4 comments MMQB Review: Chris Simms Ain't No Bitch Boy Edition

Peter astounded "us" last week with the news the Patriots weren't simply going to lose the rest of the games during this NFL season and try to get a new franchise quarterback in the 2015 draft. "We" were wrong about the Patriots struggling the rest of the season because they started off the season struggling. Peter also revealed THE MMQB will be covering one of the Thanksgiving games this year, which should be a lot of fun apparently, though I assumed THE MMQB would be covering these games anyway. I guess it's more fun to saturate coverage of one specific game. This week Peter says that "we" shouldn't count out the Cardinals, the rise of the Lions (I'm going to admit I was wrong about Caldwell at some point...I will probably give it two years, so don't worry, I'm on it but I'm also aware that Caldwell has had success with someone else's players before), and still has nothing to say about Matt Schaub sitting the Raiders' bench while collecting a paycheck of $8 million, though he killed Josh Freeman for doing that same thing last year (in terms of the most bizarre things Peter has ever done, eviscerating Freeman on a weekly basis when he earned $2 million over one season as the Vikings' third QB has to be among them). Also, it's good of Peter to help Greg Schiano "prepare for his next job." Nothing like using his website to do a little PR for his buddies. How shameless.

I want to warn everyone this MMQB contains the sentence, "We can win the Super Bowl with Drew Stanton," so the bar for crazy and delusional has been set high. And what do you know? Carson Palmer gets paid and then gets injured. That never happens.

An early Happy Veterans Day to all in uniform, past and present. Thanks to all in the military who make it possible for us to enjoy the lives we lead and feel safe while doing it.

If these veterans knew they were making it safe for Peter to complain about things like bad coffee and people who are taking pictures outside of the Apple store then they would probably quit doing those things to make it safer.

Every NFL season has its eccentricities.

BREAKING NEWS!

Ten Uniquely 2014 Things About Week 10

1. Cleveland is in sole possession of first place in the AFC North. Last time that was the case after 10 weeks: In 1994, when Bill Belichick coached and Vinny Testaverde quarterbacked.

What was Greg Schiano doing at that point? I know you want to tell us, Peter.

2. Brian Hoyer’s agent, Joe Linta, told me Sunday he hasn’t had any discussions about a new contract for the 2015 free-agent-to-be since May. Six months. Hoyer is the most desirable veteran quarterback among a weak crop.

He's the best of the worst! Quick, overpay for him! There are few great quarterbacks available and the Browns MUST overpay to keep Hoyer around.

There is time for Hoyer to fall to earth, of course, but I’ll be amazed if the Browns, seeking a long-term answer at quarterback since forever, let him walk.

Okay, I don't know if I would be amazed since Hoyer doesn't have a long track record of this type of great performance and the Browns have Johnny Manziel sitting on the bench. It would be surprising, but "amazed"? Small things amaze Peter.

4. If the season ended this morning, Green Bay (6-3) wouldn’t be in the playoffs. True fact. Detroit (7-2) has them beat for the division, and Dallas (7-3) and Seattle (6-3 with the head-to-head tiebreaker over Green Bay) would be wild cards.

Wait, Seattle would make the playoffs if the season ended today? I thought their eulogy was written a few weeks ago?

I knew this would happen. Peter didn't bury the Seahawks but he did write previously about how they were in trouble, blah, blah, blah, as if their opening schedule wasn't difficult or anything.

10. As if anyone needed another lesson, gambling on football is fool’s gold; the Steelers looked like the ’07 Patriots the last two weeks and came to the Meadowlands to play a team on an eight-game losing streak—and Pittsburgh got drilled. We wake this morning to learn the 2014 Patriots, nearly flawless the past five games, are field-goal ‘dogs at Indianapolis Sunday night. Keep your money in your pocket. I repeat, keep your money in your pocket.

I'm not even sure I know what this means in terms of gambling advice Peter is giving.

It seems particularly cruel this morning to write about the team with the best record in football in a life-goes-on sort of way. Carson Palmer was the quarterback coach Bruce Arians and GM Steve Keim chose to be their franchise leader when they got their jobs in January 2013. Palmer finally felt like he was in football nirvana. He quit football at 31 rather than continue playing for a franchise he didn’t trust to put a winner on the field, Cincinnati.

Which, for the record, is something the media would have KILLED other players for doing. Palmer is a quarterback, white (not that important, but I believe it plays a part), friendly with the media and just overall is a nice guy. He got a break in terms of the criticism he received for essentially refusing to play. No big deal, but it would be funny if another player tried to pull this trick. Let's see how Andre Johnson would have gotten treated if he sat out refusing to play. Now the irony is that the Bengals have put a winner on the field without Palmer and the biggest question mark is starting to look like the starting quarterback's performance. 

He was traded to the Raiders, another pit of despair, and played two years there.

And of course because he wanted to go to a team committed to winning, he ended up with the Raiders.

As the play progressed, Palmer’s left knee caved in as he tried to avoid the rush on a sack, and he lay on the field, writhing in agony. Nothing is official, and Arians told me Sunday night he wasn’t sure of anything, but all signs point to a torn ACL in Palmer’s left knee, the second time he has suffered that injury, to that knee, in his career.

“We just did the contract, and everybody was on cloud nine,” Arians said from Arizona. “Now this.”

It always happens like that, doesn't it? Though I do have to wonder why the Cardinals signed Palmer to that contract if Bruce Arians feels he can win a Super Bowl with Drew Stanton. Kind of a fishy claim if you ask me. Why re-sign Palmer to that type of money if he really thinks he can win a Super Bowl with Drew Stanton? When Peter was speaking to Arians and Arians made this statement, naturally Peter being the crack reporter he is reports this statement as fact, rather than ask the obvious question. Peter is less reporter, more transcriber/lackey. The obvious question here would be why the Cardinals handed Palmer a contract extension if Arians thought he could win a Super Bowl with Drew Stanton? The answer? Arians is just saying this to be confident in his guy, yet Peter reports on it like this is realistically something Arians believes, which I can't imagine it would be. 

This was the second bit of major drama in Stanton’s day. He and his wife, Kristin, are expecting a child. She was due last Wednesday. He got a text from her Sunday morning, when he’d arrived at the stadium for the game. “The text basically said, Just so you know, you might want to get home pretty quick after the game. She felt like the contractions were coming,” Stanton said.

This was an hour or so after the game, and Stanton had ducked into a Whole Foods on his way home, shopping for dinner. And champagne, in case the baby came.

That's terrible. Drew Stanton is going to give champagne to a newborn baby? What about a stuffed animal or a pacifier instead?

So even though Stanton was shaken to the core by the injury to Palmer, he listened to Arians before he went out for his first play, first-and-10 at the Arizona 11. We’re gonna stay with what we planned. Just try to put some points on the board. Nothing different from what Arians would have said to anyone subbing for an injured player.

So the Cardinals' offense was going to continue to try and score points? I don't know, that's a risky move.

“It’s not gonna stop,” Arians said. “It’s football. There’s gonna be another one, I just don’t know who and when. That’s what we believe. We don’t let up, and we don’t make excuses.”

One more thing.

Here it comes.

“We can win the Super Bowl with Drew Stanton,” Arians said. “There is no doubt in my mind.”

I realize this is coach-speak. I do. Peter reports this as fact and doesn't at least point out that Bruce Arians and Steve Keim were so sure they could win a Super Bowl with Drew Stanton that they gave Carson Palmer a three year extension two days earlier rather than hand the team over to Drew Stanton, who obviously would cost less than Palmer, when Palmer's contract ran out. My point is there is an easy follow-up question, but Peter doesn't care to ask a follow-up question because he thinks coach-speak is just a great way to get a quote. Again, he's not a reporter, he just transcribes what coaches say and then marvels at their brilliance.

There will be a few people in the Cardinals’ offices today pulling for Kristin Stanton to have that baby early in the week. Her husband’s got another big job this week. The football calendar is unforgiving that way.

Drew Stanton will be the first husband to ever have his baby's birth get in the way of something he has to do at work. I don't know how he does it.

The Lions don’t make the dumb mistakes anymore.

This just isn't entirely true. This is a very definitive statement. Remember last year when Peter wrote that Matthew Stafford had matured after sneaking the ball over the goal line against the Cowboys? He was a different QB after that! Except he wasn't, but the Lions are TOTALLY different now. For sure. 

For the third straight game, the Lions won a game they’d trailed late in the fourth quarter. And that, players and staff say, is a direct result of some of the mind games new coach Jim Caldwell is playing.

And these mind games are wonderful because the Lions are winning. That's all that matters. The rest is a bullshit narrative written around the fact the Lions are winning. The mind games will suck if the Lions start off 1-5 next season.

Caldwell might be one of those rarities in the NFL—a coach who is better-suited to be a head coach than a coordinator. 

No, I still don't think he is.

Detroit led in the fourth quarter of its last seven games last season—and won one. This year, the Lions are turning it over less (last nine games last year: 26 turnovers; first nine games this year: 12 turnovers) and winning more.

See the narrative being written around the Lions? The Lions played well enough to win games last year, but couldn't close them out. This year, the Lions are winning the close games and turning the ball over less. Sure, one might think this has to do with some luck, good execution and not turning the ball over. But no, it's totally Jim Caldwell and his mind games.

Caldwell said from his office the other day. “In this league, we see it every year: Teams lose games in the NFL more than they win them. We brought in players and coaches from winning backgrounds—James Ihedigbo and Glover Quin [from Houston], Golden Tate from Seattle, [coordinators] Joe Lombardi from the Saints and Teryl Austin from the Ravens.”

This is a good strategy. Still, a team winning games they lead in the fourth quarter can be chalked up to other things outside of just bringing players from winning backgrounds. It's not narrative-driven enough to just say the Lions are winning the close games this year that they couldn't win last year and part of the reason is they aren't turning the ball over as much.

Caldwell introduced a twice-weekly part of team meetings: The High Cost of Low Living. Each meeting, he’d have an example, culled from the internet or newspaper by longtime senior VP of communications Bill Keenist or someone else on staff, of an athlete or famous person being arrested or doing something stupid publicly. “Common-sense lessons,” said Caldwell. “Like, ‘Don’t be out after 1 a.m.’

The Lions are winning the close games and not turning the ball over because they see examples of players who get in trouble or arrested. If you want to believe, that sounds great. To me, I don't see how these mind games are winning games for the Lions.

“I just think discipline is important,” he said. “It shows up in games.”

Jim Caldwell and I agree. I also think that discipline isn't the only reason the Lions are winning the same close games this year that they lost last year.

Caldwell also took all positions groups out to dinner, one a week, during the offseason. He’d let the players pick the restaurants, then spend two to three hours getting to know them. “Their favorite movies, their favorite book, their families. I’d ask them, ‘Who’s the best point guard in the NBA?’ We’d get some great discussions going. Just to get to know the players as men, as people, is so important. I read a lot, and I always have believed something General Patton says is important: ‘Take care of your men.’ ”

And if/when the Lions start losing then these dinners will become tedious and an example of how Caldwell is a great guy who does a better job of taking care of his men then he does of winning football games. It's how the reverse-narrative sausage works. Winning rules all. Everything is great when a team is winning.

Those are traits these Lions are playing with now. We’ll see if they last for the long haul. Last season, Detroit was 6-2 after eight games and it didn’t last. The proof with Caldwell will be known in a couple of months.

No, like every other head coach, the proof with Caldwell will be known in a couple of years. Plenty of head coaches have succeeded in their first year with a team. Sustaining that success is what separates the good coaches from the average coaches.

Peter King does love his coach-speak and feel-good, team-first stories though doesn't he? He eats them up.

Five quick questions, five quick answers…

With Chris Simms, the former quarterback and NFL quality-control coach, now analyzing the NFL for Bleacher Report and CBS Sports. I reached out because I’ve liked his direct, blunt analysis this season. He said, for instance, that the Eagles may be better off with Mark Sanchez than Nick Foles; and when the Jets’ quarterbacks were struggling mightily, he said he didn’t think his brother, Matt, the third-stringer with the team, should be playing over Michael Vick.

Chris Simms shoots straight from the hip. Peter loves guys like that. Of course he also likes guys who mix hyperbole and coach-speak together to essentially say nothing and he likes coaches who essentially lie to his face, and also likes what most people tell him, unless it's about Josh Freeman who can burn in Hell.

The MMQB: Why the media gig?

Whoa Peter, you only have five questions. Don't go so hard on the first question.

"What's it like to be a Simms?"

"If the world were a violet or a daisy, which would you prefer?"

"You have blonde hair, right? How neat is that?"

Simms: I wanted to get into coaching or get on the track to be a GM. But for the last three years, I was basically a bitch boy, 

Only over the last three years? Major Applewhite would argue differently. But to be clear, Chris Simms wasn't no bitch boy then and never will be now.

Like my dad [Phil] told me, “If you’re going to do this, you can’t fake it.” So I put in the work. I watch the tape. I talk to people I know in the league. I really work at it.

Interesting that "You can't fake it" came from Phil Simms since it's fairly well-known that Simms required a lot of work to get his broadcasting skills to where they are today, work done even after he had hit the air doing analysis for games...including changing his hair style around.

The MMQB: How did you like working for Bill Belichick?

Simms: Loved it. He’s the smartest person I’ve ever been around. His attention to detail just blows me away. What I noticed about him is that the grind of coaching is not a grind to him.

But does Belichick schedule dinner dates with his players? If not, he's dropping the ball to know them as men.

Again with Peter King asking the tough questions though. 

The MMQB: Best player in the league we don’t know yet.

Simms: [Oakland linebacker] Khalil Mack. He’ll be a superstar for a long time. He’s Von Miller-esque.

Very Simms-esque answer.

The MMQB: Ever wonder what would have happened to you if you didn’t rupture your spleen in that game? [Simms suffered a rupture spleen in a 2006 game against Carolina, and started only one game the rest of his career. He retired in 2009, at age 29.]

No Peter, I bet he has never thought about the injury that seemed to ruin his career. It's never crossed his mind I bet. 

Simms: Never a week goes by that I don’t wonder about that. The injury ruined my career.

I think some might argue that having the last name "Simms" helped to make your career a little bit. So there's a bit of a trade-off.

The Niners save their season, and need to play more like Chris Borland.

Considering Chris Borland currently plays for the Niners, just shut up about this.

“Just a little dumb luck,’’ said linebacker Chris Borland, after he recovered a fumble in overtime and Phil Dawson followed with a game-winning field goal in New Orleans. There’s some truth to what Borland says, but to see how he attacked the loose ball, swan-diving in from five feet away, no regard for his own health, is a good lesson for the seasoned pros on the Niners who might not be playing the same sense of desperation. “I didn’t give it a lot of thought,’’ Borland said. “I just reacted. That’s the game right there, that ball on the ground.”

It was embarrassing when no other Niners players attempted to recover the fumble here. I remember earlier in the game when Perrish Cox saw a fumbled football and pulled a cigarette out of his pocket and lit it WHILE THE BALL WAS JUST LAYING ON THE GROUND! Just play more like Chris Borland, 49ers defense that Borland is a member of.

The Fine Fifteen

2. Arizona (8-1). Game of Week 11: Detroit (7-2) at Arizona (8-1). Seems the Cards play one of these prove-it games every two or three weeks. Even without Carson Palmer, this just looks like Arizona’s year.

I don't know if the Cardinals have totally gotten the Drew Stanton experience yet. We'll see. Let's just say I am not as confident as Bruce Arians the Cardinals can win a Super Bowl with Drew Stanton as their starting quarterback.

6. Indianapolis (6-3). Worked out well that the NFL gave the Patriots and Colts the Week 10 bye and a Week 11 meeting. Competitive fairness.

I would certainly hope the NFL didn't specifically give these two teams a week off in preparation for them facing each other. Other NFL teams who also have to play competitive games not off of a bye week would probably be miffed otherwise.

8. Detroit (7-2). Lions have won the past three by 1, 1 and 4 points. I say last year’s Lions would have lost two of those. “We don’t think about that,” Matthew Stafford told me after the tight win over Miami. I do.

It's those dinners and mind games I tell you. It's not just that the Lions are winning the close games they lost last year.

10. Seattle (6-3). I don’t want to deflate any win by any NFL team, and I don’t mean to make light of the Giants’ defensive backfield Sunday at CenturyLink Field, but I do believe that was Elvis “Toast” Patterson playing nickel for the beleaguered and beat-up New York secondary.

Peter doesn't want to deflate the win or make light of the Giants' injuries, but he'll fucking do as he pleases anyway. As I've shown before, when Peter says, "I don't want to do this," then you know he is immediately going to do that thing he claims he doesn't want to do.

14. San Francisco (5-4). There are elements to criticize in Colin Kaepernick’s game Sunday in New Orleans, but he kept the vital play alive at the end of regulation, saving the season with a 51-yard bomb to Michael Crabtree on fourth-and-10 from the Niners’ 22. Now the Niners (at New York Giants, Washington at home) can be relevant for their Thanksgiving Night showdown with Seattle at Levi’s Stadium if they take care of business in two winnable games.

Uh-oh, could the Seattle-San Francisco game be the one that THE MMQB will have so much fun covering on Thanksgiving day?

T-15. Buffalo (5-4). The offense is really limiting the growth of this team. Points in last seven games: 10, 17, 17, 22, 17, 43 (against the Jets) and 13. That’s not going to get it done.

Like Peter told E.J. Manuel to do, maybe Kyle Orton should just throw it deep more often.

Offensive Player of the Week
 
Michael Vick, quarterback, New York Jets. A Jets quarterback, player of the week? Heresy! Classic Vick game, doing just enough with his legs (39 yards rushing, including a nifty 18-yarder), an efficient 10 of 18 for 132 and two touchdowns 

"Efficient" being defined as "Not very good, but he didn't commit a turnover and his team won the game so I have no other idea what to call it."

(including a well-thrown 67-yarder to T.J. Graham). Best things: No interceptions, no fumbles lost, no fumbles period.

As I said, not very good, but he didn't commit any turnovers. Vick was 9-17 for 65 yards if you take away the T.J. Graham catch. You say "efficient" I say "not great, but the Jets won."

Defensive Players of the Week
 
I lied when I promised I’d only give a max of two awards in any category. I cannot whittle down the defensive men from Week 10.

At this point Peter, your readers fully expect you to immediately do something that you claim you will not be doing.

Kyle Shanahan, offensive coordinator, Cleveland. The Browns have gone 3-0, averaging 23 points a game over the past three weeks, without their best offensive weapon, wideout Josh Gordon, and without Pro Bowl center Alex Mack, and, in Thursday’s game at Cincinnati, without starting tight end Jordan Cameron and jitterbug wideout Andrew Hawkins—all either hurt or suspended. Shanahan is playing survival-ball with a cast of low-round picks and training-camp finds, with a quarterback who may or may not be the answer.

But Hoyer is the best of the crop of free agent quarterbacks, so suitors line up to pay for his services as soon as possible!

It's funny that Peter acted shocked earlier in this MMQB that the Browns had not had contract talks with Brian Hoyer since May, yet Peter writes here that Hoyer may or may not be the answer for the Browns at quarterback. Gee Peter, maybe that's the reason the Browns haven't had contract extension talks with Hoyer since May?

Goat of the Week
 
Andy Dalton, quarterback, Cincinnati. It was one of the most mind-numbingly awful performances by a quarterback of this, or any, NFL season. Dalton’s 10-for-33, no-touchdown, three-interception game Thursday in the 24-3 loss to Cleveland reinforced the belief among Bengal partisans that Dalton is not the man to lead the Bengals out of the football wilderness. 

Yeah, that was terrible. I have nothing. Bash away.

“It was definitely not a push-off. I’m running down the field telling myself, ‘Whatever you do, don’t push off.’ It’s interesting how guys grab me everywhere on the field and I put literally two fingers on somebody, and they make that kind of call.”
 
—New Orleans tight end Jimmy Graham, on the offensive pass interference call at the end of the fourth quarter that negated what would have been the winning touchdown.

So allow me to get this straight...a Saints player obviously cheated and then indignantly denies what everyone accepts as obvious cheating or foul play? Noooooooooooo...that doesn't happen. I don't believe a Saints player would deny anything like this happening.

I mean, I have great admiration for Graham the player. But that is just crazy. Graham pushed off, the defender hit the ground, and it enabled him to catch a touchdown pass that rightfully was flagged and called back.

Jimmy Graham should have just used coach-speak and Peter would have nodded and completely let this comment slide.

Many of you have wondered about the NFL’s love affair for the London games. Not surprisingly, it has to do with money, and exposure, and a bet on the globalization of football. There will be three more games at Wembley Stadium next season (Jets-Dolphins, Lions-Chiefs, Bills-Jaguars), so the experiment clearly is not going away.

More than exposure or globalization, it has to do with money. That's all that needs to be said. Whenever the Panthers end up losing a home game to play in London, you will find me writing on this blog pissed off about it. That's what upsets me the most. NFL fans with season tickets are losing a home game (and of course are still stuck with two worthless preseason home games) so that the NFL can expand into other markets. I think it's great the NFL wants to expand. I don't think it's okay the NFL wants to expand while taking away one of the 8 home games that each NFL team gets per season.

Peter shows that the NFL had ticket revenue of $31 million from the three games in London this year. I don't know how that works, but I wonder if season ticket owners for teams that lost a home game had to still pay for the home game they didn't get a chance to attend? If so, having the fans pay for 8 regular season home games instead of 7 regular season games is great revenue for the NFL also.

The bigger question, probably, is how much more the Jacksonville Jaguars can make from a home game in London versus a home game in North Florida. (In exchange for their four-year commitment to playing in London, the Jags receive the full home-team share at Wembley; other teams that give up home games receive what they’d average in a home game in the U.S., and the remainder is shared among all 32 teams.) Assume the Jags would have sold out the game Sunday against Dallas—67,297 seats, at an average ticket price of about $58. The gate at Wembley Stadium would be about $6.7 million more than if the game was played in Jacksonville. 

I would like to know if Jags fans are having to pay for 8 regular season home games and they are getting 7 home games. I would hope not. Either way, if I'm a Jags fan then I'm pissed that I am missing out on 8 regular season home games just so the NFL can expand their brand. Of course, the NFL does whatever the hell it wants to at all times.

MR. STARWOOD PREFERRED MEMBER TRAVEL NOTE OF THE WEEK

I had to drive from Manhattan to Boston on Thursday morning for a breakfast meeting. It’s about 208 miles from point to point. I left Manhattan at 4:50 a.m., sharp. Stopped once, briefly—at a drive-thru Starbucks on the Merritt Parkway in Woodbridge (near New Haven), and, at that hour, managed to avoid traffic everywhere for the first 170 miles … and I started imagining: This could be my first-ever New York-to-Boston drive in less than three hours.

This is Peter's fault. Never start talking or imagining about what good time you are making. It's sure to end quickly. Plus, if Peter had not stopped for coffee perhaps he could have missed some of the traffic or been five minutes ahead of the traffic.

I was 33 miles out when, on the Mass Pike, my dream died. Morning rush into Boston—not good. That traffic is as soul-sucking as the FDR Drive in Manhattan in the morning. Three hours, 33 minutes. Bummer.

Speaking of soul-sucking, how about hearing Peter talk about his frustrations while traveling, especially his frustrations while driving? It's like Peter doesn't think other people have the same inconveniences and issues while traveling, but his are more important because he's Peter King. It's bad enough personally getting stuck in traffic, but having the privilege of hearing about someone else getting stuck in traffic? That defines riveting.

Not a travel note, but a life one I thought you might enjoy.

Probably not.

Most mornings when I am home, I walk out of my apartment on the east side of Manhattan and head over to a bodega a block away and buy the New York Post and New York Daily News. (We get the New York Times and Wall Street Journal home-delivered.)

Look at you Mr. Fancy Pants with your four newspapers you read everyday, including getting two of those home delivered. I hope you don't have to walk in your gold plated bedroom slippers out of the house to pick up these papers you ol' rich boy.

The front pages of the papers are always … interesting. None moreso than Saturday’s Post. I like the Seinfeldian details at the bottom of the story.

So Seinfeldian. I think Peter's dream situation would be to get stuck on a deserted island with only Seinfeld, Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman movies, and news shows anchored by Brian Williams to watch while U2 CD's constantly play in the background. Naturally, there would be a Starbucks barista on-call as well on this deserted island. Peter would never want to leave that island.

TEN THINGS I THINK I THINK

1. I think this is what I liked about Week 10:

b. Receiver Preston Parker of the Giants. A more physical receiver than I’d thought.

I would love to know prior to this past Sunday's action how physical Peter King thought Preston Parker actually was. I'm guessing he had barely heard of Parker.

i. Denard Robinson, with more explosiveness than I thought he had, on a 32-yard touchdown burst against Dallas.

Again, I would love to know how much explosiveness Peter King thought Denard Robinson had. Did Peter not watch Robinson at the University of Michigan? Peter King has more generic previous thoughts about players than I thought he had.

m. Are you kidding me with that flip-pass while getting dragged down, Ben Roethlisberger?

Yes, it was all a joke he was playing on you, Peter. You fell for it!

n. Anquan Boldin: best physical receiver in football.
o. Mike Evans: heir to best physical receiver in football.

Mike Evans is more physical than Peter thought he was.

2. I think this is what I didn’t like about Week 10:

d. Come on, Blake Bortles. Ever throw a touch pass?

Sometimes there is a reason a rookie quarterback doesn't start Week 1 of his rookie season, even after he had a great preseason. Exhibition games are exhibition games and better left to be played in London and then ignored.

f. I know. Alex Rodriguez is a baseball player. Or used to be. I just wanted to emphasize how much I don’t like him. I also cannot figure out how he can keep track of so many lies to so many people.

#hotarodtakes

What Peter liked this week: 

a. Great coverage by Richard Sherman on Odell Beckham on the goal line, forcing a deflected interception into the arms of safety Earl Thomas—and a gutsy return by Thomas. He could have taken a knee eight yards deep in the end zone, but Thomas had the presence to take it out, and he got it out to the Seattle 42.

What Peter didn't like:

k. Please, De’Anthony Thomas. You’re good. You’re not Superman. You cannot field punts at the 2-yard line in the National Football League.

You can't field punts at the 2-yard line in the NFL, but if you intercept a pass eight yards deep in the end zone, feel free to try to bring it out. If it works, Peter is totally cool with it.

5. I think this should be required reading for you this week, whether you love football unconditionally or whether you are having queasy thoughts about football’s place in our society. The title of writer Michael Sokolove’s piece is, “Is football the next tobacco?” Good question, and a thoughtful story.

Actually, the title of the piece that Peter linked is, "How One Lawyer's Crusade Could Change Football Forever." There is a discussion of football as a parallel to tobacco in the article, but not in the title of the piece.

6. I think Carson Palmer re-signing Friday is a tremendous boost to Brian Hoyer’s prospective new deal, wherever it ends up being done. There is not a marquee quarterback (is there ever?) in the 2015 free-agent quarterback pool. The two most interesting—which could change, depending on how Ryan Mallett does with his chance in Houston in the last half of the season—are Hoyer and restricted free-agent Austin Davis of the Rams. How I would rate the top five prospective quarterback free-agents-to-be, in order:

Good, I was dying to know who Peter thought were the top five prospective quarterback free-agents-to-be were. 

Brian Hoyer, Cleveland. Quick release, ability to process info. Has made some big throws under pressure for the Browns during their surprising 6-3 start, and the Browns have had zero conversations about a new contract for Hoyer since May, agent Joe Linta said Sunday. Linta also had Joe Flacco a couple of years ago. Flacco played out his deal and was rewarded after the Ravens won the Super Bowl. Hoyer has nowhere near the résumé of Flacco, of course. But he’s got one thing in common with Flacco. “He’s like Joe,” Linta said. “He’s bet on himself.”

The way Flacco and Hoyer bet on themselves seems a bit different. Flacco had a lot more money to lose if he bombed during his contract year, while Hoyer had money to lose, but probably not quite as much as Flacco did. Flacco probably (and I am assuming, granted) got a pretty good offer from the Ravens prior to his Super Bowl victory with $20 million in guaranteed money at least and gave it up to see if he could increase his value. Hoyer probably wasn't offered anything in that neighborhood in May from the Browns. So yes, they both bet on themselves, but Flacco seemingly had a lot more to lose in terms of money than Hoyer did by turning down the Browns attempts at a contract extension in May.

Mark Sanchez, Philadelphia. Much to see in the next two months, but in the right system, running a fast-paced offense (more to his liking), I think he has a chance to compete to be someone’s starter for a few years.

It's amazing how a few good starts change the narrative around a quarterback.

Austin Davis, St. Louis. He’s restricted, meaning the Rams will have the right to match any offer he gets. But Davis has been impressive under tough circumstances, and much more accurate than the Rams had any right to expect. He’s had 76 percent, 71 percent and 85 percent passing games in the past two months.

Austin Davis has more accuracy than Peter thought he did.

Jake Locker, Tennessee. Maybe, just maybe, the right coach can work on his accuracy issues, which are major. I don’t know what anyone can do about his injury issues, which also are many.

Peter has been talking about improving Locker's accuracy for 3-4 seasons now. He's never been an accurate quarterback. That's just not who he is. Live with it. When he's not injured, he's not terribly accurate. Accuracy can be improved, but it's not always the easiest thing for a quarterback to do.

I have always gotten irritated because Locker's accuracy issues are treated like a little work can improve them. Yes and no. He's never healthy, first off. Second, a comparison of how a Hall of Fame quarterback like Brett Favre improved his accuracy doesn't mean Jake Locker can do the same thing.

9. I think this was a refreshing take from Tony Romo on the future of football in London. He loved the week, said he loves London, and said, “As far as a team in London, I would recommend it for sure. I loved it here.” Music to Roger Goodell’s ears.

Nobody asked Tony if HE wanted to be the guy who played for an NFL team in London did they? Easy to love it when you don't have to worry about being the guy crossing the ocean to play in London for eight games in a season.

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

b. Story of the week: Tyler Dunne of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel with a few thousand interesting words on Brett Favre. Said he doesn’t want to do a TV gig, in part because of the travel and in part because, as he says, “I don’t want to sit around the set all day and hear Warren Sapp tell stories.”

Brett Favre would much rather sit around and hear other people listen to his stories I would assume. Because I'm an asshole, I think Brett Favre doesn't want to do a TV gig because that would involve sharing the spotlight. He much prefers to do interviews every year about himself and how he doesn't want to be in the spotlight, thereby putting himself back in the spotlight. You can't fool me Favre.

c. This could be prominent among the Things I’ll Never Figure Out About College Football: Why, in the midst of the home stretch of the college football season, was Ole Miss hosting the Presbyterian College Blue Hose (enrollment 1,172)? And why was Mississippi State hosting the Tennessee-Martin Skyhawks?

The same reason the NFL plays in London. Ticket revenue from fans attending the game. It's not that hard to figure out.

l. Beernerdness: Found a poor man’s Pliny The Elder in a west side bar in Manhattan on Saturday: Harpoon 100 Barrel series #51, Cambridge Uncommon Pale Lager. The name is long. The beer is worth it. It’s a cool beer—as the name implies, a combination of IPA with lager, leaving a bit of pine taste on the pallet.

I don't see where the name implies a combination of IPA with lager. I see it implies lager.

p. The basketball season is about 314 games long, and people are worried that the Cavaliers started 1-3? Sheesh.

Says the guy in the industry with "people" (and even Peter to an extent) who were worried the Patriots and the Seahawks would struggle all year.

Philadelphia 23, Carolina 16. Funny how all the focus in this game is whether Mark Sanchez can play competently enough for the Eagles to win. I wonder if Cam Newton (last three games: 48.1 percent completions, one touchdown pass) can. 

Well, I guess "we" got our answer didn't we?

The Adieu Haiku

The Cards: 8 and 1.
Even with Carson injured,
still NFC’s best.

Okay buddy. If Bruce Arians can make Drew Stanton into a real live NFL starting quarterback then he is deserving of Coach of the Year. If Arians can win a Super Bowl with Stanton as his quarterback then he should be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame immediately. Color me skeptical that the Cardinals can win a Super Bowl with Stanton as the quarterback. I think this injury definitely doesn't mean the Cardinals are the NFC's best team. Of course, I'm also not smart enough to do haikus and read four newspapers per day either. 

11 comments MMQB Review: How Wrong Were "We" About the Patriots? Edition

Peter King stated that the Steelers organization was "alive" in last week's MMQB. Apparently he thinks that corporations are people. He also was excited that J.J. Watt stood up to the tyranny of a selfie and wondered why "we" don't give team builders like Ron Wolf and Bill Polian the respect they deserve by electing them into the Hall of Fame. Peter seems to be under the impression he is among millions of football fans who have a vote for the football Hall of Fame. This week Peter thinks the NFL was SO intriguing because of all the super-interesting storylines (it's just like a soap opera!), opens up a contest to see which feature of MMQB Peter should add so that he can talk less and less about the past week's NFL action (by the year 2020, there will be a brief paragraph about the NFL games, followed by six pages of beer and coffee ratings, quotes from every NFL head coach, Peter's 18 Tweets of the Week, and an entire page of Peter's own personal thoughts), and calls Brandon Weeden a "Goat of the Week" for playing like Brandon Weeden. 

Here it is, after 1 a.m. Monday on the East Coast, and I can’t quite decide how to write the column this week.

I would use a computer, tablet or some other electronic device so that you can upload MMQB when it is finished.

What’s the lead story of Week 9? Feels like there are six or seven of them.

Help!

How precocious of Peter? Wait, no. What's the opposite of precocious? What's the word for when a person is supposed to do his fucking job and he won't do and instead solicits his readers to do his job for him? Someone help me think of the word I'm trying to use to criticize Peter!

I wonder if Peter would answer me if I emailed him and wrote, "Help! I'm too fucking lazy to do my job! Get your butt down here to North Carolina and help make my job easier by doing it for me!"

Let me talk my way through them, and maybe by thinking out loud and writing things down, I can figure this darn thing out.

Or you could just edit this entire portion out and not have a top story since you have written other MMQB's that didn't feature a top story. I guess that wouldn't seem so anti-precocious and annoying.

“Ben’s having the time of his life playing football right now,” said one of Roethlisberger’s best friends, longtime agent Ryan Tollner. It shows. Having more weapons than just Antonio Brown is the big key for Roethlisberger.

BREAKING: An NFL quarterback is succeeding because he has more offensive weapons to work with, and combined with his own excellent skill, he is having a great year. Who knew having good offensive players would help a quarterback succeed? Not Peter King, that's who. Also, why didn't "we" think of Ben Roethlisberger as a quarterback up there in talent with Brady, Brees, and Manning? Boy, "we" dropped the ball there.

Patriots 43, Broncos 21. Bill Belichick is so far inside Peyton Manning’s head that he’s built a condo in there. Gronk is back, and if he stays upright, there’s no reason why the Patriots can’t win that elusive fourth Big One. And the supporting cast, the one that wasn’t good enough a month ago, continues to add significant pieces for pennies on the dollar.

It's almost like all the reactionary "What's wrong with New England" columns were just that, reactionary. But where is the fun in thinking logically and not overreacting to what happened in the NFL during the previous week?

The Cards have beaten the six-win Eagles and six-win Cowboys back to back. Last week it was a third-round rookie, receiver John Brown, who made the big play to beat Philly. This week: A bunch of defensive no-names held Dallas running back DeMarco Murray under 100 yards for the first time all season, and the Cards scored four touchdowns in a row in The House That Jerry Built.

Well, it certainly helped that Brandon Weeden was the quarterback for the Cowboys. His passing ability didn't exactly scare the Cardinals into focusing on stopping the Cowboys' passing game.

Gut Punch Loss of the Day: San Francisco can’t get the ball into the end zone for the win on three tries from inside the two-yard line in the final minutes, and Colin Kaepernick fumbles on a quarterback sneak on the third play. Rams middle linebacker James Laurinaitis recovers. St. Louis 13, San Francisco 10.

Wait, so you mean Jeff Fisher won a game against a good team and this will help remove the focus from the absolute turd the Rams threw up the week before? What a shock that Fisher is coaching a bi-polar team that has talent. Give him just a few more years. He'll turn it around into a playoff appearance and get credit for doing so. I feel bad for Rams fans.

There they are, the stories of the day. And maybe one more: Is this finally the year, the first year ever, that a home team hosts the Super Bowl? Bruce Arians has told his Cardinals, “Don’t let anyone dress in your lockers.” Translation: We’re hosting the Super Bowl. Let’s actually play in it too.

Thanks for translating this for us, Peter. I know your fucktard readers couldn't understand what Arians was saying and needed someone with good breedin' and knowledge like you to tell us what this sentence exactly meant. 

How fascinating would it be if New England’s next (and for Bill Belichick and Tom Brady, last?) shot at a Super Bowl came in a matchup against the Cardinals? First time back in Glendale since the Tyree Velcro catch ruined the Patriots’ 19-0 dream. Arians versus Belichick; Kangol versus hoody. Todd Bowles taking a shot at stopping Tom Brady.

It would be undeniably riveting for this to happen. Personally, I preferred the Carolina Panthers to play the New England Patriots (or any AFC team) in the Super Bowl, but Peter has just convinced me otherwise. Fuck my favorite NFL team, I want the Super Bowl to contain easily-written narratives with trumped up storylines that can be run into the ground after two days during my two week wait to watch the Super Bowl be played. Why should my preference for the Panthers to be in the Super Bowl matter when there is a Super Bowl matchup that could make it easier for Peter to do his job just waiting to happen?

I’ve made my call: I’ll tell the stories in the order I’ve listed them, and keep you Philly fans waiting one more night.

You could have made the decision and then edited out all of this teeth-gnashing bullshit. Of course, that's not the Peter King Way.

Remember when the Steelers were a meat-and-potatoes team? Franco and Bettis won the Super Bowls here. They were born to run.

Ah yes, the myth of Jerome Bettis continues even after his retirement. He didn't win a Super Bowl. He did average 30.7 rushing yards per game for 12 games as the Steelers made their way to winning a Super Bowl over the Seattle Seahawks, but he didn't run the Steelers to a Super Bowl. In fact, if it weren't for blind luck of Ben Roethlisberger's hand, Bettis would have fumbled the Steelers' chances of winning a Super Bowl away. Of course, Bettis did bump his season averages for a hefty total of 14 carries for 43 whole yards in the Super Bowl, so maybe that's what Peter is referring to. Either way, that's still not very impressive.

There are three points to be made here. One: After a couple of really patchwork seasons for the offensive line in front of him, Roethlisberger likes the nucleus of the line—all are between 24 and 28, and thus should form a solid wall for the near term—and the five starters are playing well.

It's almost like investing in the offensive line can pay off. Shhh...don't tell anyone else.

Two: Look at the value GM Kevin Colbert has found at the receiver position. Four of the six touchdowns Sunday came from wideouts—Martavis Bryant (two) and Markus Wheaton and Antonio Bryant (one each). Bryant has played three NFL games now and scored five touchdowns.

So the Steelers also tried to find good players later in the draft, as opposed to wasting these picks on players whose names sound really cool?

Roethlisberger also has a couple of veteran catchers, Lance Moore and Darrius Heyward-Bey, who rotate in. But Brown, Wheaton and Bryant are 26, 23 and 22, respectively, and could be a dangerous threesome for the rest of the 32-year-old Roethlisberger’s days.

I'm not sure if Peter King is under the impression that Ben Roethlisberger is going to die in a couple of years, he thinks NFL players die immediately after retiring, or he is phrasing this sentence poorly, but I doubt Brown, Wheaton and Bryant will be a dangerous threesome for the next 40-50 years.

Three: Roethlisberger seems to have put his wild days behind him. 

Ah yes, I remember about my wild days when women would accuse me of sexual assault every once in a while. I'm glad those days are behind me now, but man, I was just acting wild out there. I can tell from the language he uses here, Peter knows what I'm talking about. 

He’s married with two children now. “Life has more meaning for him now,” Tollner said. “He has a different motivation than just football. He’s happy to be married and to be a dad. You go over to his house and it’s filled with baby toys and a real family focus. I think that helps him in football.”

The key to playing quarterback at a high level in the NFL? Baby toys, of course.

Now, Akeem Ayers, Jonathan Casillas and Tim Wright were not major players in this defining win for New England. If you took them off the field Sunday in Foxboro, New England still would have beaten Denver handily, I’m sure. But those three contributed bit parts, and this is the way Bill Belichick builds a team. The active roster, one through 53, has players whose roles will rise and fall through the course of the season.

I know the Patriots are a good team and have been a very good team for a long time. Belichick clearly knows what he is doing. But a lot of NFL teams are built with the intention of having a deep roster and ineffectiveness, injuries and just personnel changes will cause there to be players whose roles rise and fall through the course of the season. That's just how it goes. It just so happens Belichick finds players who fit a role or excel in a certain role for the Patriots. He isn't inventing a new way of building a roster and it's not like other NFL teams don't have players whose roles will rise and fall throughout the season. That's the intention, but Belichick and the Patriots seem to do it better.

Ayers, in his second game after coming from Tennessee in a trade, actually made a big play in the game, the only sack of Peyton Manning.

Oh, he "actually" made a big play in the game? It wasn't a joke played by someone that Ayers made a big play?

Along with the use of the word "literally" in non-literal fashion, I think the use of the word "actually" when it's not necessary is becoming one of my old man pet peeves.

(Person A) "Where did you go on vacation this year?"

(Person B) "We actually went to the beach."

Using the word "actually" when there is no use for it in a sentence annoys me. (shakes fist at a cloud)

Again: This has only a little to do with a 22-point victory over Denver. And Belichick could find some other way to fill his roster with complementary football players. But I would argue that the Patriots traded a guard who was in decline and likely has one to three years left, and acquired a starting linebacker, an important tight end because of their heavy tight-end usage normally, a contributor on special teams and a high fourth-round pick next year … and swapped spots twice late on day three. It’s just a smart way to build a deep team.

These are all very good trades. Of course, once (if) the Patriots offensive line struggles again the questions of "Why did the Patriots trade Mankins?" will rise. It's like a reflex.

And again, every NFL team wants to make smart trades and the Titans and Buccaneers traded players they had no use for in exchange for better draft picks.

The Miami coach has been through the wringer. A year ago he was worrying more about the Richie Incognito-Jonathan Martin affair, which nearly swept him out of his job, than about football. He wasn’t off to such a hot start this year either, with Aaron Rodgers’ last-minute fake-spike pass setting up the touchdown that dropped Miami to 2-3 in Week 6.

That happened three weeks ago. Peter is acting like Rodgers' fake spike happened back in early September by stating the Dolphins weren't off to a "hot start." I don't know, I'm probably arguing semantics here, but this fake spike only happened three weeks ago.

We’ll find out how legit Miami is over the next three weeks. The Dolphins are at Detroit Sunday, home to Buffalo, then at Denver. If they come out of that 2-1, they’ll be serious Wild Card contenders.

No, they'll "actually" be serious Wild Card contenders.

The 49ers had no business losing that game.

(Peter looks disapproving over his glasses at the 49ers for losing this game, then shakes his head)

They had the ball, first-and-goal at the Rams two-yard line, with 42 seconds and one timeout left. San Francisco trailed 13-10. The Niners had three shots for the win, and a chip-shot field goal to force overtime if they couldn’t punch it in. Or four shots, if Jim Harbaugh was feeling lucky.

First down: Short pass to the right to Michael Crabtree, close to the goal line. Marked down at the one.

Gregg Easterbrook is going to be pissed that Colin Kaepernick tried to throw the football to his best wide receiver when the game was on the line. Gregg would implore the 49ers to do something no one would expect rather than try to get the ball to their best wide receiver.

Third down: Heavy formation. Kaepernick under center. He took the snap, fumbled it in his hands, grabbed for it and started moving forward. Fullback Bruce Miller bear-hugged him and pushed the quarterback forward. But the replays showed Kaepernick, in mid-scrum, losing the handle totally and the ball falling to the turf, just over the goal line.

(Marvin Demoff whispers in Peter's ear to get some quotes from a Rams player for MMQB regarding how the 49ers didn't use a smart strategy. Just point out the play-calling for the 49ers wasn't good and let a Rams player say that.)

“I was shocked to see it there, of course,’’ said Laurinaitis. “The whole play was surprising. The play before, they go play-action and don’t give it to Gore. Then on the last play, they don’t give to Gore either. But I could sense when they got on the ball they were probably going to sneak it. You could just tell in their mannerisms, their body language, the formation.

See, Jeff Fisher had his team so prepared that they knew what the play would be before it was even run. Now THAT is how an NFL coach prepares his team for a game.

“As soon as I saw the ball on the ground, I just grabbed and tried to spin around right away to show the umpire. Like, ‘Ball’s loose! I got it! I got it! Our ball! Our ball!’ They looked at me and ruled it was our ball, which obviously was the right call.

Well I mean, obviously. Though replays didn't really show anything obvious, it was just really obvious that the Rams had the ball and should have kept possession.

On replay, it was impossible to tell when Kaepernick last had any sort of possession.

(Marvin Demoff smacks Peter in the back of the head and tells him to never contradict James Laurinaitis.)

But once it was ruled a fumble on the field, it was impossible to overturn because there were no views of the play that showed Kaepernick with possession past the plane of the goal line.

(Marvin Demoff pats Peter on the back)

One final point about the Rams here: They had eight sacks after having but five in the first seven games. The breakout came in part because of changeups that defensive coordinator Gregg Williams threw at San Francisco. “We spied them,” said Laurinaitis, “and we had a couple of sacks from blitzes. We blitzed from the left a lot [opposite Robert Quinn’s side]. And we won the one-on-one matchups a lot. There’s no magic potion sometimes—you just have to win the battle with the guys across from you.”

This is a reminder that the Rams are a talented football team. It would be nice if they showed it every week, but Fisher has always had Harbaugh's number for some reason.

New ideas at The MMQB

Help Peter King think of new ideas, because as you can see, he's been tapped out for a while now. He has to add more content that takes away from the original purpose of MMQB. That purpose at one point was a weekly NFL column that wrapped up the weekend's NFL action and gave insider information. Now MMQB is a chance for Peter to talk about his life, what he likes and doesn't like, anything else he may find interesting, and he will mention a few NFL-related items when he has time.

Having an argument with a buddy, or some loser on Twitter? Let Greg Bedard, our resident Wet Blanket of Reason (a well-earned title, trust us, from his Boston Globe days) be the objective tiebreaker in “Settle This.” What we’re looking for are current arguments, not all-time discussions, to broker. Who has been better in 2014, Aqib Talib or Darrelle Revis? Want to know why one player is playing over another on your favorite team? Why did they call that play on third-and-four? Who was to blame for that busted coverage that cost you the game? Those are types of questions we want. If Greg can’t figure it, he’ll ask someone in the know who can. Send your dilemmas/puzzlers/arguments-that-need-to-be-solved to talkback@themmqb.com, with “Settle This” atop your query.

Or you could just not get in an argument with some loser on Twitter or realize after almost a week has gone by that neither party may care too much about the answer anymore.

New idea 2: We at The MMQB love Thanksgiving football. In particular, we love high school football on Thanksgiving. And we want to publicize the best Thanksgiving Day high school games in the country.

More filler! Who says "no" to more filler in MMQB? Definitely not Peter King.

New idea 3: We will pick one Thanksgiving Day game to cover. And we’ll write it up big for the day after the game. Now that’s going to be fun.

It's going to be a fucking blast. Because I know the one thing I believe is that the Dallas Cowboys don't get enough coverage by the media, so certainly an increased focus on a game played during a day when the Cowboys always play is something I can't help but think will be a happy helping of fun.

This has zero to do with football, but it’s compelling.

Peter is right about both of these things. It is a compelling story about a "St. Louis Dispatch" Cardinals' beat writer covering Oscar Taveras' funeral. It's a good story and worth a read. It also doesn't deal with the NFL. The noteworthy part of this section of MMQB is that Peter writes,

Derrick Goold, the 39-year-old Cardinals beat man for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and Chris Lee, a photographer for the Post-Dispatch, landed in the Dominican Republic on Tuesday at 1:15 p.m. Dominican time. (For the purposes of this story, I will use Dominican time throughout—which is Eastern Time.)

So just use Eastern Time. It's easier for your readers to understand and as long as they know Dominican time is the same as Eastern Standard Time there will be no confusion. This is just an example of Peter trying to be "cultural" and because the story takes place in the Dominican Republic he's trying to be haughty and use Dominican time.
 
The Fine Fifteen

2. Arizona (7-1). Fantastic orchestration on both sides of the ball,

"Very symphonic" is how Peter would describe the Cardinals' play this year.

with defensive coordinator Todd Bowles dialing up an iron curtain to hold DeMarco Murray under 100 yards for the first time all season, and coach Bruce Arians calling the shots on 21 unanswered points for the offense.

And for the sake of honesty, let's give the Cardinals credit, but also realize without their starting quarterback and a good running game then the Dallas defense (a defense that had been on the field for fewer plays than any other NFL defense) isn't going to be able to win games for the Cowboys. So give the Cardinals credit, but also realize they beat a team that had a one-dimensional offense, which led to the defense being exposed more.

Think Cardinals D knew a run up the middle was coming? pic.twitter.com/DYmK922ZD2
— Michael David Smith (@MichaelDavSmith) November 2, 2014

That's what Murray was trying to run against.

5. Green Bay (5-3). Really liked this piece for The MMQB by A.J. Hawk, on what a player does in his bye week.

Peter likes an article that appeared on the web site he founded. There's a shock and recommendation you can believe is entirely truthful and without any ulterior motives.

6. Indianapolis (5-3). America, get to know T.Y. Hilton. What Harrison and Wayne were to Peyton Manning, Hilton will be to Andrew Luck.

America knows him. Stop acting like your readers are uninformed morons and you must talk down to them in order to educate them on the things they should know, but don't.

11. Seattle (5-3). You should know by now that nothing in 2014 will be easy for Seattle. Nothing. Not even finishing off the 0-8 Raiders at home, with a Seabass onside kick almost lost in the last two minutes.

When were things easy for the Seahawks last season? They aren't built to blow teams out, even if they do sometimes blow teams out. Last season the Seahawks won games (including the playoffs) by seven points or less 10 times. That's out of 19 games. This doesn't include the game they won by 8 points. The Seahawks didn't win games easily last year.

Special Teams Player of the Week
 
Jason Witten, tight end, Dallas. On the last play of the first half of Arizona-Dallas, the Cards blocked a field goal, and speedy Patrick Peterson picked up the loose ball and sprinted for the end zone. Running from across the field to cut down the angle was Witten, who, in case you don’t actually watch football, is not as fast as Peterson.

This is the sort of "talking down" that Peter tends to do in MMQB. Why would someone who reads MMQB every week not watch football? I get that Peter is using sarcasm, but he doesn't even go with the assumption that those who read MMQB already know Peterson is faster than Witten. He chose to go with the readers of MMQB not holding this knowledge and being sarcastic from there. It's like it's in Peter's nature to be haughty.

Witten’s stop was tough not just because of Peterson’s speed, but also because of Peterson’s elusiveness.

Now this is analysis. It's Peterson's speed AND his elusiveness that makes him so hard to catch? Somebody should have him return punts. I bet he'd be great at it.

Goats of the Week

Colin Kaepernick, quarterback, San Francisco. You cannot fumble the game-deciding quarterback sneak. You simply cannot.

Colin Kaepernick seems to think he didn't fumble the game-deciding quarterback sneak and that he crossed the goal line. 

Brandon Weeden, quarterback, Dallas. His numbers in the 28-17 loss to Arizona were not necessarily goat-worthy (18 of 33, 183 yards, one TD, two picks), but you never had the feeling watching the game that Dallas had a prayer.

Come on, it's Brandon Weeden. He is what he is. Why call him a "goat" for playing like Brandon Weeden plays? It's unfair. To call him a "goat" would be to indicate that he could come out and potentially play well against a very good Arizona Cardinals defense.

Weeden could never get anything going, and from the looks of his chemistry with his receivers—or lack thereof—he doesn’t seem to be held in the highest regard by the men he’s throwing to.

Dez Bryant doesn't hold very many people in high regard. Weeden wasn't a great starter in Cleveland. What makes anyone think that he could come in and play well as a backup against the Cardinals defense running a new offense for him where there is pressure on him to succeed?

“THINK!”

—Dallas wide receiver Dez Bryant, on the sidelines of the Cowboys’ loss Sunday, to quarterback Brandon Weeden.

Does Dez Bryant mean Weeden should do what Bryant obviously wasn't doing when yelling at his quarterback on the sidelines during a nationally televised game?

And as he does on a yearly basis, Peter marvels at how often Peyton Manning and Tom Brady meet in either the regular season or the postseason.

One other note: 2015 would seem to be NBC’s year to get Brady-Manning XVII, assuming it’s played. The league, since 2009, has alternated their meetings between NBC’s Sunday night package (2009, 2011 and 2013) and CBS’ Sunday afternoon package (2010, 2012, 2014). NBC flexed out of the game in 2011 because Manning was injured and didn’t play that season.

This is for those people who are very concerned about knowing which network carried the Brady-Manning games (not the Patriots-Colts/Broncos games, because obviously these games entail only two quarterbacks playing each other and not two teams playing each other led by these two quarterbacks) since 2009. So I'm guessing there may be five people interested in this type of information. I enjoy watching the Brady-Manning games, but the infatuation sportswriters like Peter King have with these games makes me laugh to myself a lot.

Mr. Starwood Preferred Travel Note of the Week

No travel note per se today, but an invitation:

Oh good, there is no travel note "in itself." I was worried there was just no travel note.

There were 9 rookie receivers w/ at least 75 receiving yards last week, most in single week in NFL history. All drafted in 1st 118 picks.
— Gil Brandt (@Gil_Brandt) October 29, 2014

But undrafted players...Gregg Easterbrook weeps.

I'm just kidding, Gregg Easterbrook won't weep. He'll just ignore the success of the receivers drafted early in the NFL Draft and focus only on guys like Allen Hurns.

Ten Things I Think I Think

1. I think this is what I liked about Week 9:

a. Vikings power-back Matt Asiata, who’s a Bettis-like goal-line sniffer when he gets close to scoring.

Except Matt Asiata isn't going to get in the Hall of Fame based upon his ability to score touchdowns, be friendly with the media, and play for a team that was largely successful during his career.

b. Austin Davis continues to show he belongs, and not just as roster filler.

See, Jeff Fisher knew what he was doing by putting all of his eggs into Sam Bradford's basket and then signing Shaun Hill to be the backup quarterback. He was just motivating Austin Davis so he would be ready to play once Bradford went down with an injury. It's all part of the plan. Just give it time.

As does Kenny Britt, who caught a second-quarter touchdown from Davis against the Niners.

Kenny Britt was a first round pick and is 26 years old. He better show he belongs as something more then roster filler. I think it's to be expected that Britt would be more than just a guy in the receiver rotation.

e. Mark Ingram, workhorse back. Thirty carries, 100 yards, two touchdowns in the 28-10 win over Carolina. Where has this Mark Ingram been?

Yes, where has the Mark Ingram that averages 3.3 yards per carry been? He's averaged over 4 yards per carry every season in his career, but Peter wants that Mark Ingram who can get the ball 350 times per year and have just over 1,100 yards rushing. That's VERY impressive to Peter.

n. Larry Fitzgerald with the onside-kick catch. The man is versatile.

Who knew Larry Fitzgerald, a man who makes a living catching footballs with his hands, could be so good at catching a football with his hands?

q. Oakland’s effort.

That Tony Sparano, he deserves another shot at being an NFL head coach. Keep pumping up those Bill Parcells guys!

2. I think this is what I didn’t like about Week 9:

g. Five drops for Arizona receivers in the first 35 minutes.

Imagine how many drops they would have if they had Brandon Weeden throwing them the football.

i. Blake Bortles makes too many dumb throws. He’s full of potential, obviously, but he’s got to think about the dangerous throws he makes.

But the preseason...he played well...Jacksonville should have started him...they started Chad Henne instead. Maybe the Jaguars knew what they were doing by not having Bortles play during his rookie season?

j. Cannot believe Colin Kaepernick fumbled the quarterback sneak. That’s the difference between being in the pennant race in the West and being out of it.

Okay, simmer the hell down. Kaepernick should have not fumbled the snap, but he also seems to think he got across the goal line. If the call had been that he did get across the goal line then I'm not sure the call would have been overturned.

3. I think it’s not time to get Derek Anderson warmed up in the bullpen or anything, but is anyone in Carolina alarmed that Cam Newton has completed 48 percent of his throws in the last three weeks?

I don't know Peter, you are a fucking NFL reporter, perhaps this would be a good time to find out if anyone in Carolina is alarmed. I think people in Carolina are more alarmed that four undrafted free agents are protecting Cam, including two rookie undrafted free agents and a right tackle who was a defensive tackle two years ago. Cam has been horrible the past few weeks, but this just happened to coincide with his protection sucking and his wide receivers still being Jerricho Cotchery, Jason Avant, and two rookies. So yeah, I would say there is concern, but it's your job to find out the answer to this questions. I guess that's too much work. After all, Peter isn't in the "information accumulation business" at all. He's in the "ask readers of MMQB questions he could find out and report on, but instead he relays his latest running time on the treadmill and which pumpkin beer he has tried recently" business.

Not to toot my own horn, but I called the offensive line "a disaster" in my 2014 NFL preview post and that was before three of the starters got injured. A lack of protection isn't a new issue. To say Newton's performance has fallen off is true. He trusts no one around him and his play has decline accordingly.

Until now, Newton hasn’t had a three-game stretch in his 3.5-year career in which he’s been a sub-50-percent passer.

And until now, he had not had four undrafted free agents protecting him. He's been bad, but it's very lazy to not look at the entirety of the situation. That's how Peter King is though. He simplifies his takes because it's way too much effort to take time to investigate answers to his questions. This is how Brandon Weeden gets called "a goat" for playing like Brandon Weeden. This is also how criticism of Tom Brady sways one way or another depending on how his offensive line is playing.

4. I think this is the one observation we’ll all be making later this week, after everyone who was present for the June 16 Ray Rice discipline hearing in Roger Goodell’s office is interviewed by the appeals officer in the case: Why on God’s green earth aren’t disciplinary hearings taped—or at least why isn’t a stenographer present to take precise transcripts?

There's no use in taping it, Roger Goodell will just claim he never saw the tape and therefore can't say for sure what he testified to. 

6. I think we can pretty safely say this morning that the Philip Rivers for MVP campaign has gone pffffffffft. It’s over.

This is also an example of where Peter isn't looking at the entirety of the situation. So if Philip Rivers' MVP campaign is over, does that mean his playing outstanding during the last half of the season wouldn't push him right back in the MVP race? Of course not, but Peter is just making a knee-jerk reaction.

9. I think Tony Romo plays in London against the Jaguars on Sunday, and if he doesn’t—either because he aggravates his back or it tightens up on the nine-hour flight to London—I think the Jags win the game.

If Tony Romo is so important to the Cowboys team, doesn't this mean he should be the MVP? If the Cowboys are 6-2 with Romo as the starter, but can't beat one of the worst teams in the NFL without him, then I would say that's a pretty good case for MVP.

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

d. RIP Thomas Menino, five-term mayor of Boston. No one loved his city more.

e. Stats I love about Menino: The Boston Globe polled Bostonians late in his term and asked if they approved of the job Menino was doing; 74 percent said yes. Seventy-four percent approval! Who gets that? Big Papi wouldn’t get 74 percent approval in Boston!

Yes, he would Peter.

And how about this, also from late in his tenure: Some 65 percent of Boston residents said they had personally met the mayor. That’s not some little hamlet. That’s a big-league city.

Congratulations on the compliment, city of Boston. Peter King considers you to be a big-league city. You should, and undoubtedly do, feel honored.

f. He, did, however, lead America in malaprops. He said “Varitek” kicked an “ionic” field goal—the one Adam Vinatieri made in the snow in the playoff win over the Raiders. And he said in 2012 during a Patriots playoff run: “I mean Brady has those wide receivers out there, the uh, you know Grabowski, Hernandez, uh, Wes Weckler, I mean he has them all.” I think that just made people love him more.

It sounds like Menino didn't know the sports teams he was trying so hard to reference very well. I'm guessing Peter doesn't know the definition of "malaprop," because it doesn't mean "a phrase where facts are humorously gotten wrong." Now "ionic" is a malaprop, but not knowing who the Patriots kicker is and getting the names of the Patriots receivers wrong are not. That's just simply getting facts wrong. 

h. You know what really stood out to me in Game 7?

That Madison Bumgarner was pitching well and you had no idea who he was prior to the World Series beginning? But now, he's the Jon Lester of the San Francisco Giants!

o. World Series Game 7 rating in New York on Wednesday night: 14.

p. Brooklyn Nets season-opener rating in New York on Wednesday night: 0.45.

THE NBA IS DYING! QUICK, SOMEONE WRITE THIS COLUMN ABOUT HOW THE NBA IS DYING!

r. Coffeenerdness: Starbucks is about to offer home delivery? Bedard’s right: I will never leave my apartment again.

The citizens of New York City who are tired of Peter King staring at them and then criticizing them for the way they act in public want to know if this is a promise Peter is willing to keep.

s. Beernerdness: The Troegs “Master of Pumpkin” is one of the most interesting pumpkin beers I’ve encountered. The spices are rampant,

Rampant, I tell you! Those spices are everywhere!

as is the sweetness, and the pumpkin flavor is just shy of overwhelming.

Just shy, so the pumpkin flavor is "whelming" to Peter.

For my money, it is the third-most interesting pumpkin beer I have had, behind Southern Tier Pumking (my favorite, by a mile) and Saranac Pumpkin Ale.

Or if Peter King referred to beers in the way he referred to Derek Jeter, the "Master of Pumpkin" is the third-best pumpkin beer of Peter's lifetime.

It’s interesting how much time and energy and cost is put into pumpkin beers these days. Don’t get me wrong; I’m glad about it. I just can’t try them all and stay functioning.

Says the guy who drinks multiple lattes in a day.

v. I was proud of that until Caroline Wozniacki, who had never made more than a 13-mile run in her life, ran the 26.2-mile New York City Marathon in 3 hours and 26 minutes, That’s a 7:53-minute-per-mile pace. That, Caroline Wozniacki, is just awesome.

It's almost like being a world-class tennis player has kept her in good shape or something.

x. Hard to figure out why college football teams don’t devote more time and more effort in recruiting prospects to kick field goals. Kicking in college football is amateur-hour run amok.

Peter should totally tell a CNNSI college football writer his opinion here and maybe he can cause change at the NCAA level. Some teams do recruit prospects to kick field goals.

The Adieu Haiku
Way back in the day,
the Pats were dead and buried.
Five long weeks ago.

Not all of "us" buried them, though I am sure Peter would say that "we" buried the Patriots too soon. After all, whatever the media thinks is what NFL fans think too.

11 comments MMQB Review: The Game of the Year For This Week Edition

This weekend had a pretty good opening round of NFL Playoff Games, though there is definitely room for improvement next weekend since 3 of the games were over by the third quarter. I am really excited for next weekend's games to see how they go since 3 of the 4 teams that had a bye week this past week were for one reason or another not playing all that well when the season ended. This weekend we learned that the Bengals really weren't holding that much back last week, the Eagles probably should try to run the ball at least once or twice a game just to change things up, the Patriots actually can look human at home in the playoffs for once and that Kurt Warner really shouldn't retire after this season.

One other thing I personally learned is how Larry Fitzgerald dominates in the playoffs. It's so easy I never thought of it. He just commits offensive pass interference and hopes the officials don't call it. I'm being kind of tongue in cheek but I do find it interesting the two touchdown receptions Fitzgerald had on Sunday ended with Charles Woodson on the ground yards away from Fitzgerald as he scored a touchdown. The first one was borderline, where he and Woodson got "tangled up" even though Fitzgerald didn't seem to have a problem being tangled, so I can accept that one. The second one was blatant. Woodson dared to cover Fitzgerald so he just extended his arms, pushed Woodson, ran him the hell over and then proceeded to make a great one-handed touchdown catch. It was brutally blatant. It certainly looked like he just ran over Woodson on his way to the touchdown and the officials completely missed it. It probably wouldn't have made a difference in the game (since the Cardinals could score any time they wanted), but I feel like it had to be acknowledged.

Peter King also has some thoughts on the playoff games this weekend.

The game of the year came when football fans needed it, because face it: There's more suspense in a three-game Marlins-Nationals series than there was in the first three games of wild-card weekend.

The other NFL Playoff games were about as exciting as three baseball games between teams that refuse to spend $100 million dollars on players and play in the inferior National League. That's how boring they were. They should just contract these two baseball teams and give the players to the Red Sox and Yankees so there can be real baseball played. In fact, just contract every MLB team and let the Red Sox and the Yankees play every day of every week for 162 games.

I feel for Packers fans this morning. That's an excruciating loss. The worst. It'll take days, weeks, to get over it, I'm sure. But that's sports. Sometimes you get your heart broken, and the only way to not get your heart broken is to not fall in love.

Peter learned this lesson the hard way with Brett Favre. Look for their love story to be played out in a movie coming to theaters near you called "(500) Training Camp Days of Summer."

And there is much to love about this Green Bay team. The quarterback's scary good, even if he did hold on to the ball too long on the last play of the season.

Dammit Aaron Rodgers, throw an interception in overtime when you are being pressured rather than risk getting sacked and having to punt! What were you thinking when you were worrying about ball security in overtime in the playoffs? Throw the ball somewhere to an area of the field. That's what Brett Favre would do (and did against the Giants in 2008). Be like Brett, just throw the ball up for grabs. That's the best way to quarterback in overtime in a playoff game.

These Packers are going to be good for a long time.

Ok, simmer down Peter. Let's not go overboard quite yet. This was one playoff game where the defense gave up 52 points. I don't have them on my list of Super Bowl contenders for next year until they improve the defense.

I don't like to judge active players for the Hall, and I won't.

Cue Peter not judging Kurt Warner in the Hall of Fame in 3,2,1...

But Kurt Warner is a great football player, and a great pressure football player. He played the best pressure game of a career knocking on Canton's door (I mean the best 60-minute game, not the best Super Bowl quarter)...Warner's 9-3 in the playoffs, with one Super Bowl and one Super Bowl MVP. In the regular season, he compares favorably to Hall of Famer Troy Aikman, with just 598 fewer yards, a better touchdown-to-interception ratio (208-128 to Aikman's 165-141) and four percentage points more accurate (.655 for Warner, .615 for Aikman); Aikman, who started 40 more games, has 27 more victories than Warner.

When Peter says he isn't going to do something, immediately look for him to do exactly what he wasn't going to do in the next group of sentences.

Warner somehow threw a ball into the end zone, and Fitzgerald -- after getting away with offensive pass interference by plowing over Charles Woodson -- dove and made a brilliant one-handed catch.

I am glad someone else noticed this. Larry Fitzgerald must be a ghost because the announcers barely mentioned it, and just kind of glossed over the pass interference. They were more focused on the holding non-call against the Cardinals which ended up being a personal foul on Green Bay because Jenkins got held and pushed into Kurt Warner's face.

(I hate complaining about calls that are in a game I don't care about, but I like good officiating and it wasn't great officiating in that game)

When punter Steve Weatherford was kayoed from the Jets-Bengals game two minutes before kickoff due to an irregular heartbeat, Feely, who hadn't punted in a game in his nine-year NFL career, got the call.

I know an irregular heartbeat is serious, but couldn't he just have punted the ball out of bounds like Feely did? It made sense that Feely punted in the game but this still bothered me. Even though I know an irregular heartbeat is serious, he punts the ball and in a playoff game wouldn't there be a way to make sure he didn't overexert himself other than to kick the ball? I am sure Weatherford wanted to kick and the training staff didn't want to be responsible for him dying on the field. I just like to ask insensitive questions.

Cowboys 34, Eagles 14: Dallas has a lot of ways to beat you. First of all, Charles Barkley ... Chuck, Chuck, Chuck. Are you serious? On the NBC air, he said, "Donovan McNabb is the most underrated player in Eagles history.'' Wow. Some statement. We're going to part ways on this one, big fella.

Who does Peter King thinks is the most underrated player in Eagles history? Brett Favre.

Seriously, I bet Peter thinks a guy like Reggie White is the most underrated player in Eagles history. I am sure his selection would be equally as asinine as Charles Barkley's selection.

Ravens33, Patriots 14: It wasn't that close. New England was woefully outmatched on both sides of the ball for the first time in a playoff game in the Belichick Era. I think there's trouble in Red Sox City, but the team is certainly salvageable.

Correct me if I am wrong, but I don't think the Patriots are actually located in Boston, which is actually Red Sox City. I get his point, but I'm just saying...

A traffic jam at the Hall of Fame. The Hall cut the list from 25 semi-finalists to 15 by eliminating, among others, Paul Tagliabue (it was hopeless for him this year with the labor strife some voters trace back to him), Steve Tasker (I am weeping), Cliff Branch (if Lynn Swann is in, so should he)

Fine then, let's take Lynn Swann out of the Hall of Fame. I have talked about this before, but Swann never had great statistics and though he was important to the Steelers of the 70's, I don't think this should have been enough to get him in the Hall of Fame, especially with another Hall of Fame receiver on the other side of the field in John Stallworth. Swann is the floor for Hall of Fame receivers in my mind.

1. Regarding the non-facemask call on the last play of Arizona-Green Bay: I've watched the TiVoed combination of replays six times now. Arizona's Michael Adams blitzes, dislodges the ball from Green Bay quarterback Aaron Rodgers, rakes his hands over the facemask of Rodgers, then appears to grab the facemask, and the ball is inadvertently kicked by Rodgers...Adams keeps his hands on the mask as he plows into Rodgers and brings him to the ground. Adams didn't tackle him by the mask, but his hand did stay secured on the mask as Rodgers fell to the ground.

This would have been a tough call to make against the Cardinals, I don't know if the official should make the call honestly. Of course Peter has to go and defend the official on the play, which makes me question the call more...

The referee, Scott Green, is the official on the crew with the responsibility of watching plays involving the quarterback. Once the ball has been dislodged, Green has to watch the ball, not the contact on the quarterback. He has to see if the ball hits the ground and judge if it's a forward pass or a fumble, then he has to follow the live ball until the end of the play. So Green could not -- at least, he should not -- have seen the contact on the mask of Rodgers.

Under this line of thinking any time a quarterback throws the ball, wouldn't the official also miss any illegal contact or unnecessary roughness calls that took place on the quarterback? This may be a better example: Say at the snap Rodgers runs right with the ball and pitches it to Brandon Jackson, wouldn't the official follow the ball and never see potential illegal contact called on the defender against the quarterback after he had pitched the ball? The official is trying to determine if the pitch is a lateral or not, right, so he can't watch what happens to Rodgers in this situation? But, I have seen illegal contact or a personal foul called in situations like this in college football, so I have a hard time believing an NFL official couldn't follow the ball and notice Adams had a hold of Rodgers' facemask at the same time.

Really, it's not a big deal, but I have a hard time buying an excuse that IF that should have been a penalty, it wasn't called because the official can't pay attention to the ball and Rodgers. Hell, shouldn't another official have seen it then?

The deep hole Pete Carroll is stepping into.

What would make Pete Carroll want to go to the NFL again? (Besides money.) He has NFL players at USC and he is the king there. Is he bailing after one tough year? What would make an NFL team hire Pete Carroll again? It's not like he was incredibly successful the first 2 times he coached in the NFL. I thought it was ironic the Seahawks interviewed Leslie Frazier to satisfy the Rooney Rule, when I think they should have interviewed him with serious intentions to give him a chance to win the job. This seems like a lose-lose situation for Carroll and the Seahawks to me. The Seahawks get a coach who hasn't been successful as a head coach previously and Pete Carroll gives up a great college football job.

Remember when Charlie Weis last month said Carroll, the married father of three, was "living with a grad student in Malibu?'' Carroll, furious, said it was "untrue, irresponsible ... and incredible that he'd be talking about me like that.''

Kansas City (Weis' new employer) at Seattle, date TBA, next fall, Qwest Field.

I want to go on record as saying I would be surprised if Pete Carroll WASN'T living with a grad student in Malibu. I am not saying he looks like a bad guy, but he looks and acts like the kind of guy who would be living with a grad student in Malibu. Maybe I think this because Pete Carroll also looks like the kind of head coach whose players get illegal benefits and there are never NCAA ramifications through sanctions.

"I immediate thought of Ted Williams going into the last day of the '41 season batting .399995, or whatever it was,'' Brees said, "and I thought, 'If I don't play, I'm letting Teddy down.' ''

First off, Ted Williams is dead so Brees wouldn't be letting him down. Secondly, Ted Williams never had a personal relationship with Brees so because they didn't know each other, it is hard for Williams to be let down when he never knew or cared about Brees. I get what Brees is saying, but this is like me saying I don't want to let Willis Reed down by not playing a pick-up game of basketball because my ankle hurts.

5. New Orleans (13-3). The more I thought about it the past few days, the more faith I had in the Saints offense to play well this weekend after slumping late. They just have to use Kyle Eckel or one of the tight ends more than Sean Payton probably wants -- but that's the cost of keeping Brees clean.

How many punts do you think we will see in the Cardinals-Saints game this weekend? Maybe 2 or 3?

Special Teams Player of the Week

Rico Murray, S, Cincinnati.

I celebrated Jay Feely higher in the column, so I'm reserving this for a guy who made one of the heads-up plays of the weekend -- and I bet you don't even remember it.

I love it when Peter names a player in his "Player of the Week" section and then says we may not even remember what that player did. I find it hard for a player to be a "Player of the Week" and no one can remember why he deserves it.

On the first Feely punt of the game, the ball hits at the Bengals 32, and takes a high bounce, and out of nowhere streaks in Murray, who is not the return man on the play. He grabs the ball, much to the surprise of players on both punting units, and turns upfield and sprints 23 yards to the Jets 45. Seven plays later, Cincinnati strikes first and takes a 7-0 lead.

So he made a crucial play (possibly also a pretty stupid play since he wasn't the return man) that had absolutely no effect on the game. Now it makes sense why Peter gave him this fake award.

It helps to have Wes Welker sitting up in the owner's box, and to have Randy Moss nursing some sort of injury and playing soft all day. But the Ravens embarrassed the Patriots, and the defensive scheme was a big part of that.

Dammit Peter! Randy Moss wasn't playing soft! He was playing as hard as he ever plays. It's not like he only plays when he wants to play...even though he said he did exactly that a few years ago. See what Belichick defending Moss earlier this year after the game against Carolina did? It boosted Moss up for a couple weeks, but then Moss played soft again yesterday. I know Belichick stands up for his guy and I respect that, but I think the more coaches make excuses for some of Moss's lack of effort, the more he gives a lack of effort in some games.

This is what happens when you give a city hope:

In March 2006, the Saints had 44,000 tickets available.

Today, the Saints have a season-ticket waiting list of 50,000.

I know I may get killed for saying this, but isn't this also the very epitome of fair weather fans? I know they had Hurricane Katrina dramatically affect the entire state prior to 2006, I get that, but many of the people who can afford season tickets to Saints games didn't lose their home and possessions in Hurricane Katrina. There is a different type individual that seemed to lose everything and can afford to buy season tickets to the Saints games. For me, I am glad the fan base is so happy, but this is also the epitome of pretty fair weather fans.

I mean, come on, that's a swing of 94,000 tickets in 4 years.

Enjoyable/Aggravating Travel Notes of the Week

One other note, from a quiet Amtrak regional train home from New York Sunday. Five people in my car. I sit in the middle of the car and continue typing out a story for the magazine on Drew Brees. A smartly dressed woman in the back of the car, eight rows behind me, is on the phone. She is Loudwoman. "CAN YOU BELIEVE IT? ... YEP, 35 TOMORROW! THE BIG 3-5! ... NO, NOTHING. NOTHING. WHAT SHOULD I DO, GO TO A STRIP CLUB? ... YEAH, LIKE RICHIE WOULD DO THAT ...'' And on and on it went. After a couple of minutes, I packed everything up and went to the front row of the car. It was better, but still not silent, for the next 10 minutes.

Then it got quiet for a while. Then clip ... clip ... clip Loudwoman, clipping her nails on Amtrak. Fingers, not toes.

Oh how annoying. How dare anyone riding on public transportation do anything but sit still quietly! Remember Peter is typing a story on his computer, so I bet some person in the same car was thinking, "Jesus, will you quit pounding the keys on that keyboard so hard," and wanted Peter to quit pecking away on the computer so he could enjoy HIS commute in peace. Of course Peter doesn't think he may be annoying others by typing because he is so focused on complaining about the person annoying him.

e. A smart man in Buffalo told me: "They love Leslie Frazier.'' Bills interviewed him for five hours Thursday, and as I said on NBC Saturday night, he's the leader in the clubhouse for that job, but so many golfers are still out on the course -- like Jets offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer.

Why would any team want to hire a smart, young offensive/defensive coordinator who have been successful in the NFL at their respective jobs like Frazier and Schottenheimer when they can hire coaches like Mike Shanahan and Pete Carroll who have been fired a total of 4 times between them?

i. Jermichael Finley's really good.

Here Peter goes with the obvious statements, though I do have to admit this isn't as obvious as the Andre Johnson statement last year...and at least Finley hasn't made a Pro Bowl yet and Peter is just now realizing, and mentioning, he is a good tight end.

4. I think I'm pretty skeptical that this shotgun wedding between Pete Carroll and this John Doe GM can work long-term.

I'm pretty skeptical Pete Carroll is an above average NFL head coach or even the best head coaching candidate available for the Seahawks to hire. In fact, I can think of 5 other coaches that would be better than Carroll as a head coach in the NFL just from the college football ranks. Add in the coordinators in the NFL who I think are better candidates compared to Carroll and I really question this hire by Seattle.

We saw some bad quarterback play over the weekend out of a couple of other vets -- Carson Palmer and Tom Brady -- but the difference is that Palmer has no one behind him and Brady's a three-time Super Bowl winner coming off an injury and was beat up the whole year. The Eagles have a strong prospect behind McNabb, Kevin Kolb, and I can't think of any physical excuses for McNabb.

He's slightly overweight? I am kidding Eagles fans.

Possibly what is wrong with McNabb is that his offensive line isn't that great, the Cowboys defense is just better, and his head coach absolutely refuses to help him by trying to run the ball on a consistent basis?

If the Eagles believe Kolb is a player, and I'm told they certainly do, Reid owes it to the franchise to think long and hard about allowing Kolb to compete for the job or take the job next year in his fourth season, at age 26. It's not like the Eagles need draft fortification, but McNabb could bring, let's say, something in the range of two second-round picks from Brad Childress if Brett Favre retires.

I think Kolb should get a chance for the job, simply because I don't think the fall-off between he and McNabb is that great, Kolb is younger and McNabb still has some trade value. I think it is HILARIOUS that Peter thinks Brad Childress would trade for another aging quarterback if Favre retires after this year (do we ever really know if Favre is actually retired or not?). If Peter's thought was true, isn't it funny how Childress just absolutely refuses to sign a quarterback under the age of 30?

b. The Sanchize. The Jets didn't win in spite of him, and they didn't have to be cautious with him.

Like I said, he just has to manage the game and he has a few guys who can help him do that, along with a great running game. The problem lies when he tries or is forced to do too much.

i. Green Bay's passing game. Aaron Rodgers, Jermichael Finley, Greg Jennings. Peyton Manning, Dallas Clark, Reggie Wayne. Not sure which combo platter I'd rather have right now.

We all know I like Aaron Rodgers, but until further notice is given, I would rather have Manning, Clark, and Wayne. It's getting closer but I still say the Colts combo platter is best.

c. Nice catch, Braylon Edwards. Toughest call of the Jets offseason will be determining how much this restricted free agent's worth. He's not in Larry Fitzgerald's league, but he'll want to be paid in it.

If anyone, or even Braylon Edwards, thinks he is in the same class as Larry Fitzgerald they need to be drug tested immediately. Braylon Edwards should be re-signed but if he is asking for money even a notch below Larry Fitzgerald, the Jets shouldn't re-sign him.

e. Coffeenerdness: Shared a coffee with Drew Brees at P.J.'s Coffee House in the University Section of Uptown New Orleans the other day. Actually, he is lactose intolerant and had a soy latte. I had a triple latte. Interesting that there's a Starbucks across the street and this place holds its own. It does that because the espresso is excellent -- rich, no bitterness. Highly recommended if you're around Tulane or Loyola, or visiting the Mannings down there.

Seriously Peter? If I am "visiting the Mannings down there?" Does Peter really think the people who read his MMQB are just going to New Orleans to visit the Manning family or something because they are friends with the family? This is an absolutely stupid statement. What normal person would go visit the Mannings just randomly and expect them to open their door to talk to you?

g. Congrats to Jets director of media relations David Tratner and wife, Jessica, who had son Mark Harrison Tratner late in the second quarter of the Jets' Saturday win. The game was in the delivery room until the doctor entered for the final act, shall we say. But Mark got to see the second half. Precocious little fellow came out yelling, "J-E-T-S! Jets Jets Jets!''

Why do I feel like that child is in for a lifetime of disappointment? Or at least a lifetime of constantly being nervous because he always expects the worse to happen?

I posted the standings after the first week of the BotB NFL Playoff Challenge. I lost to Bill Simmons during the regular season by one game, that's it (which makes me unhappy), so I am still counting the playoffs as us competing since we are both still making picks. With this big 0-4 weekend, it looks like he has lost his touch from earlier this year and I am two games ahead of him now.