of course, why wouldn't Peter use one year of data to try and prove a point he believes to be universally true.
To further prove my point, look at the pile of crap available after Round 1 in the 2006 and 2007 drafts. Interesting how Peter doesn't really go too far back to prove his point and only uses one year's worth of a sample size.
Remembering Pat Tillman … and his case for Canton
Tillman is a unique player, and man, in recent NFL history. The only time I ever spoke with him was an hour or so before a Cardinals practice in 1998, in Tempe, Ariz. Tillman was a rookie safety, drafted in the seventh round from Arizona State to the team that was just a couple of miles from where he went to college. And he showed up for work that day—and for our interview—riding a 10-speed bike.
Veteran Peter King readers will know that Peter took an immediate liking to Pat Tillman due to his precociousness of riding a 10-speed bike to an interview. The closer a grown man acts like a child, the more Peter likes that grown man. And no, that's not creepy at all.
That’s the only player I ever interviewed who arrived on a bike.
Though things did get awkward when Peter asked Tillman if they could rid tandem on the bike.
Now, I hadn’t thought of the Hall of Fame part of it in several years, until Cris Collinsworth Tweeted this on Sunday, after ESPN ran a tribute to Tillman:
If I live to be a million years old, I will never understand why Pat Tillman is not in the NFL Hall of Fame. Thanks ESPN. Great reporting.
— Cris Collinsworth (@CollinsworthNBC) April 20, 2014
Collinsworth and I have discussed this. He remains unconvinced by my argument, which is this: Should all 26 NFL players who have died in service to our country—either in World War II, Vietnam or Afghanistan—be enshrined in Canton? Is one NFL player’s service worth more than others’?
And of course this one Tweet had made Peter completely change his stance on this issue. Just something about Cris Collinsworth living to a million years old that put it in perspective for Peter. Or did it make Peter change his mind?
And what about others who played football and went on to great things? Byron “Whizzer” White, a running back in the NFL, went on to be a Supreme Court justice. Jack Kemp quarterbacked the Bills, then became a nine-term Congressman and Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. Should they be in?
I think football players and coaches and executives should be in the Hall of Fame for what they accomplish as football players and coaches and executives, and not for anything else.
But this Tweet it was so classy and well-put. If Cris Collinsworth had Tweeted this while riding on a 10-speed bicycle I bet Peter would change his mind about putting Pat Tillman in the Hall of Fame.
“I really just should have coached the team, but he [owner Randy Lerner] didn’t want me to.”
—Former Browns president Mike Holmgren to me last week, on whether he had any regrets about his years in Cleveland.
I'm sure that's how it went down. Mike Holmgren was all like, "I'll totally coach this team. Give me a shot" and Randy Lerner was all like, "Nah, I think we'll stick with Eric Mangini, but we are perfectly fine with you making key decisions about the organization's direction but definitely don't want you coaching the team. Because that makes sense given the fact you've been a successful head coach in the NFL and have less experience making key decisions about an organization's future." Then Holmgren was like, "Okay, well that probably works out well because I'm a quarterback guru and I am definitely taking Colt McCoy and then Brandon Weeden to prove my guru-ness."
But no really, I believe it was Browns management that held Holmgren back from coaching the team. They would much rather he have hired Pat Shurmur and have Eric Mangini on the sidelines rather than Holmgren coach the team. Sounds to me like Holmgren is still sort of trying to explain his failure in Cleveland by blaming Browns management. After all, no one would expect Browns management to be competent and it's easier to explain it's the fault of Randy Lerner that Holmgren didn't succeed in Cleveland than to blame himself.
Then for his "Stat of the Week" Peter puts up a chart showing which quarterbacks they have drafted in the first three rounds since 2001 and then shows a player the Raiders could have drafted instead. While his point stands, any NFL team could look back in a few years and see a few players they should have selected instead of a player they did pick. I do get Peter's point, but saying the Raiders could have had Calvin Johnson in 2007 over JaMarcus Russell ignores the fact the Raiders wouldn't have had a quarterback to throw Johnson the football and stating the Raiders could have had Nick Foles over Terrelle Pryor ignores that Pryor was a compensatory selection so the Raiders didn't actually choose Pryor over Foles. They just didn't get a chance to make a choice in the 3rd round due to have spent the pick on Terrelle Pryor.
Really the Raiders should just hire one of those people that Peter talks to who "know" NFL quarterbacks.
It was good to be in Boston Friday, watching the city prepare for such an important, healing event—this morning’s Boston Marathon. In the Hynes Convention Center, where runners and their families were picking up racing bibs and going from booth to booth to shoe and apparel and nutrition companies, the mood was bright. The One Fund, which had a goal of $10 million for those injured and affected by the terrorist attack last year, has raised $70 million and is still going strong. The city was packed with joggers and walkers and people excited for the marathon to be back. I met a San Diegan,
San Diego-ites? San Diego-ins? San Diego-uns? Either way, it means "a whale's vagina."
64 years old, who was new to marathoning and was surprised to find out last year he qualified for Boston because he ran a qualifying time in his age group in a San Diego race. “I had to come,’’
That's what she said.
he said.
No, that's what SHE said. Geez, Peter get it right. I thought you liked "The Office."
For those not understanding the buzz on Tom Savage: It's not about what he is now as a QB; it's about what he'll be 3-4 years.
— Adam Caplan (@caplannfl) April 17, 2014
No, I think people get that Savage could be a good quarterback in 3-4 years (when he will be 27-28 years old by the way). It's just that there is some confusion as to why a developmental quarterback project would be taken in the first two rounds of the draft. Specifically since Savage skipped around in college and never really put up memorable numbers. No due respect to Adam Caplan, but Savage seems like the typical "he looks like a top-tier QB prospect so I'm sure it won't be a problem to turn him into one" candidate that gets over-drafted.
Ten Things I Think I Think
1. I think Arizona will take a quarterback in the first two rounds.
If you look at the history of quarterback taken in the 2nd round and beyond, then ignore that history and only pay attention to the 2012 draft then you could see there are always plenty of good quarterbacks available after Round 1.
2. I think the Rams will take a quarterback in the first three rounds.
And it will undoubtedly be the most brilliant draft pick in the first three rounds.
3. I think you shouldn’t be surprised at that last one.
I think you shouldn't be surprised that we aren't surprised. In fact, you probably shouldn't even have to tell your readers they shouldn't be surprised, because I'm betting a lot of them are not.
Has Sam Bradford done enough to be untouchable in his four seasons with the Rams (18-30-1 record, 58.6 completion percentage, 6.3 yards per attempt)? I don’t think so.
I think a lot of people know this and you may be one of the last people who need convincing that Bradford isn't "the guy" for the Rams. If I'm the Rams I may draft a quarterback in the 1st round if there was a quarterback I liked enough to do so.
5. I think I chuckle when the Lions say they are not concerned about Ndamukong Suh skipping Detroit’s off-season workout program as he tries to work out a new contract with the team. It is 111 days since the season ended and Suh was last with his team. The Lions have a new coach, and a new defensive coordinator, and a new defensive line coach. Suh is the best player on the defense. Not concerned?
That's what they say. Not that it isn't a big deal, but Suh is a defensive tackle, so while it is a big deal for him to work with the new coaching staff his job duties probably won't be terribly different since it doesn't appear the Lions are moving to a 3-4 defense. It's a big deal, but the fact Suh isn't with the team probably won't put him far behind come time for training camp.
More importantly, who will be the next Josh Freeman for Peter King? Who is the next NFL player who Peter rags on mercilessly every week for no good reason other than his mere existence doesn't match the expectations Peter has for that player? Will it be Ndamukong Suh?
The correct quote, if club president Tom Lewand was on truth serum, would be something like, Pretty lousy start to our off-season program when our best defensive player’s a no-show—particularly when he’s the guy who most has to buy into the new staff since he’s going to be the highest-paid defensive player in our history. Yeah, we’re ticked off. Wouldn’t you be?
This would be a valid point. Going from a football-only perspective as Peter just did, it's not quite as big of a deal.
9. I think the draft should be Thursday, not two weeks from Thursday.
Yes, we know Peter. You don't think the draft should be pushed back two weeks. If the draft wasn't pushed back two weeks then how would we ever know that "hot guys" like Tom Savage are shooting up draft boards? There has to be more time for NFL teams to over-think the draft process and then have Peter point out breathlessly which players teams claim are falling or rising in an effort to create misinformation.
10. I think these are my non-football thoughts of the week:
c. Great note on the FOX baseball telecast Saturday: The Angels have not been over .500 since opening day 2013. That is amazingly preposterous.
I don't understand why this is amazingly preposterous. Is it because the Angels are supposed to be good on paper, so that means it's preposterous that the expectations for them based on how good they look on paper don't match reality? If so, perhaps this is an indication Peter shouldn't base his expectations on how good a team looks on paper.
e. I’ve always felt the biggest thing wrong with the NBA, from very much an outsider’s perspective, is how bad teams embrace losing so it will help them rebuild.
MLB teams that aren't very good trade away their best players at the trade deadline every year in order to get prospects back. Every year, there are teams who quit prior to August and start embracing losing so that it will help them rebuild. For some reason Peter (and others) doesn't think about this when criticizing NBA teams for intentionally losing. I recognize there is a difference in the NBA and MLB, but every year bad teams consciously make themselves worse by trading their best players on the hopes they receive players in return who make them better in the future. Yet, this doesn't bother Peter. Maybe he just doesn't have enough of an outsider's perspective to be so intelligent about MLB as he believes he sounds about the NBA.
The 76ers used this year to get into the best situation for the future, which involved clearing out the roster and losing as much as possible to be in the best draft position in 2014. Imagine being a Sixers fan, knowing your team hopes it doesn’t win many games, and asking you to pay regular prices for tickets to see a bad team.
Does Peter mean sort of what the Marlins do every third year or so? Or does Peter mean what the Royals have seemingly done to their fan base for the past decade? Baseball teams trade their best players and get prospects in return all the time, yet they ask their fans to pay regular price for tickets to see a bad team. I understand it's no fun to watch a team who is tanking, but I often think a lot of this "I don't like the NBA because teams tank" talk is just a cheap excuse for why Peter (and others) doesn't like the NBA. It's okay to just not like the NBA.
h. Who’s going to start the Giancarlo-to-Boston-for-young-pitching rumors?
Probably some idiot writer who won't specify what "young pitching" the Marlins would accept in return. Also, REMEMBER WHAT I JUST WROTE ABOUT MLB TEAMS TRADING THEIR PLAYERS TO GET INTO THE BEST SITUATION FOR THE FUTURE? PETER, THE MARLINS WOULD BE DOING WHAT YOU CRITICIZE THE 76ERS FOR DOING, WHICH CAUSED YOU TO STATE THIS AS A REASON YOU DON'T LIKE THE NBA!
But I guess it's okay for the Marlins to do this as long as the Red Sox are the team that benefits from the Marlins clearing out the roster in order to improve their team in the future.
j. Coffeenerdness: Memo to Starbucks: If you care about quality, please address the situation at your BWI Airport locations. You’ve got some very long lines there, if a couple of stops last week are any indication.
"Starbucks: Fix this continuing problem at the airport location that I'm not entirely sure is a real continuing problem because I've only visited the location two times."
Starbucks, if you think Peter King is going to wait in line to get one of the seven cups of coffee he craves on a daily basis, then you have another thing coming. Well, he will wait in line, but he's going to be very angry because nobody puts Peter King in a long line. Long lines are for people who are applying for welfare, food stamps and someone who has time to stand around like a normal middle-class person. Does Peter look like a normal middle-class person? I think not.
m. Shouldn’t ESPN’s “Sports Reporters” show be called “Sports Columnists?”
Shouldn't CNNSI's "The MMQB" be called something different from the column "MMQB" that appears on "The MMQB" web site?
n. You’ve still got it, “Veep.”
I'm sure the creator is thrilled he has your appreciation and validation that he's doing a good job still.
The Adieu Haiku
Hey Mel! Mel Kiper!
I miss my “Draft Report” book.
Bring it back next year.
This haiku is weaker than the coffee McDonald's sells. Amirightorwhat Peter?
Monday, December 5, 2011
3 comments Tim Keown Thinks the Penn State Football Team Should Decline a Bowl Invitiation
Tim Keown believes Penn State should decline a bowl invitation. I disagree. He does his best to refute my point of view, but I think he ultimately fails. What I find to be so incredibly interesting is Keown goes on a rant in this article about the lack of a presumption of innocence and how Penn State isn't saying "allegedly" to describe the actions of Sandusky. Yet, Keown thinks despite his own pleas for the assumption of innocence, Penn State should decline a bowl invitation. So he wishes there was more of a presumption of innocence and then encourages Penn State to penalize their current players based on a presumption of guilt.
The questions will not go away, no matter how hard the people around the Penn State football program try to wish them away. They're going to be there through this season, into the offseason and through the summer. They're going to be there through Tom Bradley's interim reign, through a coaching search and well into the tenure of the next guy. A stench this strong doesn't disappear just by opening a couple of windows.
So let's get directly to the point:
One paragraph consisting of four sentences later, Tim Keown announces we are getting straight to the point. Maybe he doesn't understand what "directly to the point" means.
Penn State should step up and decline any invitation to a bowl game.
No, they should not. I don't believe Penn State should punish the current players for the actions of the Penn State coaches and leadership. (cue violins playing sad music) These players didn't do anything wrong except choose to believe Joe Paterno and his other coaches when they made all of their promises during the recruitment process. Why should the Penn State players be punished for actions they had nothing to do with? I realize Penn State should be punished in some fashion, but the current players shouldn't be punished for the actions of their leadership.
They should play Wisconsin on Saturday and, if they win, play in the Big Ten championship game, and then call it a season.
What would this prove exactly? Would not playing in a bowl game help the rest of the public forget about Sandusky's (alleged) actions with 40 children? Is not playing in a bowl game and giving the football team a chance to put Penn State in a positive light and the best way to show how serious Penn State is about cleaning up the program? I think the way to put Penn State in a positive light goes further than just declining a bowl bid. These problems Penn State has experienced over the past couple of weeks aren't "team" problems. They are leadership problems. I say don't punish the players for the actions of their leadership.
They should reverse their recent trend and do something that doesn't reek of self-interest.
I can see how the Penn State team going to a bowl game would be seen as looking out for the school's self-interest. To me, participating in a bowl game would say the current Penn State players aren't going to be punished for the actions of their leadership. It would also say the school won't punish the current players for actions they aren't responsible for taking.
We've heard Ken Frazier, who is leading the trustees' inquiry, talk tough, and seen the school hire former FBI director Louis Freeh to conduct an investigation to measure the depth of the corruption surrounding Jerry Sandusky's alleged activities.
It sure sounds like Penn State is serious about cleaning up the actions of Sandusky and company. Time will tell if this is true.
(It's worth noting that Freeh's résumé looks better from a distance. He was a blundering FBI director -- Richard Jewell, the intelligence failures leading up to 9/11, Wen Ho Lee -- but an FBI director nonetheless.)
I bet Penn State hired Freeh to oversee the investigation knowing he was incompetent and would screw the investigation up! Those Penn Staters are always up to shenanigans like this.
We've heard that Penn State will make the difficult decisions that will restore a sense of dignity to the administration and the football program.
So prove it. Walk away from a bowl game.
Again, while I can see some value in doing this, I also see value in not punishing the current Penn State football players by not allowing them to participate in a bowl game. Declining a bowl invitation this year would be more about punishing the current players and making a small statement rather than other actions down the road which will make a larger statement about the overall direction of the football program.
Walk away from something that would put money in your pocket. Make the tough choice.
Depending on the bowl game they make, Penn State could very well lose money in going to the bowl game. Many times these bowl games are for the athletes and not used as a way to line the pockets of the school.
The University of Miami became eligible for a bowl game with a win over South Florida on Saturday, and on Monday the school announced it would not accept a bowl invitation.
Tim Keown is unable to determine the difference in Miami announcing they would not accept a bowl invitation because of actions surrounding players in the football program, as opposed to Penn State not accepting a bowl bid based on the actions of the leadership in the Penn State program. I think there is a difference.
The Penn State situation is much different. Obviously, it's much worse.
The Penn State situation is also much worse because the allegations of impropriety around the program does not involve the players, who are young adults, but the allegations of impropriety at Penn State involve the adults running the program.
(By the way, is it possible to be repelled by Sandusky while still being a little troubled by the utter lack of presumption of innocence? This became cringingly apparent when the new president used his PSA to discuss "the victims" without even bothering to qualify it.
Here goes Keown on his "innocent until proven guilty" rant. Remember this is a guy who has spent this entire column saying Penn State should decline to participate in a bowl game based on the actions of those leading the program. Now he wants to act as if he is being open-minded and not wanting to indict the Penn State leaders and Sandusky for their alleged actions.
So we will keep a presumption of innocence for those accused, but punish the current Penn State players for these alleged actions before they were proven? Somehow I think this makes Keown's position even less defensible. Sandusky and company are getting the benefit of the doubt by using the word "allegedly," but Keown wants to go ahead and punish the school by not assuming the charges are "alleged" and suggesting Penn State should decline a bowl bid.
To that end, shouldn't people like the school president -- and Paterno, for that matter -- at least drop an "allegedly" into the conversation every so often?
And yet, again, while Tim Keown recognizes the "alleged" part of the allegations he doesn't care about the charges being alleged when doling out punishment to the Penn State football program. When it comes to the program and whether Penn State should accept a bowl bid, the charges are factual. When it comes to discussing Sandusky, the charges are alleged.
If Penn State goes to a bowl game, if it glad-hands the guys in the garish blazers and takes the gift bags and the check and the national attention, it'll be nothing short of an act of hypocrisy.
You mean hypocrisy like reminding people the Sandusky charges are alleged, but then suggesting a punishment for Sandusky's employer that acts as if the charges are factual? That's some good hypocrisy there. You can't have it both ways. You can't lay the gauntlet down on Penn State and then complain the charges are only alleged.
If that coaching staff -- filled with men who worked alongside Sandusky and sat near him as he brought preteen boys on road trips and into hotel rooms and to meals with the coaching staff, for God's sake -
Allegedly.
There's a coherent argument to be made for banning football altogether at Penn State, at least temporarily,
It makes perfect sense in Tim Keown's world to ban football at Penn State temporarily based on alleged charges for Sandusky, because he is concerned Sandusky won't get a fair trial. I love how he plays both sides of this issue. Keown is like an attorney who wants to get his client a plea deal, while at the same time pleading innocent to all charges.
Even if the Sandusky allegations are true, which all indications is they are, I still don't see why the Penn State players should be punished for the transgressions of their coaching staff. I realize most of us want Penn State punished for what occurred. Unless the NCAA is willing to let Penn State players transfer to another school without having to wait a year, I simply don't believe it is fair to the Penn State players to pay for their leadership's transgressions by banning the Penn State team from playing football next year.
It came up when the idea of canceling the Nebraska game was raised, and even back when the quaint prospect of canceling the rest of the schedule was raised.
Canceling one game, declining a bowl bid and banning football altogether at Penn State are all completely separate issues with separate reasoning for why each should be done. I think the Nebraska game should have been canceled, but I think Penn State should accept a bowl bid.
And that argument is this:
This isn't the Juice Box League, so can we stop turning college athletes into infants?
Wow. That's really all you have, Keown?
No one is turning the athletes into infants, simply recognizing these athletes worked hard all year to make a good bowl game and they shouldn't be denied this opportunity because Jerry Sandusky likes boys in a sexual way (ALLEGEDLY!) and there was a cover-up among the leadership about his (ALLEGED!) activities.
Let's say ESPN gets in trouble with the Bristol police because there is an alleged culture of sexual assault and mistreatment of women on campus. Would Tim Keown believe it is fair to him if ESPN says those executives responsible for the assault and mistreatment, or had knowledge of the behavior, are now fired and the network is going to take a 6 month break from covering sports in order to gain control of the organization. The catch is the current employees can't write columns during that time, but also aren't being let out of their contract and aren't getting paid. Do you believe Tim Keown thinks this would be fair? Probably not. He would wonder why he can't write and get paid. He would also wonder why he has to pay for transgressions he didn't commit.
When the issue is paying athletes, they're kids.
Weak. Paying athletes has nothing to do with the present discussion. Stop trying to confuse the issue because you can't refute a valid argument.
When the issue is trading memorabilia for tattoos, they're adults who should know better.
I know Tim Keown isn't stupid. So he has to see the difference in punishing an athlete for trading memorabilia for a tattoo (which is against the rules even though I disagree with this even being a rule) and punishing an athlete because 12 years ago the school employed a coach who liked to molest and rape underage boys (ALLEGEDLY!). For one, the Penn State football players have zero culpability in this situation. That's the biggest difference.
They can handle the repercussions. They can understand that men make mistakes -- sometimes huge mistakes -- that have ramifications on younger men.
Of course they can handle the repercussions. They shouldn't have to because they didn't commit the crime.
These "kids" have dealt with disappointment before. They've lost games they thought they should have won.
So now Tim Keown is equating the disappointment with losing a game they should have won with not playing in a bowl game because an ex-defensive coordinator (ALLEGEDLY!) committed a sexual crime against boys and the university helped cover it up. Sure, these are comparable situations.
They've played seasons that ended before they thought they should have ended, and they've cried because of it.
And please remember, Tim Keown wants to decline a bid to a bowl game based on Sandusky and the actions of the Penn State leadership despite the fact he wants to give Jerry Sandusky the presumption of innocence...which would also mean the Penn State leadership would also deserve a presumption of innocence.
The letdown came a few weeks ago, when they were forced to come to terms with the possibility that the people they trusted weren't worthy of that trust. After that, a bowl game is a minor disappointment.
So why should the players be punished for the fact the people they trusted weren't worthy of the trust?
And really, the whole thing is easy. When the bowl committee calls, whether it's Rose or Capitol One or Little Caesars, just say one word: Pass.
I think Penn State shouldn't decline a bowl game bid. If they want to cancel the program, the NCAA should allow the players to transfer without sitting out a year, but this year's team should be able to finish out the year.
The questions will not go away, no matter how hard the people around the Penn State football program try to wish them away. They're going to be there through this season, into the offseason and through the summer. They're going to be there through Tom Bradley's interim reign, through a coaching search and well into the tenure of the next guy. A stench this strong doesn't disappear just by opening a couple of windows.
So let's get directly to the point:
One paragraph consisting of four sentences later, Tim Keown announces we are getting straight to the point. Maybe he doesn't understand what "directly to the point" means.
Penn State should step up and decline any invitation to a bowl game.
No, they should not. I don't believe Penn State should punish the current players for the actions of the Penn State coaches and leadership. (cue violins playing sad music) These players didn't do anything wrong except choose to believe Joe Paterno and his other coaches when they made all of their promises during the recruitment process. Why should the Penn State players be punished for actions they had nothing to do with? I realize Penn State should be punished in some fashion, but the current players shouldn't be punished for the actions of their leadership.
They should play Wisconsin on Saturday and, if they win, play in the Big Ten championship game, and then call it a season.
What would this prove exactly? Would not playing in a bowl game help the rest of the public forget about Sandusky's (alleged) actions with 40 children? Is not playing in a bowl game and giving the football team a chance to put Penn State in a positive light and the best way to show how serious Penn State is about cleaning up the program? I think the way to put Penn State in a positive light goes further than just declining a bowl bid. These problems Penn State has experienced over the past couple of weeks aren't "team" problems. They are leadership problems. I say don't punish the players for the actions of their leadership.
They should reverse their recent trend and do something that doesn't reek of self-interest.
I can see how the Penn State team going to a bowl game would be seen as looking out for the school's self-interest. To me, participating in a bowl game would say the current Penn State players aren't going to be punished for the actions of their leadership. It would also say the school won't punish the current players for actions they aren't responsible for taking.
We've heard Ken Frazier, who is leading the trustees' inquiry, talk tough, and seen the school hire former FBI director Louis Freeh to conduct an investigation to measure the depth of the corruption surrounding Jerry Sandusky's alleged activities.
It sure sounds like Penn State is serious about cleaning up the actions of Sandusky and company. Time will tell if this is true.
(It's worth noting that Freeh's résumé looks better from a distance. He was a blundering FBI director -- Richard Jewell, the intelligence failures leading up to 9/11, Wen Ho Lee -- but an FBI director nonetheless.)
I bet Penn State hired Freeh to oversee the investigation knowing he was incompetent and would screw the investigation up! Those Penn Staters are always up to shenanigans like this.
We've heard that Penn State will make the difficult decisions that will restore a sense of dignity to the administration and the football program.
So prove it. Walk away from a bowl game.
Again, while I can see some value in doing this, I also see value in not punishing the current Penn State football players by not allowing them to participate in a bowl game. Declining a bowl invitation this year would be more about punishing the current players and making a small statement rather than other actions down the road which will make a larger statement about the overall direction of the football program.
Walk away from something that would put money in your pocket. Make the tough choice.
Depending on the bowl game they make, Penn State could very well lose money in going to the bowl game. Many times these bowl games are for the athletes and not used as a way to line the pockets of the school.
The University of Miami became eligible for a bowl game with a win over South Florida on Saturday, and on Monday the school announced it would not accept a bowl invitation.
Tim Keown is unable to determine the difference in Miami announcing they would not accept a bowl invitation because of actions surrounding players in the football program, as opposed to Penn State not accepting a bowl bid based on the actions of the leadership in the Penn State program. I think there is a difference.
The Penn State situation is much different. Obviously, it's much worse.
The Penn State situation is also much worse because the allegations of impropriety around the program does not involve the players, who are young adults, but the allegations of impropriety at Penn State involve the adults running the program.
(By the way, is it possible to be repelled by Sandusky while still being a little troubled by the utter lack of presumption of innocence? This became cringingly apparent when the new president used his PSA to discuss "the victims" without even bothering to qualify it.
Here goes Keown on his "innocent until proven guilty" rant. Remember this is a guy who has spent this entire column saying Penn State should decline to participate in a bowl game based on the actions of those leading the program. Now he wants to act as if he is being open-minded and not wanting to indict the Penn State leaders and Sandusky for their alleged actions.
So we will keep a presumption of innocence for those accused, but punish the current Penn State players for these alleged actions before they were proven? Somehow I think this makes Keown's position even less defensible. Sandusky and company are getting the benefit of the doubt by using the word "allegedly," but Keown wants to go ahead and punish the school by not assuming the charges are "alleged" and suggesting Penn State should decline a bowl bid.
To that end, shouldn't people like the school president -- and Paterno, for that matter -- at least drop an "allegedly" into the conversation every so often?
And yet, again, while Tim Keown recognizes the "alleged" part of the allegations he doesn't care about the charges being alleged when doling out punishment to the Penn State football program. When it comes to the program and whether Penn State should accept a bowl bid, the charges are factual. When it comes to discussing Sandusky, the charges are alleged.
If Penn State goes to a bowl game, if it glad-hands the guys in the garish blazers and takes the gift bags and the check and the national attention, it'll be nothing short of an act of hypocrisy.
You mean hypocrisy like reminding people the Sandusky charges are alleged, but then suggesting a punishment for Sandusky's employer that acts as if the charges are factual? That's some good hypocrisy there. You can't have it both ways. You can't lay the gauntlet down on Penn State and then complain the charges are only alleged.
If that coaching staff -- filled with men who worked alongside Sandusky and sat near him as he brought preteen boys on road trips and into hotel rooms and to meals with the coaching staff, for God's sake -
Allegedly.
There's a coherent argument to be made for banning football altogether at Penn State, at least temporarily,
It makes perfect sense in Tim Keown's world to ban football at Penn State temporarily based on alleged charges for Sandusky, because he is concerned Sandusky won't get a fair trial. I love how he plays both sides of this issue. Keown is like an attorney who wants to get his client a plea deal, while at the same time pleading innocent to all charges.
Even if the Sandusky allegations are true, which all indications is they are, I still don't see why the Penn State players should be punished for the transgressions of their coaching staff. I realize most of us want Penn State punished for what occurred. Unless the NCAA is willing to let Penn State players transfer to another school without having to wait a year, I simply don't believe it is fair to the Penn State players to pay for their leadership's transgressions by banning the Penn State team from playing football next year.
It came up when the idea of canceling the Nebraska game was raised, and even back when the quaint prospect of canceling the rest of the schedule was raised.
Canceling one game, declining a bowl bid and banning football altogether at Penn State are all completely separate issues with separate reasoning for why each should be done. I think the Nebraska game should have been canceled, but I think Penn State should accept a bowl bid.
And that argument is this:
The kids had nothing to do with it. You shouldn't punish the kids for the failures of adults.
That is my argument. Tim Keown does not refute it.This isn't the Juice Box League, so can we stop turning college athletes into infants?
Wow. That's really all you have, Keown?
No one is turning the athletes into infants, simply recognizing these athletes worked hard all year to make a good bowl game and they shouldn't be denied this opportunity because Jerry Sandusky likes boys in a sexual way (ALLEGEDLY!) and there was a cover-up among the leadership about his (ALLEGED!) activities.
Let's say ESPN gets in trouble with the Bristol police because there is an alleged culture of sexual assault and mistreatment of women on campus. Would Tim Keown believe it is fair to him if ESPN says those executives responsible for the assault and mistreatment, or had knowledge of the behavior, are now fired and the network is going to take a 6 month break from covering sports in order to gain control of the organization. The catch is the current employees can't write columns during that time, but also aren't being let out of their contract and aren't getting paid. Do you believe Tim Keown thinks this would be fair? Probably not. He would wonder why he can't write and get paid. He would also wonder why he has to pay for transgressions he didn't commit.
When the issue is paying athletes, they're kids.
Weak. Paying athletes has nothing to do with the present discussion. Stop trying to confuse the issue because you can't refute a valid argument.
When the issue is trading memorabilia for tattoos, they're adults who should know better.
I know Tim Keown isn't stupid. So he has to see the difference in punishing an athlete for trading memorabilia for a tattoo (which is against the rules even though I disagree with this even being a rule) and punishing an athlete because 12 years ago the school employed a coach who liked to molest and rape underage boys (ALLEGEDLY!). For one, the Penn State football players have zero culpability in this situation. That's the biggest difference.
They can handle the repercussions. They can understand that men make mistakes -- sometimes huge mistakes -- that have ramifications on younger men.
Of course they can handle the repercussions. They shouldn't have to because they didn't commit the crime.
These "kids" have dealt with disappointment before. They've lost games they thought they should have won.
So now Tim Keown is equating the disappointment with losing a game they should have won with not playing in a bowl game because an ex-defensive coordinator (ALLEGEDLY!) committed a sexual crime against boys and the university helped cover it up. Sure, these are comparable situations.
They've played seasons that ended before they thought they should have ended, and they've cried because of it.
And please remember, Tim Keown wants to decline a bid to a bowl game based on Sandusky and the actions of the Penn State leadership despite the fact he wants to give Jerry Sandusky the presumption of innocence...which would also mean the Penn State leadership would also deserve a presumption of innocence.
The letdown came a few weeks ago, when they were forced to come to terms with the possibility that the people they trusted weren't worthy of that trust. After that, a bowl game is a minor disappointment.
So why should the players be punished for the fact the people they trusted weren't worthy of the trust?
And really, the whole thing is easy. When the bowl committee calls, whether it's Rose or Capitol One or Little Caesars, just say one word: Pass.
I think Penn State shouldn't decline a bowl game bid. If they want to cancel the program, the NCAA should allow the players to transfer without sitting out a year, but this year's team should be able to finish out the year.
Friday, November 18, 2011
9 comments TMQ: Gregg Teaches Us About the Game Day Experience
Despite another week of writing TMQ with factual inaccuracies contained within, Gregg Easterbrook is back for another week of TMQ. This week he suggests if you want to understand football then you should attend a football game in person. Given Gregg's history of seemingly not understanding football I am guessing he hasn't ever attended an NFL game. Then Gregg ends the column with the saddest news we have all been waiting to hear.
The Wall Street Journal recently reported that the NFL will not release to the public "All-22" game video -- high-angle shots that show all players on the field. The A22 views are so super-secret, the Journal maintained, that only NFL coaches and a few network insiders are allowed to glimpse them.
Psssssst, buddy -- wanna see what all 22 players are doing? Attend a game.
Ooooooooooo...in your face "All-22." Gregg cut you down so hard you should call yourself "Not All-22."
But to understand what's really happening, you must trek to a stadium and plunk into a seat.
(I bet many of your thought I would go the "football games are expensive to attend, shouldn't Gregg Easterbrook realize this" route. Normally this is a route I would go. Not today though! Sometime I just try to keep everyone off-balance)
While I greatly enjoy attending NFL games, I disagree with this in part. To really understand what is happening, a fan needs to watch the game in person and then watch a replay of the game. I love attending games, but many times there aren't replays of exactly what happened on the field like there are on television. A person can see all the players on the field and there's a better view in terms of seeing the entire field, but to really understand what is happening on the field a television and the ability to rewind and fast forward is incredibly helpful. So while I love attending football games, I think you can understand what is happening at home as well.
Television shows the little tetragon around the football, but TMQ's law holds that Ninety Percent of Football Action Occurs Away From the Ball. How the defense lines up, how receivers move through the secondary: television doesn't really convey this, nor does highlight film that focuses on the ballcarrier.
This is true, but television does give the viewer a chance to see a play again and get commentary on exactly what is happening on the field. An example from the last game I attended: A flag was thrown and a touchdown was nullified due to a hold. The crowd was booing so viciously I didn't get to hear who the hold was on or even if it was a hold (I couldn't see the hand motion the ref made for the call). Someone in the crowd said it was a hold on an offensive lineman. After the game I learned it was a controversial hold called on a wide receiver. I was at the game live, didn't get to see a replay and was focusing on the ball carrier, so I didn't see if the hold occurred or it was a bad call.
So in this case, I had a good view of the play, but I didn't get to see what happened because there was no replay of the hold call and I missed the call by the official. Attending a game is awesome, but because the field of vision for the viewer is so large, sometimes it is difficult to understand exactly what happened on a play. There is a reason coaches watch film after the game instead of rely on their memory from what they saw on the field. One of those reasons is due to film giving the coach a different angle and a closer perspective on what happened during the play...not to mention a person's memory isn't the greatest way to rely on information.
At games, your columnist rarely watches the ball.
This explains a whole lot.
Attend a game and force yourself to take your eyes away from the ball. Watch the line play or the secondary -- you'll see football in a whole new light. You may be able to point to who will catch the pass before the pass leaves the quarterback's hands.
This is very true. The trade-off for this is the inability to get a replay of something that you have may have missed. So attending football games in person gives a different perspective, but it isn't always a better perspective. It can be a more exciting perspective, but depending on your seats there could also be aspects of the game you miss. For example, if there something happening on the sidelines the television cameras would pick up, a spectator at a game could miss this.
(Or maybe I just don't pay good enough attention at a game...that could be possible too. I blame it on tailgating.)
But how did he get by his lonesome? Graham lined up as a slotback, inside a wideout. He ran a down-out-and-up, an unusual pattern for a tight end. The Atlanta linebacker on his side did not jam him, then chased him for a moment then let him go, because Graham was headed straight toward big-bucks cornerback Dunta Robinson. But Robinson never moved a muscle, letting Graham roar past, Robinson stood guarding no one. Was he in Cover 2?
If you are watching the game in person then you may not be able to see what defense Atlanta was playing, while if you were watching on television you can see the play at different angles and have the analyst explain what he believes happened on the play. We never get the answer to Gregg's question about what defense Atlanta was playing. This isn't a very good endorsement of the live experience since even while watching the game live this could potentially not be answered.
If you'd been at the game watching all 22 players, you'd have known it would be a touchdown to Graham (unless he dropped the ball) the instant the tight end cut up the field past a stationary cornerback.
You would have to be watching Jimmy Graham and the secondary to know this, while not watching the football. Again, you have one chance live to see this and you may not be able to see it again depending on how close to the Jumbotron you are and if replays of the touchdown are even shown on the Jumbotron.
Tony Romo spun away from a blitzer and rolled into the left flat. If you'd been at the game, you would have seen the Buffalo corner on that side move toward the center of the field, because he thought Romo would spin the opposite way. That meant the Buffalo corner on the left failed to guard his man, totally ignoring Dallas wide receiver Laurent Robinson. From the all-22 perspective available only at the game, you would have cried "touchdown!" before the ball left Romo's hand -- because you would have seen a Dallas receiver all by himself, exactly in the place Romo was headed.
Incorrect...unless Gregg has some ability to see two places at one time. If you were at the game live you would essentially have had two choices, depending on where your seat is located. Some fans have a choice of watching the football or watching the receiver. If a person is watching the receiver while at a game, then he/she wouldn't know the football left Romo's hand and he/she wouldn't be able to yell "touchdown" because this person wouldn't know the ball was thrown. If a person was watching Romo, then he/she wouldn't know Laurent Robinson was open.
(For example, I love my seats at my favorite team's games, but I have a hard time watching the ball and the defense depending on where on the field the ball is being snapped.)
I am sure a person could watch both the person with the ball and those players away from the ball, but it would take some eye dexterity and good peripheral vision, as well as there being a good chance of missing something regardless. Seeing a football game live is great, but a fan still can't see every little thing that happens on every play. A fan at the game gets to see the entire field, but the lack of replay and the large field also causes fans to miss some action.
The single most important thing the league could do to improve the game-day experience is devote as much effort to getting cars out afterward as to getting cars in before.
No matter how great traffic control can be 70,000 people within one or two blocks from each other will always going to cause great amounts of traffic gridlock. I'm not sure this is the single most important thing the NFL can do to improve the game day experience.
For those who attend an NFL game, the contest may be great, while often the last thing that happens is a two-hour gridlock at the exit ramps because no one is directing traffic.
Gregg, of course, has no suggestions on HOW to do this. Just fucking do it. Thanks for the commentary.
And bear in mind -- you can appreciate the super-secret full A22 view by attending a high school game, with a $5 ticket and free parking.
Unfortunately, you would then have to see football played at very nearly its lowest level and that's why parking is free and the tickets are cheap.
Regarding Penn State, in advertising that aired during the Penn State-Nebraska contest on Saturday, Rodney Erickson, the university's interim president, began by declaring, "My heart goes out to those who have been victimized."
Yet the school's interim president spoke of child molestation at Penn State as factually established. So what does Penn State know that it is not telling? If Penn State already knows there are in fact victims, this scandal is even worse.
OR, and I know the mere idea of this just absolutely blows Gregg's mind, the interim president was just making a statement the Board of Trustees requested he make. I think speaking a statement about "possible victims" wouldn't go over very well since Penn State had already fired many of those prominent individuals who may have had knowledge of the Sandusky child molestation incidences. In that way, Penn State has already admitted some culpability and acknowledged there were victims. So really there's no need to overanalyze the statement. The school apologized in order to begin the process of healing and make it clear they care about the charges being brought.
So if Penn State already knows children have been "victimized," the cover-up is worse than assumed. And if Penn State already knows children were victimized, then the Penn State interim president went on television to ask for the nation's sympathy, yet is not disclosing everything he knows about the school's involvement.
OR...this was just the wording chosen in the statement the interim president read off the teleprompter.
In other football news, the Houston Texans are 7-3 and have the league's No. 1-ranked defense. The Lone Star NFL teams, sputtering in recent years, combined Sunday to outscore opponents 81-16. I was planning to write an item predicting something no one in the local space-time continuum has ever predicted -- that the Texans would make the Super Bowl. Now, with Matt Schaub reportedly out for the season, the Moo Cows are more likely once again to miss the playoffs.
I don't know if "likely" is the correct wording to use here. The AFC South is a pretty weak division and the Texans still get to play Carolina, Jacksonville, Cincinnati, Tennessee, Indianapolis, and Atlanta. Nine or ten wins probably wins the division at this point. I think there are probably two or three wins in those games and I think the Texans can do this. Maybe I am overestimating Matt Leinart's abilities.
In Tuesday Morning Quarterback news, half the season is in the books, meaning I am heading into my bye week. There will be no regular column next Tuesday, though a modest reminder of TMQ will appear.
How can half the season be in the books? Every NFL team has played nine games or more! So this isn't the first half of the season in the books if teams have played more than 50% of their games! Wouldn't over half of the season be in the books at this point?
Stats of the Week No. 3: Pittsburgh is on a 10-1 streak at Cincinnati.
Does this count as a streak if it is over a period of 11 years? I'm just wondering.
Stats of the Week No. 10: Buffalo and Detroit opened a combined 9-1 and since have gone a combined 2-6.
Remember the TMQ when Gregg asked if these two teams would be in the Super Bowl? Gregg would ask that you forget this, along with the Crabtree Curse and any factual errors that appear weekly in TMQ.
In NFL cheerleader terms, professionalism means skin or at least skin-tight. This propitiates the football gods. At Jersey/B, the cheerleaders wore tracks suits for a kickoff at 56 degrees, and the home team was hosed. At San Francisco, the cheerleaders wore bikini-styled summer outfits for a kickoff at 58 degrees, and the home team triumphed.
Notice how Gregg tries to mislead his audience by stating the kickoff temperature and not what the temperature range was during the game? That's because the Jets played at 8:30pm EST on a Sunday night and the 49ers played at 1pm PST on a Sunday afternoon. The Jets cheerleaders dressed the way they did in preparation for the colder temperatures when the game ended. The 49ers cheerleaders dressed the way they did because the game too place in the middle of the day. Of course Gregg doesn't mention this because he neglects to include any facts that may show his stupid theories are stupid.
Nobody draws 'em up better than Gary Kubiak. Houston leading 9-0 at City of Tampa, the Moo Cows had first down on their own 22. Houston faked a power run up the middle to Arian Foster, who then ran through the line and sprinted into the left flat, uncovered, for a swing pass.
Actually, I'm not sure this was a swing pass or not because Foster went into the flat but if I remember correctly he wasn't running towards a sideline. I wasn't at the game so I had to watch this on television, meaning I may have had a bad look since I couldn't see the entire field.
The sole thing that went wrong for Houston was a blocked PAT. This was a disaster for fantasy owners, because in the ESPN fantasy format a missed PAT is minus-10 points, five times as bad as your quarterback throwing an interception.
And people only play ESPN fantasy leagues. There are no other fantasy leagues.
Fitzgerald thought he lunged across, and argued vociferously for the touchdown. Zebras spotted the ball at the 1 -- and Arizona was better off at the 1! The Cardinals were able to grind another minute off the clock before scoring, get past the two-minute warning and force Philadelphia to spend a timeout. Had Fitzgerald been awarded the touchdown, Philadelphia's comeback chances would have improved sharply.
Would the comeback chances have improved sharply? A normal writer would use statistics to back this comment up, but Gregg isn't interested in providing proof for his statements. He's too lazy for that.
Stuffing the Falcons' run was sweet for New Orleans -- the sour part was a good decision but a bad play call by Atlanta. TMQ's lead last week was that bland straight-ahead rushes don't work on short-yardage downs. Atlanta's call was a bland straight-ahead rush to the power side of the formation, exactly what New Orleans expected. There was no misdirection -- and misdirection is essential on short-yardage downs, when the defense is cranked to charge straight ahead.
Just as I had anticipated, Gregg blamed the Falcons inability to get one yard on a lack of misdirection. As if defenders, who Gregg admits are geared up to run straight head, aren't going to get penetration if there is misdirection. The last thing Michael Turner needed to be doing was going away from his strength and running sideline-to-sideline instead of straight ahead.
To top it off, the extra blocker at the point of attack was skinny wide receiver Roddy White, while running back Michael Turner took the handoff four yards deep in the backfield, meaning he would have to fight just to reach the line of scrimmage.
I'm trying to think of a way a running back can't take the handoff four yards deep in the backfield outside of the snap going straight to him.
Atlanta might have employed some misdirection; or simply had Matt Ryan sneak, starting the play much closer to the line of scrimmage; or play-faked and gone deep for the win.
Because a power running team whose strength isn't deep passes should go against what they do well on fourth down in overtime.
TMQ's law holds: Do a Little Dance If You Want to Gain That Yard.
My law holds as well: Do a Little Dance If You Want to Get Hit for No Gain.
On Monday Night Football, the Vikings punted directly to Randall Cobb, who already had a kick return touchdown this season, and he ran the punt back 80 yards for a score. Deliberately kicking out-of-bounds on every punt would net around 35 yards of field position for the punting team, and eliminate the chance of a touchdown return.
So Gregg thinks every NFL team should punt every ball out of bounds? This would also eliminate the chance of a fumbled catch and probably wouldn't be the best strategy overall.
Chargers leading 3-0 in the season's first Thursday game, Oakland faced fourth-and-1 on the Bolts' 34. Normally, strong-legged Sebastian Janikowski would attempt a field goal, but Janikowski has been nagged by injuries. Hue Jackson sent out the punting unit. Not even in the ultra-conservative NFL would a team punt on fourth-and-1 from the opponent's 34.
Despite the fact Gregg says no team in the NFL would punt from that spot, every week in TMQ he highlights teams who punt at or near this yardage marker.
I noted Mike Shanahan had a sterling won-loss record when John Elway was his quarterback, but has been an average NFL coach with anyone else. Mike Glowacki of Centreville, Md., writes, "As an NFL head coach, Bill Belichick is 131-40 with Tom Brady as his quarterback and 52-63 with anyone else. If you want to be a great coach in the National Football League, it may help to have a great quarterback."
Much like him realizing this year that tight ends get split out wide, Gregg is a little late on the idea it helps a coach to have a great quarterback. I am sure Gregg believes TMQ was the first to bring this idea to the forefront of modern society.
Start the Cave Man: The 1-7 Dolphins facing second-and-goal from the Redskins 1, guard Rich Incognito pulled left and wiped out megabucks Washington safety LaRon Landry; left tackle Jake Long wiped out Geico celebrity linebacker Brian Orakpo;
Ah yes, this is a great example of Gregg's inconsistent use of the word "megabucks," which is used only to trick his audience into believing megabucks and highly drafted players are underachievers. What Gregg actually means is megabucks and #1 overall pick Jake Long wiped out megabucks and typically excellent linebacker Brian Orakpo.
Reggie Bush jogged left for an untouched touchdown.
Gregg means: Megabucks and highly drafted Reggie Bush jogged left for an untouched touchdown.
If Penn State's trustees and new administration really cared about shame at the school, the remainder of the football season would have been canceled.
Why in the hell would Penn State punish the current players and the students at Penn State even more for the actions of the coaches of the football team? I can see arguments for canceling the entire season, but I also don't think this is fair to the current players. It just seems like the administration would be punishing the football players for mistakes the administration made.
Ending the Nittany Lions' football program would prove contrition.
(Penn State) "We're sorry one of our coaches molested forty children. We are going to end the football program to show how sorry we are."
(The public) "Wow! What a gesture. I guess they really showed us how sorry they were. No need for a trial, all is made up by the ending of the football program. Have a good day and carry on, Penn State."
Commentators, including May and Robert Smith of ESPN, have expressed the view that McQueary is a loathsome figure. It is hard to disagree. Perhaps there is some mitigating fact about McQueary not yet known publicly. Based on what is known, he appears to be so heartless and selfish that he considered his career prospects in the football program more important than stopping an apparent act of child abuse.
I absolutely think McQueary is in the wrong. I won't defend McQueary and he was absolutely in the wrong. Just imagine though...imagine if you saw your boss in the same situation he saw Sandusky, wouldn't a little bit of your thought process on how to resolve this moral dilemma go to "If I tell about this, at some point I can't stay anonymous anymore. I will have to testify to what I saw. If for some reason Sandusky is cleared of the charges I am alleging, I can pretty much kiss my coaching career goodbye and could also face a civil suit if my accusations came to light." Choosing your coaching career over what you saw is selfish, but this thought would go through many people's heads when weighing the options to bring this incident to light.
I know this thought would never go through Tim Tebow's head, because he is perfect and all, but for most people this would come to their mind. It doesn't excuse McQueary's decision to seemingly not do much about what he saw, because the answer to this moral quandary seems very obvious. Most people would probably not worry about their career and talk about what they saw, or at least I hope so, but it is very easy to judge McQueary for his quandary while resting comfortably in our homes not having to make this call.
Of course McQueary is involved with the Penn State cover-up and is completely culpable, and I'm not defending him, but I think before calling the police the idea of making sure you saw what you did and could prove what you saw would go into the decision process. Complicating this is when you tell your boss's boss what you saw, he starts to take control of the situation. Would you as McQueary then feel comfortable going over Paterno's head and contacting the police when you see no resolution? Morally, you should do this if it isn't resolved, but once McQueary contacted Paterno about what he saw concerning Sandusky he would essentially be saying a football coaching legend is now culpable for ignoring child rape. Paterno runs the university and at this point by going to the police McQueary would be accusing his boss of child molestation and also accusing a coaching legend of inaction once he learned about this molestation. I'm not excusing McQueary and his silence is absolutely condemnable. I just get irritated by people in situations about moral quandaries acting as if the answer to the quandary is easy. The answer does seem absolutely easy to us, but we all saw how Penn State covered this up, so if McQueary had reported it do we even know action would have been taken?
I know all of these questions had already been asked. Morality quarterbacks sometimes tend to irritate me. Would I have reported it to the police? Absolutely. I also wasn't in that situation so it is easy to be definitive in saying what I would do.
Any player deeply involved in football culture is told over and over again -- by words, by actions and by peer pressure -- that football coaches are godlike figures, and this message is reinforced with physical pain, including the punishment drills nearly all football players endure.
This man who a grand jury alleges would not protect a child is the product of a system that psychologically conditions large numbers of American boys and men, and look what that system turned McQueary into.
Along with stopping high school boys from going to college and causing concussions that cause large amounts of high school boys to become too stupid to test well, football also causes a person not to tell anyone if they see a child being molested. For such a terrible and morally bankrupt sport, Gregg sure loves to write about it every week on Tuesday.
DeSean Jackson was suspended for oversleeping. Most high school districts don't allow an athlete to participate in a game if he or she is late for school on game day. So are the Eagles a professional franchise or a high school team?
So the Eagles shouldn't have punished Jackson at all for sleeping in, which actually means he probably was protesting his lack of a new contract? Is that what Gregg is saying here?
TMQ thinks the kickoff return fumble -- the "krumble" -- is the most damaging turnover, since a team that just scored gets immediate possession deep in opposition territory.
What Gregg doesn't realize is this is one of the best reasons for a punter not to kick the ball out of bounds on every punt attempt, which is exactly what Gregg had suggested earlier in this TMQ.
Cam Newton started only 14 Division I games in college, yet is also playing well. But he's tailed off from a hot early season, throwing for just 212 yards and a 61.7 passer rating as the Panthers were punched in the nose at home, 30-3, by Tennessee.
Newton threw for 256 and 290 yards with 127.5 and 117.6 passer ratings in the two games before this weekend. But no, he's tailed off recently if "recently" is defined as "this past week."
Lately, defensive coordinators have been using a regular Cover 2 secondary, while having a linebacker or third safety to "spy" Newton, following wherever he goes. This is frustrating Newton, who in college did not face defenses designed specifically for him.
I am sure defensive coordinators didn't game plan to stop Cam Newton at Auburn considering he was their best offensive threat. It could be the NFL athletes are better at game planning against Newton, but no, I am sure it is that Newton didn't see any defenses designed to stop him in college. Sure, I believe that.
(College teams have little choice but to go with similar game plans every week, because of practice-time limitations.)
And they can't practice different defensive strategies either apparently.
Panthers linemen Geoff Hangartner and Byron Bell just brushed their men, then turned around to watch Newton go down.
Don't you mean undrafted Byron Bell and unwanted Geoff Hangartner? That's right, Bell was undrafted and Hangartner was cut from the Bills roster in the preseason. Gregg won't call out these players as being undrafted or unwanted players when they make a bad play because he wants to keep forcing his audience to believe only undrafted or unwanted players do well in the NFL.
Then Gregg brings up whether the Warp Speed offenses of college offenses like Toledo and Houston will end up in the NFL and then he tries to disprove the very question he asked. He must have needed to kill space. Also, you know in a couple of years when a team in the NFL succeeds running the Warp Speed offense Gregg will act as if he was the first one to propose if an NFL team would run it. He would do this despite the fact he admits in this TMQ some NFL teams already run quick-snap offenses.
The Bills had 16 takeaways in their first five games, and four takeaways since. There is a big luck component to takeaways. Increasingly it seems Buffalo had good luck with takeaways early, and now is being exposed as second-echelon.
So all of those positive things Gregg said earlier in the year while bragging about the Bills and mentioning how they have undrafted players on their team, will he take those back or admit these undrafted players haven't sustained success? Of course not. He wants you to believe the undrafted free agents were key to the Bills' success but had nothing to do with their recent slide. Gregg accentuates the positive that makes him look correct and then ignores signs he may actually be incorrect.
But the Flying Elvii botched the line call. Right tackle Sebastian Vollmer turned inward to double-team. That left 180-pound Danny Woodhead to block Jets' linebacker Jamaal Westerman, and soon the zebras were signaling safety.
Doesn't Gregg mean "that left undrafted 180-pound Danny Woodhead to block Jets' linebacker Jamaal Westerman"? I wonder if Gregg remembers he wrote this about Woodhead last year:
Woodhead was the all-time, all-division NCAA rushing leader, but he was not drafted. He spent two seasons with the Jets, mostly on the practice squad, then was waived. This season, he has gained 907 yards rushing and receiving for the Patriots -- his rushing average is 5.6 yards per carry -- and, though "too small," has become one of the NFL's best blitz-blocking backs.
I know this is one play, but shouldn't one of the NFL's best blitz-blocking backs pick up Westerman? What's even more interesting is prior to calling Woodhead one of the NFL's best blitz-blocking backs, Gregg said the following when criticizing the Jets:
On a very amusing play, Woodhead at 5-foot-8, 189 pounds and Welker, at 5-9, 185 pounds, lined up as blitz-blocking backs! The Jets believed this, ignoring Woodhead as he snuck through the offensive line for a 35-yard reception.
So in summary, Gregg thinks the Jets were stupid for believing Woodhead would be a blitz-blocking back, even though Woodhead in Gregg's estimation is one of the best blitz-blocking backs in the NFL. Gregg was also not surprised one of the best blitz-blocking backs in the NFL was not able to block a linebacker. I think I'm confused as to whether Woodhead is good at blitz-blocking or not. I think Gregg is even more confused than I am.
With the student body 63 percent female http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/macmurray-college-1717/student-life, that means about a quarter of the school's boys are on the football team.
That appears to be hyperlink in there somewhere that never got hyperlinked. This brings me back to the question of whether anyone edits TMQ or not. I say that no one edits TMQ or else Gregg wouldn't get away with saying some of the things he says. This is because no reasonable person could read TMQ and let Gregg's fictional, non-researched statements like "Julio Jones is a diva" stand without some sort of verification this statement is true.
Next Week: No regular column next week -- my bye week -- though check in for a TMQ placeholder. Regular column resumes on Nov. 29.
One whole week without TMQ! Who in the world will get my blood pressure to be raised in the interim?
The Wall Street Journal recently reported that the NFL will not release to the public "All-22" game video -- high-angle shots that show all players on the field. The A22 views are so super-secret, the Journal maintained, that only NFL coaches and a few network insiders are allowed to glimpse them.
Psssssst, buddy -- wanna see what all 22 players are doing? Attend a game.
Ooooooooooo...in your face "All-22." Gregg cut you down so hard you should call yourself "Not All-22."
But to understand what's really happening, you must trek to a stadium and plunk into a seat.
(I bet many of your thought I would go the "football games are expensive to attend, shouldn't Gregg Easterbrook realize this" route. Normally this is a route I would go. Not today though! Sometime I just try to keep everyone off-balance)
While I greatly enjoy attending NFL games, I disagree with this in part. To really understand what is happening, a fan needs to watch the game in person and then watch a replay of the game. I love attending games, but many times there aren't replays of exactly what happened on the field like there are on television. A person can see all the players on the field and there's a better view in terms of seeing the entire field, but to really understand what is happening on the field a television and the ability to rewind and fast forward is incredibly helpful. So while I love attending football games, I think you can understand what is happening at home as well.
Television shows the little tetragon around the football, but TMQ's law holds that Ninety Percent of Football Action Occurs Away From the Ball. How the defense lines up, how receivers move through the secondary: television doesn't really convey this, nor does highlight film that focuses on the ballcarrier.
This is true, but television does give the viewer a chance to see a play again and get commentary on exactly what is happening on the field. An example from the last game I attended: A flag was thrown and a touchdown was nullified due to a hold. The crowd was booing so viciously I didn't get to hear who the hold was on or even if it was a hold (I couldn't see the hand motion the ref made for the call). Someone in the crowd said it was a hold on an offensive lineman. After the game I learned it was a controversial hold called on a wide receiver. I was at the game live, didn't get to see a replay and was focusing on the ball carrier, so I didn't see if the hold occurred or it was a bad call.
So in this case, I had a good view of the play, but I didn't get to see what happened because there was no replay of the hold call and I missed the call by the official. Attending a game is awesome, but because the field of vision for the viewer is so large, sometimes it is difficult to understand exactly what happened on a play. There is a reason coaches watch film after the game instead of rely on their memory from what they saw on the field. One of those reasons is due to film giving the coach a different angle and a closer perspective on what happened during the play...not to mention a person's memory isn't the greatest way to rely on information.
At games, your columnist rarely watches the ball.
This explains a whole lot.
Attend a game and force yourself to take your eyes away from the ball. Watch the line play or the secondary -- you'll see football in a whole new light. You may be able to point to who will catch the pass before the pass leaves the quarterback's hands.
This is very true. The trade-off for this is the inability to get a replay of something that you have may have missed. So attending football games in person gives a different perspective, but it isn't always a better perspective. It can be a more exciting perspective, but depending on your seats there could also be aspects of the game you miss. For example, if there something happening on the sidelines the television cameras would pick up, a spectator at a game could miss this.
(Or maybe I just don't pay good enough attention at a game...that could be possible too. I blame it on tailgating.)
But how did he get by his lonesome? Graham lined up as a slotback, inside a wideout. He ran a down-out-and-up, an unusual pattern for a tight end. The Atlanta linebacker on his side did not jam him, then chased him for a moment then let him go, because Graham was headed straight toward big-bucks cornerback Dunta Robinson. But Robinson never moved a muscle, letting Graham roar past, Robinson stood guarding no one. Was he in Cover 2?
If you are watching the game in person then you may not be able to see what defense Atlanta was playing, while if you were watching on television you can see the play at different angles and have the analyst explain what he believes happened on the play. We never get the answer to Gregg's question about what defense Atlanta was playing. This isn't a very good endorsement of the live experience since even while watching the game live this could potentially not be answered.
If you'd been at the game watching all 22 players, you'd have known it would be a touchdown to Graham (unless he dropped the ball) the instant the tight end cut up the field past a stationary cornerback.
You would have to be watching Jimmy Graham and the secondary to know this, while not watching the football. Again, you have one chance live to see this and you may not be able to see it again depending on how close to the Jumbotron you are and if replays of the touchdown are even shown on the Jumbotron.
Tony Romo spun away from a blitzer and rolled into the left flat. If you'd been at the game, you would have seen the Buffalo corner on that side move toward the center of the field, because he thought Romo would spin the opposite way. That meant the Buffalo corner on the left failed to guard his man, totally ignoring Dallas wide receiver Laurent Robinson. From the all-22 perspective available only at the game, you would have cried "touchdown!" before the ball left Romo's hand -- because you would have seen a Dallas receiver all by himself, exactly in the place Romo was headed.
Incorrect...unless Gregg has some ability to see two places at one time. If you were at the game live you would essentially have had two choices, depending on where your seat is located. Some fans have a choice of watching the football or watching the receiver. If a person is watching the receiver while at a game, then he/she wouldn't know the football left Romo's hand and he/she wouldn't be able to yell "touchdown" because this person wouldn't know the ball was thrown. If a person was watching Romo, then he/she wouldn't know Laurent Robinson was open.
(For example, I love my seats at my favorite team's games, but I have a hard time watching the ball and the defense depending on where on the field the ball is being snapped.)
I am sure a person could watch both the person with the ball and those players away from the ball, but it would take some eye dexterity and good peripheral vision, as well as there being a good chance of missing something regardless. Seeing a football game live is great, but a fan still can't see every little thing that happens on every play. A fan at the game gets to see the entire field, but the lack of replay and the large field also causes fans to miss some action.
The single most important thing the league could do to improve the game-day experience is devote as much effort to getting cars out afterward as to getting cars in before.
No matter how great traffic control can be 70,000 people within one or two blocks from each other will always going to cause great amounts of traffic gridlock. I'm not sure this is the single most important thing the NFL can do to improve the game day experience.
For those who attend an NFL game, the contest may be great, while often the last thing that happens is a two-hour gridlock at the exit ramps because no one is directing traffic.
Gregg, of course, has no suggestions on HOW to do this. Just fucking do it. Thanks for the commentary.
And bear in mind -- you can appreciate the super-secret full A22 view by attending a high school game, with a $5 ticket and free parking.
Unfortunately, you would then have to see football played at very nearly its lowest level and that's why parking is free and the tickets are cheap.
Regarding Penn State, in advertising that aired during the Penn State-Nebraska contest on Saturday, Rodney Erickson, the university's interim president, began by declaring, "My heart goes out to those who have been victimized."
Yet the school's interim president spoke of child molestation at Penn State as factually established. So what does Penn State know that it is not telling? If Penn State already knows there are in fact victims, this scandal is even worse.
OR, and I know the mere idea of this just absolutely blows Gregg's mind, the interim president was just making a statement the Board of Trustees requested he make. I think speaking a statement about "possible victims" wouldn't go over very well since Penn State had already fired many of those prominent individuals who may have had knowledge of the Sandusky child molestation incidences. In that way, Penn State has already admitted some culpability and acknowledged there were victims. So really there's no need to overanalyze the statement. The school apologized in order to begin the process of healing and make it clear they care about the charges being brought.
So if Penn State already knows children have been "victimized," the cover-up is worse than assumed. And if Penn State already knows children were victimized, then the Penn State interim president went on television to ask for the nation's sympathy, yet is not disclosing everything he knows about the school's involvement.
OR...this was just the wording chosen in the statement the interim president read off the teleprompter.
In other football news, the Houston Texans are 7-3 and have the league's No. 1-ranked defense. The Lone Star NFL teams, sputtering in recent years, combined Sunday to outscore opponents 81-16. I was planning to write an item predicting something no one in the local space-time continuum has ever predicted -- that the Texans would make the Super Bowl. Now, with Matt Schaub reportedly out for the season, the Moo Cows are more likely once again to miss the playoffs.
I don't know if "likely" is the correct wording to use here. The AFC South is a pretty weak division and the Texans still get to play Carolina, Jacksonville, Cincinnati, Tennessee, Indianapolis, and Atlanta. Nine or ten wins probably wins the division at this point. I think there are probably two or three wins in those games and I think the Texans can do this. Maybe I am overestimating Matt Leinart's abilities.
In Tuesday Morning Quarterback news, half the season is in the books, meaning I am heading into my bye week. There will be no regular column next Tuesday, though a modest reminder of TMQ will appear.
How can half the season be in the books? Every NFL team has played nine games or more! So this isn't the first half of the season in the books if teams have played more than 50% of their games! Wouldn't over half of the season be in the books at this point?
Stats of the Week No. 3: Pittsburgh is on a 10-1 streak at Cincinnati.
Does this count as a streak if it is over a period of 11 years? I'm just wondering.
Stats of the Week No. 10: Buffalo and Detroit opened a combined 9-1 and since have gone a combined 2-6.
Remember the TMQ when Gregg asked if these two teams would be in the Super Bowl? Gregg would ask that you forget this, along with the Crabtree Curse and any factual errors that appear weekly in TMQ.
In NFL cheerleader terms, professionalism means skin or at least skin-tight. This propitiates the football gods. At Jersey/B, the cheerleaders wore tracks suits for a kickoff at 56 degrees, and the home team was hosed. At San Francisco, the cheerleaders wore bikini-styled summer outfits for a kickoff at 58 degrees, and the home team triumphed.
Notice how Gregg tries to mislead his audience by stating the kickoff temperature and not what the temperature range was during the game? That's because the Jets played at 8:30pm EST on a Sunday night and the 49ers played at 1pm PST on a Sunday afternoon. The Jets cheerleaders dressed the way they did in preparation for the colder temperatures when the game ended. The 49ers cheerleaders dressed the way they did because the game too place in the middle of the day. Of course Gregg doesn't mention this because he neglects to include any facts that may show his stupid theories are stupid.
Nobody draws 'em up better than Gary Kubiak. Houston leading 9-0 at City of Tampa, the Moo Cows had first down on their own 22. Houston faked a power run up the middle to Arian Foster, who then ran through the line and sprinted into the left flat, uncovered, for a swing pass.
Actually, I'm not sure this was a swing pass or not because Foster went into the flat but if I remember correctly he wasn't running towards a sideline. I wasn't at the game so I had to watch this on television, meaning I may have had a bad look since I couldn't see the entire field.
The sole thing that went wrong for Houston was a blocked PAT. This was a disaster for fantasy owners, because in the ESPN fantasy format a missed PAT is minus-10 points, five times as bad as your quarterback throwing an interception.
And people only play ESPN fantasy leagues. There are no other fantasy leagues.
Fitzgerald thought he lunged across, and argued vociferously for the touchdown. Zebras spotted the ball at the 1 -- and Arizona was better off at the 1! The Cardinals were able to grind another minute off the clock before scoring, get past the two-minute warning and force Philadelphia to spend a timeout. Had Fitzgerald been awarded the touchdown, Philadelphia's comeback chances would have improved sharply.
Would the comeback chances have improved sharply? A normal writer would use statistics to back this comment up, but Gregg isn't interested in providing proof for his statements. He's too lazy for that.
Stuffing the Falcons' run was sweet for New Orleans -- the sour part was a good decision but a bad play call by Atlanta. TMQ's lead last week was that bland straight-ahead rushes don't work on short-yardage downs. Atlanta's call was a bland straight-ahead rush to the power side of the formation, exactly what New Orleans expected. There was no misdirection -- and misdirection is essential on short-yardage downs, when the defense is cranked to charge straight ahead.
Just as I had anticipated, Gregg blamed the Falcons inability to get one yard on a lack of misdirection. As if defenders, who Gregg admits are geared up to run straight head, aren't going to get penetration if there is misdirection. The last thing Michael Turner needed to be doing was going away from his strength and running sideline-to-sideline instead of straight ahead.
To top it off, the extra blocker at the point of attack was skinny wide receiver Roddy White, while running back Michael Turner took the handoff four yards deep in the backfield, meaning he would have to fight just to reach the line of scrimmage.
I'm trying to think of a way a running back can't take the handoff four yards deep in the backfield outside of the snap going straight to him.
Atlanta might have employed some misdirection; or simply had Matt Ryan sneak, starting the play much closer to the line of scrimmage; or play-faked and gone deep for the win.
Because a power running team whose strength isn't deep passes should go against what they do well on fourth down in overtime.
TMQ's law holds: Do a Little Dance If You Want to Gain That Yard.
My law holds as well: Do a Little Dance If You Want to Get Hit for No Gain.
On Monday Night Football, the Vikings punted directly to Randall Cobb, who already had a kick return touchdown this season, and he ran the punt back 80 yards for a score. Deliberately kicking out-of-bounds on every punt would net around 35 yards of field position for the punting team, and eliminate the chance of a touchdown return.
So Gregg thinks every NFL team should punt every ball out of bounds? This would also eliminate the chance of a fumbled catch and probably wouldn't be the best strategy overall.
Chargers leading 3-0 in the season's first Thursday game, Oakland faced fourth-and-1 on the Bolts' 34. Normally, strong-legged Sebastian Janikowski would attempt a field goal, but Janikowski has been nagged by injuries. Hue Jackson sent out the punting unit. Not even in the ultra-conservative NFL would a team punt on fourth-and-1 from the opponent's 34.
Despite the fact Gregg says no team in the NFL would punt from that spot, every week in TMQ he highlights teams who punt at or near this yardage marker.
I noted Mike Shanahan had a sterling won-loss record when John Elway was his quarterback, but has been an average NFL coach with anyone else. Mike Glowacki of Centreville, Md., writes, "As an NFL head coach, Bill Belichick is 131-40 with Tom Brady as his quarterback and 52-63 with anyone else. If you want to be a great coach in the National Football League, it may help to have a great quarterback."
Much like him realizing this year that tight ends get split out wide, Gregg is a little late on the idea it helps a coach to have a great quarterback. I am sure Gregg believes TMQ was the first to bring this idea to the forefront of modern society.
Start the Cave Man: The 1-7 Dolphins facing second-and-goal from the Redskins 1, guard Rich Incognito pulled left and wiped out megabucks Washington safety LaRon Landry; left tackle Jake Long wiped out Geico celebrity linebacker Brian Orakpo;
Ah yes, this is a great example of Gregg's inconsistent use of the word "megabucks," which is used only to trick his audience into believing megabucks and highly drafted players are underachievers. What Gregg actually means is megabucks and #1 overall pick Jake Long wiped out megabucks and typically excellent linebacker Brian Orakpo.
Reggie Bush jogged left for an untouched touchdown.
Gregg means: Megabucks and highly drafted Reggie Bush jogged left for an untouched touchdown.
If Penn State's trustees and new administration really cared about shame at the school, the remainder of the football season would have been canceled.
Why in the hell would Penn State punish the current players and the students at Penn State even more for the actions of the coaches of the football team? I can see arguments for canceling the entire season, but I also don't think this is fair to the current players. It just seems like the administration would be punishing the football players for mistakes the administration made.
Ending the Nittany Lions' football program would prove contrition.
(Penn State) "We're sorry one of our coaches molested forty children. We are going to end the football program to show how sorry we are."
(The public) "Wow! What a gesture. I guess they really showed us how sorry they were. No need for a trial, all is made up by the ending of the football program. Have a good day and carry on, Penn State."
Commentators, including May and Robert Smith of ESPN, have expressed the view that McQueary is a loathsome figure. It is hard to disagree. Perhaps there is some mitigating fact about McQueary not yet known publicly. Based on what is known, he appears to be so heartless and selfish that he considered his career prospects in the football program more important than stopping an apparent act of child abuse.
I absolutely think McQueary is in the wrong. I won't defend McQueary and he was absolutely in the wrong. Just imagine though...imagine if you saw your boss in the same situation he saw Sandusky, wouldn't a little bit of your thought process on how to resolve this moral dilemma go to "If I tell about this, at some point I can't stay anonymous anymore. I will have to testify to what I saw. If for some reason Sandusky is cleared of the charges I am alleging, I can pretty much kiss my coaching career goodbye and could also face a civil suit if my accusations came to light." Choosing your coaching career over what you saw is selfish, but this thought would go through many people's heads when weighing the options to bring this incident to light.
I know this thought would never go through Tim Tebow's head, because he is perfect and all, but for most people this would come to their mind. It doesn't excuse McQueary's decision to seemingly not do much about what he saw, because the answer to this moral quandary seems very obvious. Most people would probably not worry about their career and talk about what they saw, or at least I hope so, but it is very easy to judge McQueary for his quandary while resting comfortably in our homes not having to make this call.
Of course McQueary is involved with the Penn State cover-up and is completely culpable, and I'm not defending him, but I think before calling the police the idea of making sure you saw what you did and could prove what you saw would go into the decision process. Complicating this is when you tell your boss's boss what you saw, he starts to take control of the situation. Would you as McQueary then feel comfortable going over Paterno's head and contacting the police when you see no resolution? Morally, you should do this if it isn't resolved, but once McQueary contacted Paterno about what he saw concerning Sandusky he would essentially be saying a football coaching legend is now culpable for ignoring child rape. Paterno runs the university and at this point by going to the police McQueary would be accusing his boss of child molestation and also accusing a coaching legend of inaction once he learned about this molestation. I'm not excusing McQueary and his silence is absolutely condemnable. I just get irritated by people in situations about moral quandaries acting as if the answer to the quandary is easy. The answer does seem absolutely easy to us, but we all saw how Penn State covered this up, so if McQueary had reported it do we even know action would have been taken?
I know all of these questions had already been asked. Morality quarterbacks sometimes tend to irritate me. Would I have reported it to the police? Absolutely. I also wasn't in that situation so it is easy to be definitive in saying what I would do.
Any player deeply involved in football culture is told over and over again -- by words, by actions and by peer pressure -- that football coaches are godlike figures, and this message is reinforced with physical pain, including the punishment drills nearly all football players endure.
This man who a grand jury alleges would not protect a child is the product of a system that psychologically conditions large numbers of American boys and men, and look what that system turned McQueary into.
Along with stopping high school boys from going to college and causing concussions that cause large amounts of high school boys to become too stupid to test well, football also causes a person not to tell anyone if they see a child being molested. For such a terrible and morally bankrupt sport, Gregg sure loves to write about it every week on Tuesday.
DeSean Jackson was suspended for oversleeping. Most high school districts don't allow an athlete to participate in a game if he or she is late for school on game day. So are the Eagles a professional franchise or a high school team?
So the Eagles shouldn't have punished Jackson at all for sleeping in, which actually means he probably was protesting his lack of a new contract? Is that what Gregg is saying here?
TMQ thinks the kickoff return fumble -- the "krumble" -- is the most damaging turnover, since a team that just scored gets immediate possession deep in opposition territory.
What Gregg doesn't realize is this is one of the best reasons for a punter not to kick the ball out of bounds on every punt attempt, which is exactly what Gregg had suggested earlier in this TMQ.
Cam Newton started only 14 Division I games in college, yet is also playing well. But he's tailed off from a hot early season, throwing for just 212 yards and a 61.7 passer rating as the Panthers were punched in the nose at home, 30-3, by Tennessee.
Newton threw for 256 and 290 yards with 127.5 and 117.6 passer ratings in the two games before this weekend. But no, he's tailed off recently if "recently" is defined as "this past week."
Lately, defensive coordinators have been using a regular Cover 2 secondary, while having a linebacker or third safety to "spy" Newton, following wherever he goes. This is frustrating Newton, who in college did not face defenses designed specifically for him.
I am sure defensive coordinators didn't game plan to stop Cam Newton at Auburn considering he was their best offensive threat. It could be the NFL athletes are better at game planning against Newton, but no, I am sure it is that Newton didn't see any defenses designed to stop him in college. Sure, I believe that.
(College teams have little choice but to go with similar game plans every week, because of practice-time limitations.)
And they can't practice different defensive strategies either apparently.
Panthers linemen Geoff Hangartner and Byron Bell just brushed their men, then turned around to watch Newton go down.
Don't you mean undrafted Byron Bell and unwanted Geoff Hangartner? That's right, Bell was undrafted and Hangartner was cut from the Bills roster in the preseason. Gregg won't call out these players as being undrafted or unwanted players when they make a bad play because he wants to keep forcing his audience to believe only undrafted or unwanted players do well in the NFL.
Then Gregg brings up whether the Warp Speed offenses of college offenses like Toledo and Houston will end up in the NFL and then he tries to disprove the very question he asked. He must have needed to kill space. Also, you know in a couple of years when a team in the NFL succeeds running the Warp Speed offense Gregg will act as if he was the first one to propose if an NFL team would run it. He would do this despite the fact he admits in this TMQ some NFL teams already run quick-snap offenses.
The Bills had 16 takeaways in their first five games, and four takeaways since. There is a big luck component to takeaways. Increasingly it seems Buffalo had good luck with takeaways early, and now is being exposed as second-echelon.
So all of those positive things Gregg said earlier in the year while bragging about the Bills and mentioning how they have undrafted players on their team, will he take those back or admit these undrafted players haven't sustained success? Of course not. He wants you to believe the undrafted free agents were key to the Bills' success but had nothing to do with their recent slide. Gregg accentuates the positive that makes him look correct and then ignores signs he may actually be incorrect.
But the Flying Elvii botched the line call. Right tackle Sebastian Vollmer turned inward to double-team. That left 180-pound Danny Woodhead to block Jets' linebacker Jamaal Westerman, and soon the zebras were signaling safety.
Doesn't Gregg mean "that left undrafted 180-pound Danny Woodhead to block Jets' linebacker Jamaal Westerman"? I wonder if Gregg remembers he wrote this about Woodhead last year:
Woodhead was the all-time, all-division NCAA rushing leader, but he was not drafted. He spent two seasons with the Jets, mostly on the practice squad, then was waived. This season, he has gained 907 yards rushing and receiving for the Patriots -- his rushing average is 5.6 yards per carry -- and, though "too small," has become one of the NFL's best blitz-blocking backs.
I know this is one play, but shouldn't one of the NFL's best blitz-blocking backs pick up Westerman? What's even more interesting is prior to calling Woodhead one of the NFL's best blitz-blocking backs, Gregg said the following when criticizing the Jets:
On a very amusing play, Woodhead at 5-foot-8, 189 pounds and Welker, at 5-9, 185 pounds, lined up as blitz-blocking backs! The Jets believed this, ignoring Woodhead as he snuck through the offensive line for a 35-yard reception.
So in summary, Gregg thinks the Jets were stupid for believing Woodhead would be a blitz-blocking back, even though Woodhead in Gregg's estimation is one of the best blitz-blocking backs in the NFL. Gregg was also not surprised one of the best blitz-blocking backs in the NFL was not able to block a linebacker. I think I'm confused as to whether Woodhead is good at blitz-blocking or not. I think Gregg is even more confused than I am.
With the student body 63 percent female http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/macmurray-college-1717/student-life, that means about a quarter of the school's boys are on the football team.
That appears to be hyperlink in there somewhere that never got hyperlinked. This brings me back to the question of whether anyone edits TMQ or not. I say that no one edits TMQ or else Gregg wouldn't get away with saying some of the things he says. This is because no reasonable person could read TMQ and let Gregg's fictional, non-researched statements like "Julio Jones is a diva" stand without some sort of verification this statement is true.
Next Week: No regular column next week -- my bye week -- though check in for a TMQ placeholder. Regular column resumes on Nov. 29.
One whole week without TMQ! Who in the world will get my blood pressure to be raised in the interim?
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