Peter King Is Happy For the Normans
02.08.10
Note: Drew is unavailable today, so I’ll be tackling PK duties this week.
When we last left wistful reader Peter King, he was extolling the virtues of Brookline Booksmith, despite his fondness for the Kindle. So what about this week? Will Peter be satisfied with his stay at the Doral Resort and Spa? Will he be disappointed by South Florida’s lackluster support of their hometown hockey team? Read on.
It’s right, it’s fair, it’s just, it’s good, it’s shocking. You were not dreaming…
It’s the special release of Uzuri African Blend from Peet’s!
As the fifth team bus — the one with mostly family and friends of the team — sped from the stadium to the Intercontinental Hotel in downtown Miami for the most raucous of postgame parties, this merry band of Saints partisans sang and chanted and Who-Datted to their heart’s content.
These fans lead the league in Who-Dattedness
“Oh when the Saints … come marching in …”
Uh…those aren’t the lyrics.
It got quiet for a minute, and Carville piped up loudly: “I still can’t believe we won the Super Bowl!”
He’s normally so reserved!
In the middle of the rolling party, someone else piped up: “Can you believe we called that onside kick?”
No, it caught everyone totally off-guard.
Oh, I can.
Because you’re a liar.
It had Sean Payton written all over it.
Just like Peter’s composition book.
“Ambush,” Payton said cavalierly, almost diffidently…
It’s funny because those words are basically antonyms.
In this case, Ambush was so mind-blowing because:
a. Morstead never attempted an onside kick in a game before Sunday night in his life.
Really?
b. Morstead never practiced onside-kicking until 12 days ago.
Isn’t that what training camp is for?
c. Morstead can be a bundle of nerves.
But none of this stopped Peter from seeing it coming.
Payton knows how lethal Peyton Manning is, and he knew he ran the risk of giving the Colts 30 extra yards if the onside kick failed, but he knew it wouldn’t fail.
Because Peter told him so.
He put his trust in the hands of a kicker, Morstead, kicking the first onside kick of his life, and in a special-teamer, third-year safety Chris Reis, perhaps the most anonymous of the 45 Saints who dressed Sunday. Morstead because he was the kicker, Reis because he was the feistiest of his kick-chasers
He has the guts of a catburglar.
and would scratch and claw for the ball if he had to.
And the mentality of an actual cat.
The ball at first lay underneath Reis’ legs as bodies flew in trying to get it. “I was able to get the ball into my hands and just cradle it here,” Reis demonstrated for me later in the locker room, with his hands cradled around his stomach, slightly bent over.
Quasi-Madonnaish.
“White ball!” Reis heard one official yell in the mayhem. The Saints were wearing white. Good.
Saints. White. Good. Okay, I think I get it.
“Blue ball! Blue ball!” he heard another official yell. The Colts were blue. Bad.
If you say so. This is all very confusing.
“The Colts were punching at it and grabbing for it, trying to get it out. But I didn’t care if they broke all my fingers.”
Peter felt the same way when he snagged the last Kit Kat bar in the press box.
“I can’t believe it,” said Morstead, a rookie from SMU. He’s a tall kid, wiry and athletic and thoughtful.
He’s all sinew and brain.
What happened, fella, is you and Chris Reis just made a play that was the biggest one in preventing Peyton Manning from winning his second Super Bowl…
Because it’s always about Peyton.
…and sent your city into orbit.
Oh yeah, that too.
I thought Indianapolis lost this game as much as the Saints won it.
Who dat say dey gonna let the Saints win?
GM Bill Polian told me outside the stadium after the game you can’t blame Garcon because he got “jacked” at the line of scrimmage.
And you told him that’s some bullshit, right?
Maybe…
No. No maybe, that’s bullshit.
…but I watched the replay a couple of times early this morning, and he was well away from the jacking when the Manning pass clanked off his hands.
Thank you. And thank you for typing “the jacking.”
I hated the decision by the Colts, on third-and-one in the final minute of the first half with two timeouts left by the Saints, to run into the middle of the line.
It’s not like they were running into the teeth of the ’85 Bears.
Manning’s got 10 conversion throws that he can get one yard with in his saddlebag, and the call is Mike Hart burrowing between a couple of sub-300-pound blockers — Jeff Saturday and Ryan Lilja. Hart got stoned for nothing.
Nobody gets stoned for nothing. Oh, you mean he got stopped. Yeah, that happened. You know, they probably should have thrown the ball there! Sorry, I too got stoned. And it wasn’t for nothing. It was to make this column tolerable.
I don’t like how they would have left themselves 89 yards to go in 45 seconds with one timeout to get a touchdown.
As opposed to calling one of Peyton’s “10 conversion throws that he can get one yard with,” that would have left them with 89 yards to go in 45 seconds.
I know the logic is, Make sure you don’t give the other team a possession before the end of the half. Run the clock. Well, they didn’t convert. And the Saints got a possession. And the Saints scored.
Your logic is no match for my hindsight.
Third: the onside kick. Not to beat a dead Colt, but you simply can’t make that mistake in a game of this magnitude.
The mistake was letting Hank Baskett on the field.
Drew Brees was brilliant. He had a true MVP performance.
But the Colts lost the MVP just as much as Brees won it.
This game puts him in a league with Manning and Tom Brady at the top of the league’s quarterback pecking order. It’s a trifecta now, not a daily double.
A trifecta is when you correctly pick the first three finishers of a race, in order. A daily double is when you pick the winning horse in two different races. I believe the term your looking for is a “three-horse race.” But let’s not let that get in the way of you saying what everyone else has been saying all year.
Now for the Hall of Fame section.
I decided to vote for a player I had previously denied because another voter whom I know and respect said, ‘C’mon.’ Good enough for me.
Sharpe’s a mystery to me too…
Is he eligible for the trifecta?
A mystery, except that so many of these guys are good. I fear it’s so difficult to compute these crazy numbers that wideouts and tight ends are putting up.
Sharpe had 813 career receptions. 813! We need the guy from NUMB3RS to tell us what that means. And none of that scientific mumbo-jumbo, give us an everyday analogy that anyone watching CBS on a Friday night can understand.
I did not support the Denver running back because I felt his numbers and impact were shy…
And he never returns my texts.
I called Little Saturday night…
Good phone call. Lofty phone call. But a Hall of Fame phone call? Sorry, not for me.
Quote of the Week II
“Not bad for number 24.”
– Sean Payton to me, before taking the podium to do his postgame press conference.
In the offseason, I ranked the 32 teams from top to bottom, and I ranked the Saints 24th on my list.
Wait a minute. Coaches actually read this crap?
“I think Russ is the greatest guard to ever play pro football,” Starke said after Grimm went in to the Hall of Fame. I disagree, but as I said earlier in this column, Grimm’s the guy I’m happiest for after this year’s balloting.
You never said that.
1. New Orleans (16-3). At 10:05 p.m., soon after the Saints won the Super Bowl (can’t believe I just wrote that), my friend Josh Norman, who lives in New Orleans, texted me thusly: “Utter delirium in New Orleans right now.” At 10:28 came this: “I’ve been all over the world and I’ve never seen a celebration as epic as this. This is beyond words. The earth is vibrating.”
It’s an earthquake. SOMEBODY SAVE THE NORMANS!
2. Indianapolis (16-3). I know everyone’s concentrating on the Colts not being able to convert third-and-one late in the first half, gifting the Saints with three points before halftime, and for allowing New Orleans to recover an onside kick. But for my money, the Pierre Garcon drop midway during the second quarter was just as big.
Also big: The second half.
3. Minnesota (13-5). So if Brett Favre does retire, who’s next? McNabb? Vick? Pennington? The one name I never hear for the starting 2010 QB job in the Twice Cities is an interesting one: Tarvaris Jackson.
That’s because it’s not interesting.
4. New York Jets (11-8). I’ll bet you a lot of money Rex Ryan gave his middle-finger apology through gritted teeth and hated every word of his statement.
And I’ll bet you a lot of money that Rex Ryan thinks Peter King is a twat.
9. Baltimore (10-8). If I’m the Ravens, I pounce on Donte’ Stallworth with a totally incentive-laden contract. It’s just what they need…
Another player who settled out of court with a dead guy’s family.
10. Philadelphia (11-6). Breakout Eagle of 2010: LeSean McCoy.
Breakout movie of 2010: Avatar.
14. Cincinnati (10-7). Terrell Owens in stripes will happen the day I run an ultra-marathon.
He said run, not walk.
But more than that, he’s a great football player, with no weaknesses. Scouts now have to look twice at 6-foot quarterbacks who are very smart. I know I’d have my eyes open.
Somebody get Eric Crouch on the phone, we might have been wrong about him all along!
Really though, Brees was the first pick of the second round. It’s not like he was written off as a shrimp who could never compete in the NFL.
Late in the third quarter, Hartley was an MVP candidate, with 46-, 44- and 47-yard field goals, the first time in Super Bowl history a kicker has had three field goals outside the 40-yard line. Not bad for a second-year guy who played college ball at Oklahoma.
He says that like Oklahoma is some obscure Division II outpost.
There are many things in the world I do not understand…
What’s with everyone driving everywhere? Surely they’ve discovered the unbridled joy of walking.
Why is there a hockey team adjacent to a shopping mall in the middle of Luxuryville, Fla.? Rick Gosselin and I went to the Panthers-Flames Friday night…
Surely they could have built it closer to Shantytown.
(yes, we are hockey loons)
I was told there would be icing.
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Peter King can kiss my ass until Jim Plunkett goes into the Hall. I say that as a Steelers fan. And Perloff’s “column” today is worse than PK’s.
shantytown? i much prefer crackton
“It had Sean Payton written all over it”. as apposed to Caldwell calling the onsides kick for the Saints…
“Blue ball! Blue ball!” he heard another official yell. The Colts were blue. Bad
Apparently it is not good luck to abstain from sexual relations the night before a big sporting event…
Lofty standards loftully lived up to. Needed more Fat Hump + PK interview though.
I thought we all agreed that the “Petey dressed for the Special Olympics” photo would now grace these?
@289
The humps interviewed the manager of the Miami Cracker Barrell and called an interview with PK.
Not easy shoes to fill. Well done UM.
Damnit… “and called IT an interview…” above.
I type like the Colts tackle…slowly and poorly.
Well done sir, well done. Especially:
“The Colts were punching at it and grabbing for it, trying to get it out. But I didn’t care if they broke all my fingers.”
Peter felt the same way when he snagged the last Kit Kat bar in the press box.
I’d like to point out that “I was told there would be icing” is perhaps the funniest thing on this site outside of some of the player/coach columns.
So, PK, what you’re saying is: white=good, blue/colored=bad???
I think someone’s spending too much time in Boston.
“Blue ball! Blue ball!” he heard another official yell.
Coincidentally, this is what PK angrily yells at Tony Romo when he says he’s just going to turn in for the night.
Nice work UM.
I’m one paragraph into Simmons’ ‘retro-diary’ and I can’t go no more. He actually wrote this:
[the Colts were] a juggernaut that was controlling the game until Pierre Garcon’s deadly third-down drop midway through the second quarter
Why, that’s nearly a third of the whole game. And the other 2/3rds?
Just quit writing, Billy boy. You’re DUN.
Jim Plunkett, Stabler, Guy, Flores, Branch, on and on
“…with 46-, 44- and 47-yard field goals, the first time in Super Bowl history a kicker has had three field goals outside the 40-yard line.” Uh no, because the goal post is 10 yards deep he would be kicking from the 36, 34, and 37 yard lines respectively.
/Yes, I’m picking nits, but that’s all I have for the next 7 months. Fuck.
Sharpe’s a mystery to me too…
Is he eligible for the trifecta?
Very well played UM. Nice and subtle.
And BTW, John Hannah is the best guard ever, you taintpimple.
@Sloth…
The problem is that Simmons is sub-literate, where Petey King is just stupid. After I read either of them, I grab an encyclopedia and read a few pages to revive my brain.
@Mew-
I think the HOF voters have a mad-on for Count Al, so the Raiders from the mid-70s to mid-80s are screwed. Which is a shame.
Coaches and players read EVERYTHING that is written about them. (That is, the literate ones.) The guys who say they don’t read the papers or the blogs are full of shit. They nurse every grudge at every opportunity.
10. Philadelphia (11-6). Breakout Eagle of 2010: LeSean McCoy.
Who did Desean Jackson play for again?
Pierre Garcon’s drop was not any bigger than Colston’s drive-killing drop in the first quarter.
He ranked them 24th?? I mean, was that common among people who rank teams for a living? I’m not saying it was obvious that this team would win the Super Bowl but…24th? Why does anyone take anything this guy writes seriously?
Who did Desean Jackson play for again?
Umm, I think he already broke out.
@CR: #2, #3 and #4 didn’t even make the playoffs.
bang-up job, Maj. I’m not usually one to clamor for Simmons getting the FJM treatment, but yeah, that retro-diary today is just douchiness taken to the nth degree.
for those who didn’t read it, allow me to recap: ManningFaceManningFaceManningFaceManningFaceManningFaceManningFaceManningFaceManningFace.
oh, and did his “Hurt Locker” joke make sense to anybody? like I know one of the guys is pretty much a hugh skittish pussy, but the main dude in the movie is a stone-cold badass. how is that like Hank Baskett again?
King harps on one drop by Garcon that occurred in the first half which was mirrored by Colston’s drop, but he will lay no blame at Peyton’s feet for the game-changing interception. Would it kill him to criticize a popular player?
“Not as good as Drew’s FJM style”
You sell yourself short, Maj. Excellent work here.
“What kind of parents would allow their 13-year-old son, as happened with quarterback David Sills of Delaware — to make a commitment to a college while the kid is halfway through his seventh-grade year? It is February 2010.”
The kinds of parents who were offered a deal in which someone else offered to pay for the college education of their 13 year old child……if the University of Phoenix made me the same offer for my one year old, I would jump on it.
//Threadjack:
While we’re all in a happy mood, and while we’re the maximum weekdays away from Friday (allowing CC to forget about this comment if it gets under his overly-sensitive skin), I’d like to take this opportunity to say it would be awesome if you would see fit to make Kill-Kill-Kill a regular part of the offseason rotation again. For some reason, you seemed to go away from it last year, only occasionally indulging us with the animal death porn we had all grown so fond of. Would love to have it back and to see what I’ve been missing from the world of nature these past couple years. Just this reader’s two cents.
And, to remind everyone of what once was, here’s a blast from the past (admittedly, one of the few from this past summer) that has a little something for everyone: if you’re one of the fat humps, you’ll love all the eating; as for the rest of us, we can just imagine this as a metaphor for the last 24 hours:
[kissingsuzykolber.uproxx.com]
// End threadjack
I’m confused. He praises Payton for the on-side kick but blames the Colts for losing it. If the expectation is that the Colts will recover, then it was a bad call. If the expectation is that it’s up for grabs, then the non-recovering team cannot be accused of a “mistake”.
PHOTO OF THE YEAR
[mattchew03.tumblr.com]
Fat Boy totally wasn’t taken by surprise by the FIRST FUCKIN ONSIDE KICK IN SUPERBOWL HISTORY TO NOT TAKE PLACE IN THE 4TH QUARTER.
Go choke on a Baby Ruth.
If you are enjoying watching the Colts/Manning/the Hump’s failure, I implore upon you DO NOT READ SIMMONS RETRO-DIARY. It is so douchy, it would make the most fire breathing Manning hater root for the guy next year just to shut Simmons up. The only thing it is missing is a recounting of how he is friends with Jimmy Kimmel and Adam Carolla and watches the game with them…wait he did that last year and spent the whole week talking about it on his podcast? Douch.
@stuscott: figures.
@Maj: That was actually very funny and the subtle digs are sometimes the best digs. Other times, the digs need to be right out there in the open…like this one:
In the middle of the rolling party, someone else piped up: “Can you believe we called that onside kick?”
No, it caught everyone totally off-guard.
Oh, I can.
Because you’re a liar.
Well done, well done.
@breaston plants
I don’t think anyone likes to read good writing reads Simmons or PK anymore. I know I don’t.
Wait a second.
So Simmons writes a column in which he basically says all the things we’ve been saying all day, and he’s a douche for it? I get it, people think he’s a douche anyway, fine. When the topic is any of his teams, I wholeheartedly agree. But give me one national guy busting Pey-Pey’s chops and calling him a choker over the ball-cupping he gets from all the rest of them.
Shit, just down the page is a post about the return of the Manning Face. Simmons coined the phrase quite a while ago. At least he’s been consistent about this one. Can’t begrudge the guy this kind of schaudenfraude. It’s a national treasure.
i love payton’s ballsy call, great.
i hate belichick’s ballsy call, stupid.
A mall next to an arena, yes, I know…it makes no sense. I much prefer SunShark stadium, in the middle of a destitute ghetto, rather than Bank Atlantic, where I can actually grab a beer and meal before/after an event…
…and Sunrise, FL is hardly “Luxuryville”
Christ, I know I’m beating a dead Colt here, but PK is a fucking idiot.
@85, I can only say that BSG’s ‘voice of the fan’ act is tired. When he talks about skipping out on free tickets to the Super Bowl because his favorite team’s rival is merely competing in it, he’s dead to me.
/he best have given those tickets to some kids or at least returned them to ESPN. what a fucker.
Umm, I think he already broke out.
He only had two TDs last year.
My favorite part of today’s PK column was his comment on Russ Grimm:
“and was the one guy on the Redskins I always remember Bill Parcells saying of, ‘If we let this guy have a good day, we’ll lose.”’
Those can’t possibly be words that ever passed through Parcells’ lips. Can we get independent verification on this? I would be astounded if Parcells was terrified of an offensive lineman, even if it was a “Hog” and expressed this to a reporter.
He only had two TDs last year.
And how many did he have this year?
Granny Pants also bashed the stadium coffee AGAIN this week.
/Why is this honorary fat hump still ranking teams anyway???
“I know everyone’s concentrating on the Colts not being able to convert third-and-one late in the first half, gifting the Saints with three points before halftime”
No asshole, you’re the only one harping on this.
“and for allowing New Orleans to recover an onside kick.”
STOP BLAMING THE FUCKING COLTS FOR THE SAINTS EXECUTING AN AWESOME AND BALLSY PLAYCALL. I suppose you also blame your buddy Rodney Harrison for letting David Tyree catch that ball on his helmet so easily.
“GM Bill Polian told me outside the stadium after the game you can’t blame Garcon because he got ‘jacked’ at the line of scrimmage.”
Get the competition committee on the horn! Polian needs more rule changes so his pussy wide receivers aren’t allowed to be touched, EVER this time.
And how many did he have this year?
Eleven, if you include punt returns.
@SSB
Maybe I am missing something, but I think PK is predicting that McCoy will break out next year (i.e. the 2010 – 2011 season). He isn’t saying that McCoy already broke out.
Actually 12, he had a rushing TD too.
@Tebow: Yeah, you’re right. I’ll shut up now.
By George, I think he’s got it!
“A mystery, except that so many of these guys are good. I fear it’s so difficult to compute these crazy numbers that wideouts and tight ends are putting up.”
He has his old man jeans cinched too tight around his lower cheat area. He has a lower chest, and could be out two to four, give or take his resiliency.
If Drew can’t write the PK response, don’t bother. You fucked it up.
I think you are misinterpreting PK a bit. When he writes “‘Can you believe we called that onside kick?’ Oh, I can.”, King literally means he believed it happened. Just like he believes the Saints won the Superbowl, that Peyton Manning threw a fourth quarter interception, and that eating 85 buffalo wings at the press buffet may have led to his ensuing battle with diarrhea. He’s not saying he predicted these events, he’s merely confirming that they happened.
Yeah, what Walter says. Huge disappointment. Had a work friend almost ready to bookmark the site (a girl) and this was too lame. I’d rather wait a day for the hangover to work itself off than read something more lame than Simmons.
pathetic fat humps!!!
[www.indystar.com]
@Walter: If you can’t post funny/interesting comments, don’t bother. You fucked it up.
I’ll assume “Drew is unavailable today” means “Drew is insanely hungover”
I’ll assume that “Drew is unavailable” means “Drew is insanely hungover”
Okay, I’m by no means a football historian and I’m not old enough to have watched Jim Plunkett play, but can someone make his HOF case for me? I’m looking at his career stats, and they’re kind of shitty-looking. Maybe I’m not adjusting properly for era or something (although, even when comparing him to his peers, it looks like he had about three good seasons).
“There are many things in the world I do not understand…” Yeah, I think its everything in the Library of Congress.
@SSB +1
@Jissthrasher – There is no legitimare Plunkett Hall of Fame argument…he won two superbowls…neither of which he was primarily responsible for…think Trent Dilfer in the late 70s
As for Simmons…I read him, he’s ok, his act is a little stale…lets be candid, Drew’s act is a bit predictable also and we love him. Simmons does the prep school, Boston-fan, popculture deal, Drew does manufactured rants that are similar to what other have done before. Sometimes they both are good, sometimes predictable.
What is always douchey? Those of us who actually spend time ripping people in the comments section of obscure, esoteric sports blogs. Even Drew, Leitch, etc openly admit that Simmons revolutionized sports writing, some of that was happenstance and timing, some of it was a fresh approach. Just saying…if you dont like it, dont read it just to come here and write, “ohmigod, guess what douchey boston-centric thing simmons wrote.”
I mean fuck, people here are starting to sound like assholes who like indie films and music complaining about people who watch studio movies and listen top40 shit.
Shanon’s a mystery to anyone that here’s him speak.
I love ”the jacking.”
Well done. A lofty effort. QuasiDrewesque.
Best fill-in for Drew yet. Unsilent Majority is the Bob Griese to Drew’s Earl Morrall.
@ButchHobsonsDeviatedSeptum – “There is no legitimare Plunkett Hall of Fame argument…he won two superbowls…neither of which he was primarily responsible for…”
So, that MVP award for a 13 of 21, 261 yds, 3 TDs performance in SB XV was a mirage, eh? And a 16 for 25, 172 yds, 1 TD, 97.4 passer rating in SB XVIII was completely irrelevant as well? Of course! Jack Squirek scored a defensive TD! And Marcus Allen rushed for 400 yds!
The case for Plunkett’s HOF election is a legitimate debate….he is hurt by 5 godawful years in New England and the fact that he never had a full year where his passer rating was above 82. But, c’mon man…. say that he wasn’t a factor in the two Raider Super Bowl wins is beyond ridiculous. His passer rating in SB XV of 145 is third all-time, behind only Joe Cool in XXIV and Phil Simms in XXI. Pey-Pey’s SB ratings? 81.8 in XLI and 88.5 yesterday. Oh, and Plunkett has one more ring that Pey-Pey.
If Joe Namath is a Hall of Fame quarterback, then Jim Plunkett sure as shit is.
“the first time in Super Bowl history a kicker has had three field goals outside the 40-yard line.”
Does someone want to tell Peter that a kick from outside the 40 is a 58 yard field goal or should I? No? Ok.
Okay, I’m by no means a football historian and I’m not old enough to have watched Jim Plunkett play, but can someone make his HOF case for me?
Well, he won two Super Bowls after spending the ’70s getting his ass beat with the Patriots. Contrast with Archie Manning, who is also in the HOF, and who spent the ’70s getting his ass beat with an equally shitty team, and won a grand total of nothing.
Also, his childhood sucked, and his parents were blind and deaf or something, and he sold poppies on a street corner or something. Just STFU about Jim Plunkett.
Archie’s not in the HoF. He’s in the College HoF, but that’s different. He’s also in the Saints HoF, but that’s once again different.
Looking at PK’s preseason rankings, only one of his top four teams (New England who he had first overall) made the playoffs, and of his top 12, just seven made it.
Sounds like great insider information.
Archie Manning isn’t in the HOF. Until last Saturday, no Saint had ever been elected to the HOF. Now we got 1: Rickey Jackson.
Don’t ask me why guys like Sam Mills and Morten Andersen aren’t in as well.
Oh, when the Saints…
Go over there!
Oh, when the Saints go oh-ver there!
Boy, I want to be in that rumba!
Uh, when the Saints go over there!
/Homer
If the Colts catch the onside as they should have, the genius tag wouldn’t apply. Still gotta give the Saints props. There was a half of football left and they seized it.
Give King this much-at least he touches if only by tangent on the one story no one is talking about-Jim Caldwell is a deaf mute dope. If Rex Ryan or Brian Billick or Bill Parcells is coaching that team, the Colts win. While Manning runs the offense, it was Caldwell’s stupid decision to pull in the horns before half, and it was his defense that got brutalized all 2nd half. And we all saw this dope standing there with his headset tuned to a playlist saying nothing while his team choked away a Super Bowl.
We got a load of storis all offseason about what a great choice Caldwell was, but now that he shat the bed, nothing.Irsay gave this guy the job like he was giving out a gold watch to a retiring employee, and it was a huge mistake. So an incompetent gets one of the best HC gigs because Tony Dungy likes him? WTF? ANy number of real coaches would have taken this job understanding that you don’t mess with the offense and somehow get a defense together sufficient to win postseason football games.
I actually enjoyed the Simmons column – no one else points out the dumb kick off return to the 11 that would’ve made Stover’s 51 yard attempt a more reasonable 42 yard attempt. He was on point today and I second the person who said STFU and stop reading him if you really can’t stand it.
Of course, tearing PK a new asshole weekly, totally acceptable. My favorite part was “not bad for a kid who played ball in Oklahoma” – right, they sure are the Pittsburgh Pirates of the Big 12. They probably can’t afford goalposts and don’t have time to practice kicking there. There isn’t an ACELA to Norman, right? So by proxy its amazing Hartley made it this far. Moron.
Nice job, Unsilent Majority
Bullshit, you can be my wingman anytime, UM.
I think that Plunkett should be in the HOF, as should Flores and Lester Hayes. I’m not a raider fan, but those Raider teams in the 80′s are some of my favorites. Might be the fact that they spanked that douche Theismann and the ‘Skins in ’83…
@Soul On Ice
Hey man, totally agree re: the MVP he won for the super bowl and his performances in the game, I meant that he was not the primary reason the Raiders were dominant in that error. In my opinion he was much more of a game manager – like Dilfer or Phil Simms – than one of the primary reasons the Raiders were a dominant team over that 5-8 year stretch of the late 70s and early 80s.
I guess my rejoinder would be if Jim Plunkett is a hall of famer, is Ken Anderson? Is Simms? Esiason? I sort of put him in that category.
In SI the magazine’s NFL preview issue, PK (filling in for incapacitated Dr. Z) picked the Bears to win the NFC championship over the Packers, then lose to the Pats in the Super Bowl. Even better, he picked the Saints and Jets to go 7-9 and finish 3rd in their divisions. And the Colts and Texans both 10-6, but the Texans to win the division on a tiebreaker. In fact, he only picked 2 of the 8 division winners correctly. How did all that work out?
To me the “docuhiest” thing about PK – and why is more ripe for heavy criticism than other sportswriters – is his condescending insistence on highlighting his personal relationships with the people he covers and his insistence on sprinkling in PK-centric anecdotes about politics, friends, etc…and I say that as a liberal/progressive person who agrees with his general political POV. It is so fucking annoying and condescending to readers to use your column to discuss gun control and your travel slights.
To me, Simmons is supposed to be writing about himself – the same is true, to a degree, with other writers whose work is often interlaced with their personal feelings – Whitlock, Stewart Mandel, Wilbon. We can criticize people like that on content, but PK is not supposed to be doing that. He is supposed to be doing basically what Peter Gammons or Will McDonough used to do, and what Adam Schefter now does: provide information the casual fan cant obtain. What a fat fucking waste.
As drew said last week, when was the last time PK even broke a football story? Aside from those pulled out of Breileigh Favre’s twat.
And now for some language-policing:
” Josh Norman, who lives in New Orleans, texted me thusly: ‘Utter delirium in New Orleans right now..’”.
He did not text you “thusly”, PK, because “thusly” isn’t a word. “Thus” is a word, an adverb in fact, generally used to mean “in this manner”, as in “he texted me thus: WITH HIS FUCKING THUMBS” (demonstrates). It would have been as simple and a great deal more accurate to say “He texted me THIS:…” as in “He texted me this predictable, insipid message, which I now convey to you as if it meant a goddamn thing”.
/considers switching to decaf
/spends all night debating it
/decides against in time to brew a fresh pot of octane before work
/goes to work, savages colleagues
/repeats
“It is so fucking annoying and condescending to readers to use your column to discuss gun control and your travel slights.”
A typical Northern Jersey suburbian asshole liberal…met plenty of those condescending assholes and their special coffees.
I started not to read this when I saw Drew didn’t write it…but I did and was pleasantly surprised…Great Job UM
I started not to read this when I saw Drew didn’t write it…but I did and was pleasantly surprised…Great Job UM
I too am miffed that people make a big deal of Garcon’s drop. Yes it did hurt and came at a time when it looked like the Colts would run away with the game. But Colston’s drop on 3rd down earlier cancels Garcon’s drop, and the Saints were able to overcome this.
PK mentions people talking about Pennington replacing Favre in Minnesota? Am I missing something here? WTF is he talking about?
Lofty UM.
CRClqH i mostly dont agree