6 comments Murray Chass Is Still Bitching about Integrity and This Year It's the Cubs Who Lack Integrity

What timing that I wrote this post today! Kris Bryant got called up!

Every year Murray Chass accuses MLB teams of lacking integrity for finding reasons to hold players down in the minors in order to not start their service time and get an extra year out of that player before he hits free agency. Murray bitches about it here, here, here, and here. As I've always stated, this isn't an integrity issue to me. This is an issue of a MLB team playing within the rules and getting an extra year out of a player while giving up a month or a few weeks of that player being on the current roster. I bet the Braves wish they had waited another couple months to call Jason Heyward up. Maybe they wouldn't have had to trade him this offseason and could have had more time to work out a long-term deal. Anyway, Murray writes on his non-blog that the Cubs lack integrity for keeping Kris Bryant down in the minors to avoid him becoming a Super Two and this time he has Scott Boras on his side.

It's all about the integrity to Murray. I wonder if he considers accusing a player of using PED's based on bacne as violating his strict integrity guidelines. Probably not.

Theo Epstein, the man who runs the Chicago Cubs’ baseball operations, said this:

In this business of trying to win a world championship for the first time in 107 years, the organization has priority over any one individual.

He also said this:

We have clung to two important ideals during our three years in Chicago. The first is to always be loyal to our mission of building the Cubs into a championship organization that can sustain success. The second is to be transparent with our fans….To our fans: we hope you understand, and we appreciate your continued support of the Cubs.

Epstein should have added, "Unless, you know, if being transparent means that the union can file a grievance on behalf of a player and telling a little white lie will benefit the organization in the long run."

Epstein included both of these comments in a statement he issued when the Cubs fired their manager, Rick Renteria, last October and hired Joe Maddon. If they sound familiar, it’s because I quoted them in last week’s column. I quote them again for this column about a Cubs’ player. Kris Bryant.

Keeping Kris Bryant in the minors fulfills the intent of the first quote and fufills the intent in the first part of the second quote. Two out of three isn't bad. Epstein can't say, "It's in the best interests of the organization long-term to keep Kris Bryant in the minors," even though it's true, because people get their panties in a wad that the Cubs would dare to work within the rules to build a quality team over the long-term.

The last I looked Bryant had hit nine home runs, more than any other player in this spring’s exhibition games. I have long said it doesn’t pay to pay attention to spring statistics, but Bryant has forced the Cubs to pay attention.

Murray has always believed it makes no sense to pay attention to spring statistics, unless those spring statistics go to prove a point that Murray wants to prove. In that case, forget everything else that Murray has ever said and those spring training statistics are vitally important and serve as definitive evidence for what Murray wants to prove. Spring training statistics are of course useless when they serve the need Murray Chass has that point in time.

He has convinced them he is ready to help the Cubs win – a playoff spot, the National League Central title, the N.L. pennant, the World Series. Whatever it is, they’ll take it, though they prefer the World Series, which the Cubs haven’t won since 1908.

And since when have the expectations of fans ever been unrealistic?

Bryant, however, can’t help the Cubs win anything if he’s not on the team, and when last heard on the subject, the Cubs said they plan to have Bryant start the season in the minor leagues. They’re playing a game I have chronicled here for the past several years. It’s the major league service time manipulation game. It’s legal under the labor practice, but it undermines the integrity of the game.

Allowing MLB teams to do something that is legal under the labor practice which helps the team in the long run undermines the integrity of the game? I've never understood this point of view. Maybe it's a bit of a dick move by the Cubs (or Giants or any other MLB team), but it doesn't undermine the integrity of the game because it's not against the rules. It is manipulating service time, which (checks the CBA) isn't against the rules.

If steroids and Pete Rose’s violation of the game’s gambling rule undermines baseball’s integrity, so does the clubs’ manipulation of service time, no matter what an arbitrator said 30 years ago.

Yeah, this is not at all a good parallel. There are rules on the books against gambling and using PED's to gain an advantage. There is no rule that says an MLB team HAS to put their best team on the field, as determined by an old sportswriter-turned-blogger. I recognize there is no help for Murray Chass anyway, but if he can't tell the difference in a player violating a rule that is written in the MLB rule book and a team not violating part of the CBA then there is definitely never going to be help for him.

Boras is Bryant’s agent and could be said to have a vested interest in how the Cubs treat Bryant.

Right, because the more money Kris Bryant makes means that Scott Boras makes more money. Does it undermine the integrity of the game when an agent publicly requests an MLB team makes a personnel move all so that agent can have more money put in his pocket? I guess not. Scott Boras wants more money in his pocket, so he accuses others of wrongdoing so he can get richer.

He and I seldom agree on issues involving his clients, but in this instance I believe he is 100 percent correct.

Just like spring training statistics don't mean anything until Murray needs them to mean something to prove his point, Scott Boras is an evil person until Boras agrees with Murray Chass on an issue. In that case, Boras is just speaking the truth.

The Cubs and the other clubs that behave similarly are hurting Major League Baseball. They are saving money, but they are cheating their fans.

Murray's whole "They are hurting the fans" argument fails every single time. It doesn't hurt Cubs fans that they now get to have Kris Bryant as a part of the Cubs franchise for a longer period of time. The Cubs are not expected to win the World Series this year, so why is it hurting the team to make sure they keep Bryant around for an extra year when they may be able to better compete to win the World Series in the future? The fans aren't being cheated. The player and Scott Boras' pockets are being cheated, which apparently undermines the integrity of the game.

If they are not using their best players, they are not trying to win. That failing goes to the core of integrity.

The Cubs will be using their best players, and using their best players for a longer period of time, if they ensure that Kris Bryant doesn't become a Super Two by holding him down in the minors longer.

If the Cubs open the season with Bryant in the minors and keep him there for at least 12 days, they can ensure his presence with them through the 2021 season instead of the 2020 season, the first seven years of his major league career instead of the first six.

Wow, the Cubs fans are getting screwed. They are trading 12 days of not having Kris Bryant on the roster for an entire year of having Kris Bryant on the roster. I'm surprised there haven't been riots and revolts while fans storm the gates of Wrigley Field. Cubs fans are trading 12 days for 5 more months of Kris Bryant. That sounds pretty good.

For purposes of service time, a season is 172 days so a player can lack 11 days and still receive credit for a full season. If, however, he lacks 12 days and is in the majors the rest of the season, he has 171 days of major league service, one day short of a full year.

So Murray's argument is that because the Cubs are holding down Kris Bryant down in the minors for at least 6.98% of the season, and thereby receiving 100% of another season of Bryant's services, then they are getting screwed? This is a real argument he is furthering? Scott Boras and Kris Bryant may be getting screwed, but it doesn't affect the integrity of the game that Boras is arguing for what is financially beneficial for himself. Of course not.

As a result of clubs’ closely monitoring service time, they have kept major league-ready players in the minors longer than they should,

Which is an opinion and not a fact. These bloggers are always stating opinions as facts.

calling them up usually in late May or early June. The accompanying chart tells a striking story.

Since Murray is all about "the fans" and how they are getting screwed, let's look at all these players and see how many of them are still with their original team that called them up. You know, just for shits and giggles to see how screwed these fans are getting.

This list has 25 players on it. Of these 25 players, only 5 of these players are not on their original team. Oscar Taveras is dead, so he doesn't really count. Kris Medlen was released by the Braves mostly for injury reasons and not performance reasons. Jordan Lyles, Joe Kelly and Stephen Pryor were respectively traded for Dexter Fowler, John Lackey, and Kendry Morales in an effort for the team that called them up to improve their team. So of these 25 players, 20 of them are still with the team that called them up, while four of them are not with their current team, but the reason they aren't with the team didn't "screw over the fans."

So Murray has no point. He argues these late call-ups screw over fans, but I don't think this is true. These late call-ups have allowed teams to have control over these players for a longer period of time.

In Bryant’s case, the Cubs care more about free agency because they could never keep him in the minors until late May or early June.

It's unfathomable that the Cubs would want to keep Bryant on their roster for as long as possible. The fans must feel screwed over knowing they get to keep one of the team's best prospects for a longer period of time. 

I had a lot of questions to ask Epstein, but a week’s worth of telephone calls and e-mail did not induce him to respond so the questions remain unasked and unanswered. Oh yes. I also tried reaching Tom Ricketts, the team’s owner, and he didn’t respond. Even the Cubs’ media relations director didn’t call back. I guess they are intent on not answering questions about Bryant.

Or, you know, they don't have to answer questions about Kris Bryant if they care not to or don't want to be accused of lacking integrity by a sportswriter-turned-blogger. 

Epstein, however, did speak with reporters at the Cubs’ camp in Arizona and talked in television interviews, and I frankly find it difficult to believe what he said about why Bryant may start the season in the minors:

Why does Murray find it difficult to believe? Because he wants to find it difficult to believe. It's the same reason that Murray doesn't think spring training statistics mean much, until he needs them to mean a lot in order to prove a point.

“It’s not about business. People are trying to make this about business. There are valid baseball reasons. The process of developing a player, taking them from amateur to Major League player and every step along the way, that’s a baseball process and those are baseball decisions, and that’s what we’re doing here.”

Here are several points I have:

1. It doesn't matter if Murray Chass finds this statement difficult to believe or not. MLB teams are entitled to leave whatever players they choose to leave at whatever minor league level they choose to leave that player until they decide they want to promote him.

2. If Theo Epstein said, "Yeah, we are holding him back so his service time doesn't cause him to become a Super Two" then that could be more honest but it would also cause Bryant to file a grievance. The Cubs don't even have to explain themselves anyway. So explaining themselves is pointless and unnecessary.

3. Bryant had been playing left field occasionally in spring training, so it's possible the Cubs decided they wanted him to practice more in left field (not in game situations) while in the minors.

4. The Cubs and Theo Epstein don't have to explain why they sent Bryant down because it's not against the rules for them to run the organization as they see fit.

Epstein pointed out that he had never had a player make his major league debut at the start of a season:

Murray thinks Theo Epstein REALLY lacks integrity now.

“I’ve never put a guy on an opening-day roster who hadn’t played in the big leagues previously. In 13 years, I’ve never done it. I’m not saying I’d never do it, but the general rule, the presumption, is to allow those guys to go out, play, get comfortable, get in rhythm, and come up when you handpick just the right moment for them to have success.”

It makes sense from the perspective of a GM. It does.

Unfortunately, neither that interviewer nor any other asked Epstein why, then, didn’t he call up Bryant late last season, as he did with infielder Mike Olt and outfielder Jorge Soler.

Possibly because the Cubs weren't in competition for a playoff spot and it didn't make sense to call up every single prospect the Cubs had. Perhaps because Olt plays third base too and it doesn't make any fucking sense to call up two prospects from the minors who play the exact same position so that one of those prospects ends up sitting the bench on a given day.

“They had Baez and Soler at Triple A,” Boras said. “Bryant performed far better. They get called up to the big leagues and Bryant doesn’t.”

And never forget while reading about Scott Boras whining that he has a financial stake in when Kris Bryant gets called up. Scott Boras gets paid faster when Kris Bryant is one year closer to free agency.

Had they promoted Bryant with the others, he could open this season with the Cubs without violating Epstein’s stated practice. But they weren’t about to recall Bryant then because his service clock would have started ticking, in Epstein’s view like a time bomb.

Mike Olt is older than Bryant and wasn't exactly hitting terrible at AAA last year when he was called up. But no, Murray is right that public opinion on which prospect should be called up to the majors, and not the opinion of the organization, should be what determines when Kris Bryant gets called up to the majors. The Cubs organization has no right to make personnel moves as they see fit.

Is that bad for the fans? A reader responded to a previous column about the manipulation of service time by saying he would rather have the player for a whole extra season than for a few extra games now.

But there are fans who have lived and died with the Cubs for their entire lives without seeing them win a World Series and may not have seven years left in their lives to see if it happens in 2021.

So the people who will die after the 2020 season who never got a chance to see the Cubs win the World Series are the ones getting screwed. So it's not Cubs fans that are getting screwed, but a specific subset of fans who don't currently know they are getting screwed who are getting screwed. These fans may be dead before 2021, so obviously Theo Epstein needs to factor in how many Cubs fans will be dead between the end of the 2020 season and the beginning of the 2021 season when making any decisions on which prospects to call up to the majors.

That makes sense.

“Is this good for the game?” Boras asked. “Fans are aware these players are extraordinary. They have nothing left to prove in the minors. Every year Kris Bryant has separated himself from everyone else. What standards does he have to achieve to deserve promotion?”

I'm sorry, I can't get past the fact Scott Boras is trying to preach about the integrity of the game when he wants Kris Bryant called up because it benefits them both financially.

Bryant is not expected to match his spring production in the early weeks of the season, even if he opens it with Chicago. Players who are torrid in spring exhibition games seldom take their paces into the season.

Well, it seems spring training statistics don't mean anything to Murray again.

Earlier this month the agent created a spring stir when he talked with Bob Nightengale of USA Today. Nightengale is one of the best baseball writers in the country, maybe the best, but even he swallowed Epstein’s excuse for delaying Bryant’s arrival in the majors.

“The Cubs simply believe that Bryant needs more defensive seasoning at Class AAA Iowa,” Nightengale wrote.

Bob Nightengale wasn't swallowing the excuse, he was repeating the reason given by Theo Epstein for Bryant to start the season at AAA.

Epstein was merely repeating the words of many other general managers who have used that excuse. The Pittsburgh Pirates have practically copyrighted that comment the last few years.

Oh, over the last few years the Pirates have copyrighted that excuse? Is this the same last few years when the Pirates have made the playoffs twice when they had not made the playoffs the 20 years prior to that? I bet Pirates fans feel REALLY screwed by the organization choosing to keep the best prospects in the minors in order to keep these prospects on the team longer. I'm surprised Pirates fans haven't revolted yet. The organization is making moves that results in the team making the playoffs and keeping the team's best players longer? It's outrageous!

Addressing the issue a few years ago, Rob Manfred said, “It has been long established that clubs have a right to call up players when they decide the timing is best for the club.”

However, that case was not on point with call-ups as they have developed, and a grievance probably is in order.

Clark, the Executive Director of the union, commented, “I think it’s disappointing that we are having any conversation that there is a question about the best players not to be available for fans to watch. It takes away from the game.”

I don't really care if the rule gets changed, but these are the rules now. The best players are not available for a smaller portion of a season so they can be available to that team for a longer period of time over that player's career with the team. The fans are not getting screwed over for their patience.

Bryant is not the only players whose immediate major league status is in question. Pitchers Jon Gray of Colorado and Carlos Rodon of the Chicago White Sox also have not been assured of spots on major league rosters.

Unfathomable. Rodon made six starts in the minor leagues after he was drafted. How could he NOT be ready for the majors?

If all three players fail to win opening-day jobs in the majors, their absence will very likely encourage the union to seek a solution with a grievance.

Murray means they would file a grievance for players that aren't really a part of the MLBPA? Seeking to file a grievance for players the MLB players have intentionally left out as being represented by their union? I'm sure Murray sees that as a case of having great integrity. Scott Boras just wants more money for Kris Bryant sooner (which is his right as an agent), whether it be with the Cubs or another team, so it's funny how he preaches integrity and pretends the fans are getting screwed. The Cubs organization is preventing Boras from ripping Kris Bryant away from the Cubs team one year earlier than they otherwise could and the fans are supposed to be getting the raw end of the deal?

6 comments It's Week 5, So Obviously This is the Best Time For Gregg to List All the Super Bowl Contenders

Gregg Easterbrook called the 25th most accurate passer in NCAA history "inaccurate" as a college quarterback in last week's TMQ. He criticized "Sleepy Hollow" for not being realistic enough. It is a show about a headless horseman who kills people and time jumps are involved as well. Gregg is the worst. This week he tries to figure out who could win the Super Bowl, because after all it is Week 5, so it should be obvious who will be in the Super Bowl at this point. We are one week closer to Gregg making his third crack at which two teams will be in the Super Bowl this year. At a certain point, he will have named all NFL teams and then can brag about how right he was.

The league's last two undefeated teams, both well rested coming off byes, went into action Sunday and were pounded. Early in the season, there is no undefeated team left standing -- no clearly dominant team, either. If the Super Bowl were tomorrow, who the heck would go?

It sort of seems like the Seahawks and the Broncos are the dominant teams. Not to mention, the fact there are no undefeated teams left doesn't also mean there are no dominant teams or the Super Bowl picture is more murky than usual. The Broncos played the Seahawks in Seattle in Week 3. If it weren't for that loss and the Broncos had played the Raiders then the Broncos would probably be undefeated and Gregg would consider them to be a dominant team. It just so happens the Seahawks and Broncos both played good teams early in the season, so the narrative goes that they are not dominant. It doesn't mean it's true.

Contenders:

Teams listed are not contenders, unless they end up being contenders, in which case they are contenders.

Cincinnati: Lots of victories in recent seasons but has not won a playoff contest since 1990. This is the league's longest drought. The Bengals are on an 0-4 streak in nationally televised games, folding in the limelight.

Or they draw very good teams when playing in a nationally televised game and they just aren't good enough to beat those teams they play in the national spotlight.

New England: A little early-season turmoil never hurt a good team. Of recent clubs to hoist the Lombardi Trophy, the Baltimore Ravens were openly feuding early in their Super Bowl season, including firing their offensive coordinator. The Giants began their recent Super Bowl season with a dreadful loss to rival Washington. The 2010 Super Bowl champion Packers took an early loss on "Monday Night Football." All used early turmoil to work out their issues and were powerful late.

Gregg Easterbrook last week: Is the Patriot Way over? Is this it for the Patriots?

Gregg Easterbrook this week: Forget what I said last week. All teams face a little turmoil at the beginning of the year. Nothing to worry about. It's typical and can make the Patriots better in the end.

San Francisco: Early turmoil can also lead to late turmoil -- the 49ers have significant meltdown potential.

So Gregg Easterbrook is on record as definitively stating that early turmoil may or may not lead to late turmoil. Only after the season is over can Gregg definitively state which direction a team will end up going.

Philadelphia: A team that fell behind 17-0 to Jacksonville, then at home allowed St. Louis, with a third-string quarterback, to run up 21 unanswered points, may be hard to take seriously. "Tough 4-1, soft 4-1. It doesn't matter," Chip Kelly said Sunday. That's the attitude of a football-factory coach looking for nonconference cupcakes to schedule.

No, it's the attitude of a head coach who knows a little bit of luck is required sometimes during the season and all that matters is his team's record.

Indianapolis: TMQ's pick to win the AFC, and I am sticking with my cards.

Gregg is sticking with his cards other than when he makes his alternative Super Bowl selection of Seattle and Denver or inevitably makes another Super Bowl pick later in the 2014 season. 

Green Bay and New Orleans: Both sputtering early, both potentially deep playoff contenders.

These two teams may or may not be Super Bowl contenders. Stay tuned until after the season to find out whether they will be or not, but remember, Gregg said they could compete in the playoffs or maybe not.

This is heartbreaking, but is it a reason football should not be played? On average, five teen males die per day in car crashes, suggesting that in the period since the first of the three horrible prep football deaths, about 50 teen boys have been killed by driving.

Life cannot be lived without risk: the risk of mortality in football is lower than other kinds of risk society accepts for teens. Long-term brain damage from repeated head hits, which affects tens of thousands of high school players, is a larger social concern than tragic but rare deaths caused by football.

So while true, Gregg is also the person who has stated in TMQ multiple times that he can see high schools giving up football due to the prevalence of head injuries. Gregg also has tried to attribute high schools giving up football programs to the eventual downfall of the NFL. So there is a certain amount of gloom and doom regarding football and injuries caused by playing football that Gregg has predicted over the years, at least until he decides the potential of long-term brain damage won't chase high schools away from having a football program.

In college football news, the new consortium of Power 5 conferences said last week it will provide full-cost scholarships to football players, grant multiyear scholarships and offer long-term health-care coverage for former players.

In fact, Tuesday Morning Quarterback would argue the Power 5 deal moots the debate about pay for college football players. For all football players in the Power 5 to receive the progressive new package is a much better outcome than a few college stars receiving high income.

It's a better outcome for those athletes who aren't having their image used by the NCAA and universities in order to make money. Those who are having their image used to make a profit (which is what the argument for paying college athletes is really about) probably still aren't very happy.

Another year as the sole perfect professional team is a nice feeling: Recall this amusing Reebok ad that aired moments after the Giants knocked off the 18-0 Patriots in the Super Bowl, which was the latest an undefeated fell, or could fall. But what if your football-factory college team gained 812 yards, committed no turnovers, had touchdowns of 90 and 86 yards and lost?

What if Gregg Easterbrook quickly changed the topic from one sentence to another without a rhyme or reason why he did so? Would it be disorienting and would I wonder how the conversation went from undefeated NFL teams to football-factory college teams gaining a lot of yardage and losing within the span of one sentence? Yes, yes it would be distracting and disorienting.

Stats of the Week No. 5: Minnesota first-half possession results at Green Bay: punt, punt, punt, punt, punt, interception, interception, fumble, half ends.

It's almost like they were playing with their third-string quarterback or something on the road.

Sour Pair of Plays: Facing third-and-1 at Indianapolis, Joe Flacco play-faked and rolled right, hoping for a big gainer. Instead, sack. Later, the Ravens went for it on fourth-and-1 from the Colts' 3. Same action -- play fake, roll right. Same result -- sack. Sour.

Very sour. What's really sour is John Harbaugh went for it on fourth down, which based on everything Gregg has told us about going for it on fourth down should signal to his team he is very serious about winning the game. Yet, the Ravens didn't win the game and got a poor result on fourth down. I thought Gregg's hard-and-fast rules about going for it on fourth down being met would please the football gods?

Sweet 'N' Sour Play: Arizona bringing its West Coast Defense to Denver, the Broncos clung to a 14-13 lead with 1:48 remaining before intermission, pinned on their 14.

Arizona isn't really the West Coast. It's more the Southwest isn't it? I have never thought of Arizona as being on the West Coast, but more in the Southwest part of the United States. Of course I have never thought of a school as a "football factory" either and Gregg constantly refers to certain colleges (mostly colleges in ESPN Grade's Top 25 actually) in that manner.

There was only 1:48 remaining, and the Broncs were pinned .They'd either kill the clock or take deep shots. Why was Arizona in an overstacked, rush-prevent front with only one safety? Sour.

I don't know if I would call this a lie, because it's an opinion of sorts, but it is a stupid opinion. Why would the Broncos only kill the clock or take deep shots in this situation? Why wouldn't the Broncos try to get a first down by throwing the football on shorter routes? With Peyton Manning as the quarterback it is nearly the same thing as killing the clock to throw short routes and keep the clock moving. I think it is a huge fallacy to say the Broncos were either going to kill the clock or take deep shots, mostly because those are polar opposite strategies. One is intending to kill the clock and the other is dismissive of killing the clock in favor of taking chances.

Once again, Gregg makes a faulty assumption in order to prove his criticism of an NFL team correct. It's not true the Broncos would either kill the clock or take deep shots. They very well could have thrown the ball to receivers like Welker or Thomas on shorter routes to keep the clock moving. If the Cardinals had been in a two-deep safety look and Manning ran the clock out by throwing underneath then Gregg would have criticized them for playing too deep, because after all, the Broncos would either run the ball or throw short passes to chew up clock.

Knock Him Down! How their paths have diverged since the 2012 NFL draft. Robert Griffin III was obtained by Washington for one of the largest king's-ransom trade packages ever; 

Gregg requests that you don't remember when he stated on two previous occasions the Rams must be regretting the day they didn't keep the #2 pick so they could take Robert Griffin. He will now criticize the Redskins for trading all those picks for Griffin after criticizing the Rams for receiving all of those picks in exchange for the #2 pick used to draft Griffin.

Russell Wilson was selected unnoticed by Seattle in the third round after Jacksonville took a punter. Now Wilson is 31-10 with a Super Bowl ring, RG III is 13-18 and in street clothes. At least Griffin has far more endorsement income.

I don't even understand this portion of TMQ (this paragraph and the one above it). Gregg is feebly attempting some comparison of Russell Wilson and Robert Griffin and how their paths have diverged, as if they had similar paths at some point prior to the 2012 draft. Their paths were already diverged prior to the draft. The Seahawks had nothing to do with the Rams-Redskins trade and Robert Griffin had no affiliation (other than being black and playing quarterback in college) with Russell Wilson. Of course their paths diverged, these two quarterbacks never had the same path.

Among other sins, the Persons violated TMQ's immutable law of playing up: You can't dance with the champ, you've got to knock him down. Trailing 17-7 on the first possession of the second half, Washington faced fourth-and-1 on the Bluish Men Group's 9. Sure-to-be-former head coach Jay Gruden sent in the kicking unit.

And again, every NFL head coach is sure to be the former coach of his team unless he is immortal.

TMQ's law of fourth-down decision-making holds: If the opponent is relieved to see your kicking team, then you should be going for it.

Bengoodfella's law of fourth-down decision-making holds: There is no way to read your opponent's mind to know if he is relieved to see your kicking team, so TMQ's law of fourth-down decision-making is stupid and nonsensical and there should never be a law of fourth-down decision-making other than go for it if you think it's in your team's best interests and the fourth down will be converted.

Notice how Gregg's "law" requires the use of information that no NFL head coach could ever obtain without having the ability to read minds. Kind of a shitty law if there is no way to obtain the information required to follow the law, no? So Gregg expects NFL head coaches to be immortal and able to read minds. Sounds reasonable to me.

As the Persons' placement unit trotted in on fourth-and-1, Steve Raible, the Seahawks' flagship radio announcer -- he refers to the team as "us," its tailback as "Marshawn," and so on -- said, "Jay Gruden is making the right decision here." Which shows he was making the wrong decision.

So Jay Gruden should have read the minds of the Seahawks players to see if they were happy he was punting here and then listen to the Seahawks broadcasters in order to determine what they think he should do and then do the opposite. He should do all of this in 40 seconds so as to ensure the next play is run before the play clock runs out. Of course.

If you told your employer you would be absent for long periods while traveling to promote yourself, yet still expected to receive full salary and have your expenses paid, plus bodyguards provided, you'd be laughed at. If you told the local law enforcement agency you want a police escort so you could roar through red lights, you'd be laughed at. Yet politicians do these things all the time.

Then, having shown they happily squander public money, they seek higher office so they can squander even more. Politicians do this because the public lets them get away with it. Perry's and Christie's behavior is another example of why the United States needs resign-to-run laws.

I understand the idea of a resign-to-run law and don't think this is a bad idea, but wouldn't this give a further advantage to an incumbent who is able to fundraise while he/she is still in office (I'm assuming the resign-to-run law wouldn't apply to an incumbent) and his opponent holds a political office already? For example, here in North Carolina Thom Tillis would have to resign as Speaker of the House to run against Kay Hagan for Senate. Would Tillis run for Senate against Hagan if he knew he had to resign his position or would this resign-to-run law further dilute the quality (and I use that term ever-so-subjectively) of politician running for political office? So an incumbent could fundraise and run while holding the office and any opponent would have to fully commit to running by resigning from any public office he/she holds. It could easily dilute the quality of politician running for office.

Book News: My book, "The King of Sports," has just been released in paperback with a new subtitle: "Why Football Must Be Reformed." Now that you can buy this book for less than $15 or on the Kindle for $9.99 -- it's certainly not $10! -- really, what are you waiting for?

You to stop writing TMQ. You to stop misleading your audience by making assumptions that aren't true if you took the time to investigate your assumptions. You to stop providing your audience with certain information only when this information goes to prove a point you want to make or a narrative you would like to further. You providing links that you believe prove your point when in fact if you read the article you linked then you would realize it doesn't prove your point. I'm waiting for all of these things.

The First-Round Curse: Highly drafted quarterbacks -- Christian Ponder, Jake Locker, Ryan Tannehill, Blaine Gabbert, Robert Griffin III, EJ Manuel -- continue to struggle around the NFL. Manuel, just shown the bench, is an example of the First-Round Curse for quarterbacks.

I don't think Ryan Tannehill should be on this list. Perhaps I'm being too kind. And no, there isn't a first round curse for quarterbacks. It's that NFL teams really want to find a franchise quarterback and so they end up spending high draft picks on a quarterback in the hopes to find a franchise star for a QB-driven league.

A list of "cursed" players at nearly every position could be put together. Is there a running back curse? Trent Richardson, David Wilson, Isaiah Pead, LaMichael James, Ryan Williams, Daniel Thomas, Mikel Leshoure, Mark Ingram and Christine Michael have all been drafted in the first or second round since 2011 and they are all underperforming for their draft position. There are underperformers at every position in every draft, it's just teams seem to reach more often for a quarterback, and quarterbacks are easier to notice when they stink.

When a quarterback is selected in the top portion of the first round, he's either an instant hero or instant goat. Drew Brees struggled in his first two seasons, but because he was not a first-round selection and thus not expected to become an instant hero, got time to develop.

See, Gregg understands, even though his actions in his writing about "cursed" quarterbacks show that he doesn't really understand.

Burning a first-round draft choice on Manuel was the final bumble in Buffalo by Bumbling Buddy Nix, former general manager. Nix is the same genius who, in the 2010 draft, used a second-round selection on Torell Troup, OOF -- Out of Football -- in just two seasons. Nix passed on the next guy selected: Rob Gronkowski, who is from Buffalo.

Gronkowski is actually from Amherts, which isn't Buffalo, but is a suburb of Buffalo. What good are facts if Gregg can't bend them a little?

Joey Harrington, Ryan Leaf, Mark Sanchez -- the highway is jammed with broken heroes chosen in the first round as quarterbacks.

This can go for players at nearly every position drafted highly over a multiple year span of time.

But Buffalo's recent quarterback decision-making seems especially odd. The Bills made a mega-trade for Rob Johnson, then gave up on him;

The Bills gave up a first and fourth round pick. I don't know if that's a mega-trade or not. The Bills didn't give up on Johnson, he got a concussion in his first game as the Bills' quarterback, then suffered another injury while Doug Flutie was winning games for the Bills, and then after that he continued to get injured or struggle which resulted in the Bills awarding the job to a different quarterback. The Bills gave Johnson four years to prove he was the starter and he was injured for quite a few games during that time. They didn't give up on him.

they made a mega-trade for J.P. Losman, then gave up on him. (This is more indication that mega-trades don't work.)

The Bills gave up a second round pick to move back into the first round. This isn't a mega-trade.

Buffalo has a league-worst 14 years without reaching the postseason. Perhaps this is because the Bills' coaches and general managers consistently act as though they are unaware that quarterback is the most important position in football.

This is interesting criticism. Gregg runs through a list of quarterbacks the Bills have started at the quarterback position,

In 2010, the Bills devoted their entire offseason to working with Trent Edwards at quarterback -- then waived him three games into the regular season. Had he suddenly become a different person? After drafting Manuel in April 2013, the Bills spent their entire offseason working with him. Then, in late August they brought in Leinart and Thad Lewis. Leinart played the final preseason game then was waived the following day. In 2014, the Bills spent their entire offseason working with Manuel, failing to notice his lack of development. In late August, they brought in Jordan Palmer, who played in the final preseason game then was waived. As the season was starting, Buffalo brought in Kyle Orton, giving him no time to prepare. He's now "the man."

Then claims the Bills are unaware that quarterback is the most important position in football. If the Bills were unaware of this then why have they spent so many draft choices (and made what Gregg would call "mega-trades") and so much time trying to find a really good starting quarterback? Gregg can't honestly criticize the Bills for making so many mega-trades and moves to find a good starting quarterback and then claim the Bills don't understand the importance of the position. It's clear they suck at finding a starting quarterback, not that they don't value the position enough.

Buffalo trailing 14-6 in the fourth quarter, the Bills reached first-and-goal on the Lions' 2. TMQ's Law of the Goal Line holds: play fake on first down, when the defense is cranked to stop a rush, not on second down, after the defense just stuffed a rush. The Bills play-faked -- touchdown to the uncovered backup tight end. 

Bengoodfella's Law of the Goal Line holds: If a team always play fakes on first down, then the defense won't ever fall for the play fake and the play won't succeed. Another part of Bengoodfella's Law of the Goal Line is there is no law of the goal line, because running certain plays in certain situations becomes predictable and turns into a tendency which the defense can exploit.

'Tis Better to Have Rushed and Lost Than Never to Have Rushed at All: Ahead 10-6, Kansas City reached second-and-1 on the Santa Clara 40. The Chiefs threw incomplete then, on third-and-1, threw incomplete again. They lined up to go for it on fourth-and-1 but jumped offside. A second-and-1 at the 40 ended up as a punt from the 46; the 49ers took the ball the other way for a touchdown. On the day when the Chiefs averaged 4.7 yards per rush, had they run on either second-and-1 or third-and-1, the game outcome might have been different.

Or the outcome of the game might not have been different. As always, Gregg can't understand situational rushing. On a second, third or fourth-and-1, the defense is more keyed up to stop the run, so a team may not average 4.7 yards on that rush. Gregg seems to not comprehend that a team averaging 4.7 yards per rush won't necessarily get that amount of yardage on a running play when it comes to certain down-and-distance situations.

Sure, the Chiefs probably should have run the ball, but Gregg is fresh off criticizing the Broncos for not expecting a deep pass and Gregg has stated on multiple occasions the best time to go deep is on short yardage situations when the defense isn't expecting it. It's annoying to me that Gregg only bases his criticism on what ends up working and not on the process used to make a decision. It results in him contradicting himself at times.

Since the full calculation does not show an inequality emergency, Piketty ignores tax rates and benefits. A thesis is certainly "most powerful" if you pretend there is no counterevidence!

Gregg is discussing income inequality, which I won't cover here because------zzzzzzzzzz, but for Gregg to criticize a book (which is what he is doing here) for pretending there is no counterevidence to claims stated in that book is especially rich when he makes this criticism in TMQ, where Gregg constantly cherry-picks information and ignores evidence contrary to his beliefs and any law of the NFL he proposes.

Do a Little Dance If You Want to Gain That Yard!: TMQ's Law of Short Yardage holds, do a little dance if you want to gain that yard.

My law holds that if you want to gain that yard, don't do a dance or you will be stopped in the backfield. The only Law of Short Yardage is make sure the offensive line gets a push and stops any penetration from the defense. That's about it. All there is.

Leading 28-22 versus the Browns at home, the Tennessee Titans lined up to go for it on fourth-and-1 from their 42 with 3:09 remaining. It was the right tactical decision -- but a vanilla play. No shifts, no misdirection, no quick snap. Backup quarterback Charlie Whitehurst simply tried the sneak and was stuffed, positioning the visitors for victory. True, against Cincinnati, Tom Brady converted a fourth-and-1 on a sneak. But he runs the sneak better than any current NFL quarterback, and the Patriots rushed to the line to quick-snap.

"True, my law isn't really a law because it's not true as often as I pretend that it is true, but wouldn't it be great if what I wrote wasn't dishonest and misleading" (goes on a 1,000 word rant about "Revolution" not accurately portraying the result of a world wide blackout)

Basically, the best time for an NFL team to run a QB sneak is when it ends up working.

For the amount of time movies and TV shows devote to military and quasi-military action, Hollywood continues to get details wrong. Characters say "let's lock and load," which makes no sense. Once the action of a firearm is locked, it won't load.

As someone who took 15 seconds to do research, I found out that this phrase could come from multiple origins, but more importantly, Gregg isn't reading the phrase correctly. The phrase isn't "let's lock THEN load," it's "let's lock and load," meaning the loading doesn't have to take place after the locking. So therefore the expression could make sense if a character is going to load and then lock his weapon.

Memes seem to travel in action cinema. This year every action show has some good guy say, "he's in the wind," meaning, "he got away." TV cops say "he's in the wind." Actual cops surely say "he got away."

Yes, based on Gregg's extensive history of not being an actual cop he knows they SURELY say "he got away" rather than some form of "he's in the wind." This is Gregg's assumptions at their worst. He's criticizing movies for using "he's in the wind" when Gregg isn't even sure if cops don't use this phrase, he just assumes they don't because that's what he wants to assume.

Once again, the Bengals honked out in prime time, dropping passes and missing tackles. Coming in with the league's best defense against points, allowing only 11 per game, Cincinnati gave up 43 points, and it might have been worse if the hosts had not switched to clock-killer tactics in the fourth quarter.

Clock-killing tactics? The Bengals had better watch out for those deep passes the Patriots offense is sure to throw! Either that or the Patriots will run the ball. The Bengals had better be prepared for both, so they should essentially play defense like they usually do?

Leading 20-10, New England faced third-and-16 on the Bengals 35 in the third quarter. A trap draw gained 19 yards and a first down, positioning the hosts for the touchdown that gave them a commanding margin. Cincinnati had no idea what was happening -- tailback Shane Vereen sprinted past two Bengals defenders who seemed not to know where the ball was.

I think Gregg means highly-drafted second round pick Shane Vereen, right?

In 1980, Pittsburgh beat the Los Angeles Rams at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California, 16 miles from the stadium in which the Rams then performed. In 1985, the 49ers defeated the Dolphins at Stanford Stadium, 30 miles from where the 49ers then performed. The Rams and 49ers are not considered to have hosted the Super Bowls they reached because the game was not held in their respective facilities. If the Cardinals make Super Bowl XLIX, they will be the first team in the contest at their own field.

What will be said if the 49ers make Super Bowl L? That game will be held at the field on which the 49ers perform, but the field is in Santa Clara, California, 45 miles from San Francisco -- a greater distance than the Rams and 49ers were from their homes when not considered to be hosting the Super Bowl.

I have to admit, sometimes Gregg's intentional ignorance is impressive. He states that NFL teams are considered to have hosted Super Bowls when the game was held in their respective facility. Then he goes on to state the Super Bowl L (which no longer goes by roman numerals anymore, but Gregg was too busy lecturing others about their mistakes to notice this) will be held in Santa Clara on the 49ers homefield, but isn't sure if the 49ers will be considered to host the Super Bowl since the game isn't in San Francisco.

If it takes place on the 49ers homefield, they are considered to be hosting the Super Bowl. It's that easy. It doesn't matter whether the 49ers play in Santa Clara and have San Francisco in the team name or not. It also doesn't matter if other teams have played closer to their "real home" in previous Super Bowls and weren't considered to be playing in their home stadium. If the 49ers play the Super Bowl in the stadium they play 10 games a year in as the home team, they are playing in a Super Bowl they are hosting. It's very simple.

Now that everything is computer animated, there's nothing more boring than special effects. Computer animation might sell -- the video game-like "Transformers" movies have been big money-makers -- but is not interesting because it's so obviously fake. Computer animation also divorces movies from natural law: There's no gravity or action/reaction in contemporary action sequences because these don't happen inside software. The result is fast-paced, colorful dullness.

Then stop watching movies with special effects. It will save you the trouble of bitching about how these movies aren't realistic (and they are movies, so they aren't supposed to be realistic) and it will save my eyes from the energy required to read over the bitching in TMQ and focus on the 40% of the column that is actually focused on football, which is supposed to be the intended topic of TMQ anyway.

Best Crowd Reaction: "Heath! Heath!" the Pittsburgh home crowd chanted when Heath Miller caught a pass to the Jacksonville 1. Wait, the game was in Florida, not Pittsburgh. No fan base "travels" as well as Steelers fans -- there is appeal in having a league-best six Super Bowl rings. Between the easy availability of Jaguars seats and the allure of a Florida side trip, so many Pittsburgh supporters decamped to Jacksonville that there seemed nearly as much gold in the stands as blue.

Or Steelers fans live in Florida and Jaguars fans don't want to pay money to come out and support a team that may end up moving to London eventually and can't put a winning team on the field currently. It's not that Steelers fans "travel well" it's that they are a historically successful team with fans in many cities.

I run into this issue a lot here in Carolina. There are fans of the opposing team at the game cheering very loudly, but then when you speak to these fans sometimes their favorite team is the Panthers when they aren't playing that fan's real favorite team. I went to see the Packers play the Panthers one year and a father and daughter were wearing Aaron Rodgers jersey's and openly cheering for the Packers. The next game I went to they were wearing Steve Smith jersey's and cheering for the Panthers. There is a lot of sports bigamy going around like that. It's terrible.

The whole Vikings' season might be slipping into desperation mode, with Adrian Peterson in limbo, Teddy Bridgewater hurt, an offensive line performing poorly and a nothingburger secondary despite two recent first-round draft picks. Throw in a rookie coach who punts on fourth-and-short, and the picture isn't good. At least Minnesota taxpayers are being fleeced for nearly $500 million to subsidize the super-rich Vikings ownership family!

Disclaimer Of The Week: Recently in New York City, I stayed, at someone else's expense, at the Parker Meridien -- excuse me, at Le Parker Meridien. If you call the hotel, the synthesized computer voice says, "To ensure this experience is memorable, we may record this conversation."

Oh Gregg, just because you admit you did this doesn't make it all right considering how hard you go after other people who find ways to not pay for traveling expenses. Why should anyone else have to pay for an expensive hotel so that you can go on the road and promote your latest book or idea?

Really, there is nothing to be upset about here, but it's hilarious that Gregg spends so much time criticizing politicians for having taxpayers pay for traveling expenses, while Gregg has someone else pay for his hotel as he promotes his latest journalistic endeavor. But hey, as long as he admits he is not paying for the hotel, that's totally different isn't it?

Five years ago, Oregon debuted the Blur Offense; two years ago, Mike Leach arrived with his pass-wacky mindset;

Gregg, please pay attention to the world around you. You write a weekly football column. There are things you should know, like Mike Leach coached at Texas Tech for 10 years and is the all-time winningest coach in team history. So Mike Leach arrived over a decade ago with his pass-wacky mindset, so don't assume the world started spinning again just because you recently woke up.

The Pac-12 has become the place for scoreboard-spinning, big-college contests. Because half the country heads to bed before Pac-12 night games kick off, this entertaining craziness is underappreciated.

Yes, college football fans have never watched Big-12 games from a few years ago and have no idea that games where there is a lot of offense exist. Thanks for tipping the entire world off to high-scoring college football games. No one else can appreciate exciting offensive games without you pointing out how exciting these games are.

Hosting Arizona State, USC led 34-25 with three minutes remaining, visitors ball on their 27. Only a dramatic, long touchdown could revive Arizona State's hopes. So why were nine USC defenders close to the line of scrimmage at the snap? Seventy-three-yard touchdown pass.

Maybe they were close to the line of scrimmage because they figured there are only two plays the Arizona State team would run, either a short run or a long pass, and they guessed that it would be a short run?

Now, it's USC 34, Arizona State 32, with seven seconds remaining, visitors at midfield. Maybe, just maybe, the pass will go the end zone. Arizona State kept seven back to block, and USC rushed three. That meant eight defenders to check three receivers. Since the play absolutely had to reach the end zone -- the game would end with any runner down on the field of play -- why were three USC defensive backs standing doing nothing around the 25-yard line?

Just in case Arizona State runs a hook-and-lateral play where a short pass is thrown and then lateraled to another Arizona State player? USC wanted to make sure they didn't allow the Arizona State team to have free reign of the middle of the field and then get closer to the end zone without a USC defensive player getting in his way.

Since USC is near the bottom for football graduation rates among ranked teams, perhaps mental mistakes should be no surprise. Which leads us to ...

Near the bottom? But Gregg, in ESPN Grade USC is the 20th best team at combining on-field play and academics. 20th in ESPN's proudly rolled out grading system that is no longer mentioned in Gregg's TMQ. ESPN Grade is such an effective way of measuring how well a Divsion-I team combines athletics and academics, how can being 20th in these rankings be a bad thing?

Next Week: After three straight blowout losses by teams with a new coach playing on Thursday night (Buccaneers, R*dsk*ns, Vikings), the league spots any new coach a touchdown in Thursday games.

Absolutely not hilarious. And still, we know you are writing "Redskins" even when you leave out vowels.

I can't wait for Gregg to make his third Super Bowl pick for this year. If he keeps guessing, he will be right at some point.

14 comments Gregg Easterbrook Wants to Talk (Again) About Concussions

I kind of figured Gregg Easterbrook would write about the resolution to the concussion litigation in this week's TMQ. Concussions in the NFL and youth leagues are Gregg's favorite topic (what about the kids?), so it doesn't shock me he discusses this topic on back-to-back weeks in TMQ. The more he can stay away from actually discussing football, the better for his readers. Still the following TMQ is one of Gregg worst columns of the year because this is the NFL preview where Gregg uses haikus to predict each NFL team's record for the 2013 season and then immediately forgets what he predicted (unless he ends up being correct) and calls out other writer's bad predictions in a TMQ after the 2013 season is over. Gregg's shit don't stink, you know.

One thing I found interesting is I began writing this TMQ post on Tuesday and forgot to bookmark it. When I went back to find and bookmark TMQ this morning at 8:07am it was nowhere to be found on ESPN's front page. I had to go to my bookmarked link for Gregg Easterbrook's columns. This may be something that doesn't happen often, but in my one visit to ESPN.com less than 24 hours after it was posted TMQ wasn't on the front page of ESPN. Perhaps TMQ is falling out of favor with ESPN.com? 

The NFL concussion lawsuit moved close to resolution last week -- see below for analysis -- 

You will wait for your analysis of the NFL concussion lawsuit and like it!

Football remains in a legal quicksand that has the potential to drag the sport under. The big concern has never been the NFL, which has only a small number of current and retired players, and can buy its way out of any difficulty. The issue is the 3 million youth players, 1.1 million high school players and approximately 50,000 college players.

Right, because the NCAA doesn't have any money to buy themselves out of any difficulty. Would someone please help the poor NCAA if they get sued?

Except for those who matriculated at football factories, most football players suit up for sponsoring organizations that cannot buy their way out of problems: youth leagues, public school districts and colleges whose athletic departments lose money.

Which also means parents who allow their children under the age of 18 to play football won't be able to sue these organizations and get a lot of money because these organizations also don't have a lot of money. In response to a lawsuit, these youth leagues and school districts would probably point out parents signed their children up to play football when they were under the age of 18 and all proper safety precautions were taken to ensure the children's safety, so the parents are at fault for allowing their children to play football.

If youth leagues, public school districts and colleges that are already in the red on sports start paying brain-damage awards, they'll stop sponsoring football. They won't have any choice -- insurers will drop them.

This is true as well. It's a kind of doomsday scenario Gregg is predicting, but that's all right.

A teen partially paralyzed at a Colorado football practice just won a $11.5 million judgment against his high school district, some school personnel and the Riddell helmet company. Last year, San Diego school district agreed to pay $4.4 million to a man who was a teenaged high school football player when he suffered a severe brain injury.

What these two cases have in common is that severe brain injury and paralysis occurred as a result of playing football. This is a different situation from a group of parents filing a class action lawsuit due to trauma caused to their children as a result of playing football when some of this trauma isn't necessarily manifesting itself quite yet. I simply think Gregg needs to understand that if/when a high school player gets paralyzed or severely injured on the field this is a different case (and a more surefire lawsuit) than a class action lawsuit claiming brain damage to a person who played high school football five years ago.

It's easier to look at Kevin Turner and decide his ALS could be a result of the repeated hits he took in the NFL, but if Kevin Turner stopped playing football in high school then it wouldn't be as easy to trace his ALS back to his brain injuries. There's a causation issue present in the situation where Turner hasn't been repeatedly hit in the head while playing football for a long period of time outside of high school. I'm sure it would occur, but I think it would be difficult for a class action lawsuit to begin when there isn't major injury caused while the child is actively playing high school or youth league football.

Sixteen-year-old Jaleel Gipson of Farmerville, La. died in May after an Oklahoma Drill at high school football practice...A week ago, Tyler Lewellen, a 16-year-old California high school football player, died from head trauma; two weeks ago, a 16-year-old Georgia high school football player died from a spinal injury sustained in a scrimmage.

Again, these are players who suffered very obvious injuries in the course of playing football. Regardless of the result of the NFL concussion lawsuit, these are very obvious lawsuits waiting to happen. Even if the players never sued the NFL, these types of lawsuits are going to happen when severe, life-changing injuries happen on the football field. It's more difficult to predict lawsuits caused by high school football when the symptoms from having played high school football show up over a decade down the road.

When the awful tragedy is a young person's death in a car crash, often there is no third party to sue.

Tell that to car manufacturers. I'm guessing they have experienced something different and contrary to this statement.

Sixteen-year-old Edwin Miller, a Maryland high school football player, died of heat stroke in 2009 after conditioning drills. In the immediate aftermath, his parents went out of their way to be conciliatory, including asking the team to attend his funeral in football jerseys. Three years later, they sued.

Yet again again again, this is a situation where a player died in the middle of a football activity. This is very different from what is being alleged by the players in the NFL concussion lawsuit. I'm not saying lawsuits alleging brain injury won't be filed, but many of these suits won't have quite the causation pointing back to football which the lawsuit from players' suing the NFL had. If Edwin Miller and five of his high school football teammates all were struck with ALS while they were middle-aged then perhaps a lawsuit could be filed, but it would be harder to trace the cause back to high school football. If Edwin Miller and five high school teammates all suffer from dizzy spells while still in high school and there is brain trauma shown when they went to the doctor, then that would be an easier lawsuit to win. The problem is brain trauma just doesn't magically show up immediately out of convenience for the purposes of a lawsuit.

Adrian Arrington, a former player at Eastern Illinois University, has sued the NCAA regarding his concussions.

Arrington is 27 years old. This lawsuit will probably be settled and the NCAA won't be hurt financially by it. Again, players who sue the NCAA will find the NCAA has deep pockets.

Last week, the parents of Derek Sheely, a Frostburg State University player who died in 2011 from a second-impact concussion sustained in practice, filed suit against the school and its coaches. 

Derek Sheely died as a result of a concussion from practice. This is very different than Sheely experiencing headaches 10 years after he stops playing the sport of football in high school.

For the youth and high school players who legally are children in the care of adults, assumption of risk does not carry the weight it does when cited by colleges or the pros. There may be many big awards coming. Awards in the millions per player harmed, not around $50,000 per retiree as in the NFL situation (see below). No public school system, and few universities, could withstand that.

I 100% agree that few public school systems could not withstand this, which is why most likely the lawsuits would be settled out of court. These won't be easy cases to win for the plaintiffs if/when these concussions lawsuits go to court. I'm not saying it can't be done, but tying ringing headaches to having played football in high school for three or four years 10 years after leaving high school is a little bit more difficult to do. That's all I'm saying.

Brain-injury lawsuits below the level of the NFL could make this question moot, if colleges and high schools stop playing. The threat of brain harm to players is becoming well-known; the threat of concussion litigation to the sport itself may be just as real.

It could happen, but I'm betting these lawsuits are settled out of court or changes are made to ensure the sport of football is as safe as it can be before high school and college football is eliminated forever.

Now --- still America's original all-haiku NFL season predictions.

Between the haikus of Gregg Easterbrook and Peter King, I am violently against the use of a haiku for any reason at all.

Wes Welker shown the
door; football gods will wax wroth.
The New England Pats.
Forecast finish: 10-6

Because we all know the football gods frown upon a team choosing to replace a player with a younger version of that player. The football gods expect teams to keep their players in perpetuity until that player is no longer effective, at which point Gregg makes up another reason why that team isn't succeeding.

Only castoffs are
allowed to play QB here.
The Buffalo Bills
Forecast finish: 4-12

I would love to know what Gregg thinks is the difference in a "castoff" player and an "unwanted" player. I'm guessing the only difference is that Gregg can use hindsight to see that a player succeeded in the NFL and will call this player "unwanted" even though he referred to the player as a "castoff" originally. Gregg Easterbrook bases nearly every comment he makes about a player on hindsight. If the player succeeds in the NFL after being cut, then Gregg will scold the original team for not wanting that player and call the player "unwanted." If that player doesn't succeed after being cut, then he is a castoff and isn't very good at football. As I always say, Gregg likes to wait 1-2 years and then tell us what a team should have done 1-2 years ago. He's brilliant when only considering his ability to use hindsight.

For years, TMQ has asked why the league charges for preseason games: fans do the teams a favor by attending. Now TMQ asks, why are there preseason games, period?

Money is the reason. It's two extra games of revenue for the owners. Are we done here?

The games are terrible; no one cares about the outcomes; good players get hurt, reducing the quality of the real games; ratings aren't much. Yes, owners like the added revenue from ticket sales and concessions. But money is not the NFL's core problem.

No, but cutting two preseason games from the owner's revenue stream would quickly become a part of the NFL's core problem. Money isn't the NFL's core problem, but good luck trying to get the owners to give up some of this money.

Now that the players are millionaires, do conditioning year-round and attend multiple minicamps, preseason games have no utility. Cut them back to two or eliminate them altogether.

That's a great idea. I would love to hear Gregg's idea on how to replace the NFL owner's revenue from the two missing preseason games. Perhaps these games would be replaced with two more regular season games if preseason games got cut back to two? Are two more regular season games really in the best interests of the player's health? Probably not, but Gregg isn't here to think of ideas, he is here to take a shit on everyone's else's idea without creating a solution to the problem.

Countersued those who
bought club's fake Super Bowl seats.
The Dallas Cowboys.
Forecast finish: 6-10

This has to be a joke because I did several internet searches and couldn't find any information on the Cowboys countersuing those who bought fake Super Bowl seats. Maybe I didn't search hard enough.

New York Times Corrections on Fast-Forward: In recent months the Paper of Record has, according to its corrections section:

• Said the asteroid that passed uncomfortably close to the Earth in February was 150 miles long; 150 feet is correct.

What's with all the hyperspecificity Gregg?

Admitted making the same minor error "at least 229 times".

That was a tongue-in-cheek correction and Gregg's lack of detail here makes it sound like the "New York Times" made the same mistake over and over 229 times. That's not entirely true. The "Times" has been referring to Tinker Bell as "Tinkerbell" for 229 years now and have never been corrected. So they have made the mistake 229 times simply because the correction was never noted by anyone until this year.

Miscalculated how old 37 is in gorilla-years.

This is an absolute lie. Go to the link (Gregg has such balls to provide a link and show how wrong he is, doesn't he?) and you will see the following correction:

An article on Tuesday about the death of Pattycake, the first gorilla born in New York City, misstated the relevance of the age 37 for gorillas. That age is the median life expectancy for female gorillas in North American zoos, not the median age of gorillas in North American zoos.

The "Times" didn't miscalculate how old 37 is in gorilla-years, but used the median life expectancy for female gorillas in North American zoos when they should have used the media age of gorillas (male or female) in North American zoos. They calculated the age correctly, but used the wrong median age. Not that I would expect Gregg to read the articles he links of course.

Said the original Woodstock festival was held at Woodstock, N.Y.; readers noted that Bethel, N.Y., is correct. Like wow, there's no one left at the New York Times who attended Woodstock.

And Gregg just began a sentence with "Like wow,". Between this and wanting to see more men shirtless in magazines I'm becoming more and more convinced Gregg is slowly morphing into a tweeny-bopper girl.

Cursed by football gods
since scapegoated Arians.
The Pittsburgh Steelers.
Forecast finish: 8-8

It seems Gregg can't ever understand that sometimes teams have to fire an offensive coordinator who has had some sense of success with that team. Bruce Arian is a head coach now, so I doubt he is complaining that the Steelers fired him. Plus, would Bruce Arians be cursed if he dared to leave the Steelers (assuming he was still the offensive coordinator) to become the Cardinals head coach? He would be a weasel coach leaving the Steelers team behind for more money. Plus, since Gregg has such a high opinion of Arians isn't it a good thing that he was scapegoated so he could go coach the Colts' offense and end up with an NFL heading coaching job?

But wait: lower-division North Dakota State defeated Big 12 member Kansas State. Towson defeated Connecticut, which was not long ago in a BCS game.

Kansas State was in a BCS bowl game just last year.

Then there was lower-division Eastern Washington at Oregon State, the latter a preseason ranked team. Eastern Washington posted 625 yards of offense, scoring a touchdown with 18 seconds remaining to defeat the hosts. This won't get the lasting attention the Appalachian State upset at Michigan received: West Coast games don't end until more than half the country has gone to bed. 

Great theory, but this game started at 6pm EST and was over by 9:40pm EST. So the whole "no one pays attention to the West Coast" theory doesn't work here. Otherwise, no one would have watched the LSU-TCU and Georgia-Clemson game either and those games were specifically scheduled for primetime to get the largest possible audience.

So I'm not sure why Eastern Washington over Oregon State didn't get enough attention, but it wasn't because the game was scheduled too late in the evening for East Coast viewers. The difference in Appalachian State over Michigan and Eastern Washington over Oregon State is that Michigan was a Top 10 team at the time they lost to Appalachian State.

Buck-Buck-Brawckkkkkkk: It was the very first game of the 2013 NCAA season, North Carolina at heavily favored South Carolina. The visitors trailed 20-7 midway through the third quarter and faced fourth-and-goal on the Gamecocks' 2. That cannot be the field goal team trotting in!

Let's be a little bit fair to Larry Fedora (head coach of UNC). Perhaps he should have gone for it, but if UNC team fails to score a touchdown here the game is over. UNC would be down 13 points and having just given South Carolina the ball. In this case, when Fedora kicks the field goal he gets points on the board and UNC has a quarter-and-a-half left in the game to come back. South Carolina jumped all over UNC early in the game but had not scored many points since then, so it was reasonable to expect a field goal in this situation, plus a stop for the defense, would put UNC right back in the game. It didn't work out that way of course.

TMQ wrote the words "game over" in his notebook, and the football gods showed their wrath by granting the hosts a length-of-the-field touchdown on the next snap, making the lead 27-10. 

I can't imagine how many times TMQ writes "game over" when the game isn't over.

You're the underdog on the road, you're behind late, don't settle for a field goal from the 2!

I look at it this way. UNC is on the road in an enormously loud stadium against a really good defense. Does UNC have a good chance of pushing this ball into the end zone given the crowd noise the offense would experience in this situation? I'm not so sure. 

League's best runner, worst
passing game. Net: home in Jan.
Minnesota Vikes.
Forecast finish: 5-11

The Vikings were 31st in passing yards per game and 2nd in rushing yards per game last year and they were not home in January. Merits a mention.

Peyton at Indy,
week sev'n. Ratings, anyone?
Indy Lucky Charms.
Forecast finish: 12-4

If Gregg insists on creating these haikus he could at least make them not feel redundant. Here is the one he used for the New York Giants:

Eli v. Peyton,
Week Two. Ratings, anyone?
Jersey/A Giants.
Forecast finish: 10-6

He uses essentially the same haiku for both the Colts and the Giants with the haiku mentioning Peyton Manning and the ratings this game will provide. If he insists on writing TMQ and filling it with haikus he could at least make them original or non-redundant.

The proposed settlement of the main concussion lawsuit against the NFL -- the supervising judge still must accept the deal -- has been widely interpreted a huge win for the league. Teams pay only about $25 million each, and well into the future, when money presumably will be worth less than today's. The $13 million or so each team owes up front represents less than 2 percent what the typical NFL franchise will realize in revenue in the period of the payments.

You can see why some people think the NFL got off easy in the deal. "Not true" says Chris Seeger as he wakes up from enduring another night of sleepless, sweaty nights over whether his firm will make the money they put into the ca---I mean, while worrying about whether his clients' children can go to college.

So the NFL got off relatively cheaply. But remember, the players might have received nothing.

This is the NFL concussion lawsuit analysis that Gregg promised us earlier. So I guess if each plaintiff in the case got $10 that would be a win in Gregg's opinion, because after all, they might have received nothing.

Had the suit gone to trial, it was far from clear the plaintiffs would prevail. Suppose a retired player had neurological problems: How could it be proven the problems stemmed from NFL employment, as opposed to college or high school concussions or falling off a ladder while cleaning gutters?

The irony here is incredible. Gregg just got done telling us that youth leagues and high schools could drop football because of lawsuits, while I countered by saying it is going to be difficult to prove causation if there wasn't an immediate, traumatic injury that occurred while that person was playing football. Now, when Gregg is discussing the players lawsuit against the NFL, when some of these players played 100+ games in the NFL, including preseason games and enduring training camp, Gregg is arguing the plaintiffs possibly could not have proven causation. Wouldn't this be much, much more true for lawsuits that are brought after a person has only played high school or youth league football? So why doesn't Gregg mention this causation issue when discussing the issue earlier in TMQ and why did Gregg state that school districts could drop football and the causation issue wasn't mentioned as a mitigating factor for potential lawsuits? Oh yeah, Gregg didn't bring it up because he was afraid it would ruin the point he wanted to prove. Gregg only likes to give his readers the information they need when it fits the point he wants to prove.

Often parties in a lawsuit reach pre-trial settlement in order to minimize risks -- the party with a lot of money eliminates the risk of a very large judgment, the party seeking money eliminates the risk of ending up empty-handed.

Which is exactly how school districts could keep high school football around even when there are lawsuits being filed against them for injuries alleged to have occurred on the football field.

Since players may opt out of the settlement and pursue their own lawsuits, many will face this choice: take a moderate sum now and move on, or spend years in bitter litigation that might lead to a jackpot or to nothing. On "Deal or No Deal," once a contestant got to a briefcase with a decent amount of money, the rational move was to stop. That is now the retired players' situation.

Gregg wants to know, if some of these players opt out of the settlement, then who will be their Howie Mandel?

For plaintiffs' counsel the outcome is marvelous. The NFL is covering their legal fees, and won't say how much was agreed to. That means the lawyers get their payday upfront, rather than waiting for years.

But...but...tossing and turning, night sweats, college, very worried...it wasn't about money. It was about the personal concern!

They just can't finish.
What will go wrong this season?
Atlanta Falcons.
Forecast finish: 12-4

The Falcons made the NFC Championship Game and lost to the team that Gregg is predicting will go 14-2 this season. The Falcons can't finish or they just got beaten by a better team in the NFC Championship Game?

Book News: Maybe, possibly, perhaps I will soon be mentioning again my upcoming book "The King of Sports: Football's Impact on America," which can be pre-ordered here. Yes, perhaps I will mention "The King of Sports" again.

Click on the link and then scroll down to the picture of Gregg. He looks like he just got done from a two day bender. He looks tired and haggard. Interesting choice for a picture.

Manning to Welker:
Both wandered in off the street.
The Denver Broncos.
Forecast finish: 12-4

To say Peyton Manning walked in off the street is just so incredibly misleading. It's not like zero NFL teams wanted Manning, but only a few wanted to pay $20 million per year for Manning.

QB shows more skin
than cheer-babes on calendar.
The S.F. Niners.
Forecast finish: 14-2

Gregg predicts the 49ers will go 14-2 and his haiku is only about how much skin Colin Kaepernick shows. Seems appropriate.

Next Week: During the preseason, TMQ uses "vanilla" material designed to confuse scouts from other sports columns. Starting next week, I will come at readers from all directions with complex sentence structures, exotic joke packages and quick-snap items. Real football will be back at last!

With the return of real football means the return of Gregg's terrible second-guessing, Gregg's terrible analysis, and Gregg's terrible understanding of the game of football. I can't wait. 

4 comments MMQB Review: The Concussion Suit was Settled So Everything is Fixed Now Edition

Peter King decided to invite someone into his daughter's fantasy football league last week in MMQB. I didn't get word on who the winner was that received the prize of being a part of Peter's daughter's fantasy league, but I'm sure that person feels very honored. Peter also chronicled a yelling fit that a certain "Dr. Evil" had on an airplane. More than discussing football, Peter loves to chronicle the conversations of strangers. If there was a CBS show about Peter it would undoubtedly be called "CSI: King" and Peter would work with the police to solve crimes by eavesdropping and documenting the conversations of strangers. It would be like "Person of Interest" combined with every other CBS crime show. This week Peter brings us down by talking about the concussion lawsuit that the NFL settled with ex-players, mentions Tim Tebow because he is apparently contractually obligated to do so, and defends himself for choosing Robert Griffin as his Comeback Player of the Year, even though there is no excuse for this type of stupidity. 

I also noticed while reading Sports Illustrated's NFL preview magazine that Peter did the Rams 2013 season preview (as if anyone else would do it of course) and he related to us that the Rams gave Jared Cook $19 million guaranteed. I didn't know this or had forgotten about it. Peter reminded me of this while comparing Jared Cook to Jimmy Graham (but of course). Not to harp, but the Rams gave a tight end who has never had more than four touchdowns in a season and never more than 759 yards per season $19 million guaranteed. Rob Gronkowski only got $16.5 million guaranteed in his contract extension. I had not remembered that the Rams gave Cook $19 million guaranteed. For that kind of guaranteed money he had better have a breakout season.

There’s only one story today, still. I know the season is three days away, and the concussion case settlement is four days old. But this head trauma issue was the nuclear cloud that hung over the game, and I think there are things you need to know—particularly you who would trash the settlement as being too meager. “Chump change,’’ I believe many of you called it on Twitter and elsewhere.

A lot of sportswriters and people who cover sports for a living called the settlement meager. It wasn't just the idiotic fans. The settlement may be worth it to the players, but given how much money the NFL makes and the league can now not have to worry about this concussion lawsuit hanging over their heads, it is a meager settlement to many.

This morning, you need to hear the story of 44-year-old former battering-ram fullback and current ALS sufferer Kevin Turner, and of the lead plaintiffs’ attorney who woke up more than once at night thinking of Turner, and how men like Turner pushed this case to get settled.

“I have a policy of not getting involved with the plaintiffs in cases like this, whether it’s NFL players, ballerinas or regular people,’’ Chris Seeger, one of the lead attorneys for the 4,500 former players and estates of former players, told me Sunday night.

"But then I realized I can make a shit-ton of money being a lead attorney on this case, plus give myself free publicity for my efforts. It was really a no-brainer after that. I decided I would convey my worry for Kevin so that future clients can see just how much I care."

But I met Kevin several times. Nobody had a bigger impact on me in this case than Kevin did. I’d wake up at night, sometimes in a cold sweat, thinking about this man and how important it was to him that he provide for his family, that his children get the college education they deserve.”

"Plus I get a percentage of the overall settlement and my firm was putting a lot of money into this case. I had to make sure we made enough money out of this case to justify the investment we had made. But yeah, the college education stuff...man, I was really worried about that too. There was sweating and I was cold...classic worry-type symptoms for me."

Turner is an Alabama boy. He played for the Crimson Tide, then got drafted by the Patriots in the third round in 1992. He played eight years for the Patriots and Eagles, and retired following the 1999 season. He lives in Birmingham now. He is divorced with three children, the oldest of whom played his first varsity high school game ever on Friday night. That filled Turner with pride, knowing his son loved the game enough to pursue it, and now as a sophomore he was playing at a high level.

But why does Turner let his son----

He knows what you’re thinking: How can he let his son play? And how he can he not hate the sport that very likely gave him—such a young man—this cruel disease with no cure?

OMG! That's exactly what I was thinking! How can you read my mind like this?

“It’s not complicated,’’ Turner said. “I love football. I always will love football. I love football so much I let my oldest son play the game, because I knew he would love it too.’’

Plus, Kevin Turner is an adult and if he wants to choose to allow his son to play football then that's his decision.

The deadline. Brody had told both sides they had until a date in July to reach a settlement. When they went to her at the appointed time nearly two months ago and said they were deadlocked, she assigned a mediator, Judge Layn Phillips, and told each side they had until Sept. 3 to reach a deal. If they didn’t have a deal by then, she’d rule, and she told both sides there would be parts of her ruling that could well be injurious to each.

It sounds like Judge Layn Phillips was going to force the lead counsel of each side to put a random "y" in their first name just to be original and have an alternative spelling of a traditionally simply name.

Each side was motivated to settle. ESPN reported over the weekend that Brody “signaled” that she agreed with part of the NFL’s argument—that a large percentage of the plaintiffs, those who played from 1994 to 2010, should be omitted from the suit because the collective bargaining agreement precluded them from filing lawsuits over health issues.

Is this the same ESPN that just removed itself from a documentary about concussions because they were afraid the NFL would get mad at them? Excuse me if I somewhat question ESPN's report that the NFL and their argument was more persuasive to the judge, since ESPN has shown they have a skin in this game by removing itself from the "Frontline" documentary on concussions.

The players also were pushing for a quick resolution because many of the sicker ones, Turner included, needed the money now and not years from now when the appeals had been exhausted. From the NFL’s side, there was no way it wanted the dirty laundry of stories of team doctors ignoring or minimizing concussions during games aired in depositions before the trial, or in testimony at trial.

You can sort of see why some people would say this settlement was chump change. It's not that it was truly chump change, but it's the simple fact the NFL had slightly more leverage since the players needed the money now and the NFL knew this. Sure, terrible stories of team doctors ignoring concussions could come out, but the NFL could further delay the legal process while the sick players need money now. So the NFL seemed to have slightly more leverage and Peter is naive if he thinks the plantiffs' attorney is going to come close to indicating the players didn't get the settlement they deserved.

The players’ side controls the payout pool. This was important to the players. They didn’t want the NFL controlling which doctors would examine the players in baseline testing, which would be the base provision for determining how much money each injured player is awarded. 

It’s complicated. But at the end, the attorneys for the players felt they got as much as they could from the NFL before the two sides would have had to appear in front of Judge Brody on Tuesday—at which point the players knew the case could have been weed-whacked if Brody removed all the players who had played since 1994.

I don't think it is a bad settlement, it's just that it doesn't feel huge compared to the amount of money the NFL and NFL teams make every season. The injured players are getting money to help with their medical expenses and the NFL is getting those pesky concussion lawsuits off their back so they can get back to accumulating money.

So the deal got done: a $685 million pool for compensation (a $5 million individual ceiling for ALS sufferers, $4 million for Parkinson’s, $3 million for Alzheimer’s or dementia), $75 million to fund baseline testing on retired players to see if they’ve been cognitively impaired, and $10 million for research. In addition, the NFL will pay lawyers’ fees for the plaintiffs, which will likely be $200 million or more.

The lawyers should be compensated for all of those sleepless nights worrying about whether Kevin Turner's children can have a college education. It takes a toll on a man to wake up and have to worry like that, but all this money seems to be worth the worry now.

Over the next 20 years, then, NFL teams will pay out about $1 billion, half in the first three years to fund the compensation pool.

This is a lot of money, but $500 million over three years isn't a lot of money relative to the NFL. I personally have no issue with the settlement. It's what the players agreed to, and it's their life not mine that has been affected. Still, $500 million over three years is a lot of money but certainly won't bankrupt the NFL.

I’m told a large majority of NFL owners approved the details of the settlement in conversations with commissioner Roger Goodell in the last couple of weeks. (But it was not unanimous.) And why wouldn’t they approve? For about $16 million per team all told in the next three years and $12 million over the following 17 years, nuclear winter was averted.

That's nothing to these owners. All they have to do is try to force an 18 game schedule on the current players and they can make the money back in just a few years.

Seeger was one of the lead attorneys in the Vioxx case that won $4.8 billion from the pharmaceutical giant Merck. He’s been down this road before, figuring how hard he can push a giant company.

I'm sure Seeger was up at night tossing and turning worried about his plaintiffs in the Vioxx case as well, worried their children could go to college. No wait, that's right, he doesn't normally get personally involved with his clients.

He’s heard the criticism of what the players got, and he’s hot about it.

BREAKING NEWS: The attorney for the plaintiffs likes the deal he got for the players. What a surprise!

I know Peter is just reporting what he is hearing, but is there an attorney who would file a class action suit, settle the suit and then claim he didn't get enough money for the plaintiffs? That would be like basically saying he did a shitty job. I'm not an attorney, but I'm pretty sure if you admit you do a shitty job it could affect how much business you get.

We plotted how much these players who need the money now and in the future, and who are eligible for it, would need, and we got it. We got it now, not 10 years from now. I’ve heard the criticism. A pittance … chump change. That is stupidity. We got exactly what we needed for the players and the families who need it most.

Great Peter, now you are going to keep Seeger up at night tossing and turning in a cold sweat that he didn't get enough money for Kevin Turner to send his child to college, plus the cabana on the edge of Seeger's pool needs to be re-done, he's having to use his backup BMW because his favorite BMW has a weird clicking sound and his housekeeper wants a raise. Times are tough all over.

“It’s easy to sit in the cheap seats and have a conviction that the settlement is no good. You weren’t in the game. You just don’t know. What I asked myself at the end as a lawyer was, ‘Is this enough? Is this enough for Kevin?’ ‘’

I guess "Kevin" is shorthand for "the amount of time and total expenditures put into trying this case to where it was profitable to bring this class action lawsuit."

I asked Turner if he’d ever gotten a concussion during a game and played through it.

“Sure,’’ he said. “The year after Green Bay won the Super Bowl, I was on the Eagles, and we played them in Philly. I remember the opening kickoff, and then I remember, maybe late in the first quarter, going up to our backup quarterback and saying, ‘You’ll think I’m crazy, but are we in Green Bay or Philly? And how are we doing?

That wasn’t the only time he played when he shouldn’t have. But he blames himself as much as he blames the football culture of the day. “Football didn’t do this to me,’’ he said. “My ignorance did it. That, and maybe others who should have known better.”

This seems to be a group failure. Kevin Turner had his ignorance which didn't allow him to realize he was hurting himself, the NFL didn't care, and the doctors didn't have to care.

On Aug. 22, Turner had a surgical procedure. A doctor implanted six electrodes on his diaphragm. “That should give me 24 to 36 more months breathing on my own,’’ Turner said. Before he needs a ventilator to breathe for him. He’s spending “darn near every cent’’ of his disability payments on treatments and doctors and medication and equipment.

Well, so much for Kevin Turner's kids getting a college education. Now Chris Seeger will be waking up all night worried again, tossing and turning, sweating like a whore in church.

“I didn’t do this for a public hanging of the NFL. I never wanted to kill the NFL. The past is the past. What’s more important? Hanging the NFL for the sins of the past? Ruining the lives of people who, I’m guessing, most of them don’t even work in the NFL anymore? Or doing something to really help people, and then really working to make the game safer?’’

Yes, but by helping people and working to make the game safer you are also looking to hold the NFL accountable for any evidence they had which would have helped people and made the game safer, but was ignored. It is important to hang the NFL for sins of the past so they don't commit these same sins in the future and will pay for any type of evidence they had of the brain injuries being incurred by NFL players.

“I think even moreso I’m excited about the game now,’’ said Turner. “Now, you see doctors, trainers and coaches who have the knowledge about concussions and head injuries treating them different than when I played. We should be excited about the game now. It’s the most beloved game in the country, and they’re making it safer now.

And that's what hanging the NFL for past sins can do for you.

With the money he gets from the settlement, Turner said he hopes to help his 70-year-old father so he can stop working. He wants to put enough money away so his three children will be well-educated—something he knows he would have been able to provide were it not for the ALS.

Thankfully, Chris Seeger can go back to sleeping soundly in his bed under a comforter of wooly mammoth hair and the finest sheets that you have to special order from a guy that Seeger knows...and no, you couldn't afford them.

He wants to seek treatment for himself, in the hopes that some new ALS treatment might be found. “Then,’’ he said, “if there’s anything left over, I’d like to help fund some research into ALS. I honestly believe we will find something to stop this in the next five years.’’

One could hope...

“He looked good. He looked good. If we can have him practicing on Wednesday and we feel that he’s good enough and mentally ready to play, then he’s going to play [against New England in Week 1].”

—Bills coach Doug Marrone on Sunday, after watching rookie quarterback E.J. Manuel do individual drills at practice for the first time since minor knee surgery two weeks ago.

Translation: Doug Marrone would prefer Jeff Tuel not be the starting quarterback for Marrone's first game as an NFL head coach. Getting beaten 52-10 isn't something Marrone would like to remember from his very first game.

“It probably wasn’t fair to Vince. We threw a lot on his plate and the fault is probably mine. I probably should have had him in here earlier.’’  

—Green Bay GM Ted Thompson on Sunday, after releasing quarterback Vince Young over the weekend.

Gregg Easterbrook wants to know why the Packers don't release Aaron Rodgers and just give the starting quarterback job to Vince Young? All Young does is win games. Plus, Young provides a different look to opposing defenses from all that "throwing touchdown passes" look that Rodgers provides.

Factoid of the Week That May Interest Only Me

It’s likely New England coach Bill Belichick will one day walk into Canton wearing a yellow jacket. But it won’t be because of his drafting acumen in the secondary. Belichick drafted seven defensive backs in the first two rounds of the six drafts between 2007 and 2012, and of those seven, only one is a starter today: Devin McCourty, and not at the position he was drafted to play.

Yet he seems to do pretty well when it comes to drafting defensive linemen, linebackers, offensive linemen, and tight ends. So I guess if Belichick drafts in the secondary poorly it really doesn't matter as long as he keeps winning football games.

Peter includes Darius Butler on his list of players who didn't pan out for Belichick, but Butler's play in Indianapolis was really good last year, so perhaps Belichick made a personnel mistake rather than a mistake in draft evaluation as it pertained to Butler?

Now, to be fair: Belichick has gotten Stevan Ridley, Rob Gronkowski, Brandon Spikes and Sebastian Vollmer in the top three rounds since 2009 too. It’s just that, clearly, the defensive backfield is a blind spot for Belichick, which is very strange, considering his career as a defensive maestro.

Not really. There is a difference in the ability to coordinate a defense and being able to choose personnel for that defense. It's why some good coordinators don't make great head coaches and why some good head coaches don't make good personnel evaluators. Being able to coordinate a defense is a separate skill from being able to choose personnel for that defense.

“@profootballtalk there is no conspiracy. I pulled the plug.”

—@JedYork, the 49ers’ CEO, after the Pro Football Talk piece about Ray Lewis saying he didn’t think it was a coincidence that there was a blackout when the Ravens were spanking the 49ers in the middle of last year’s Super Bowl.

Lewis said he had no facts to back up his accusation, made in the NFL Films’ America’s Game show, which will be shown tonight on NFL Network. “But,’’ Lewis says on the show, “you cannot tell me somebody wasn’t sitting there and when they say, ‘The Ravens [are] about to blow them out. Man, we better do something.’ … “

Ray Lewis was a very, very good middle linebacker during his NFL career. He is not a person you want doing a lot of thinking or else this is the result. Naturally, ESPN saw Ray Lewis logical and analytical abilities and thought, "Well, we just have to hire this guy."

“@TimTebow ; Stay the course brother, your day will come & the crow feast will be glorious! #prevail”

—@KyleTurley, the former NFL tackle, after Tebow was cut by the Patriots Saturday.

What? I'm not even sure makes sense. Though I do believe the only ones eating crow and prevailing are those who believe Tim Tebow is not an NFL-caliber starting quarterback. I mean, if the guy who drafted him in Denver can't be convinced to keep him around that doesn't bode well. The good news? The gospel of Tebow is coming to Canada.

Ten Things I Think I Think

1. I think the roster moves that caught my eye this weekend included:

d. Matt Simms, an absolute roster afterthought with the Jets, is one of their four quarterbacks this morning. Stay tuned, but son of Phil wowed the coaches with his 33-of-44 preseason finale against Philadelphia.

The Jets are essentially like, "Which quarterback can we sacrifice for a few weeks so we don't have to rush Geno Smith out there to run an offense without enough weapons that will allow him to be successful in an offense he probably doesn't completely feel comfortable running at this point? Oh yeah, let's ruin Matt Simms' career!"

“Quite honestly, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a player make the improvements he’s made,’’ said coach Rex Ryan.

Considering over the past few seasons Rex Ryan has gotten to view Mark Sanchez, Kellen Clemens, Greg McElroy, Geno Smith, and Tim Tebow at the quarterback position, I'm not entirely sure if this is a compliment or an admission that the standard for "improvements" (at least in terms of quarterback ability) has been lowered severely.

h. Jonathan Vilma stuck on the Saints’ 53-man roster despite being hobbled by an August knee procedure. New Orleans kept six inside linebackers, which could be a nod toward accounting for the rehabbing Vilma.

Hopefully no one will get paid $10,000 for intentionally hurting Vilma while he is trying to rehab from his August knee procedure.

i. Curtis Painter beat out David Carr at the Giants’ backup quarterback. Somebody’s got to sign Carr.

Has Peter ever seen David Carr play? He should be competing for the starting quarterback position on a CFL team with Tim Tebow and Tebow should be able to beat Carr. David Carr is not very good.

l. Geno Smith’s two favorite receivers at West Virginia, Tavon Austin (of course) and Stedman Bailey, were two of five wideouts kept by the Rams.

I'm thinking Tavon Austin is the new Chris Long (who is a guy Peter has an obsession with prior to the 2008 draft) or Brett Favre, to where Peter will find a way to force a mention of Austin into every MMQB. It's only going to get worse if Austin plays up to his potential.

n. Pat White was the fourth Washington quarterback kept. Seems excessive, until you realize White is a mobile left-handed quarterback, and can play the mobile left-handed quarterback the team faces in Week 1, Michael Vick, on the scout team this week.

Well it also makes sense if you understand that Robert Griffin is coming off major knee surgery (I haven't gotten an update on Griffin's injury today yet, why hasn't he updated us at all?), Kirk Cousins was semi-injured in the preseason, Rex Grossman is the 3rd quarterback, and Pat White is a mobile quarterback who is a candidate to run the zone-read offense for a few plays if Griffin gets injured again and the Redskins don't want to completely abandon this zone-read strategy. So I think it makes sense on a couple of levels.

r. The Raiders kept two punters on the 53-man roster Saturday, and unable to scare up any interest in a trade for Chris Kluwe, waived him Sunday.

It sounds like Peter is going to have to lobby for Kluwe to get another NFL job by cherry-picking statistics again.

4. I think if there was any doubt the Panthers are shaping the roster in new GM Dave Gettleman’s image, here’s proof: Only one of the eight 2011 draft picks from the Marty Hurney regime is on Carolina’s active 53-man roster this morning. 

Of course this could also be a sign that this specific draft class was terrible and was terrible as a result of the head coach, the owner, and the GM all having three separate agendas. There are still 20 players on the Panthers roster that were drafted by Marty Hurney. That's quite a lot even if Hurney was fired less than a year ago, especially when factoring in undrafted free agents still on the roster who were brought in during Hurney's time as GM aren't counted in this number. Hurney could be bad at times, but his draft picks are productive and the roster hasn't been completely shaped in Gettleman's image quite yet.

8. I think I got to thinking when I saw the Colin Kaepernick/Russell Wilson EA Sports/Madden commercial, the one that has little Colin and little Russell training in weird ways to be NFL quarterbacks: A year ago today, people had barely heard of these guys.

I don't think this is an entirely accurate statement. Russell Wilson was well-known among college football fans because he led the Wisconsin Badgers to the Rose Bowl and even in training camp last year he was getting rave reviews for his quarterback play. Kaepernick wasn't as well-known as Russell Wilson, but he was still a second round pick and record-setting quarterback at Nevada. I think Peter is overstating the case a little bit.

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

b. Saw a cool indie film over the weekend, In a World, written by and starring Lake Bell. Never thought I’d find the dog-eat-dog world of voice-overing making a good film, and I never knew Lake Bell before Saturday. But the movie’s good, and she’s a star.

Lake Bell is no Meryl Streep, that's for sure.

c. The Red Sox have a 5.5-game American League East lead with 24 games to play. They wouldn’t be fixing to break hearts from Millinocket to Woonsocket, would they?

Considering the Red Sox weren't expected to win the AL East this year I would chalk their lead up as a pleasant surprise rather than whining about how they may let you down.

d. I hate the one-game Wild Card in baseball. It devalues the 162-game season.

Oh yeah, Peter hates the one-game Wild Card now that he is afraid the Red Sox will get stuck playing in the one-game playoff if they blow the AL East lead.

Having said that, a sudden-death playoff game in the National League Central, with Cincinnati playing at either Pittsburgh or St. Louis, will be pretty dramatic. And that’s how it’s shaping up.

And of course St. Louis would win this game because they don't lose in the playoffs of late and I find that very annoying about them.

e. I want Miguel Cabrera to get healthy, fast. I want him to win two straight Triple Crowns.

I am sure the fact Peter King wants Miguel Cabrera back healthy soon is going to further motivate Cabrera to come back faster.

f. So … are you actually trying to convince me that Teddy Bridgewater is better than my alma mater’s Tyler Tettleton? Is that what you’re trying to say?

So you are trying to convince me this is a non-football thought?

g. One request about Week 1 of the college football season: Can we wait a few more games—one or two at least, please—before saying Jadaveon Clowney has blown the No. 1 pick in a draft that is 36 weeks away?

Since these are non-football thoughts, I presume Jadaveon Clowney is a basketball or baseball player?

h. Coffeenerdness: Sunday marked the last three-espresso-shot day of the season. From now on, it’s a minimum of nine per Sunday.

Holy shit, you clearly have a problem.

j. For those saying, “How can you pick Robert Griffin III to be the Comeback Player of the Year?’’ (Which I did.) He played through the end of the season, then had knee surgery. So he actually played the 2012 season.

Robert Griffin had knee surgery after his team's season was over. The Redskins played one game in 2012 without him on the field. How in the ever-living hell do you justify picking him as the Comeback Player of the Year? He didn't come back from anything. He simply had offseason surgery. I think a player has to actually miss a few games before he can be considered to have comeback from anything.

A couple of things. There are no rules for the Associated Press voters for postseason awards (I have one of those votes) concerning the Comeback Player.

There is this thing called "common sense" and it dictates to me that a football player who didn't miss more than one game during a season can't be the Comeback Player of the Year.

A player can be coming back from major surgery, or from a lousy year the previous season. And there is precedent for voting for a player who gets hurt late in the previous year. In 2012, Adrian Peterson got 17.5 of 50 votes for Comeback Player, and he started all 16 games of the 2011 Vikings season.

And I thought that was stupid too. Adrian Peterson came back from a knee injury, but there were other more deserving players who missed time during the 2011 season that came back during the 2012 season. In my opinion, it's hard to "comeback" from an injury that didn't really cause a player to more than one game the season before.

Also, THIS IS A FOOTBALL-RELATED THOUGHT!

k. Now for all the rest of my picks … I accept all over-ripe tomatoes, right in the forehead.

This is football-related as well. Out of Peter's 12 non-football related thoughts, four of these thoughts are related to football.

The Adieu Haiku
Long U.S. nightmare?
Over. Next 20 Sundays
Are football Sundays.

These haikus add zero substance to MMQB. I have no idea why Peter still includes them. I think he's just taunting us at this point.