FACCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKK!

Has they-ahhh evah been a more-ah tortchahhhhed fanbase than the LEGENDARY FANS OF BAWBBY V NATION?!

(dips)

I had a bad feeling about this game! WE AWLL DID! When you ahhh a Bawston fan, you can spawt trouble comin’ round the cornah! Like when a pack of Rawxbury dahhhkies comes sweeping into town because it’s payday and they need to buy Keno tickets! WE CAN SMELL THEM COMING A MILE AWAY, BECAUSE DAHKIES SMELL LIKE CHICKEN AND PISS.

(visits Hoosiers gym because he loves white people)

THAT is why we didn’t travel to Indy for-ah this Supah Bowl! We KNEW that something wasn’t quite right, and that’s why we were-ah smahhht enough to stay away! No fanbase has evahhhh dreaded a game like this one, nawt since we had to beat back that cunty Tebow! I have lettahs to prove it! NAME ME ONE OTHAH FANBASE THAT CAN SENSE A LEVEL XXVIII(B) CAWKPUNCH GAME LIKE THAT! I am a hahhhdened veteran at this! I am bettah at taking lawsses than any othah sparts fan, even if that intentional grounding call was faggot shit! I AM BETTAH AT MANY THINGS THAN YOU, INCLDING TRIVIA, EDDIE MURPHY’S MOVIES, AND LOSING GAMES.

(also better than you at writing angry 1,000-word missives to editors in the dead of night)

Do you know what it’s like to experience missing out on a Fahhhhhth Supah Bowl becawse of some bullshit David Tyree catch, and then to experience the same thing five year-ahs latah? YOU DO NAWT. Don’t bawthah trying to tell me you do. STAWP. JUST STAWP. Fahhh Dunkin’ Donuts Nation to go out like this – to a hated bunch of fags from New Yark! – is the cruelest blow of all! THE FIRST THREE SUPAH BOWLS MEAN NOTHING NOW!

(stalks around on street corner wearing oversized Bruins jersey)

And Brady? Brady is NAWT ONE OF US. You see, we BAWSTON people stick close to our own! We ahhh born here, and then we go to school in Greenwich, and then we move to LA, and then maybe we die here-ahhhhh! WE’RE JUST THAT LOYAL. No othah town is like this! So when Brady is hangin’ out in Santa Bahhhhbahhhhara and fackin’ some undawcumented non-Mass resident, we get suspicious! WE KNOW SHIT IS FACKED! Tawm Brady is gawnna have to win us ovah again! Don’t tell me that wasn’t a shitty pass to Welkah! WELKAH CATCHES THAT BALL 150 TIMES OUT OF 100! I blame Glamour-ah Boy Brady fahhh fahhhgetting his roots! And I blame Bernahhhhd Pawllahhd! WE AHHH THE ONLY CITY THAT HAS HAD OW-AH PLAYERS HURT BY ANOTHAH PLAYAH!

(pisses on nearby lamp post)

I fackin’ hate awll of you right now! It’s a good thing I’m so good at accepting hahhhtbreak! I’m gawnna go fack an Indian chick and slap the dawt off of her head! WE NOW ONLY HAVE ONE MAJAH SPARTS TITLE AND THAT IS A CURSE! Even if we had won, we know that it wouldn’t have been prawpah revenge for Super Bowl Farty Two! NO ONE DENIES THIS! BAWSTON WAS IN A LOSE-LOSE SITUATION! You can’t pawssibly get that! I FEEL THE GHOSTS AND THEY SMELL LIKE OLD PUSSY!

When we last left Geno Auriemma’s biographer Peter King, he was marveling over Mike Mayock’s travel schedule. How can one man be in both the continental US and Hawaii all in the SAME DAY?! That defies physics! He was also not proud to tell you he watched a bit of the Kardashians (MOAR FUNKHAUSER PLEEZ), and told you that he wasn’t gonna write about Peyton Manning, then proceeded to write twelve thousand words about Peyton Manning. There will be PLENTY of time to talk Peyton later this week, gang! For now, it’s important that we talk about how scary that Tigers’ batting order is!

So what about this week? Did Peter save his receipts from the Conrad Hotel? Was this game exciting for the seven state-like territories in the upper right-hand corner of your United States map-like object? And did Seattle ever give Marc, Peter’s barista, a raise? Well, let’s just see how he makes my latte first. READ ON. But first, a special announcement…

I’m not sure how long I’ve been doing Fun With Peter King here at KSK. Maybe since 2008. I THINK. Years and years of subjecting myself to Peter’s musings has deadened a legit 40% of my cerebral cortex. The point is, I stand before you today a beaten man. All the garbled syntax, all the stories that go nowhere, all the equivocating… I think all of it has broken my spirit. I don’t just think it. I know it! That’s why, starting next week, I’m handing full control of Fun With Peter King over to our own Christmas Ape, who will be injecting jusssssst the right amount of bitterness into this feature on a weekly basis.

Ape will also be adding the sorely needed visual components to this thing that I’ve been too lazy to cook up over the years. Furthermore, our new and improved kommenting system has allowed readers to enhance the whole “Let’s pick on this one person every week” experience, and that’s fun! Peter King is even LOFTIER once dirty Photoshops have been added to the mix. Trust me: You will not be disappointed with the new and improved KSK.

As for me, I’ll still be around, posting worn-out Tommy jokes and ranting about umbrellas. But Peter and I need a bit of time apart. He’s been a good sport, all things considered. I daresay there are far more thin-skinned writers out there (COUGHsimmonsCOUGH). And you readers have been kind enough to not point out that I write a weekly NFL column that is somehow even LESS informative and LESS about football than Peter’s weekly thinkarrhea. And so I thank you for your discretion. Now, for old’s time sake, let’s rip this little piggy a new one.

So many thoughts, many about Manning, in the hours after the Giants’ 21-17 Super Bowl win over the Patriots. Let’s categorize them:

1. Thoughts about Eli Manning, who I’d prefer to not actually talk about.

2. Thoughts about the weather. Don’t know how you beat that weather, Indy.

3. Thoughts about the Red Sox. You know where I stand on players openly drinking beer in the clubhouse, particularly if that beer isn’t Blue Moon.

4. Thoughts about Rick Reilly openly lobbying to get his son an ad job on Twitter. Quasi-McDanielsesque!

5. Thoughts about “Happy Endings,” which some of you told me to watch. Tell you more about it when I see the highlights.

I’ve noticed this about (Eli Manning). Football’s his job, and he likes it a lot. But let’s say God tapped him on the shoulder tomorrow and said, “I’ve got different plans for you. You’re going to be an architect.”

Eli Vandelay?

Manning would handle that pretty well.

BREAKING NEWS: Eli Manning capable of switching to imaginary new career assigned to him by Peter King. Can we make him a parking valet next? Because he would make a GREAT parking valet. I bet he does a great “This asshole with the BMW stiffed me” face.

He is a sick competitor, but he’d figure a way to satisfy that part of his life. Golf with the other architects, Friday night poker, trying to be a better architect than anyone else out there.

This is such a fully fleshed out alternate universe for Eli. It’s like watching “Sliding Doors 2.” In this case, the door would be designed by Eli, because he is an architect. Playing billiards with other architects, eating fancy architect food, fucking his wife while thinking about new shapes, etc. It’s all there. The mythology is quite rich.

As the pool reporter covering three full Giants practices during the week, I saw one series of plays that really interested me Thursday.

INTERESTING.

Saturday was my 20th Hall of Fame selection meeting, and not much has changed over the years.

Indeed. YOU STILL ALL EAT HOG.

/bitter about Cris Carter

…These voters, media people from around the country, are strong-willed and opinionated — many of them — and what resulted Saturday is not a big surprise if you understand how the process works, and who votes.

BERNIE MIKLASZ: I want to order from Panera!

PETER: I want Houston’s!

BERNIE: Panera!

PETER: Houston’s!

BERNIE: Tell you what: You get to order from Houston’s, but only if you drop your case against Cris Carter.

PETER: Done! THE SYSTEM WORKS.

There are two bones of contention coming out of the meeting — at least that I’ve heard from readers, Tweeters and other writers: the Bill Parcells snub and the logjam at wide receiver.

Bill Parcells would have gotten in if it hadn’t been for all the Jap voters. NO OFFENSE, JAPS. We know you have a hard time seeing greatness through those little coin slot eyes.

I can’t divulge conversations from the room; that’s against Hall policy.

FUCK THE HALL. This whole process is so totally idiotic. Why do they make the deliberations a secret? To protect voters from actual criticism, that’s why. Fuck the Hall. It’s bullshit.

It’s also against Hall policy to divulge your vote.

I like that Peter says this right before saying that he supported Carter’s candidacy. So you can’t say you voted one way, but you can intimate who you supported. This makes NO goddamn sense. If a voter wants to actually disclose his vote (and to give credit to Peter, he clearly does), then LET HIM. So fucking annoying. This is how you end up with a Hall of Fame located in Asshole, Ohio.

The NFL Man of the Year award went to the veteran Ravens center (Matt Birk). He beat out Philip Rivers and Charles Tillman…

“What? Huh? FUCK YOU, BIRK! I WAS CLASSIER THAN YOU BY MORE THAN A COCKHAIR!”

“Reading is a skill from which all others follow,” Birk said. “Mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, grandparents, baby sitters … even Steeler fans … anyone who has instilled the love of reading in a child, this is for you.”

Couldn’t have said it better.

This is how Peter would have given that same speech:

“As a skill from which others follow, we underestimate reading. Watch CNN, fine. Read, better. That’s what Mike Brown does. He reads. Hang on a moment… gotta check this text from Steve Young… Anyway, read more and you could’ve been from Pittsburgh. Mothers, fathers, Puins, Whiteleys, etc. Reading is our Bogart.”

Listen to Tony Dungy talk about Jim Caldwell’s ability to erase mistakes from quarterback play, and you’ll be convinced that Joe Flacco is in very good hands with his new quarterback coach.

2011 Colts passing stats: 14 TDs, 14 INTs, 56.6% completion percentage, 72.2 QB rating. I think we can all see that Joe Flacco is destined for greatness under that kind of tutelage. MY FRIEND TONY DUNGY WHO WORKS AT A NETWORK LOCATED IN THE LOWER DIGITS OF YOUR CABLE GUIDE SAYS SO.

7. Houston (11-7). Scout receivers, Rick Smith.

That’s an order! Don’t go against Peter on this, Rick Smith. You saw what happened after Peter told Sibling Rivalry to get better with the coffee.

11.Denver (9-9). One week without a Tebow feature or a Tebow story of any kind… Good play.

Now, let me tell you what I think John Fox probably said to Tebow before this offseason began. He probably said, “Tim, you gotta get better.” That’s how I think it all went down. I wonder how Tebow would handle being a graphic designer.

“Hit me right in the hands. It’s a play I never drop. It comes at the biggest moment of my life.”

– New England wideout Wes Welker

Jesus, even Wes Welker overrates Wes Welker’s hands.

I asked (Ross) Ventrone for a poem or two. He has taken to doing Twitpoems, 140-character jobs he fits to Twitter.

I hope they’re as INTERESTING as the out-of-the-box poems about the NFL written by Larry Ferlinghetti!

I don’t much care for the NFL
Soccer is better
You smell that fart of mine?
A taste of heaven

Here’s his tribute to aardvarks:

Nocturnal talk,
Eyes open when it’s dark.
Interesting animal style,
Big Ups to aardvarks (we need you out there).

Ross Ventrone is retarded. I expect Roger Ebert to retweet that poem five minutes from now.

Mr. Starwood Preferred Member Travel Note of the Week

Four of them:

1. Can you believe this lady with the sleeping mask blocking the way to the window seat?

2. Great town you got there, Grand Rapids. But where does a fella go for coffee round there?

3. Living in Manhattan means I get to take a $30 double decker bus tour every day. Still magic.

4. Awful hard to find you without a map, Providence Airport.

1. The Orlando Magic had a game Saturday night in Indianapolis against the Pacers. But by the time the NBA schedule was finalized after the season was delayed, the Magic couldn’t book hotel rooms in Indy for the Friday night two days before the Super Bowl.

ZOH NO! And I bet those hotels rooms charged MORE during Super Bowl week? How do you live with yourself, Westin?

So the team played Friday night in Orlando and flew to Cincinnati — the airport there is just south of town, over the Ohio River in Kentucky — and stayed in a hotel in Florence, Ky. That is about 112 miles from Indianapolis.

It’s the next part of the trip that boggles my mind:

Other things that boggle Peter’s mind:

-Baggage claims. How do the bags get there? WOW.

-Don Banks happily sleeping in a full size bed at the Best Western. Couldn’t do that if I were him.

-Roger Goodell’s sit-up regimen

-Tom Dimitroff knowing exactly where CNBC is located in his channel guide. That’s a thinker, right there.

At 1:45 p.m., the team boarded a bus at the hotel and went back to the airport, went through security, boarded a plane, flew 28 minutes to the west side of Indianapolis, deplaned, boarded another bus and drove 20 minutes from the Indianapolis airport east through the Super Bowl snarl to the arena in downtown Indy. Now, that’s a drive I’ve made many eight or 10 times in my life, owing to the fact I used to live in Cincinnati. I am stunned any thinking person, or travel expert, would suggest that the best way to go is to fly.

That’s an all-highway, 90- to 100-minute drive. The Magic could have left at 1:45 p.m. and been at the arena by 3:30, at the latest. They arrived at 4.

OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THEY COULD HAVE SAVED THIRTY WHOLE MINUTES! They may as well have flown to fucking TAIWAN and back! Even Mike Mayock thinks that’s too XTREME! Why wasn’t this on the front page of the New York Times? RANDOM NBA TEAM COULD HAVE SAVED THIRTY MINUTES TRAVELING TO SHITTY GAME. Big story.

2. I love the Indy airport, by the way.

So humane!

Did you know it’s the only major airport in the United States that’s been built since 9/11?

No, because it’s untrue. (Raleigh/Durham’s new airport opened last year. I know this because I flew there last week. Such sparkly water fountains!)

Good restaurants, plentiful good coffee…

THANK GOD THERE’S COFFEE! Every time I go to the airport, I think to myself, “Boy, I hope there’s enough coffee here, given that EVERY restaurant here almost certainly serves coffee. I just want to make sure there are the seventy million hogsheads of joe required for a fucking coffee landfill like Peter King to be satisfied.”

…short walks from counters to gates.

One of the more walkable airports in the world! I hate walking.

3. The JW Marriott was the best Super Bowl media hotel I’ve been in.

Good to know for the 99.9999999% that aren’t in the Super Bowl media.

Bar none, hands down.

Case closed!

Friendly staff, comfortable room, great TV, 12-minute walk to the stadium. Perfect…

Oh good. I’m glad you were comfortable. It would have ruined the game for me yesterday if you had been mildly inconvenienced. I hope the next Super Bowl takes place in a Burmese prison.

4. Until Saturday night.

WHO ARE ALL THESE PEOPLE IN TOWN?!

So I’ve had a room on the southeast side of the hotel, overlooking Victory Field on one side and the heart of downtown on the other. Saturday night, DirecTV had a big party at Victory Field. When I went to sleep around 11:30, I felt like I was at the party, not in a hotel across the street from it. Some band playing there had the bass turned up, and the thump-thump-thump of it was maddening. But I can sleep through pretty much anything, so I went to bed.

Woke up and the clock radio read “3:03,” and the booming bass was louder, and there was something vibrating in the room, like glasses clanking in the cupboard when you live right next to train tracks and a freight train rumbles by. In my room is a vase, and it sits on the marble-covered desk-bureau combination piece of furniture. That vase was rumbling ever-so-lightly on the marble top. I got up, took the vase off the desk and put it on the carpeted floor, and prayed that the siege from across the street would end soon. I guess it did. Woke up at 6. Silence.

I think you can all understand now why I can’t do this anymore. Right? I mean, it’s obvious. Hey, I stayed at a kickass hotel! But then people had the NERVE to party outside during the biggest party night of the week! But luckily, I can sleep through anything, which renders my petty annoyances all but moot! Then a vase moved slightly and I went back to bed.

YOU FUCKING FAILED FIRST GRADE STORYTELLINGOLOGY 101, PETER. Join us next week when Peter stays at a hotel and can’t figure out where the power button is on the remote, because the MENU button is so big and the power button is so small, and then Peter figures it out five seconds later and everything is cool. Then someone gives him free health care. FUCK.

“There were fewer people at the Maxim Party than are out there for the coin toss.”

– @PeteAbe, the Boston Globe’s Pete Abraham, who was not exaggerating. Much.

Maybe.

This is Indy hospitality:

Lots of Crisco and shouting!

Two friends from New Jersey decided late in the process to come to the Super Bowl. They couldn’t find a hotel room within 60 miles…

THAT’S EMBEZZLEMENT!

…and so I reached out to friends I’d met a couple of times at Indy Tweetups and gotten chummy with, Angie and Mike Six of Fishers, Ind.

Any relation to Tom Six?

/pictures Human Peter Kingipede

//throws up

I knew it was level-jumping, but I asked if they’d mind putting my Jersey friends up.

“You mind having my friends stay with you? You never know if it’ll be the Dunge!”

No problem! Have a super day! They got along fine, had a good time together, and made new friends. Cool scene.

And NO moving vases!

Henry Hynoski. Sounds like a fullback. Plays like one.

This means nothing.

e. Gronk. No agility.

Again, nothing.

3. I think Myra Kraft weeps.

Because that’s what corpses do. They weep.

4. I think my line of the night comes from Steve Serby of the New York Post: “You just don’t throw on Chase Blackburn.”

I expected more from ol’ Serb. Something like, ‘BURNED! CHASE BLACK-PEDDLES INTO KEY INTERCEPTION!

5. I think the league, the Rams and the city of St. Louis avoided one of the major headaches of the 2012 offseason by agreeing to a deal to put one game in each of the next three years in London Sunday.

But they’ll NEVER see Tom Brady again! Don’t know how you fix this, Angie Six.

6. I think the halftime show was terrific. Loved that Madonna finished with “Like a Prayer.”

But why didn’t she play any U2 songs?

Man’s Gotta Eat Dept.: Gene Steratore, the NFL ref who did one playoff game this year and doubles as an NCAA ref, was in Ann Arbor Wednesday (Indiana-Michigan), the Bronx Thursday (Marist-Manhattan) and Hartford Saturday (Seton Hall-UConn).

Three cities in four days? Get that man a roster spot on the Orlando Magic! He’s fly-crazy!

Interesting being with Randy Moss (the announcer, not the pass-catcher) Sunday for NBC on the pregame show.

COMPELLING.

Told me a great story.

Once he was in a hotel room and it sounded like people next door were fucking but it was just a cat!

c. Tremendous commercial about Chrysler, Clint Eastwood.

No, it wasn’t. It was awful.

d. Somehow, I don’t think Clint Eastwood’s an MMQB reader.

e. I’m gonna miss these butchered bullet points

f. Except that I’m not.

g. Play lofty for me.

Met Rooney Mara in the Giants’ locker room postgame. That was odd.

WEIRD. Who would have guessed a Mara family member would be in the winning locker room?

Nice, polite, gracious.

Respects the sun.

Know where she was a week ago today? Japan. Promoting “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.” Know where she’ll be later today? At an Oscar’s luncheon in Los Angeles.

DOES SHE OWN A TELEPORTATION DEVICE?! HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE?! MAKE HER A REF!

Coffeenerdness: “Six-shot tall Americano,” Lions CEO Tom Lewand ordered Sunday morning in the second-floor Starbucks in the JW Marriott here.

Hardcore.

Second time I’d seen him order it this week. Imagine six shots of espresso, with just a touch of scalding water.

Think it. Dream it. IMAGINE IT.

That’s Lewand’s drink of choice every day. Now there’s a serious coffee man right there.

Worthy of coffeenerdness!

Thanks, JW Marriott, for the Starbucks being open at 4 a.m. today, when I desperately needed it.

YOU HAVE A COFFEEMAKER IN YOUR HOTEL ROOM, YOU TWAT!

The celebrity Super Bowl pick is a time-honored tradition, one we at KSK are more than happy to take part in. For the next two weeks, stars from all over the world will drop in to make their picks. Today, it’s Republican Presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich.

By the end the fourth quarter, the Patriots will have won this game by a score of 37-26. Tom Brady will have thrown four touchdown passes, and Aaron Hernandez will have caught three touchdown receptions. Brady will win the MVP by a decisive margin, just as I shall win by a decisive margin in the Nevada caucuses on February 4th.

Five weeks from now, I will have overcome last night’s loss in Florida, won a majority of states on Super Tuesday, and cemented my place as the GOP party nominee. I WILL be the nominee. In November, I will defeat Barack Obama by a margin of 60 electoral votes and take back control of this country from Socialists and freeloaders. By the end of my first term, we will have created 5 million new jobs, ten percent of them located on the moon. We will have established a permanent base on the moon, and will send out a team of privately funded super buggies to survey the entire surface of the moon and bring back 400 kilotons of moongold, securing this nation’s economic future for the next 700 years. Here is a simulation of that Moon Patrol.

By the end of my first 100 days, we will have learned to control the weather, summoning rain in dry seasons and sunshine in wet seasons. We will be able to grow hydroponic corn inside hotel saunas. We will have also completely weaned black people off of welfare for good, forcing them to either finally get a job or leave the country. My preference, frankly, would be the latter. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with saying that.

We will have assassinated Vladimir Putin and installed in his place a fully functional Yakov Smirnoff android, who will sign favorable deals with us to export Russian oil and underage Russian call girls. By the end of my first term, I will have divorced my current wife, married one of these call girls, given her a position in my Cabinet, fired her over creative differences, and replaced her with a 23-year-old GOP pollster with killer legs and a pretty mouth.

By the end of my second term, we will have invented cold fusion. Now, we’re gonna need a place to store all that free, clean energy. And I will have set up permanent energy stations in formally blighted urban areas vacated by minorities who were too lazy to afford proper health insurance and died as a result. We will have bulldozed many of these corpses out of the way to make room for clean, efficient new ultramalls that will offer people fine food and clothing at reasonable prices.

We will have annexed China. We will have taken over that nation completely and finally gotten them to stop spitting on the sidewalk. We will build an elaborate system of treehouse condos that will be the envy of every other nation. We will have cured death, and found a way to accommodate the resulting spike in population. We will have expanded the United States by 20,000 square miles by building an elaborate network of man-made islands shaped like a palm frond. We will have cured obesity thanks to a special new brand of prescription chewing gum. EVERY American will have an IQ over 150. People that wish to replace their defective limbs with robot parts will be able to. We will have developed a special DEATH RAY that can take out alien spacecraft from 22 lightyears away, more than enough time to fend off the coming Xerophians. We will have fully irrigated the Moab desert and learned to clone pineapples. And we will have finally made auto-fellatio a skill all men possess.

All of this WILL happen.

When we last left fate xeroxer Peter King, he was personally clearing his airplane seat of refuse, which is something that should only happen if you’re living in INDIA. I also put him under legit fire for declaring a carrot he ate to be his first memorable moment of championship weekend. In Peter’s defense, it WAS a big carrot. Thicker than Tebow downstairs. He also rode the cable cars, lamented the lack of Rams home games featuring Tom Brady, and expounding on the wonders of cooking and toxicity.

So what about this week? Did Peter find some other complete idiot who doesn’t like football who Peter thinks has lots of out-of-the-box ideas about the sport? I’m told that Paul Krugman would like to do away with the sport entirely in favor of a series of town hall meetings to discuss the economic effects of raising the capital gains tax. PRETTY HARD HITTING STUFF. And did Peter get to drink more Blue Bottle coffee? READ ON. There’s something about this Fun With Peter King that’s hard to put a finger on, but also very tough to beat.

Lots going on as we draw nearer to The Rematch Bowl of Super Bowl 46.

I prefer to refer to this game as First Grade in Rematchtownology 101.

(That’s right, I’m not a big Roman numeral guy.)

I know! I can tell because you use smiley faces for bullet points.

We need to get one thing straight about Peyton Manning.

His scrotum? GORGEOUS. Very soft. Very symmetrical. It’s as if you’re holding a bag of runes.

The most compelling player in the 2012 draft hits our consciousness.

Not just compelling… INTERESTING. Wait till that interest hits you right in your interesthole.

But we should start with hype week, since that’s why I have been dispatched to central Indiana. But I’ll be brief since we’ll have plenty of other opportunities throughout the week to dissect the game.

Time to start talking about the game… I guess. But let’s not focus on the game TOO MUCH, since I know that bores you. Besides, this 9,000-word column shouldn’t be a spotlight for things like FOOTBALL.

“Do you realize how weird this is?” defensive end Osi Umenyiora said to Tom Coughlin in the mayhem of the Giants’ locker room in San Francisco, after the Giants beat the Niners to get to this game.

Oh, Christ. Look what you’ve done, Peter. NOW PLAYERS ARE GETTING IN ON IT. It’s Weirdmania 2012 thanks to your astonishingly thin vocabulary.

It’s going to be a fun week, particularly in seven states in the upper right-hand corner of your United States map.

Just say the Northeast. You don’t have to gussy it up like that. That doesn’t make it any more INTERESTING. “You know, I think the fate of Peyton Manning will be of particular interesting to folks in that McNugget-shaped state that rides shotgun to Illinois on your North American road map, assuming you use paper maps and not GPS.”

Now, since we’ll get hyped to death all week with the Super Bowl, let’s cover other stuff … like the other story we’ll get clubbed over the head with this week.

What this column won’t be about: where Peyton Manning will play in 2012.

Let’s move on from the Super Bowl so I can talk about how I’m NOT going to talk about Peyton Manning. In fact, let’s just make a list right now if the things this column will NOT be about:

-Football
-Peyton Manning
-Teanerdness
-Recombobulation areas
-Jeremy Schaap’s travel schedule, which is surprisingly light
-Politics, although don’t you think that Newt Gingrich is a shady fellow?

There’s a simple reason. No one knows yet if he’ll play at all. In the last few days, as I said on NBC last night, I’ve heard mixed reports about his physical condition.

Will he play? MAYBE. Could his neck still need an entire year to heal? IT COULD BE. Is it possible that Peyton Manning has a nascent Siamese twin growing inside his upper vertebrae, and that the twin is trying to claw his way out of Peyton’s body so that he can sign a lucrative deal with Miami? WHO KNOWS?!

Or Manning might waffle, which would be the greatest thing ever to happen to Brett Favre.

Oh hey, thanks for bringing up Brett Favre FOR NO FUCKING REASON. Listen guys, I’m not gonna bore you with shit like the Super Bowl or Peyton’s future. Instead, LET’S TALK LAND BARON.

Instead of Mike Florio speculating monthly if some team might take leave of its senses and try to lure Favre out of retirement, ProFootballTalk.com could make a cottage industry of The Race for Manning.

Oh, so it’s only Florio who milked the Favre teat? I seem to remember a certain Nazi coffee-loving hunchback who spent three years endlessly speculating about the fate of his besty best. “Now I spent some time down in Favreville, and I will tell you Favre LOVES TENDING TO HIS HYACINTHS. I could easily see him staying down here forever. But I could ALSO see him being lured out of retirement. Which way will he go? ALAS, I CANNOT SAY. I think these voicemails I saved aren’t conclusive, and that’s because they aren’t.”

The other day, Manning family friend Gil Brandt, the longtime NFL personnel guru, was dubious about Manning’s future when he appeared on my podcast. “My gut feeling,” said Brandt, “is that we’ve probably seen the last of Peyton.”

Strong statement, and he wouldn’t have said it unless he felt pretty good about it. Now, he did follow that by saying he doesn’t think anyone knows the answer to the question for sure… yet.

Indeed. Let’s leave all the BASELESS SPECULATION to Florio over at his website. As for me, I just talked to Gil Brandt and he totally says Peyton is retiring… I THINK. But I’m not in the business of hyping this story up. I’d prefer to sit back and let the story unfol… OMG BRETT FAVRE JUST SAID HE THINKS PEYTON MIGHT RETIRE TO HIS MILK FARM POSSIBLY!

(Butch) Davis hasn’t coached in the NFL since he was dismissed by the Browns after the 2004 season. He’d be a good sounding board for (Greg) Schiano.

SCHIANO: Butch, what do you think of this alignment?

BUTCH: Well, I think that maybe we could…

SCHIANO: Just kidding. I’m not taking advice from Butch fucking Davis. Go get me some Gatorade, Bitch Boy.

I like the Schiano hire.

I can’t imagine why.

Not to ignore the others, but having lived in New Jersey when Schiano took over one of the worst teams in any sport in the country (that’s no exaggeration), I witnessed the job he did making Rutgers competitive nationally.

MONTCLAIR PRIDE!

In the last few days, I’ve heard people say, “Well, he never won the Big East at Rutgers. Dumb hire.” Time will tell.

I like the hire. Was it retarded? YOU NEVER KNOW. All I know is that he will make the Bucs wear sports coats and that will help.

I’ve been tracking (Steve) Gleason, the former Saints special-teams ace, diagnosed with ALS last January, for a story that will run on NBC’s Super Bowl pregame show Sunday… I won’t tell the story here.

Of course you won’t. Hey guys, here’s a bunch of interesting shit! But I’m not gonna talk about it HERE! That would be WEIRD. This space is for bitching about the Marco Scutaro trade and sending out RSVPs for wedding invites. Can’t wait for your wedding, Donna Whiteley!

Michel, his wife, is tremendously real and emotional.

Pretty real for someone in the middle of something emotional.

It’s impossible to experience the Gleason story and not be touched, and not get choked up. Impossible, unless you’re a totally unfeeling person.

It’s impossible to not be moved by this story. Unless you aren’t moved by this story, in which case I suppose I could make an exception. But that would make you WEIRD.

And so last week, when I was in New Orleans, I spoke with Steve and Michel about the story.

“Did you guys go to Dr. Kata? Tell him Peter sent ya and your ALS will be cured FOR FREE!”

I am a TV story neophyte.

“What do you mean, I can’t drink a latte during this live remote?”

I’m one of the 44 Hall of Fame voters, and it’s hard not to see how eerie the numbers are when you compare Levy (Pro Football Hall of Fame Class of 2001) to Coughlin.

WEIRD. They’re so valid, it’s SCARY. It’s like an Eli Roth movie: “Statistical Similarities IV”. Really disturbing stuff.

Great note purloined from John Altavilla of the Hartford Courant:

Great nugget, John! But why not save those good nuggets for a later date?

Two days after the UConn women won the national championship in 2004, coach Geno Auriemma began coaching his 15-year-old son Michael’s AAU team, Connecticut Nike Elite. On the team with Michael was a 15-year-old athletic forward from Bristol, Aaron Hernandez.

WEIRD! I think that will be of great interest to a certain segment of the American population that lives on the Atlantic Coast above New Jersey but NOT below it.

Do the timeline on this: Auriemma began coaching the team in 2004, two months after Tom Brady led the Patriots to their second Super Bowl.

Which brings us to the most important question: Why has Tom Brady never played a road game at UConn? Do you realize what a glaring mistake the NFL schedulemaker has made?

Mike Mayock will find a beer and a beach today in Hawaii. And he’ll try to think about something other than football for a few minutes.

I’d just like to note that reader Ross Eberhart totally called this. He’s our Josh Bickford.

@drewmagary There’s 110 percent chance that Mike Mayock traveling from Mobile to Honolulu in one day shows up in MMQB tomorrow. Maybe.

Definitely!

He spent a week in Tampa, beginning two weeks ago, for the East-West college all-star game, doing the game telecast for NFL Network. Last week, he was in Mobile for the Senior Bowl, on NFL Network Saturday afternoon. Right after the game Saturday, he buzzed to the Mobile airport and flew to Los Angeles, getting in before midnight and checking into an airport hotel. He had a 5 a.m. wakeup call and 7:30 a.m. flight to Honolulu. By 12:30 Honolulu time, Mayock was on the field for warmups prior to the Pro Bowl. “Didn’t we just see you on TV in Mobile?” one of the Houston assistants (Texans coaches were the AFC coaching staff for the Pro Bowl) said to Mayock.

He did the Pro Bowl game on NBC, then went back to his hotel. He said he was tired, but happy.

THIS MAN IS A TRAVEL GOD. For him to traverse the land and seas in such a NinersPapaesque manner, while performing a job and getting paid for it, is the stuff COURAGE is made of. How was he able to be in two faraway places within a realtively short time span? HE MUST BE A WITCH.

I think the NFL should put San Diego in the Super Bowl rotation.

I know! It’s never in San Diego, except for the three times when it was.

Best Super Bowl city in the world.

Because it’s warm and it feels like a vacation for me, and isn’t that the most important thing?

I don’t care how mediocre Qualcomm is. I’ve never heard a soul — fan, visitor, media type — complain about the site. But I have heard scores of people ask, “When’s the Super Bowl going back to San Diego?”

And how can Roger Goodell sleep at night putting a Super Bowl in New Jersey? Doesn’t he understand that people will DIE?!

I think I’ll start here with full disclosure: Tony Grossi and I went to Ohio University together and worked at the school paper, The Post, side by side for three years. We have mostly lost touch over the years, but I still consider him a good friend. So if you want to dismiss my opinion on this, that’s fair.

There’s one of these in every MMQB. “Let me start by disclosing that I love this person. So if you find me to be biased with regard to the following item, that’s totally fair. That probably means I should avoid the topic altogether. Oh well. Here’s me supporting my friend!”

By the way, King goes on to tell a story about Grossi accidentally sending out a tweet denigrating Brown owner Randy Lerner and getting removed from his beat for it. Peter thought that was a lame move by the paper, and he’s right. But since he prefaced that opinion by telling you how utterly unreliable he is for everything, the point gets lost. I THINK.

I think that was a great job on the Irsay story, Judy Battista.

Great job, person covering a story that I have deemed overhyped and am apparently too good to cover!

Opening Day, Thursday, April 5, Sox at Tigers: Beckett against a 3-4-5 of Cabrera, Fielder, Ordonez, with Verlander going for Detroit. Yikes.

AH! Now THERE’S a story. Why bother speculating about football when we can speculate about a fucking baseball game that will account for 1/162nd of an entire regular season? That’s important! I know that Lawrence Ferlinghetti agrees!

Not proud to say I caught a half-hour of the Kardashian show Sunday.

EVEN BETTER! Why spend time talking about how this column WON’T be about Peyton Manning when you can spend it talking about how unimportant you find the Kardashians to be?

Early reviews on Indianapolis are very good. Nice touch by having Indiana schoolchildren put little drawings in everyone’s hotel room downtown.

A CHILD BROKE INTO EVERY HOTEL ROOM?! Hope you like the stomach flu.

Yes, I plan to hit St. Elmo’s.

ORDER THE CARROT!

Coffeenerdness: “Hey, hope I make ‘Coffeenerdness!’ ” Marc, my barista at the Starbucks Canal Place in New Orleans, said to me the other morning.

Set better goals for yourself, Marc.

Well, let’s just see how you made my latte first…

I suppose I could deign to include you. BUT FIRST! I must make sure there is no bitterness to be found in here.

Hmmmm.

Ah!

Yes.

Oh!

Very good.

The foam is dripping off my sixth chin!

Marc, you are quite worthy of Coffeenerdness.

HUZZAH!

Seattle, give this man a raise!

Don’t know how you do that, Seattle.

NOTE: There’s a reading in Chapel Hill tomorrow night (1/31) at 7pm at Flyleaf books. The after party is gonna be at Linda’s. And then, Wednesday night (2/1), there’s gonna be a reading in Durham at the Regulator at 7pm, with drinks at either Charlie’s or Dain’s Place afterward. Come on down and we’ll have some fun. MAYBE.

Ted Allen: Four chefs. Three courses. One amazing meal. The stakes have never been higher. The ingredients have never been more outrageous. Who will come on top in this very special Super Bowl competition, and walk home with $10,000? And who will be sent home? Let’s meet our contestants.

Tommy: FACK YOU! COOKING SHOWS AHHHH FAHHH FAGGOTS! Now 90210? That’s a real man’s show! I bet Grawnk wawtches it while he’s fackin’ a porn stahhhhhh!

Fat Hump: My name is John Johnson. I live and work right here in Indianapolis. I’ve worked for many acclaimed chefs in my lifetime. Papa John. Tony Roma. Mr. Quizno. Culinary giants. I’d like to think that I have what it takes to win the ten grand. My focus is on bold flavors, but I also like down home comfort food in extremely large, unhealthy portions.

Sex Cannon: You know my name. My cooking is pure pussybait. One whiff of my gastrique, and the panties go a-droppin’.

Mandatory Asshole New York Chef: Hey yo, I’m Vinny Scagdaviglio. My boys back at Wolfgang’s will KILL ME if I don’t beat these pussies! I’M ITALIAN! I COME FROM A BIG FAMILY THAT LOVES TO EAT! TOTALLY UNIQUE FROM OTHER STANDARD NEW YORKERS!

Tommy: You’re a faggot!

Mandatory Asshole New York Chef: Eat shit!

Ted Allen: There are three rounds: appetizer, entrée, and dessert. Each round comes with its own mystery basket of ingredients. You MUST use every ingredient in your basket in some way. Also available to you: our pantry and fridge. Each round is timed. Your dishes will be judged based on Presentation, Taste, and also Creativity. If your dish does not cut it, you will be chopped.

(awkward five second shot of each contestant reacting to that news)

Ted Allen: Please, open your baskets. (watches them open baskets) And your appetizers must include…

MISO PASTE…

PIG’S FEET…

PEANUT BUTTER…

and MILK DUDS.

Tommy: The fuck is miso paste? THIS SMELLS LIKE SLOPE FOOD!

Ted Allen: Twenty minutes on the clock, and your time starts NOW.

(everyone rushes to the pantry)

Mandatory Asshole New York Chef: I haven’t had Milk Duds since I was a kid goin’ to the movies, you know?! I was eating them and fingerfucking Donna Scududa at the same time! HIGH FIVE, AMIRITE?!

Sex Cannon: I look at the basket, and instantly my dick gets hard. MISO HORNY. I know immediately where I’m going with this. I’m gonna whore this basket. I’m gonna drop a gallon of cum in this basket. The $10,000 is in the bag.

Tommy: PIG’S FEET AHHH FAHHH FACKIN’ DAHKIES!

Fat Hump: I see everyone jockeying for ingredients, but I like to move at my own pace. I’m quite slow. I see these ingredients, and I think BACON. Everyone likes bacon, right? So I am going to make a peanut butter bacon loaf with bacon croutons, served with a warm bacon fat cocktail on the side. I feel like that’s a good representation of who I am as a chef. I have NOT worked with pig’s feet before. I didn’t even know pigs had feet, to be honest. Was I not supposed to eat all my Milk Duds just now? Because I did.

Ted Allen: While they’re getting busy in the kitchen, let’s meet our judges. He’s the master of high end New York cooking, Geoffrey Zakarian.

Zakarian: (awkward nod to the camera)

Tommy: HE LOOKS LIKE A GIRL!

Ted Allen: The queen of fine dining, Alex Guarnaschelli.

Alex: (terrifying, unnatural smile)

Sex Cannon: Aw man, where’s Freitag? I wanna bend her over the chopping block and show her my rolling pin.

Ted Allen: And modern Italian master, Scott Conant.

Conant: (flashes creepy beard stubble)

Mandatory Asshole New York Chef: CONANT! MY BOY! Us goombas gotta stick together, AMIRITE?!

Conant: (smiles that kind of smile where it’s clear that he hates you)

Zakarian: This is not an easy basket by any stretch of the imagination. Pig’s feet have a gelatinous texture that some people find offputting, so you really have find a delicate balance there.

Conant: I think the miso paste may be the trickiest element in this basket.

Alex: Agreed.

Conant: It’s got a kind of cloying sweetness that can overpower everything else, so they’re gonna have to transform that ingredient.

Sex Cannon: I’m roasting the pig’s feet with some Chinese five spice and pink sea salt, and I’m gonna serve it on a warm radicchio salad with a peanut/miso dressing. Then I’m gonna put one of my ball hairs on top for garnish and I’m gonna watch Queen Bitch over there choke it down.

Mandatory Asshole New York Chef: Pig’s feet? What a fucking shit ingredient. That’s poor people food. That ain’t proper Italian food. I’m making a Brooklyn-style pizza, with the feet, and it’s gonna be in the shape of a foot. FUCKING PLAYFUL.

Tommy: I am making CHOWDAH! Fack these quee-ah ingredients. No one wants to see those ingredients in a championship Chawpped matchup. NO ONE DENIES THIS.

(throws basket away)

Alex: Did you see that? Tommy just threw out his entire basket.

Zakarian: He’s also putting clamshells in the blender. I’m extremely concerned.

Fat Hump: I see the clock counting down, and it’s going very fast! And I take a look at my bacon loaf, and it is NOT cooking through. This is a problem. I gotta improvise. I’m gonna wrap it in seaweed and do a kind of Indiana take on traditional sushi. Now I’m thinking I got a real chance. Now I’m thinking I can really win this thing!

Tommy: I AM LOOKING AROUND FAHHH THE HEAVY CREAM AND THEY-AHHH IS NO HEAVY CREAM! SHADES OF TYREE! If I lose because of this, it won’t be becawse the othah chefs ahhh bettah! It’ll just be luck!

Zakarian: Did you see John’s work station? He’s left bacon drippings all over everything and hasn’t cleaned any of it up. I have a real problem with that.

Mandatory Asshole New York Chef: I get that miso and I smell it and it’s fucking gross. Like, I don’t get why some guys have yellow fever. That’s never been my thing. Anyway, I look over at Conant, and I know he hates red onions. But he’s never had MY red onions. I’m gonna make him the best red onion carpaccio he’s ever tasted. It’s a risky move, I know it’s gonna pay off.

Conant: Is he using red onions? What is he, a fucking asshole?

Ted Allen: One minute to go, chefs!

Zakarian: I’m really worried they’re not gonna get everything on the plate.

Alex: GET IT ON THE PLATE.

Tommy: FACK YOU, YOU FAT CUNT!

Sex Cannon: Everyone else is frantic, but I finished nineteen minutes go. Then I ripped a bong hit and nailed a production assistant. This is NOTHING.

Alex: I think Rex really used his time poorly. He could have used that time to COOK his pig’s feet.

Ted Allen: And ten, nine, eight, seven…

Tommy: SHIT!

Ted Allen: Six, five, four, three, two, one… TIME’S UP! STEP AWAY!

Fat Hump: I look down at the plate, feeling great, and suddenly I realize: THE PEANUT BUTTER. I forgot the peanut butter. Mainly because I smeared it on my Andrew Luck jersey and ate it.

Mandatory Asshole New York Chef: I’m looking at all the other plates. Tommy’s got a bowl of milky chowder jizz. The Fat Hump forgot 27 ingredients. And Grossman made a salad. Pathetic. I’m not losing.

Ted Allen: You have arrived at the chopping block. Four of you were here. But soon, there will only be three.

Tommy: We can do math, dicksuckah!

Ted Allen: Chef Tommy, tell us what you’ve prepared.

Tommy: CLAM CHOWDAH! WITH REAL CLAMS! NONE OF THOSE FAGGOT CLAM STRIPS! I’m nawt worried about you hating my dish. I have the backing of the PEDROIAH FAITHFUL. Did you see how we made Cunty Cundiff miss that kick? OW-AH MAGIC!

Zakarian: Well, the soup is divine. It has that great clammy taste that you want out of a clam chowder, and you had a deft touch with the milk.

Tommy: Thanks, dickhead!

Zakarian: But I’m not getting the pig’s feet. Or the miso paste. Or the peanut butter. Or the Milk Duds. You didn’t really use anything in the basket.

Tommy: Yeah no, fack that basket.

Zakarian: This is a serious competition. You can’t just make anything you like.

Tommy: AHHH YOU TRYING TO EDIT ME? NO ONE EDITS ME! STET ALL CHANGES!

Ted Allen: Chef Rex, tell us what you’ve prepared.

Sex Cannon: What you have in front of you is a warm pig’s feet salad with a peanut/miso dressing. I melted down the Milk Duds and made a Asian/Latin mole sauce with it, to give the pig’s feet that extra dimension.

Conant: This is excellent.

Sex Cannon: Thank you, Chef. I like to cook because I think it expresses so much about who I am, and it allows me to express what it means to be human. Also, it gets me blowjobs.

Alex: (frowning)

Sex Cannon: The fuck is your problem? Everyone else liked it.

Alex: Well, you’ve got this great-tasting dish. I’m just curious as to why you served it all on top of an old issue of Club International magazine.

Sex Cannon: That’s presentation. I serve my food HOT. If that’s too edgy for you. If you need to play it a little safer, honey, then whatever.

Alex: (ten minute stare)

Sex Cannon: Can you stop staring at me for so long?

Ted Allen: Chef John, tell us what you’ve prepared.

Fat Hump: What I’ve made today is a bacon sushi roll, served with a bacon jus, and topped with Cool Whip.

Alex: Did you make the Cool Whip yourself?

Fat Hump: No, ma’am. I don’t mess with perfection.

Alex: Well, I have to say (ten minute pause where it seems like she’s about to say she hates it)… I LOVED THE DISH.

Fat Hump: Whew! Thank you.

Zakarian: Well, it’s certainly whimsical. But, there are so many technical flaws here that I can’t overlook. The bacon is quite underdone in the center. Raw, really.

Fat Hump: I kind of like my bacon rare, to be frank.

Zakarian: (stares at him like he’s about to rip his heart out)

Ted Allen: Thank you, Chef John. Now, Chef Vinny.

Mandatory Asshole New York Chef: Hey, I’m Italian, so I made a pizza. The fuck you gonna do, right? Had to stay true to my roots.

Tommy: ROOTS IS A DAHKIE SHOW!

Conant: Did you use any red onions in here?

Mandatory Asshole New York Chef: About six pounds worth, yes.

Conant: Okay, you know I hate red onions, right?

Mandatory Asshole New York Chef: Well I…

Conant: No, no, no. Let me finish. I hate red onions. And you gave me red onions. What do I do with you?

Mandatory Asshole New York Chef: I think you’re wrong for not liking it. It’s awesome. I’ll defend my dish. I’m not gonna go home just because you have some gay onion allergy.

Zakarian: I loved your pizza, but I’d like to know why Scott and Alex got Milk Duds and I didn’t. (death stare) I would have liked to taste that, but you forgot it and now I’ll never get that chance, which is awful and horrible and it’s all your fault.

Ted Allen: Thank you, chefs. Our judges will now deliberate.

(they all leave)

Conant: Vinny has watched this show before. He knows I hate red onions. And what does he do? Red onions on his pizza. Is he retarded?

Alex: I liked that dish!

Conant: Oh give me a break.

Alex: I could see his soul in that dish. To me, he had the best cooked pig’s feet of the bunch.

Zakarian: But what about Rex? His dish was technically flawless. You just didn’t like the presentation.

Alex: He served it on a vagina.

Zakarian: I thought that was kind of daring. He’s the first Chopped contestant to use non-plates for plates.

Conant: Then you had that chowder that Tommy made.

Zakarian: It was good, but are we really gonna give him $10,000 for chowder?

Tommy: I FACKIN’ HEARD THAT!

Zakarian: What did we make of John’s dish? I mean, the portion size was INSANE! My plate was enough to feed sixteen people!

Alex: (reading from network script) There were some good dishes there, but were any of them TEN THOUSAND DOLLAR DISHES? Such a hard choice.

Ted Allen: Do you know who you want to chop?

Alex: Oh yeah. Very easy choice.

(everyone comes back in)

Ted Allen: For one of you, this is the end of the road. So… who’s dish is on the chopping block?

(lifts up plate cover, revealing all four dishes)

Tommy: FACK YOU!

Ted Allen: Chef Tommy, Chef Vinny, Chef Rex, Chef John–you’ve all been chopped. Judges?

Alex: Chefs, we were really impressed with your work today.

Fat Hump: Really?

Alex: No. All of you were horrible. And for that reason, we had to chop you.

Sex Cannon: Total bullshit. I don’t agree with judges at all. You haven’t heard the last of me. I’m gonna be making more pigs’ feet and scorin’ more tail and that’s no bullshit.

Mandatory Asshole New York Chef: They fucking chopped me! What are my PAESANOS back home gonna say? WE ITALIANS LIKE BUSTING BALLS!

Fat Hump: Certainly, I’m disappointed. I think, you know, maybe they weren’t ready for something that bold. I have no regrets. I made my food, my way, and at the end of the day, I’m proud of myself. I’m going places. You watch.

(dies of heart attack)

When we last left Busy Beaver Peter Kingdrop, he was fully disclosing that he shared an agent with Jeff Fisher, and that you were more than free to not believe him when he said that Jeff Fisher MAYBE KINDA SORTA picked the Rams more than he rejected the Dolphins. You take that report on faith, America. But if you let it seep into your guts, it will blow you away. I think.

So what about this week? Did Gene Steratore travel a lot? Any more meaty Babb Nuggets to digest? Isn’t it a great sign that the Bucs have extended their coaching search by another eight months? Is Philip Seymour Hoffman still the Meryl Streep of male actors? READ ON. This Fun With Peter King is so valid, it’s SCARY.

I laugh when people call me an idiot for my predictions.

“Ha ha ha! It’s funny because it’s true. Say, did you see that they’re building a Starbucks in war-torn Somalia? Sounds like democracy is just a latte away!”

I shake my head when gambler friends ask me who to pick. Poor saps.

GAMBLER: Who ya got, Peter? My mortgage is riding on this one!

PETER: I like the Giants.

GAMBLER: Oh good! Now I know…

PETER: MAYBE.

GAMBLER: Well, are you sure?

PETER: I think so.

GAMBLER: Do you think it or do you know it?

PETER: I don’t just think it. I know it. I think.

GAMBLER: (opens carotid artery)

These four players had huge parts in the Patriots and Giants making the Super Bowl for the second time in five seasons:

Many of you never heard of three of those four before Sunday. Some of you still haven’t.

Some of you still haven’t heard of Kyle Williams. Why? Because you didn’t watch the game last night and because this is a column about COFFEE, and all the ways in which it is brewed and mixed with various Sno Cone flavorings.

Nice crowd the 49ers have on Twitter. One of their “fans” tweeted to Williams (@KyleWilliams_10): “Jim Harbaugh, please give @KyleWilliams_10 the game ball. And make sure it explodes when he gets in his car.”

+1!

It’s only sports, people. Only sports.

Which is why the bulk of this column is dedicated to describing the hotel I stayed at last week, instead of actual sports.

How about this incredible Xerox of fate for the Giants.

Perfect metaphor deployment. A thousand poets could spend a thousand years trying to come up with the perfect encapsulation of this Giants run, and they’d never walk out of the room with a nugget as GOLDEN as XEROX OF FATE. It’s a powerful, gleaming expression — one that speaks to the idea of destiny, that we cannot change things no matter how much we try, and that we are sometimes cosigned to do the same things over and over again. It has so many applications:

XEROX OF FATE, DIRECTED BY OREN PELI: What happens when a seemingly normal office copier begins printing out obtuse messages on its own? One D-list actress you’ll never hear from again will find out.

XEROX OF FATE: Steve Serby’s HILARIOUS quick turnaround book about this unlikely Giants season. Subtitle: HOW THE GIANTS STOPPED COUGHLIN UP LOSSES AND BECAME GOTHAM ELI-CONS.

XEROX OF FATE: A hilarious fake supergroup in a Portlandia sketch!

In 2007, the Giants started the playoffs by beating an NFC South team. Then they beat the No. 1 seed on the road.

And then they had to travel to SEATTLE, which we all know is located in Russia, and then they spent six hours waiting on the tarmac for their plane to be de-iced, and then they had to double back on Route 3 because of a DUI blockade! And then they traveled to Texas a day later to pick up Gene Steratore!

There’s something about Manning that’s hard to put a finger on, but also very hard to beat.

OPPPOSING COACH: You want to stop Eli Manning? You have to defend his CHEMISTRY.

For the many of you wanting to crucify (Lee) Evans for the play: I don’t. Should he have lock-gripped the ball to prevent stripping? Yes, of course.

Is Lee Evans to blame for dropping that ball? No. But, to put it another way, he is very much to blame for it.

Miami’s hire of the Green Bay offensive coordinator as head coach Friday probably never would have happened without Matt Birk, Kirk Ferentz, and two Massachusetts establishments of higher education…

Along with this bag of string and a seemingly innocuous account statement from the Best Western hotel. How does it all tie together? TELL YOU IN A FEW PARAGRAPHS, JON!

Sad news, however you fall on the Joe Paterno spectrum, with the news of his death Sunday at 85.

If you revered him, you’re very sad. If you were a reactionary type who thought he abetted child rape and you hate him and you’re not sad at all about his death… you are also very sad.

Mike Tomlin (secondary) and Jim Caldwell (quarterbacks) coached together at Tampa Bay under Tony Dungy in Dungy’s last season with the Bucs, 2001, if you’re looking for a clue on the next offensive coordinator in Pittsburgh.

/hears Ape destroying a perfectly good hat stand

Someone Who Knows told me a major roadblock to Steve Spagnuolo taking the defensive coordinator job in Philadelphia was the presence of very strong personality Jim Washburn on the defensive line.

Again, can’t Someone Who Knows write this thing every week? He at least would have found a better metaphor than XEROX OF FATE.

I like the Dolphins a little better today now that they’re the leaders in the clubhouse for Matt Flynn.

Gotta like the idea that they’ll overpay for the second coming of Scott Mitchell.

Offensive Player of the Week

Baltimore QB Joe Flacco… A great performance by a player under legit fire.

40% legit, you guys.

Owner Woody Johnson, to Jets beat reporters, on many things, including cooking and toxicity:

Oh, of course! Those two subjects go together so naturally! Like kites and fisting!

“Confidence is a very, very important thing in cooking and also in managing quarterbacks. How many starting quarterbacks are pulled?”

Okay, well the Jets are clearly fucked. Who asked him to bring up bold flavors when discussing how awful Nacho is?

I flew from JFK to San Francisco Thursday on a mid-morning Delta flight… When I approached my row, a 35ish man…

Semi-middle-aged!

…was sitting in the aisle seat with headphones on, reading Harper’s.

This story is a fabrication. No one reads Harper’s. It’s not even a real magazine. They use it as a prop in movies because real magazines would sue for copyright infringement if you showed them.

The other two seats were devoid of people, but not of crap. In the middle seat was a McDonalds bag, crumpled, with an empty drink poking out of the top, with three used red blankets left on the seat. Another blanket with discarded newspapers was on the window seat I was to occupy.

OMG! There’s, like, three ounces of shit in your seat! HOW WILL IT EVER BE MOVED?!

On the floor was a plastic bag with a water bottle, empty, and other garbage, along with another blanket. I surveyed the situation. The guy in the aisle seat took off his headphones and said, “Guess they didn’t clean the plane.”

“Yup,” I said.

Riveting. It’s like Steven fucking Zaillian scripted the dialogue.

“Hey. There’s, like, garbage here.”

“I know.”

AND SCENE.

He put his headphones back on and read, and I took the two bags of trash, plus the newspapers, into the bathroom and shoved them into the garbage hole. Then I took the blankets and deposited them under a row of seats.

So now we don’t get meals on the 6-hour, 40-minute coast-to-coast trips. We pay for the bags we check, in most instances. And now, evidently, we have to bus the planes ourselves.

Don’t you see I had to walk ten extra feet to dispose of that refuse? WHAT IS HAPPENING TO OUR COUNTRY?!

1. I think this is what I liked about championship weekend:

a. The gigantic cooked carrot at Bob’s Steak and Chop House at Montgomery and California streets in San Francisco.

That is perfect. That is just the most perfect goddamn thing I’ve ever read. Hey guys, those were a couple of close games we saw yesterday. Know what THE FIRST THING I LIKED ABOUT THE WHOLE WEEKEND WAS? A carrot. A fucking carrot. A root vegetable of above average size. Served to me at a restaurant you probably can’t afford, where giant carrots are almost certainly treated as a garnish. ALLOW ME TO START OFF MY THOUGHTS ON THE WEEKEND BY POINTING OUT THE SINGLE MOST INSIGNIFICANT DETAIL I POSSIBLY CAN. Because I love really fucking big carrots. What’s interesting, Doc?

b. Riding three cable cars. Touristy, I know. But really fun.

Holy crap, does this man have to visit every tourist attraction multiple times? Sweetheart, I think if we go to Madame Tussaud’s a third time, we’ll really understand the wax figures more in depth. ONTO THE BOOK DEPOSITORY.

c. Nice coverage at the goal line on Wes Welker, Ray Lewis.

Way to go, BOY.

I love offensive coordinator Greg Roman’s brain.

So soft and mushy. I bet if I stuck my peepee in it, it would feel AMAZING.

He comes up with some weird stuff, confusing stuff…

WEIRD! “Guys, we’re running exclusively out of the weird formation today. NOW GO!”

2. I think this is what I didn’t like about championship weekend:

UNDERDONE CARROTS.

a. The traffic on US 101 at 4:20 p.m. Friday.

Holy shit, really? Who does this matter to besides you?

In rain varying from steady to a heavy mist, it took me 2 hours and 55 minutes to drive 43 miles from the 49ers headquarters in Santa Clara to my hotel in downtown San Francisco. One crazy, maddening ride.

Indeed. Who knew that there would be traffic in a major metropolitan area during an enormous sporting event? AND DID YOU KNOW THAT HOTELS AROUND CANDLESTICK CHARGED MORE ON SATURDAY NIGHT? I’m really worried about America, people.

I think if I’m a Rams fan, and I’m already skittish and skeptical about my team’s long-term future, and not really thrilled about what I just saw in a 2-14 season, how do you think I’m going to react when I hear the best of the eight games on my home schedule in 2012 — New England and Tom Brady at home, likely the last time in his fabulous career that Brady will ever play in St. Louis — has been shipped to London?

RAMS FAN: When does baseball season start? Also, what happens when you fry a fried pretzel?

Let the record show that if the Rams-Pats game is shipped to Wembley, the only Brady game in the Edward Jones Dome will be the 40-22 New England victory in 2004

NOOOOOOOOOOO! People of Earth, we are missing out on the classic RAMS/PATS rivalry, that dates all the way back to the 2001, when fate xeroxed itself and the Pats won their first Super Bowl! Don’t you see how important it is for EVERY team to play against Tom Brady every year? He’s the whole reason we live and breathe! We need to clone him and send him out to all the far corners of the world, so that every town can lead the league in Bradyness!

… unless Brady becomes the first 43-year-old starting quarterback in the NFL since George Blanda. He’d be 43 the next time New England is slated to play the Rams on the road.

He’ll never play the Rams or Redskins again?! REPUGNANT. Now you’re telling the people of St. Louis that they’ll have to watch Tom Brady play on TV, instead of paying top dollar to watch him in a terrible stadium? THIS IS BULLSHIT. I feel sick about the whole “the NFL schedule is perfectly balanced” business.

I think the best outside-the-box thinking about football this season comes from noted 93-year-old American poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti.

XEROX OF FATE

a poem by Larry Ferly

A leaf rustles in the wind
A dog tarries ’round his owner
Is this every day?
The Giants play defense good

“Seriously, they have to do something to change the basic rules of the game,” he (said).

It needs more coupleting.

“I prefer European soccer.”

WHAT THE FUCK WHY ARE YOU LISTENING TO THIS PERSON?

“It’s much more interesting than American football. It’s like chess when you really pay attention to it. The more you know about it, the more interesting it gets.”

It’s so INTERESTING, and it becomes more INTERESTING the more you are INTERESTED in it. I’m a poet.

“Football is just not that interesting.”

HOLY FUCK. Oh yeah, that’s some real out-of-the-box thinking right there. Hey guys, here are some pretty cool ideas about football from some literary prick who hates football. Most INTERESTING thing I’ve heard in a while!

“Every time they line up, it’s going to either be a run or a pass.”

I know! There are only TWO plays in every NFL playbook!

This is why I don’t like poetry. Every time you read it, it’s gonna be either a WORD or SOME OTHER WORD. Pretty fucking boring, if you ask me. Lawrence Ferlinghetti is a piece of shit.

I think there’s a reason the franchise in this town has been good, and bad, and good again, and it revolves around just that — teaching the quarterback you have.

There’s your PK Butchered Sentence of the Week. That’s what Peter does with language. He butchers it.

Marco Scutaro to the Rockies for Clayton Mortensen, a bottom-of-the-rotation candidate. Stupid, stupid, stupid trade.

Once the Red Sox come into play, Peter actually has opinions.

Did GM Ben Cherington watch the end of the Red Sox season, when Scutaro played hurt and played brilliantly — the best player on the team over the last two weeks (when the team was dying and drinking) other than Jacoby Ellsbury, at a time when too many big-money players stunk up the joint?

If you hate Scutaro, you hate America.

He obviously was undervalued by a team that now seems to value more the guys who drink in the clubhouse in the seventh inning than those scratching and clawing to try to win games.

Garbage in my airplane seat, traffic, bad Red Sox trades… THE WORLD IS FUCKED. I wonder what Lawrence Ferlinghetti would make of all this!

Do not lose your zeal, Shannon Magrane. I’m no American Idol fan, but I did see this the other night, and Magrane is one cool, confident kid — like her dad, former Cardinals pitcher Joe Magrane. Interesting clip.

INTERESTING! Welcome to Interestingwood, Shannon.

f. Check out this piece by CSN’s Matt Maiocco on the kindness of inactive 49er cornerback Shawntae Spencer.

g. Now there’s a guy who’s showing teammates how to pass it on — the right way — the way Bryant Young showed him.

A. And here’s your weekly misuse

a. of bullet points

b. HEY LOOGIT! These add space and make the column seem longer!

Tried a latte at Blue Bottle Coffee in the San Francisco Ferry building Saturday — and it was worth the 15-minute wait in line. I’ve been to two of these individual coffee makers in San Francisco now, and the care really shows in the product.

And barista knew my name! Whoa. Impressive.

This espresso was incredibly smooth, and the barista took 10 to 15 seconds making some sort of tree-like art on the foam.

IT WAS A SWASTIKA.

Didn’t much care about the artwork, but the coffee was great.

Quasi-Hitlery!

Beernerdness: Had a couple of Lagunitas New Dog Town Pale Ales on tap Saturday night. A beautiful caramel-colored ale, easy and delicious to drink, slightly…

Cirtrusy?

fruity.

BINGO BANGO! If only they made carrot beer.

When we last left professional cricket sideline reporter Peter King, he was reporting on things that Adam Schefter had reported on, marveling over naked homeless women breastfeeding on the subway, and paying tribute to the drafting prowess of Josh McDaniels. Oh, people of Denver: This wonderful man gave you what will be three wasted years trying to develop an option QB, AND he drafted Knowshon Moreno. STILL HATE HIM, YOU BITTER BOULDERITES?

So what about this week? Where is the grass slipperier today? Did Peter finally see Moneyball? And will Seattle finally get around to fixing the barista problem in New York? Don’t know how you fix this, Seattle, mostly because you are just a collection of people and you have nothing to do with the employee training at coffee franchises in an entirely different city. READ ON. You’re either gonna love this Fun with Peter King, or you’re gonna nap through it!

Here are two questions for you to start your Championship Week:

1. Which sports commissioner was “seeing red” when he was told that a certain SI reporter was watching him drink beers with DeMaurice Smith at the Radisson hotel bar?

2. Didn’t see “The Office” last week. Any good?

It takes a big story to throw the 49ers off the front page of Monday Morning Quarterback today…

But it’s not every day that you go on the kind of fishing trip that Jack Bowers and I went on. Let me show you some slides of the cabin we stayed in. They say that our place at Deep Creek was once used to house slaves during the Civil War. COMPELLING.

FOX counted eight Green Bay drops; I counted six.

I never thought I’d trust FOX as a source of information more than another entity, but here we are. Eight it is.

Non-playoff team bonus noteworthy event: Jeff Fisher didn’t choose against Miami as much as he chose St. Louis.

It’s a little early for our Peter King Butchered Sentence Of the Week, but how do you top that? It has everything: a colon, reverse logic, the idea that the second part of that sentence is somehow “noteworthy”… You’re telling me that Jeff Fisher picked the Rams because he picked the Rams? CRAZY.

If you sat open-mouthed when Alex Smith made that touchdown run, read this… he play I’ll never forget is that weird Alex Smith bootleg called by offensive coordinator Greg Roman.

SO WEIRD. Thank God I read that. I remember watching that play and being like, “HOLY SHIT! WHAT A FUCKING AWESOME PLAY! I HOPE PETER CALLS IT WEIRD TWO DAYS FROM NOW!”

Now for some full disclosure.

I gots the herps.

Weird harmonic convergence of sorts in the last couple of weeks.

Even weirder than a naked bootleg! In fact, you can use “weird” in virtually any circumstance and it works! It’s so WEIRD how good this salad is! You’re here on time, Jim! WEIRD! We’re all out of WEIRD pudding!

Let me explain.

My agent for television negotiations is a lawyer from California named Marvin Demoff, who has represented many high-profile players and coaches over the years. His son, Kevin Demoff, is the executive vice president of football operations and chief operations officer of the St. Louis Rams. I’ve known Kevin, through Marvin, since he was in college.

Instead of a proper graduation gift, I mentioned him in my column! Good gift. LOFTY GIFT.

Marvin Demoff is also the agent for Jeff Fisher, who is in the process of agreeing to terms on a contract to coach the Rams. Last week, Fisher was torn between the Rams and the Dolphins when making a final decision about where he wanted to coach in 2011 and beyond, and he chose the Rams, and I’m sure many people in the football business, and fans smart enough to see what was going on, thought: Of course Fisher went to St. Louis. Marvin Demoff is taking care of his son.

Now, full disclosure: Jeff Fisher and I share an agent. Now, allow me to explain to you why I’m the best person to explain how there couldn’t possibly be a conflict of interest here.

In other news, I know I may be biased, BUT JEFF FISHER CLIMBS MOUNTAINS BETTER THAN ANY OTHER MAN CLIMBS MOUNTAINS.

If you feel I’m incapable of being straight down the middle in covering the Fisher story, I understand.

If you feel like I’m completely full of shit, I understand. NOW HERE’S A BIG LOAD OF SHIT.

I wouldn’t try to convince you otherwise.

Except in the next eight paragraphs.

The larger story, though, seems to me to be the inference I’ve heard in some circles that the fix was in with Fisher and the two Demoffs. I spoke to Fisher last night about it. I’m not asking you to believe that this would be reported the same way if it were the Washington Post investigating whether this was an inside job.

I’m not asking you to pretend that this is JOURNALISM. That would be cray cray!

My interpretation, which I stated higher in this column, is that the fact that the Dolphins wanted to keep their GM-with-the-roster-power structure in place was a factor in Fisher choosing the Rams.

This is what you stated higher in the column:

Jeff Fisher didn’t choose against Miami as much as he chose St. Louis

Everyone! Please note Jeff Fisher didn’t choose against Miami so much as he chose against a GM-with-the-roster-power structure in Miami, which led him to St. Louis. I think.

Not the major factor, but a factor…

MAYBE!

The Tim Tebow story was fun while it lasted.

No it wasn’t. It was worse than puppy AIDS.

But now what?

Now? WE REJOICE.

I don’t subscribe to the school of thought that Tebow can’t succeed as a full-time NFL quarterback. We don’t know that for sure.

All we know is that he’s woefully inaccurate, struggles with quickly reading through his progression, and is prone to fumbling the ball. Could he become the next Drew Brees? Could he sprout wings and fly above the lands, sprinkling all of us with delicious chocolate jimmies? WHO KNOWS? I LACK THE ABILITY TO MAKE LOGICAL CONCLUSIONS.

1. (tie) New York Giants (11-7). Memories of 2007 are so valid they’re scary.

“Oh my God, Tim! This is a valid driver’s license you have! TERRIFYING IN ITS VALIDITY.”

9. Detroit (10-7). Looking at my rankings last week, I had the Lions lower than Denver and Atlanta. What was I thinking? Or smoking?

Man, my rankings sure are unreliable! In fact, they’re so useless, I failed to even grasp that I probably put Denver ahead of Detroit last week due to their differing results in the Wild Card round! I think I put Denver ahead because Marvin Demoff told me to.

11. Denver (9-9). Tebow’s losses (Detroit, New England, New England) can feel like the end of the world…

OH NO! TEBOW LOST! BUT HIS WINS WERE SUCH GOOD NUGGETS!

/watches as winged daemon flies out of nearby canyon, sets fire to the sky

…because Tebow’s inaccuracies make it difficult to sustain an offensive attack. But missing guard Chris Kuper hurt a lot.

I knew it! IT WAS THE FUCKING GUARD’S FAULT.

(Alex) Smith will never have to buy another Anchor Steam for the rest of his life.

Why would he, when there’s delicious Shock Top on tap? You don’t see that beer in many places!

(wait — do guys who went to Utah drink beer?)

O ho ho! Are the waves of grain in Iowa REALLY amber? I’m not sure.

/PoFlaWa’d

What’s the one thing the Texans, playing with a third-string quarterback and playing at a team that was perfect at home this year, couldn’t give Baltimore?

A set of stabbin’ knives?

A gift.

Oh.

Busy week for NFL referee Gene Steratore, who traveled a long way to go 21 miles between Tuesday and Saturday evenings.

Get out your iCals, everyone! It’s time for “Peter is impressed by the travel schedule of another person”!

On Tuesday, he reffed the Louisville-Providence Big East men’s basketball game in downtown Providence.

His train was going 100 miles an hour. Now, another train containing Bob Papa is going 80 miles an hour. What time will they meet in Wichita?

Steratore had to take a 2,978-mile detour to spend two working nights in eastern New England.

Semi-Niners-esque!

Busy Beaver, that Steratore.

/eyes low hanging fruit

/leaves it just for you, dear commenters

There is a Renaissance Hotel built into the Gillette Stadium complex.

Not a Conrad? HARUMPH!

A media friend of mine stayed there while on assignment for the Broncos-Patriots game over the weekend. On Friday night, his stadium-view room cost $299 plus tax. On Saturday, game day, the room went for $709.

No fucking way. Are you telling me that hotels charge more during usage times? EXTORTION.

Total bill for staying in a regular Marriott Hotel room for one evening: $791.95.

And no free coffee!

I can only hope his accounting department at work understands when he files an expense report for two nights at a Renaissance Hotel, and the bill for the room tops $1,100.

I know! Poor guy, who didn’t have to pay for his expensive hotel room and needed to only fill out a simple form to be reimbursed his $1,100! BUY THAT MAN A HOEGAARDEN.

“Here’s the crazy thing,” my buddy told me. “The place was sold out.”

GTFO! Are you telling me the hotel was sold out on game day? During the playoffs? That’s crazy talk. Next thing you’re going to tell me is that hotels charge more for larger rooms… OMG THEY DO!!!

Tweet of the Week II

– @DonnieWahlberg, actor and lover of all teams Boston, with a double-Tweet.

Shut the fuck up, Donnie.

Steratore’s a really good ref.

But he’s an even BETTER beaver.

I think this is what I didn’t like about the divisional playoffs:

a. The phrase “divisional playoffs.” Stupid title for the weekend.

Whatever happened to my idea of calling it Divisionville?

e. Michael Crabdrop.

f. Jermichael Findrop.

g. And don’t get me started on Jacoby Jonemuff!

And James Starks: You’ve got to pick up the rushing linebacker better than that, son.

Nothing pedantic about a middle aged white reporter calling a young black football player “son”!

/RaFlaWa’d

Bill Leavy. I must be the only guy in America who didn’t think his non-reversal on the Greg Jennings fumble or non-fumble was horrible.

You sure are, because that call was HORRIBLE.

I think I reserved the right to say I told you so when I picked Justin Smith as my 2011 NFL defensive player of the year, and so I’ll say it: I told you so.

I think I reserved the right to be a snotty asshole when I’m right about something. Just like when I told you to draft Tim Hightower in your fantasy draft! BUBBLY: POPPED.

I think the strangest call of the weekend came before the game started in Foxboro.

Or was it the WEIRDEST?!

Why on earth, Denver, would you defer when winning the coin toss?

So you get the ball to start the second half?

I think that was a very meaty story by the Kansas City Star’s Kent Babb about what he described to be the paranoia and insecurity he reports to be rampant in the offices of the Kansas City Chiefs under owner Clark Hunt and GM Scott Pioli.

MEATY BABB NUGGETS.

I think the Bucs could take 10 days to two weeks from now to hire a coach. Why, you ask? Why not?

If you can drag your feet for an extra two weeks to hire Mike Sherman, while allowing other teams to pick up talented assistants you could have hired, YOU DO IT.

Red Sox alive? Making any moves to combat the Yankees’ 13-man starting rotation? Bueller? Bueller? Bueller?

Thank God Peter brought this up, because here I was watching all these great games over the weekend and all I could think was WHY HASN’T BOBBY VALENTINE BANNED CHICKEN FROM THE CLUBHOUSE YET?!

Glad to have helped a few of you discover The Art of Fielding.

Do you people live under fucking trees?

Had four people this past week tell me they’re either reading it or have read it, and all agreed with me: Can’t put it down, and as good as the baseball stuff is, the life stuff is better.

Baseball, fine. Life, BETTER.

I saw a movie! Moneyball, and I liked it a lot.

Good to know, fuckface!

I’d ridiculed the casting of Philip Seymour Hoffman as A’s manager Art Howe, and though he didn’t look much like him other than atop the head, Hoffman had the personality and the dourness of a manager down pat.

Yes, who knew an Oscar winning actor would be able successfully portray another person?

g. Philip Seymour Hoffman: The Meryl Streep of male actors. He can do it all.

He’s the Bogart of male actors!

h. Missed the Golden Globes. What’d I miss?

THE GOLDEN GLOBES. You think you missed them because you did!

So I was in Boston over the weekend, and I walked into one of my three former Starbucks there…

Dunno how you fix this, Seattle. One Starbucks didn’t supply enough liquefied egg yolks for Peter. He needed THREE of those fuckers.

…and the gal behind the counter, who I recognized, pointed to me and said: “Triple grande hazelnut latte.” Wow. Impressive.

AMAZING. FANTASTIC. Who knew a common clerk would be able to recognize a man whom she seen presumably hundreds of times before, a man who also appears on television? SHE MUST BE LIKE THAT RETARDED KID ON KIEFER’S NEW SHOW. Get that girl a position in the Falcons’ front office! I think the karma gods are gonna have a lot of good things in store for you, missy!

So I was in Boston over the weekend, and I went to the House of Blues Friday night to see the Peter Gammons band play Rolling Stones covers.

Worst night out ever.

A good time was had by all — particularly getting reacquainted with Harpoon IPA. The Harpoon line can’t be beat.

And Alex Smith never has to buy one again!

Q: Tommy! Tommy! Do you fackin’ realize that you have nevah done a mailbag? America needs you to do a mailbag, TAWMSTAH! You should do a mailbag column, and the first lettah every week should be from someone begging you to do a mailbag! FACK KOBE!

-O’SullyMcTavindish, Re-veahhhhh

TFQ: You ahhhh fackin’ right! I should!

Q: Last month, you told Tim Tebow, to his face, “Well, now you face a REAL team, with REAL magic fans behind them!” And then the Pats won! I can’t decide if this is amazing, or if it’s even MORE amazing.

-Wendell, Newton

TFQ: It’s nawt amazing. Nawt if you simply pay attention to the lines and know footbawll the way I do! Everyone knew that little Timmy Christblowah was no match fahhhh the powah of the GRAWNK. NO ONE DENIES THIS. Everyone thawt the Pats would lose that game. EVERYONE. And now everyone expects them to lose this game, making them the first #1 seed evah to NAWT GET RESPECT. You wawtch. You wawtch Tawmmy Brady treat Vawn Millah like the packie store-ahhhh Kanye West that he is!!!

Q: I think we should call Gronk “Jem,” after Jem from “The Town.” Think about it. He’s tough. He doesn’t give a shit about anything. He puts himself in harm’s way. THERE CANNOT BE ANY OTHER NAME FOR HIM.

-”The Matt”, Manchester

TFQ: I love it. It’s perfect. MY READAHS COME UP WITH BETTAH NICKNAMES AND BETTAH CATCHPHRASES THAN YOUR-AH READAHS!!! My only beef with that nickname is that Jeremy Rennah is NAWT a true movie stahhhhh!

Q: How fast can Tawmmy Cruise run in the 40? DON’T YOU THINK HE’D MAKE A GOOD GUNNAH FOR-AHHH THE PATS’ PUNT TEAM?!

-Bobby33, Woburn

TFQ: People have ahhhh-gued about this for-ah yeeee-ahs. The nation is firmly divided into pro-Cruisahhhhs and anti-Cruisahhhhhs. NO ONE DENIES THIS. IT’S A STANDARD AHHHGUMENT IN AWLL HOUSEHOLDS. Now, I don’t think he’s any Jason Preistley, WHO CLEARLY WOULD HAVE BEEN AN OLYMPIAN IF NAWT FOR-AH 90210. I think he’s more-ah of an overly competitive assfag who prawbably ovah-estimates his own athletic ability. In othah news, I TOTALLY DRAWPPED 15 POINTS ON MY BOY HOUSE-O AT THE Y THE OTHAH DAY! I KNOW BASKETBALL. Also, don’t you think that Tebow and Cruise ahhh exactly alike? Good call, me!

Q: Don’t you think that NFL teams should be able to trade their first round draft pick in exchange for winning all playoff tiebreakers the following season? Wouldn’t the Chargers have done this? TELL ME THE DOWNSIDE!

-Random Fuckhead, San Diego

TFQ: FACKIN’ BRILLIANT! WHY AM I NAWT IN CHAHHHGE OF AWLL SPARTS? On anothah note: I wish I had gawn to cawllege in San Diego, becawse I would have facked lawts of blawnde chicks! AM I RIGHT?!

Q: I love you! I love you so fucking much!!!!!!!!

-Bob, Miami

TFQ: (backing away slowly, becawse you ahhh a fag. I HAVE STAHHHKAHS!!!!)

Q: Why didn’t the NBA make every rule change you said they should make? WHAT THE FUCK?!

-Andy, Charlotte

TFQ: (nawdding sadly, punching dahkie)

Q: I’ve gawt a great name for any group of girls who come into a bahhh and stahhht singing real loud: BAG O’ CUNTS. Perfect, right?

-Charlie, LA

TFQ: I’ve been using this term for-ah yeee-ahs! Why ahhh the rest of you so fahhh behind me on this?!

Q: Deosn’t Alex Smith remind you of Alex Van Halen?

-Linda, Boca Raton

TFQ: NO YOU STUPID CUNT! He is just like Neil fackin’ Peart! So typical of a stitched-up cunt to fack up that analogy!

Q: I was plowing this fackin’ harse-faced twat from Guatercio or whatevah the othah week, and the bitch was wearing my commemorative Pedroiah MVP t-shirt! And as I was stickin’ in her-ah poop chute, I gave Pedrioah the thumbs up and let him I was hitting that Hershey highway good! DOES IT GET ANY BETTER THAN THAT?!

-Denis, Scituate

TFQ: Yup, these ahhh my little tawnstahs!!!!! I KNOW EVERYTHING AND I AM AWESOME!

When we last left Josh Bickford biographer Peter King, he was maybe almost kinda considering splitting his vote for MVP into portions so small that they can only exist for a billionth of a second and may or may not be the key to unlocking the secrets of extra physical dimensions of the universe. Also, he drank some wine.

So what about this week? I noticed that the teaser on the front page of SI.com for MMQB uses the phrase “the Tebow saga,” which is perfect, since Tim Tebow is EXACTLY like “Twilight.” He has a dedicated legion of fans who scare other people. He’s been remarkably successful despite the fact that critics don’t think he’s any good. And his story has gone on wayyyyyy too long. Let’s see what Peter thinks of all this… TEBOWVILLEMANIALANDNESS. READ ON.

Let me get some of the news of the weekend to you first, then get on to the dramatic non-game story of the weekend: the fight to beat tongue and throat cancer by veteran referee Tony Corrente, who worked Detroit-New Orleans Saturday night.

Did he cancer treatments rob him of the ability to prevent inadvertent whistles on important fumbles?

I keed, I keed. I hope he gets better. Seriously though, the officiating in that game was a steaming hot bowl of Joan Rivers’ pussy runoff.

If I were (Josh) McDaniels, I wouldn’t pick my nose Saturday night. CBS will have an iso camera on him all night, wherever he is.

He’ll be up in the booth, firing all the other assistants and replacing them with his cousins. When you run a Josh McDaniels offense, is there really anyone else better qualified to teach that offense than Cousin Charlie from Reno?

Josh McDaniels is basically Pat Webb from “Casino”.

On the night of that draft, in April 2010, I remember distinctly two phone conversations.

I remember them because I taped them, typed out the transcripts, and then read them aloud to Brett Favre at his bedside!

One was with Tebow, who said Denver was where he wanted to be drafted, and McDaniels the coach he wanted to play for. “I told [agent] Jimmy [Sexton] all along that I wanted to play for this guy,” Tebow said. “His whole attitude is he believes in himself, and he’s going to do it his way. I like that.”

You mean he’s arrogant AND he’s autocratic? SIGN ME UP.

But after what we witnessed on draft day 20 months ago, and the magic we saw Sunday, one question:

Still hate Josh McDaniels, Denver?

Don’t you feel bad, Denver? Don’t you feel great shame for running this poor, poor man out of town when all he did was trade away all the good players and lose a shitload of games? I HOPE YOU’RE HAPPY WITH YOURSELF TODAY, DENVER. Maybe you could learn a thing or two from New York about leading the league in loyalty.

Now Jeff Fisher takes a day to pick the Rams or Dolphins. After spending five hours at the Rams’ practice facility in suburban Earth City, Mo., Sunday, the former Titans coach returned to Nashville to consider his options. By Tuesday, I expect he’ll have figured out whether St. Louis or Miami is the best place for him.

“Hmm. Should I live in Miami, or St. Louis? SUCH A HARD CHOICE.”

-A fucking idiot

Seriously though, I’m not quite sure why two teams are fighting so vehemently over Jeff Fisher. You know that guy didn’t win a Super Bowl, right? And that he’s kinda old and shit?

I said Saturday the Bucs want an authority figure to clean up Raheem Morris’ mess, and they like former Packer and Texas A&M coach Mike Sherman.

BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

I’ll let Spencer Hall explain Mike Sherman:

He’s a B-grade coach, and born to go like 10-6. He’s a Kia. It’s the 2-4 playoff record of minivan choices.

As Adam Schefter reported…

Good nugget, Adam!

Kansas City is likely to keep Romeo Crennel as the permanent coach after he went 2-1 as the interim man.

2-1! SUCH A HUGE AND DEFINITIVE SAMPLE SIZE. I fully expect the Chiefs to go 10.66-5.34 next season, provided the NFL finally allows teams to split victories, which Peter prays they will.

In another weird play…

COMPELLING.

…Brees, on a 4th-and-a-foot call, leaped over the line, stuck the ball out long enough to get the ball past the first-down marker, then pulled it back as he was swarmed by the Lions. Looked like he voluntarily pulled it back, which, of course, would have meant he didn’t have the forward progress for the first down. But the officials on the field gave him forward progress.

Not only that, I’m virtually certain that Brees fumbled the ball before he hit the ground on that play. Again, pussy runoff.

“I thought the expectations here got out of control,” (Dean) Spanos told me the other day.

“People wanted us to WIN, which I thought was a bit nutty.”

“We did not have good drafts in ’07, ’08 and ’09, and so we’ve been set back a little by that. I thought we had a good nucleus with a great quarterback who Norv has done a great job with. But I didn’t think we had a great team. Should I blow it up, get rid of the coaches and the general manager…”

YES!!! WHO THE FUCK DO YOU THINK RAN ALL THOSE HORRIBLE DRAFTS?! IT WAS YOUR COCKSUCKER GM!

“…with no guarantee on anything coming in here? I thought that would have been a mistake, and I thought they deserved another chance.”

WHY? You just said yourself that they fucked up for the past FOUR YEARS. How does that merit another chance? The Chargers are FUCKED.

“This is all a guess.”

Holy shit, Dean Spanos is Peter’s favorite NFL owner.

(Corrente’s) doctor in California, Susan Sleep, set him up with an ear, nose and throat specialist, who snaked a camera through his nose to look at everything.

Too bad you aren’t Peter King, Tony. You would have gotten that colonoscopy of the nose for FREE.

Corrente found it interesting…

WEIRD.

2. New Orleans (14-3). The grass isn’t always greener on the other side. In San Francisco, however, grass is often more slippery that (sic) elsewhere.

And there’s your Peter King Tortured Sentence of the Week. People, a bird in the hand is NOT worth two in the bush. But in San Francisco, MAYBE, a bush is often dewier and therefore perhaps kinda more amenable to bird hospitality something something JOHN LACKEY.

4. New England (13-3). How weird it’ll be to see Josh McDaniels walk into Gillette Stadium today.

IT WON’T BE WEIRD! HE FUCKING WORKED THERE FOR YEARS! IT WILL BE COMPLETELY NORMAL AND UTTERLY EXPECTED. IT WON’T EVEN BE INTERESTING, YOU DICK.

Smart move by owner Steve Bisciotti to give director of player personnel Eric DeCosta a rich, multi-year contract, for general manager money… The grass wouldn’t have been greener anywhere else.

But it might have been more slippery!

I don’t know how you watch that (DEN/PIT) game — that event…

THAT PARABLE OF MODERN TIMES.

… — in Denver Sunday evening and think the Tebow Broncos aren’t the best, coolest, most fun story in the NFL in years.

When they play like they played yesterday, it’s quite fun to watch. When they played like they played the week before, not so much.

Andy Reid’s job one: whether to replace defensive coordinator Juan Castillo with Steve Spagnuolo.

Only in Andy Reid’s world is this a decision that requires lengthy deliberation.

Offensive Players of the Week

Denver QB Tim Tebow. He wrecks games. Sometimes for the Broncos, but mostly for the opposition.

Sometimes his grass is greener on the other side, but it’s also well plowed. Wait, does that make sense?

Here’s an interesting note…

MAKE IT STOP!

/squeezes sides of own head to induce pain

…about the final eight teams left in the Super Bowl derby: Only one, Denver, starts a first-round running back.

No glory boy-type running backs? TMQ is ENGORGED.

New York subway story of the week: The other night around 8, I was on the E train in Manhattan, standing inside a fairly crowded car. At the Port Authority Bus Terminal stop, a woman got on at the far end of the car cradling something and saying over and over again in a pleading, accented voice, “Please. Please. Please.”

She was cradling a printout of MMQB and begging for the story about lunch with Terry Francona to end.

As she got closer, I could see was a woman of about 30…

Semi-30ish!

…and she held a cup and small sign out with one hand — the sign said she was homeless and needed money — and I couldn’t quite see what she had in the other arm until she got closer. It was a baby, maybe five months old, with mouth locked onto her breast, the woman making no effort to conceal the breast as she walked, looking every person in the train in the eye while saying, “Please.” I guess I’m not a hard-edged New Yorker yet. That was a startling, eye-opening experience.

Who knew that there were poor people openly soliciting on New York City subway trains? That’s not the sort of thing you see at Peet’s Coffee!

I will say something positive about the human race: From the looks of it, she collected $10 or so from our car in five minutes. After two stops, she got off and went to the next car.

HUMANITY: SOLVED. This woman may be a symbol of the desperate struggle of the poor and destitute… BUT WE GAVE HER TEN BUCKS. And I think that pretty much tells you all you need to know about how great the world is. Between this and Tebow, I don’t know how we advance any farther as a species. This story was like an Upton Sinclair book, only with a happy ending in which the amputee meat plant worker is given a free danish.

By the way, Peter does not say anywhere in his story that HE was among those who gave the lady money. I hope he didn’t and then complimented humanity for giving the lady money when he abstained. That would be the most Peter King thing ever.

Tweet of the Week I

– @BrentCelek, the Philadelphia tight end. Human like the rest of us right after the Denver-Pittsburgh game.

Tim Tebow leads the league in humane game endings.

1. I think this is what I liked about Wild-Card Weekend…

b. Luv ya Blue!

I am soooo missing something here.

If you ask Bill Belichick which young college coach he thinks could be a very good pro coach, it’s the 45-year-old Greg Schiano.

GRUMBLE GRUMBLE I GUESS THAT RUTGERS FELLA IS OKAY SHUT UP I’M PLOWING YOUR GRANDMA WHILE WATCHING ALL-22 GAME FILM AND SHE’S TALKING MORE THAN I’D LIKE HER TO.

I think the Bengals obviously had no business being in the playoffs… One word for their play…

WEIRD?

disorganized.

HUZZAH!

I think this is what a close acquaintance of new Penn State coach Bill O’Brien told me when I asked what kind of college coach he will be… “I think he’ll be a great success.”

Maybe.

Let me completely ruin my source’s quote by adding my mandatory conditional language to it. I think.

I think Mike Sherman would be a perfect fit — today, for what the Bucs are and need right now.

Skip the tortured grammar here for a moment (I think Peter dropped a circus peanut onto the keyboard to make that double dash), I’m not sure why Peter decided to go around randomly championing bad ex-coaches for new jobs. THE CHIEFS SHOULD HIRE ROMEO CRENNEL! THE BUCS SHOULD HIRE MIKE SHERMAN! YOU KNOW, THAT DAVE SHULA COULD WORK WELL WITH SAM BRADFORD. MAYBE.

I read The Art of Fielding, a book that sounds like it’s about baseball and is.

JEEEEEEESUS. It sounds like a book because I said I “read” it and it is!

.. and is also about a lot more.

NO WAY. I couldn’t have imagined that an acclaimed novel that was reviewed by major publications, who noted that it’s about a lot more than baseball, would be about more than just baseball.

I’m a baseball fan, as you may know, and I thought I would like this book mostly because of the smart baseball writing.

I thought it was an almanac of some sort! Turns out it had characters and stuff!

I know I come off like Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino saying this…

There is no situation in which you come off like Clint Eastwood.

“We all have it coming, kid. I think.”

“Go ahead, make my day. Or, if you don’t feel like making my day, feel free to not make it. Sometimes, the grass is slippier on the other side of my day.”

“Do you feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk? Well, you probably feel lucky because you ARE lucky.”

…but I cared nothing about the succession of games last week that could well have been a bunch of Weed Whacker Bowls.

College football? BORING. Let me tell you about baseball.. IN PRINTED FORM.

I’m making plans to go see cricket in the spring in England.

Oh, there is NO better match of sport and personality than that.

I’ve been told I’m going to either love it or nap through it.

I just… Christ almighty, this is a worse indictment of our society than the homeless breastfeeding titty woman.

But my brother, who lives in England, has caught the bug big time, and usually what he likes, I like.

“Say Peter, ol’ chap! Fancy a cricket match, perhaps? Well, I’ve heard tale of a LOFTY minor league cricket stadium out in the Cotswolds that blokes around there find quite INTERESTING. Although I do wish I could see these teams play on a neutral field in LUTON.”

Don’t know how you fix this, Seattle.

He’s talking to cities again.

But the latte quality, overall, in New York Starbucks stores is significantly worse than in Boston or Montclair, where the stores are rarely as crowded as the packed ones in New York. Just a word to the wise.

You hear that, entire city of Seattle? The inferiority of Starbucks chains in New York as compared to other places in the Northeast where assholes live is YOUR FUCKING PROBLEM. Now, I know this’ll be tough for you to pull off, seeing as how the windscape of Seattle is located all the way up there in the Yukon Territories. I’d ask Denver to help you, but they’re busy writing that apology note to Josh McDaniels that I requested.

Who knew a Manhattan coffee shop would be crowded? ONLY IN NEW YORK, GANG.

Always nice to go into an everyday bar, as we did at our NBC Football Night in America wrap party Saturday night in Manhattan, and have a good choice of beer on tap.

WE ARE FAMOUS BUT WE GO TO EVERYDAY BARS BECAUSE WE’RE STILL VERY MUCH SALT-OF-THE-EARTH NUGGETEERS.

I chose Hoegaarden, a wheat beer, with…

Withhhhhhh?

…a lemon.

CITRUS!!!!!

I could have done without the annual shot of tequila, though. Why do I always do that?

Because Dungy will call you a fag if you don’t?

What a loser I am. Still haven’t seen Moneyball or The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.

OH NO! Let’s get Seattle on that right away.

Goodbye, Jorge Posada. Always admired you, even when you helped wreck so many lives on The Night Grady Little Ruined The ALCS in 2003.

Eat shit.

Garrett: Oh, dear! Oh, dearie me! Oh, dearie my! Oh, dear heavenly crumbbums! This has been a most disappointing way to end our 16-game progression, dear brother!

Judd: Mmmm. Yes. Indeedy. Terrible way to end things. Simply dreadful. My darling wife Contessa made her famous “Interracial Roast Lamb” dish last night, and I couldn’t even bring myself to eat, I’m so sick over what happened!

Garrett: A terrible eating!

Judd: An AWFUL eating!

Garrett: A rotten eating!

Judd: A scurrilous eating!

Garrett: Such a pity.

Judd: It was not your fault, dear brother. You know this. Look at the foul detritus handed to you by your gauche owner! You’ve yet to be given the freedom to build the team in your image! A fine team! A PRINCETONIAN TEAM, free of glory boy riffraff!

Garrett: If only, dear brother. If only our immediate superior weren’t so… so… VULGAR. So crass. So Unprincetonian.

Judd: Well, you should tell him that! Be the first to stand up to that boor Jerral Jones! Let him know that all his billions won’t get him a table at the Mayflower Club!

Garrett: Maybe I will, dear brother. Maybe I will. For too long, I’ve suffered under the cruel yoke of his debasement. And that doesn’t sit well with me at all. No, the time has come to stand and fight! I’m going to do it, brother. I’m going to tell that man precisely what I think of him!

(door flies open)

Jerry: YOU FUCKING SHITHEADS!

Garrett: It was Judd’s fault.

Judd: BROTHER!

Garrett: I’m sorry, dearest Judd, but I cannot lie to our fair owner here. It is YOU who were responsible for this conflagration!

Judd: My God. The level of Karamozovian betrayal staggers the imagination!

Jerry: I’M NOT DONE YELLING AT EITHER OF YOU! I did not take Susan Skaggs back to the third row of my luxury box and raw dog her like a kennel puppy just so you could MAKE THE DOUBLE J LOOK LIKE SHIT! AH’M GONNA KILL YEWWWWW!

Garrett: Now, now, Jerral. We both said that this would take TIME.

Jerry: Yes. Time. ONE WEEK. That’s how long you git when the Double J has handed you the finest roster ever constructed! Have you seen my boy ROMO? Didn’t I tell you he was a star?

Garrett: I believe you…

Jerry: HE’S A GODDAMN STAR! HE IS THE FUCKING MOONLIGHT SHINING OFF YOUR MOMMA’S SNAPPIN’ TWAT! Ware? STAR. Dez? STAR. DeMarco? STAR. Ratliff? STAR. Terence Newman? STAR.

Garrett: Newman? He’s our worst player!

Jerry: HE’S A GODDAMN STAR! What do you two Princeton faggots expect the Double J to do? Hire a real GM? I’ve been doing this job for TWENTY-TWO GODDAMN YEARS. You won’t find a front office executive with more experience rebuilding than yours truly! Why, if I hired a GM, he’d just feud with the owner, AND THAT WOULD DISTRACT EVERYONE! I WANT BLOOD!

Garrett: I think we’re on the right track, dear Jerral. You know that I, more than anyone, appreciate all that you’ve done for this team, and the reverence I have for the measure of class and dignity you’ve brought to this team and this city.

Jerry: Goddamn right! Did you see the paintings in our lobby? THAT LETS PEOPLE KNOW THE DOUBLE J CAN BUY THEIR KIDS AND MAKE SEX SLAVES OF ‘EM.

Garrett: Now that I have your ear, I think we should really sit down and evaluate who’s… responsible for this calamity. Besides Judd.

Judd: SCOUNDREL!

Garrett: I think that we both know that the roster was expertly assembled, but that certain people failed to execute along the way, am I right? I think I know of whom we speak…

(door flies open)

Wolfman Rob: OW-OOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!! Ugh. Oh. Oh Christ, my back! When you eat out a Chinese hooker for 40 straight hours, you don’t really think about the consequences, you know?

Jerry: YOUR DEFENSE WAS SHIT! ABRAM ELAM IS BLEEDING PUSSY OF FAILURE!

Wolfman Rob: Whoa hey, slow down there, muchacho. Now, I know that we had some issues there at the beginning of that Giants game. But I adjusted! You get enough epsom salts in me at the half, I’ll draw you up a defense. I remember one time when I was coaching in the Japanese league. 1951. We’re down 45-0 nothing at the half and I am out of my goddamn mind. I’m sittin’ there in the locker room, yelling at a bunch of guys that don’t speak English and think that a white person is some kind of mystical lizard beast with the power to alter time. I gotta come up with a scheme, and I gotta make sure this game is over 4AM so that the fish market can open on time where our field is. Now, we had this one freakshow on our team with a two-foot long tongue. No bullshit. He had a fucking alien tongue. So I pop six Percocet and I grab his tongue and I start tellin’ him in Jap sign language to lick every player on offense that he can. So he goes out and starts licking everyone and they run off the field. FORFEIT. We won. So don’t tell me a Ryan boy can’t draw up a defense for you, because that shit’s a LIE.

Garrett: Your men were all confused at the snap!

Wolfman Rob: That’s because we were watching amputee bestiality porn on the sideline. That’s gonna throw you off your game sometimes.

Garrett: This is lunacy! This man is not fit to coordinate a defense! Let me choose my own man, dear Jerral. A PROPER coach, of good grooming and breeding. Not this… this Mexican bartender you’ve imported!

Wolfman Rob: (belches)

Jerry: Both of you are gonna have to work your sorry asses out of this mess! I’m not changing shit! I hired the players. I hired the coaches. I KNOW WHAT IT TAKES TO BUILD A CHAMPIONSHIP ORGANIZATION. And you two will prove me right, or else I will find your mothers and I will cheekfuck them with TWO dicks!

Wolfman Rob: I’ve heard that a tradition in Argentina, actually.

Garrett: Dear Lord…

Jerry: YOU WILL WIN ME A SUPER BOWL NEXT YEAR OR ELSE YOUR MOMMAS WILL GET THE SUSAN SKAGGS TREATMENT!!!! YEEEEEHAWWW WOOOOHOOOOO I AM FUCKIN’ CRAZY!