When we last left professional groin watcher Peter King, he was growing up before our very eyes, stomping all over poor Taylor Swift’s red dress with his size 14 circus feet, and finding himself entranced by Peyton Manning’s words. Oh, Peyton Manning’s words and stories. I could spend weeks in your semi-sirenesque thrall.

So what about this week? What does Peter have to say about Belichick’s 4th down call in the great city of Manning? Did Peter JUST discover the thrilling sounds of the Postal Service? Will we ever see Philip Rivers squint? Read on. BUT FIRST… a letter. This letter has nothing to do with Peter King. And it was submitted for tomorrow’s Deadspin mailbag. But I want to make fun of it NOW, because I’m a dick.

This is from reader Joseph R, with the subject PISSED OFF NEW ENGLAND FAN (cue the bacteria-sized violin):

It just had to be that way. Lakers are the champs, Yankees are the champs, and the Patriots are now blowing games and letting the team that consists of Hoosiers basketball and Vols football fans get their shit eating kicks some more.

Aw, poor baby! Truly, no fanbase has ever suffered from such a terrible run. Not only have your sports team not won a title for a wrenching fifteen months, but all the teams you greatly dislike are winning them! HORRORS! THE CLOUDS ABOVE MAY NEVER PART!

You listen to me, you stupid fucking Boston fans. I don’t GIVE A FLYING FUCKING FUCK about who your rivals are. I don’t care about the history you have with them, and I don’t sympathize with you. AT ALL. Ever. Those aren’t my rivalries. I don’t give a shit. In fact, BULLY FOR THE YANKS AND COLTS AND LAKERS. GO BOSTON RIVALS! WOOHOO! YOU GUYS DEFINE CLASS!

We could’ve just done the normal, fuck we suck lost, I could’ve shut the game off around the 10 min mark, caused some accidents in NASCAR practice mode to vent my frustration, and then gone to bed, ready to start my fucking job that doesn’t pay me enough to afford a place in the damn Boston area without either working weekends or selling my nutsack to the mafia.

You must live in the Back Bay!

No, we had to take a big lead, I had to start saying OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG, and then only to see retarded thing after retarded thing happen, only for that fucking system product superstar Reggie DA U Wayne put the final dagger in…

Indeed. When I watch Reggie Wayne play, all I can think to myself is, “Well, Todd Pinkston easily could have put up similar numbers in this system.”

…allowing me another yell to dwell in my hatred of that team and their shitty fucking 95% female fanbase whose knowledge of football is Peyton Manning and Spygate.

So I’m fucking stuck Drew, there’s babies to be punched, and shit to be thrown, and you know what the worst part of this all is?

No, and I don’t give a fuck. You lost. Your coach made a retarded gamble because he’s so smart, and your team choked because of it. Now go die in a ferris wheel accident.

Now, to Peter…

Three o’clock in the morning, and I’m still rolling Bill Belichick’s call around in my head. I wonder how many people in New England aren’t asleep yet … and how many won’t be able to sleep all night.

BECAUSE OW-AHS IS THE MOST TAHHHHCHAHHHED FANBASE IN ALL OF SPARTS! I COULDN’T SLEEP AT ALL! I HAD TO GO PUNCH A DAHHHKIE IN THE CUNT JUST TO CALM MY NERVES! LET’S SEE WHAT THE FACKIN’ STOOL HAS TO SAY ABOUT IT!

First of all I have no idea how we lost that game. Like no fucking clue. Like you can’t dominate a game more than we did and lose. And yes it was a horrible use of the 2 timeouts on offense before we went for it on 4th down. But let me just say this loud and clear. I LOVE the decision to go for it. LOVE IT…LOVE IT….LOVE IT. Anybody who critcizes that move is just a fool. If we punt that ball Peyton Manning takes it right down the field and scores. Doesn’t matter whether he has to go 60 yards or 30 yards. Our defense was gassed. We had ZERO chance of stopping them. So the right move was to try to end it with our best players on the field. And guess what? It was a horseshit call by the refs. Sure Faulk juggled the ball but he juggled it for a nanosecond and then caught it. The spot was full yard and a half off. But that’s neither here nor there. The point is Belichick made the right decision. I go for it 100 out of 100 times there. Just look back to the AFC Championship game when we blew that huge lead. What happened then? We punted it and it took them 3 seconds to go the length of the field and score. Bottomline is that our offense is our moneymaker. Let Tom Brady and company win it or lose it and that’s exactly what Belichick did. The only thing that sucked was the timeouts because we should have been in a position to get the ball back after the score and get a game winning field goal. But the call to go for it on 4th was absolutly the right call. I literally can’t say that enough. It took balls of steel to make that decision and that’s why Belichick is the best coach in the league.

PS – We’re still a team to be reckoned with in the playoffs.

PS – the Bar Stool Sports guy has a buttpussy the size of the Mariana Trench. I LITERALLY CAN’T SAY THAT ENOUGH. It’s like reading Harry Knowles defend and Uwe Boll film. Know what other genius coach would have made that ballsy call, Boston fans? Mike Martz. Back to King.

Belichick’s too smart to have something so Grady-Littlish on his career resume

Some may say the call was even semi-John McNamaralike.

He trusted Brady to get two yards. Let’s place the odds of Brady getting two yards at 60, 65 percent. The odds of Manning going 72 yards to score a touchdown in less than two minutes … that’s maybe 35 percent.

Reader Mike P.:

OK, so if he thinks the Colts have a 35% chance of scoring that TD, that means that they have a 65% chance of NOT scoring that TD, meaning the Pats win, right? That’s the same percentage he gives for converting the 4th and 2! So he’s arguing that one call was horrible but gives the same percentage for a Pats victory with either decision.

Defensive Player of the Week

First, Woodson winning this is an achievement in itself, because the Bengals had about five guys who deserved this.

But YOU won it, Charles! And now you get Peter’s special prize of a SPICY CORNCOB! Ross Tucker only ate half of it!

Goat of the Week

I hear the natives in the Loop are beyond restless, and they’re not naming sandwiches after Trader Jerry Angelo anymore.

What about the veal Cutler? ZING

Stat of the Week

The ESPN documentary on Jimmy “the Greek” Snyder was absolutely terrific the other night — insightful and accurate.

Except for the part where they hired a voiceover to IMPERSONATE JIMMY’S FUCKING GHOST. That part, not so insightful.

As I tried to think of a way to put the importance of The Greek and his show in perspective, I thought of one word: volume.

As in, he was often both loud AND wrong, not unlike today’s NFL analysts. Truly, a pioneer.

For those too young to remember the significance of “The NFL Today” and Jimmy The Greek, or for those of you reading this in a college dorm and who know Brent Musberger only from the big college games on Saturday, take a minute to learn history.

It’s important history you should know, on par with the history of both World Wars.

The Greek, angry at a perceived lack of TV time, once slugged Musberger in a bar. He was fired after the 1987 season for making racially divisive comments. The ESPN show focused on the tragic life that Greek’s became. Good viewing.

Lofty viewing.

People ask me what the biggest difference is in covering the NFL today versus the early years I covered it; my first season as an NFL beat guy was…

I’m sorry. This is boring me. I’m gonna have to pull an Elvis Costello here and change the tune. Get a load of this piece of shit from pock-marked, pubic headed retard Dan Shaughnessy. Keep in mind that King moved to Boston specifically to read this man’s work.

This was as bad as anything the Red Sox ever did. Had it been a playoff game, it would be right up there with Bucky Dent, Bill Buckner, Aaron Boone…

HOLY GODDAMN SHIT, DO YOU ASSHOLES EVER NOT LINK ANY EVENT TO THE HISTORY OF THE FUCKING RED SOX? “Honey, the dishwasher’s broken. THIS IS JUST LIKE THE TIME CALVIN SCHIRALDI LET GAME 6 GET AWAY FROM HIM! Oh no! I broke a glass. This is reminds me of the fragility of a Red Sox lead in the AL East!” Jesus fucking Christ.

And Bill Belichick played the part of Grady Little.

That’s TWO assholes now comparing Bill Belichick to some baseball manager you and I don’t give a shit about. Stop doing this. STOP. This is not some historical tapestry you are fucking weaving for the world.

Even the legions of zombies who say “In Bill We Trust’’ and the formidable pay-for-play Patriot media machine will have a hard time defending the brilliant coach on this one.

Oh, I see. So the reason Boston fans trust Bill Belichick’s judgment is NOT because he won three Super Bowls, but because he’s William Randolph Hearst.

This one will linger for a while, maybe into the winter. This was a horrible loss. It changes everything.

I’LL NEVER LOOK AT ANYTHING THE SAME WAY AGAIN! IT’S AS IF A PARENT DIED, WHICH IN TURN TOTALLY REMINDS ME OF SOMETHING THE RED SOX DID.

Die.

Back to King.

Access to players and coaches is monumentally different. The NFL landscape is under siege from reporters, producers, anchors and editors, all wanting to do something different, something new, and all wanting time with the big players of the day. I don’t get angry about it, and I don’t pound my fist on desks of PR guys or agents, screaming for access.

The perfect example is the Peyton Manning story that graced the cover of Sports Illustrated last week. Manning had no interest in cooperating or dining or sitting down with me.

And he never ate the boxed chocolates I sent!

Today, it’s rare to talk to a player the night before the game, and actually being in his room, having an in-depth interview?

Why can’t I be in the player’s rooms anymore? Where’s the companionship? The spooning? The bathrobes I steal and then go home and never wash, only smell deeply?

Enjoyable/Aggravating Travel Note of the Week

Three Kindle readers in my Amtrak car to New York on Saturday.

AND THEY ALL CHEWED GUM!

I had the thinish John Grisham book of short stories…

Semi-skinnyesque.

…and the Kindles were thinner — and they contained up to 200 books. I peered over the shoulder of the woman in front of me for a minute and saw bright, easy-to-read type, and I thought of every bookshelf in our apartment being full, and I thought: I know exactly what I want for Christmas.

AND I’LL GET IT, BECAUSE I HAVE A GREAT DEAL OF DISPOSABLE INCOME AND I DO NOT USE AUTOMOBILIZED TRANSPORT, SO I EARNED IT.

Tweet of the Week

What an odd choice.

The NFL choosing a very old band to perform at halftime? BIZARRE.

Why, oh why, would Bill Belichick have arguably his most important pass-rusher, Tully Banta-Cain, playing special teams in Indy?

Because he always has starters play on special teams. Check out the punt returner.

When we talk about the great tight ends, we too often forget Antonio Gates.

Who? Never heard of him. Oh, the mean the tight end who always goes to the Pro Bowl and is usually the first or second tight end drafted in fantasy? BUT HE’S SO QUIET!

When’s the last time you heard Patrick Kerney’s name?

Does it matter?

I think Todd Haley’s going to blow a gasket on the sidelines soon. Good for him, winning his second NFL game in Oakland Sunday…

No, not good for him. Todd Haley is a cock. He doesn’t deserve to win. He deserves to be shot in the back by his own men.

…but if he wants to last in this job, he needs to learn to swallow some of the anger. He really laid into Matt Cassel at one point in Oakland — and that’s in a win.

Because he’s a dick.

Not bragging or anything…

BUT I ALREADY KNOW I’M GETTING A KINDLE!

LaDainian Tomlinson had some special inspiration Sunday, his wife leaving the positive results of a pregnancy test for LT at the stadium so he could find it before the game.

“Fuck. I need a new contract now.”

e. Play of the Day I: Buffalo running back Fred Jackson takes a Wildcat snap, pauses, rears back, throws a perfect spiral 35 yards in the air, hitting Lee Evans in stride in the end zone. You talk about your basic amazing play. That’s one right there.

You talk about your everyday miracle!

Ricky Williams is very much alive and well.

This just in: Ricky Williams? ALIVE.

Why the timeout with 14 seconds left, Tony Sparano?

Because he might have wanted to punt.

Department of Redundancy Department: ESPN’s Jesse Palmer referred to the Western Athletic Conference as the “WAC Conference” Saturday night. Does he know he was saying the “Western Athletic Conference Conference?” If you say the WAC, you’re saying Western Athletic Conference. But Palmer added an extra “conference” on the end. Same as announcers who call the Mid-American Conference the “MAC Conference.”

This item brought to you by Gregg Easterbrook’s Department of Nitpicking.

Hilarious “Rear Window” spoof on “Saturday Night Live” the other night.

And so timely! Can’t wait for their West Side Story riff!

Coffeenerdness: Saw Dan Marino early Sunday morning outside the Manhattan hotel the NBC and CBS crews use on NFL weekends. Good ol’ Dan — sucking down the Starbucks.

Then spilling it on himself, and blaming everyone else around him for it.

In honor of him (Dan always loved the green tea in our HBO “Inside the NFL” days), I went with the China Green Tips Sunday morning at my West 57th Street Starbucks while working.

Good to know.

Stay, Jason Bay.

You say…

Come, Adrian Gonzalez.

Let me touch your groin.

UPDATE: I loved this comment over at ESPN:

monsterdog5 says:
November 16, 2009, 2:27 AM ET

Live by the sword, die by the sword. The Patriots’ decision to go for it on fourth down will pay ample rewards later on. Belichick just flat-out told his defense “I believe in you guys”. Come playoff time, that’s going to matter.

I believe he told his D the exact opposite there, monsterdog.

When we last left noted football learner Peter King, he was eagerly discussing the constant, bulbous throbbing of Brett Favre’s groin. Could that groin injury do Favre in, right in the middle of such a great season? I don’t know. If you touch Favre’s throbbing groin, does a magic baby pop out and grant you wishes? I don’t know. Does the groin smell like rosemary, and lavender, and does its sweat give you healing powers? MAYBE.

Anyway… time for this week’s batch of esoteric, gum poppin’ fun with Peter King. I HOPE YOU FOOTBALL LEARNERS OUT THERE ARE READY FOR SOME SEMI-LEBRONESQUE LEARNING LESSONS.

Much of the past week I’ve spent researching and writing a Peyton Manning story for Sports Illustrated’s NFL midseason report, which you’ll see this week.

I can’t wait. Join Peter for this and other fabulous Sports Illustrated print stories from THIS week, including…

-The Yankees Are About To Return To The World Series!
-Surprise! The 49ers are the 3-1 darlings of the NFL
-Jacorybook ending: The Hurricanes quest for a perfect season
-Your Beijing Summer Olympics preview!

I tell you, it’s the most up-to-date sports media outlet in the world.

I’ll get to the games of the day and issues of the week in a few paragraphs — particularly the Cowboys growing up before our eyes last night in Philly.

Flowering, one might say.

I officially declare Patriots-Colts Hype Week kicked off.

Join the Normans and I as we celebrate the occasion! There’ll be food, cocktails, and a special raffle!

“Peyton Manning and Bill Belichick are twins from another lifetime,” (Qadry) Ismail said.

It’s an interesting comparison.

It’s true. AND both men have appearances that would suggest they were breastfed by wolves as infants. COINCIDENCE?

Manning’s usually a great storyteller, but he zipped it pretty tight last week, amiably declining my request for a one-on-one.

But a two-on-one he was down with. Austin Collie deserves a little taste.

We spent five minutes after his weekly media scrum at his locker Wednesday, and these were the only things I learned: He wears a Timex digital watch with a Gatorade logo that’s set 11 minutes ahead of real time.

Fascinating. Also, Manning will only use a toaster oven if it’s facing due north. He keeps a single persimmon in his jacket pocket at all times to ward off alien ghosts. And he races ants.

I actually didn’t mind Manning not talking.

I got to spend 50 minutes telling him about this German fellow I met!

He’s so good and vivid and descriptive that you can become entranced by his words and stories.

And then you snap out of it 70 minutes later with a yoyo stuck in your rectum and Vaseline smeared all over your crew neck. Such is the power of his vivid talkscapes.

I think I’ve gotten beneath the surface of the closed city of Manning a bit

It’s a small city. A mysterious city, nestled inside a dynastic womb. In the city of Manning, all buildings are triangular, and police are armed only with bags of very stale croutons.

…but I’ll let you be the judge of that. Hope you like the story a tenth as much as you like Colts-Pats on Sunday.

HOW CAN YOU PEOPLE BE BROADCASTING A FOOTBALL GAME WHEN THERE’S AN INTERVIEW WITH PEYTON MANNING GOING ON! WHAT THE FUCK?!

Daughter Breleigh was fit to be tied when Favre told her in late July he was staying retired, and, truth be told, Favre was in full waffling mode for much of August until Minnesota coach Brad Childress called and said it’s now or never.

Again, look for this timely scoop in NEXT week’s issue of Sports Illustrated. Along with their staff predictions for the 2006 NBA playoffs!

That was a potentially (and I stress “potentially”) season-altering win for Dallas last night.

Are they going to go undefeated the rest of the way? Maybe. Will they collapse, like they also do? Maybe. ARE THEY SMILING MORE? Definitely.

Upon further review, the unrestricted free-agency list is not so bad.

I wrote a few weeks ago that the UFA class of 2010 would be horrible, because it wouldn’t include unsigned fourth- and fifth-year vets if the league and union don’t have a new CBA done by March. But because of the rise of players like Aubrayo Franklin and the promise of interesting prospects like Brian St. Pierre…

Wait, what? Brian St. Pierre? He’s rising? The six-year journeyman? The guy who has thrown exactly one pass in his entire NFL career, which was thrown five years ago? He’s a rising star?

12. Brian St. Pierre, QB, Arizona. Someone might see him as 2010’s Matt Cassel and go buy him for a fifth of the cost.

But Matt Cassel PLAYED before he became a free agent. Remember? He played, and the Pats went 11-5, and it made sense to consider him as an intriguing prospect. Brian St. Pierre is the third string QB in Arizona. He’s in charge of turning off the sprinklers. Why the fuck would you pay that asshole a dime? Who sees him as 2010’s Matt Cassel? Cleveland? Do you even realize Matt Cassel BLOWS now?

I think I know what’s going on here. I think Brian St. Pierre married into the Bowers family. I KNOW IT IN MY GUT.

Indianapolis (8-0). Dates of the last five Pats-Colts games as the November sweeps continue to dictate the scheduling of this big game: Nov. 7, 2005; Nov. 5, 2006; Nov. 4, 2007; Nov. 2, 2008; Nov. 15, 2009.

My God, it’s like some sort of Jewish holiday

Minnesota (7-1). Good week for a bye, and for rest for Brett Favre’s groin.

Yes, you rest, dear groin. Take it easy. Can I give you a neck massage, groin? Can I dry hump you until the friction singes the hair off?

New England (6-2). Randy Moss, that was one of the best straight-arms in the history of straight-arming. And for you who need to know the rule about helmet-touching, the only player who can’t have his helmet touched is the quarterback.

Or a receiver, if you lead with your head, shoulder, or forearm. You know, for those of you who don’t know the rules.

You won’t be surprised to learn that Vincent Jackson is one of the two wide receivers on my SI midseason All-Pro team, at a newsstand or mailbox near you Wednesday.

But you will be surprised by his All-Pro QB. It’s Derek Jeter!

“I think a dark horse is Buffalo. They talked originally. There was some communication there. I think that could be a good spot.”

-Tony Dungy of NBC’s Football Night in America, asked about possible 2010 landing spots for a player he is advising, Michael Vick.

Oooh! I also here that Fergie will be joining them.

By the way, a small rant on behalf of Eagles fans for a moment. Now, Andy Reid was horrible last night in so many different ways. He fucked up his challenges. He wasted timeouts. He called running plays on 3rd and long. And he kicked the world’s most meaningless field goal. He’s awful, but perhaps the worst example of his incompetence was the fact that he still tries to throw Michael Vick into the game every now and then. Stop it. Vick eats a can of ass. Stop that right now.

It’ll be interesting to see if the groin injury that Favre suffered 12 days ago and aggravated eight days ago is going to be a recurring factor as the 40-year-old QB tries to make it through the final eight weeks of the regular season.

I’ll be watching that groin. Studying it. Tracing its every curve in my mind.

Enjoyable/Aggravating Travel Note of the Week

Boarding a flight from Denver to Phoenix last Tuesday, I was in the aisle walking toward the back of the plane. The aisle was full. The plane was going to be full, and it was probably half-boarded.

AND THERE WAS THIS MAN WHO BROUGHT BOTH A ROLLERBOARD AND A COAT ON BOARD! WHAT A FUCKING PIG. HEY PIGMAN, WHY DON’T YOU CHECK YOUR SUITCASE FOR $50 AND ALLOW THE ELITE FLYERS TO TAKE THEIR RIGHTFUL SEATS? I HAVE A KIT KAT TO OPEN.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we are ready for immediate departure,” the flight attendant said, with a bit of urgency. This was a 6 a.m. flight, and now it was about 5:40. “Please take your seats as soon as possible so we can depart.”

How should we get there, ma’am? By levitating?

Or by moving briskly into your seats?

It wasn’t even 5:45 now. We weren’t leaving the gate, minimum, for 15 minutes. And this women was talking like there was a fire onboard and we had to scram or we’d all be cooked. And it wasn’t even 6 in the morning, no less. Now that’s a good time in the friendly skies right there.

Wait a second. Are you telling me planes board slowly, and this can be aggravating to some? GET THE FUCK OUT. And did you know Metallica is loud? It’s true!

An Expensive Lunch, But A Few Of You Might Be Interested

Welcome to Peter King Platinum!

New England left tackle Matt Light has a foundation, as many players do.

If it’s not called the Light Bringers, I’ll be pissed.

The Light Foundation…

CRIMINY!

…strives to instill honesty and responsibility in young people through outdoor learning experiences that include an outdoor leadership camp and a character-development football camp. He’s opened his Outdoor Leadership Camp on several hundred acres in Ohio, and he’s trying to raise money to bring at-risk and underprivileged teens from New England, Ohio and the West to the camp. I told him I’d help if I could.

With my help, these children could end up leading the league in normalcy.

What we’re going to do is have lunch at Davio’s in Foxboro…

And Hoge and Schlereth better not bogart my freebie!

just outside Gillette Stadium, on Friday, Dec. 11. We’re going to open it to the first 10 people willing to donate $1,000 to the Light Foundation. If you’re interested, contact Light’s representative, Margrette Mondillo, by email at margrette@goodwinpr.com. We’ll hang out that Friday for a couple of hours. Light will tell you every one of the deep, dark Patriot secrets.

“We hang babies.”

I won’t tell you much, but I’ll be there for comic relief.

“This is a nice restaurant. NOT!”

Give all you can. With your $1,000 donation, these kids may be able to go to football camp for three days and maybe recover from a stroke in the process.

I haven’t met Aqib Talib. I don’t think I want to.

He’s so dark!

I never thought Lovie Smith was in any real trouble until yesterday.

Really? Ever see Lovie coach a game? He makes Andy Reid look organized.

I told you to take more chances downfield, Matthew Stafford, which you should do — but not as recklessly as you did yesterday in Seattle.

Yes, that advice doesn’t contradict itself at all! Here’s what Peter initially said: “Throw it downfield, Matthew Stafford. Bombs away, Calvin Johnson or not.” BUT ONLY IF YOU’RE TOTALLY SURE THE GUY IS OPEN! Then you should take a risk, even though it wouldn’t be risky to make such a throw in that instance.

I think Philip Rivers was as impressive as any player in the league Sunday, just by the way he competed. “As cool as a cucumber,” tackle Marcus McNeill said of Rivers. “You very rarely see him squint.”

“Except when he’s making fun of ‘the nips,’ as he calls them. He kind of a dick.”

Still want to fire Jeff Fisher, Titans fans?

Probably. Didn’t that asshole want to keep playing Kerry Collins?

John Fox is going nowhere. Just a gut feeling, but as his team comes back to normal, that’s how I see it.

And when they finally sign Brian St. Pierre, they’ll be back on their way to the top.

e. Arizona’s dangerous.

This just in: The Cardinals can win games!

g. The Falcons will be a tough out in January. And yes, they’ll be playing football in January.

As will the rest of the league, because the last games of the regular season will be played on January 3rd.

What I find so odd about the Falcons is that we’re nine weeks into the season and they’ve only played EIGHT games. Isn’t that weird? They’re like sleeping tigers!

e. The 49ers are better that 3-5. Miami’s better than 3-5. But you get what you deserve. Both have to get better quarterback play to have a chance.

The 49ers are better that 3-5. Miami’s better than 3-5. But they’ve played like shit. And they have shitty QB’s. But they’re both clearly 6-2 squads.

I think the league won’t do anything about Chad Ochocinco’s little money gag, where he took out a dollar bill and waved it at an official during a disputed call. “You know, like, here’s a dollar, change the call,” the Ocho told me. “Just kidding. Just having fun.” Wasn’t sure the league would see it that way, and though I think league officials will look at the replay in New York today, I hear they won’t be inclined to fine Ochocinco. Harmless fun. Well, I didn’t think it was fun, but I’m old and boring.

Now join me for a HILARIOUS lunch with Matt Light!

On Saturday, I shared a dressing room with Taylor Swift at NBC. It’s not what you think.

You mean you weren’t watching Family Guy together?

All her stuff was in the dressing room for the show that night, but she wasn’t there, and I had to dress for the Notre Dame halftime pop on NBC. Well, there was an incident.

Needless to say, I had just visited my proctologist, and…

I stepped on Taylor Swift’s red gown.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

Not on purpose, but there it was, the bottom of it on the ground, and I was trying to walk around it…

PETER I’M HAPPY FOR YOU AND I’MMA LET YOU FINISH BUT KANYE WEST HAD THE BEST “FUCKING WITH TAYLOR SWIFT’S LIFE” INCIDENT OF ALL TIME.

…to get my jacket, and I stepped on it, and there it was, a footprint on the bottom of the red material. I quickly wiped off the footprint off. Most of it, anyway. You guys didn’t see a size-14 sneaker mark on the bottom of her red gown Saturday night, did you?

Size 14 feet? My God, Peter King is some kind of flippered sea monster.

Don’t worry about it, Peter. Don’t sweat the small stuff. Or the big stuff. Or the medium-sized, hard to place into a distinct genre stuff.

Jeff Garlin, I know you read this column.

Jeff Garlin is a bastard. A bastard, I tell you.

You’re looking good. You’ve dropped some weight, and you’re sharp.

Is your groin throbbing? Because mine is.

But I don’t write to praise your physique or acting ability. I write to urge you, please: More Funkhauser. We out in “Curb Your Enthusiasm” land cannot get enough of the gravelly voiced weirdo who has three good lines in every scene.

Jeff Garlin won’t do it for you, Peter. He’s a bastard. A total bastard.

Coffeenerdness: Three triple lattes Sunday. Sooner or later, the lack of sleep is going to catch up with me.

I might even end up stomping on some poor chanteuse’s with my freakishly large landslappers.

Listen to Rilo Kiley. You’ll thank me.

A million hipsters died reading that.

My heart goes out to the victims of the Fort Hood and Orlando shootings and their loved ones. Senseless, senseless incidents. I will not go quietly into the night on this one.

Indeed I won’t. I WILL BURY IT IN A SMALL, BULLETED ITEM ON THE SIXTH PAGE OF AN ONLINE FOOTBALL COLUMN. THAT IS HOW MUCH I CARE.

America needs to do something about idiots with handguns. How many more Fort Hoods and Orlandos do there have to be before our political leaders have the guts to severely restrict access to murderous weapons?

And where are we on cap and trade? PETER KING DEMANDS YOU MOVE SWIFTLY. ASK THE CAPITAL GRILLE IF HE’S FUCKING AROUND.

When we last left championship cake baker Peter King, he was 20 minutes late to a live chat over at Deadspin, then proved a rather good sport with most of the questions. I’d like to congratulate Big Jim Slade for asking Peter how the Bowers were doing. Peter’s response was a simple, “Fine.” It’s the little things.

Someone also asked Peter if the criticism he gets online bothers him, to which Peter replied that it comes with the territory. He doesn’t like it when it goes too far, but he accepts it. Well, thank God for that. NOW I CAN MAKE FUN OF THAT DOUCHEHAT WITHOUT IT WEIGHING ON MY CONSCIENCE ONE BIT! WOO HOO!

So what about this week? Will it be another Steelers Sunday for Peter? Will he and Bob Costas rattle a cage or two? Will he show up in my Junior Jumble? Read on, people…

I remember the first time Brett Favre mentioned the V word in the summer of 2008.

Indeed. Vaginosis. It’s no joke when your vagina secretes an “odorous discharge”. In fact, I find any and all unwanted discharges troubling.

Favre told me he pulled or strained his groin in practice on Wednesday and took it easy in practice for the rest of the week.

Oh, Brett’s groin. So firm. So supple. Like a leg of lamb pulled fresh from the oven. Pulled and strained and pulled and strained and pulled and strained UNTIL IT SIMPLY CAN’T TAKE ANYMORE. PETER MUST HAVE YOU, BRETT’S GROIN.

There was never any question he’d play, he said. But about an hour before the game, during pregame warmups at Lambeau with the groin wrapped tightly, he aggravated the muscle on the field. “I told T-Jack [backup Tarvaris Jackson] and [offensive coordinator] Darrell Bevell I may not be able to do it,” he said. “I didn’t know if I’d be able to drop back very well. After I aggravated it, there was no way I was going to be able to move around in the pocket very much. We never called one bootleg the whole game. But we made it through OK.”

“Peter, between you and I, I had an injury that NEVER would have kept me out of this game. But I wanted to let you know about it, so that people could have even greater respect for my legendary toughness. OUCH! Oh, man! Did I tell you about my very light earache? I played with that as well. Oh, a mighty ache it was. WOULD FELL A DOZEN MEN WEAKER THAN I.”

And now, I wondered, how was the groin four hours and a lot of lost adrenalin later?

And what could I do to nurse it back to life? Could I rub it with rosemary balm? Could I kiss it gently? Read poems to it? COME BACK, GROIN! COME BACK TO YOUR LOVER.

“It’s throbbing right now,” he said.

IT THROBS FOR YOU, PETER.

Now hold on here. A pulled groin? Is this the magic bullet, the injury that starts the 40-year-old Favre’s decline?

Because I had a pulled groin back in 7th grade and hoo wee, did it hurt. I did no physical therapy for it. AND TO THIS DAY, IT STILL BOTHERS ME. You athletes out there know what I’m talking about!

Is this the injury that, with Favre on the doorstep of his historic 300th consecutive start, finally rips him out of a starting lineup for the first time since Percy Harvin was 4?

Could this be the final nail in his coffin? I don’t know. Will the groin magically heal and begin to sprout precious white truffles? I don’t know. Is the core of the Earth really made of old tennis balls? I don’t know.

Favre’s laid a couple of pretty big eggs in recent years, both when playing hurt and feeling fine. He gift-wrapped the NFC title game to the Giants two years ago. But there’s something about the games that have personal stuff on the line. Maybe it’s a coincidence; maybe the three-game sample size is just too small. But three decisive wins, 11 touchdowns, no picks — I sense a trend.

And is it me, or does he just look like he’s enjoying himself more in those games? Something to think about.

He can compartmentalize the things that matter and those that don’t. It’s simple. Or at least it sounds simple. He’d make millions traveling the country, maybe as Tony Robbins’ warmup act. Topic of his talk: Don’t sweat the small stuff — or the big stuff, for that matter.

In fact, don’t sweat anything. Just walk around aimlessly, constantly oblivious to all outside elements around you: people, objects, oncoming traffic. You need not worry about any of those things. So says Breddha.

One of the things Favre doesn’t often show is how much he wants to be liked in Green Bay. But he does.

He wants to be liked there so much that he decided to play quarterback for the team they hate the most! Know why? Because the man and his groin don’t sweat the details. OR the big picture. Or the sweat itself.

I got no sense he took any great joy in beating Green Bay for vengeful reasons

Favre to King a while back: “Part of me coming back last year, yeah, was to stick it to Ted Thompson.”

How can a player have a more redemptive day than Ted Ginn Jr.?

He redeemeth!

Troy Aikman did the game for FOX Sunday, and he thinks Favre won’t need much else to leave football a happy man. “No matter what happens from here on out,” he said last night, back home in Texas, “I think with these two wins over the Packers, Brett could walk away from football pretty satisfied at the end of the year. Now, he won’t admit that. But I think for him, to win these games was huge.”

Oh, well thank God for THAT. HOORAY, SEASON’S OVER! THE VIKINGS ARE DOUBLE PACKER BOWL CHAMPS!

Baltimore sent blitzing ‘backers more often Sunday in the the win over Denver, and it worked. Defensive coordinator Greg Mattison knew the front wasn’t getting the pressure it needed, and from the start, particularly on early downs, extra defenders like Jarrett Johnson surprised Kyle Orton around the edge. Good idea. They’ll need to keep that up, for a couple of reasons. Deion Sanders isn’t walking through the locker room door to save the beleaguered secondary.

Sanders played with the Ravens in 2004 and 2005. The Ravens went 9-7 and 6-10 those two years. He sucked.

Two very good tackles — Chris Samuels and Walter Jones — are nearing the end, and that shouldn’t be something just in small type this weekend.

It should be on Page 1! Preferably in a very small portion of the bottom right hand corner! Shame on you, New York Times, for laying off employees when you aren’t making money. SINCE WHEN IS PUBLISHING A BUSINESS?

New Orleans (6-0). My friend from Montclair, Mike Norman, and his two boys, Ben and Josh, can’t get over how they were treated as Giants fans in New Orleans a couple of weeks ago.

Oh, the Normans! You remember them, don’t you? Mike was at our Easter party last year. He’s the one who had the three fingers. Remember?

I wouldn’t be too alarmed about the so-called struggling Colts on the heels of their narrow win over San Francisco.

Oh, thank God. Because I was just about to declare that team DOA. All downhill from here!

The Eagles’ weaponry is so diverse. Think back to the preseason, when all wondered how long it would take Brent Celek, DeSean Jackson, Jeremy Maclin and LeSean McCoy — all third-year players or younger, all 24 or younger — to contribute as a group. Well, in putting up 40 on the Giants, those four touched the ball 24 times for 278 yards and four touchdowns. I guess chemistry class is going well, Professor McNabb.

Professor McNabb’s First Grade In Chemistry 101

LECTURE SCHEDULE:
MONDAY: What Is Chemistry? We Study The Rituals Of The Navajo Indians To Learn More
TUESDAY: Let’s Try Bringing In That Dog Killer Guy!
WEDNESDAY: Time Is Evil: Why Hurrying Up Makes People So Unchemistratic
THURSDAY: Guest Lecturer Peter King Discusses The Bonding Chemistry Of The 2004 Red Sox
FRIDAY: Black-on-Black Chemistry: Why Can’t We Brothers Find A… Solution? Get It?

LAB SCHEDULE
MONDAY: Concrete Cyanide
WEDNESDAY: Agrarian Vomiting
FRIDAY: Steeler Anatomy

Atlanta (4-2). Seems odd that it’s Nov. 2, and the Falcons have played only six games.

Who ARE these men? They’re like a group of cat burglars! Do they even exist? Is it any coincidence the very, very quiet Matt Schaub used to play for them? THEY COULD BE OUTSIDE MY HOME RIGHT NOW.

Esoteric But Meaningful Stat of the Week: Texans lead the league on defense with 36 three-and-outs.

Esoteric def.: Understood only by a chosen few or an enlightened inner circle. Oh, sage Peter, tell me more about these “three-and-outs”! I KNOW THE SECRET PASSWORD TO YOUR CIRCLE! LET ME IN AND SHARE MORE OF YOUR DRUID TEACHINGS! WHAT IS A SAFETY?

A really impressive loss at Indy. When you lead for 41 minutes against the Colts, and hold Peyton Manning touchdown-less, you’ve done something. Not enough, but something.

Did you win? I don’t know. Does the loss even count? I don’t know. Are you awarded a gold tablet of some kind? MAYBE.

Quote of the Week I

“We’re 3-0 in the division … and it still goes through us!!!”
-Miami coach Tony Sparano, in the victorious Miami locker room after the 30-25 win over the Jets.

Indeed it would, if you weren’t two games behind New England in the standings. Couple that with Sparano’s decision to go for two with an eleven point lead, and you have yourself a fucking mathemagician.

Quote of the Week III

“No, Brett Favre did not lay down to give me a sack. Doesn’t happen in the NFL, man.”
-Michael Strahan, on KHTK radio in Sacramento

“Except for that one time when it did!”

Offensive Player of the Week

Brett Favre, QB, Minnesota.

AND HIS GROIN!

Really, could the day have been any more perfect?

And we got to cap it off with Heineken Lights on my deck on Montclair, surrounded by woods and meadows! And the, we made love under a Japanese Maple. The knots pressing into my back… they hurt. But they felt good when they hurt. Does that make sense?

Enjoyable/Aggravating Travel Note of the Week

This is not a travel note per se, but more of an event note in a place I traveled to. Does that count?

No.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame held two concerts at Madison Square Garden Thursday and Friday, and I was lucky enough to be in the crowd on the second night, the most interesting night of music I’ve ever seen in person.

Hugely interesting music. Semi-Chinaesque.

These concerts get big acts to do a few songs — on Friday, it was Aretha Franklin, Jeff Beck, Metallica and U2 — then bring out guest stars to accompany them on songs. What a parade: Lenny Kravitz and Annie Lennox with Aretha, Sting and the ZZ Top guy, Bill Gibbons, with Beck, Lou Reed and Ray Davies of the Kinks and Ozzy Osbourne with Metallica (my first exposure to Metallica, and when I woke up Sunday, 32 hours after the show, my ears still had some weird hummmmmm going on in there) … and then the incredible U2 guests. Bruce Springsteen and Patti Smith, then the Black Eyed Peas (now there’s some energy)

NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL EXTREMELY WATERED DOWN HIP HOP!

and then, drumroll please, Mick Jagger. Each artist was onstage for seven to 11 songs, with a short intermission between each mini-show, making for a ridiculously memorable four-hour night.

It was like visiting the Texas State Book Depository… IN SONG.

The five best songs:

“Gimme Shelter,” by U2, Mick Jagger and Fergie, of the Peas

Oooh, Bono AND Fergie got to join in? That improves that song by at least –4,000,000%.

2. “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For,” by U2 and Bruce Springsteen. A King dream: the two giants of my music life crooning together into the same mike.

If only the mike had been made of a recycled Illy can, it would have been greatest King dream of ALL..

“Sweet Jane,” by Lou Reed and Metallica. Metallica’s good. Good and loud.

This just in: Metallica plays music called METAL. How about that? What a democracy.

“You Really Got Me,” by Ray Davies and Metallica. My God. We’ve forgotten how great the Kinks were.

Oh, the Kinks? They fucking su… WAIT! No, wait! Peter is right! I had forgotten! I thought they had turned into Canned Heat when I wasn’t looking.

I’ll be having a signing in my old hometown, Montclair, N.J., at the Yogi Berra Museum and Learning Center on Nov. 21, a Saturday, late in the afternoon.

Fuck off. There’s a real place named that? Really? Jesus. Here’s the website. Here’s part of their mission statement:

Our Vision is to provide a creative and enjoyable educational environment for all learners…

Oooh, ALL learners? Even that them there little folks who go to learning buildings?

We particularly choose to focus on children so that they may understand how baseball, our national pastime, and other sports, teach social and cultural values that are as important off the field as they are on.

I expect nothing less from THE GREATEST LIVING BASEBALL PLAYER IN THE UNITED STATES, AS NOTED BY MR. KING.

Good friend Dave Kaplan is organizing.

With the Normans?!!!111!!!1!!

Tweet of the Week
“Just noticed this on my Packers credential: It’s Green Bay home game No. 4. Of course it is.”

@LATimesfarmer, Sam Farmer, NFL beat writer for the Los Angeles Times, Tweeting from the press box at Lambeau Field Sunday.

And if you put a zero on the end of 4, you get 40. BRETT FAVRE IS ADAM DUNN AND MAY ALSO BE CEDRIC BANSON.

Good start, Vince Young. Very good: 15 of 18, and looking quite sure of yourself.

You, sir, are flowering.

Quietly, Dallas has crept back into the NFC pennant race.

I forgot they were even there! The Cowboys are the Kinks of pro football.

Now that’s the way to make big plays, Julius Peppers.

Can I have your gloves?

For a veteran who’s surely been mugged on more than a few pass routes, Derrick Mason of the Ravens went way over the top on a jersey grab by Denver cornerback Alphonso Smith. Hedeserved the 15-yard flag for unsportsmanlike conduct after throwing his helmet. Calls get missed, Derrick. Relax a bit.

I expect more from such a wonderful autograph signer.

Are you kidding, FOX? The moment the game of the year ends and Brett Favre is hugging his way across the field, we hear Thom Brennaman say: “We send you to bonus coverage.”

You do what? You send us to Carolina 34, Arizona 21? For God’s sake — FOR WHAT?!!!!!! What you should be sending us to is Pam Oliver for a live interview with Favre instead of making people wait.

Wait for what? What does Favre have to say that anyone will give a flying shit about? I’d far prefer to watch actual football. I had Jonathan Stewart going in that game, you prick. HEY FOX, THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING SHOWING REAL FOOTBALL WHEN I WANT TO LINGER AROUND AN ALREADY OVERCOVERED STORY?!

Throw it downfield, Matthew Stafford. Bombs away, Calvin Johnson or not.

Don’t sweat it! Just launch it and see what happens!

I get the sense no one really believes in Iowa.

Nor do I. It’s one of those made up places you always read about, like Atlantis, or Oz, or Doggie Heaven.

Coffeenerdness: Funny thing happened walking to get the papers and coffee Saturday morning in Manhattan. Guy walks up to me at a newsstand on 7th and 53rd and says, “Peter King!”

“YOU’RE A COCK!”

I turn and shake his hand, and he said, “Jeff Catlett. I’m the one who won the Joe Namath jersey at the Dr. Z auction last spring.” Wow, I say, and ask what’s he doing here in the city, out so early. Seems he lives in Kuwait, works in the oil business, and his wife gave him a trip to World Series Game 2 to see his beloved Yanks, and he was out for a stroll before he had to get to the airport and go back home.

We went to Starbucks and got coffee, and I asked him about Starbucks over there. Turns out he’s quite the Starbucks aficionado. “We have 76 Starbucks in Kuwait,” he said proudly. “Seven in one mall!” So Howard Schulz is taking over the world after all.

What a story. Peter ran into a guy who bought something at an auction. Turned out he liked coffee! What a world. This man might be the next Mitch Puin.

I really like FOX’s sideline guy, Ken Rosenthal, on TV. He’s smart and cool.

I hope I get to rock climbing with him one day!

“The Cleveland Show,” as spinoffs go, should last as long as “Saved By The Bell: The New Class.” Now, if there was a Brian spinoff …

I’d pop my gum!

There’s something about the Falcons that’s a little disconcerting

I think they might all be GHOSTS.

Tomorrow, in a convergence that is bound to shake the very foundation of these here internets, Peter King will be having a live chat over at Deadspin with Deadspin readers. Good chat. Lofty chat.

Anyway, here’s your chance to query the man in person. I’ll probably abstain from asking Peter any questions, lest it turn out he’s very friendly and an uncommonly good sport. Then I wouldn’t be able to hate his guts, and no one wants that.

So take the time now and then to consider your queries. Prepare the most semi-LeBronesque questions you can. I doubt PK will answer many of the questions you REALLY want to ask, such as, WHEN WILL YOU DIE? I suggest you err on the side of gentle subversion. Peter, how often does your proctologist have to use the shoehorn? Things like that.

So buckle in. Prepare yourself in the comments. It’s fun with Peter King. LIVE.

When we last left map-eschewing porkquistador Peter King, he was decrying the price of Yankee Stadium’s hot chocolate (it’s 30% cacao!), praising the Saints for their edgy attitude, and deeply regretting ordering the Kung Pao cheeseburger spring rolls at Panda Express in the JFK airport.

What about this week? Will he ever find the Providence airport? Will it be another ho hum week for Wes Welker, ONLY THE FINEST WIDE RECEIVER EVER TO GRACE A FOOTBALL FIELD? And how did the Caldwellmen do? Join me, a day late, as we dive into the nether regions of one man’s very thin soul…

1. That, readers, was a Steelers Sunday right there.

You could feel the looseness in the air.

I think we’ve all gotten spoiled by the defense of the Steelers.

Indeed. I wish they’d stop sending me flowers and iPhones. And carpeting my driveway with rose petals whenever I drove home from work. STOP IT, LAMARR WOODLEY! I’M BLUSHING!

The Steelers have had 40, 50, who knows how many, of these games over the years.

And Big Ben has passed for, I dunno, 370 yards in the last 15 seconds of each and every one, or something. Let me not look it up, because that would ruin the magic of that particular psychostat. ALL OF THESE GAMES WERE PLAYED IN THE SNOW!

Tight in the fourth quarter, and the defense just does something. Or more than one something.

That something it does? CHEMISTRY.

This is one dangerous two-loss team if the Steelers can keep it up.

This just in: The Steelers, who won the Super Bowl last year and have won more Super Bowls than any team in history, might be an opponent you want to keep your eye out for. That Big Ben… so quiet! You’ll never hear him until you’ve run into his motorcycle with your Odyssey!

Now, the Cowboys might be completely back and they might not

Are they back? I don’t know. Could they be back? I don’t know. Could a Kraken rise from the ocean and snap entire skyscrapers in half with its mighty beak? I don’t know. Can I put a Twizzler in my nostril and pull it out of my mouth, thus delighting the four QB’s I’ve invited over for light beers? I don’t know.

— but what I like is that Romo is playing like you have to play sports.

Me too. He is playing as if someone has forced him to go out onto the field and play quarterback. THAT is how you play winning football.

One other thing about the Cowboys: Is it just me, or do they look like they’re having more fun on offense?

/runs to nfl.com
/checks team offense stats
/sorts by Smiles Taken and Fun Ratio

It’s not just you, Peter! The stats bear it out. This offense enjoys itself more than any other not piloted by Brett Favre.

Maybe that comes from winning.

/opens three poster boards taped together

HYPOTHESIS: Teams are happier when winning
DATA: Cowboys win two games in a row, now lead league in smiles
CONCLUSION: Is there a correlation? I don’t know.

/finishes last in 7th grade science fair

But the enthusiasm of Austin is contagious.

Here an odd sight: I saw a fun shot kiosk RIGHT in Valley Ranch headquarters.

It’s amazing how much can get done when no one cares who gets the credit.

Like the time I raised $5,000,000,000 for Dr. Z. And the time I offered to give some of my salary back to SI employees but was thankfully rebuffed!

3. I’m tired of taking San Diego’s temperature.

The only let me tuck the thermometer in their armpit. What fun is that?

What an interesting day the Bears’ castoff had against his old team Sunday in Cincinnati. Eight carries for 70 yards in the first quarter, 12 for 28 in the second, 8 for 54 in the third, 9 for 47 in the fourth.

Fascinating. It’s almost as if he got consistent carries and yards throughout the game. And he had 37 total carries. That’s nearly 40. MY GOD, CEDRIC BENSON IS ADAM DUNN.

(Heath)Shuler, 37, the third overall pick in the 1994 draft by Washington, is a Democratic congressman from North Carolina. He’ll quarterback a team from Congress against the Capitol Hill police Tuesday night at 8 at the D.C. Armory, in a game benefiting the Capitol police.

/bets mortgage on Capitol Hill police

The other day, from the floor of the House, he talked to me about life today between votes. “Hold on!” he said at one point. “Gotta vote on this investment for more solar energy research.” Shuler went away for 45 seconds, voted yea, and returned.

I KNOW POWERFUL PEOPLE. HAVE YOU MET TONY, AS IN DUNGY? I KNOW HIM AS WELL.

Of course, Tuesday’s flag-football game won’t be the same for Shuler. His foot hurts every time he puts too much pressure on it or tries to sprint, the result of two surgeries late in his career after he broke the sesamoid bone in his toe. Still he’ll hear the same thing he hears a lot around town these days, with the Redskins in such a funk. “People say to me, ‘We need you back with the ‘Skins!’ ”

Who the fuck says that? No one says that. Heath Shuler is the fucking lyingest liar that has ever lied. I wouldn’t vote for this prick to empty my fucking ice cube tray.

7. Get ready for Brett Favre Hype Week.

I’m the Grand Marshall! HGTV is doing a special Land Marathon in its honor!

New Orleans (6-0). Thirty-six points in the second half on the road.

Huh. What? I wasn’t listening.

Did you get that?

No.

Thirty-six.

WHOA, HEY! Now it’s finally sunk in! That’s a pussyload of points!

That’s almost as many Viagra/Cialis commercials you see in an average Sunday.

Ooh, a Viagra ad joke! Those are fresh. NOT!

When FOX scanned the Miami bench with 40 seconds left, the players looked like 36 trucks had just run them over.

With each truck representing a point, because that is how many points the Saints scored in the second half. Did you get that?

Denver (6-0). Take one young coach and one old safety. Add water, two eggs, three cups of flour, and you have yourself a championship cake.

For my championship cakes, I also like to throw in juuust a smidgeon of dynastic womb, and a cup of concrete cyanide. VOILA. Paula Deen would feed this to all her big fat retarded children.

Philadelphia (3-2). You know, maybe Michael Vick is just a lousy option quarterback. Maybe.

Maybe the Cowboys are happy because they’re winning. Maybe. Maybe Michael Vick blows at running the Wildcat. Maybe. Maybe there are underground caverns on Mars filled with batpeople. Maybe.

But I still think the Eagles have to find a way to make Vick more of a factor, perhaps starting tonight against Washington. It’s on Andy Reid and Marty Mornhinweg.

Hey, Michael Vick probably blows. YOU GUYS SHOULD DEFINITELY TRY AND AWKWARDLY SHOEHORN HIM INTO THE GAME MORE.

Houston (4-3). Past three weeks: Matt Schaub’s completed 68 percent of his throws, with eight touchdowns and two picks. Pretty soon we’ll have to put him in the top-10-quarterbacks discussion.

But for now, let’s leave him out of it. Five weeks from now, be on the lookout for me telling he is, at long last, a player to watch out for! He could be a Steeler, he’s so sneaky good!

“This is going to be one of the diciest picks a team has ever had to make,” one club official of a team that may have interest in (Sam) Bradford told me Sunday evening. Another team executive told me this is a hairier decision than teams had to make with Michael Crabtree coming off the stress fracture in his foot last winter, when Crabtree was unable to work out. The investment in a quarterback is different, quite simply because when you’ve used a top pick on a passer, you forget it as a draft priority for the next three or four years; when you take a receiver high, there’s no reason to not pick one high in the next draft because of the widespread use of multiple-receiver sets.

In fact, why not just take a receiver high in EVERY draft! There’s no precedent for that strategy failing!

The Award Section

I’d like to thank two people — Len Pasquarelli of ESPN and Mark Godich of Sports Illustrated — for talking some sense into me over the past couple of years.

“Peter, if you keep eating like that, you’ll get gallstones. It’s all but inevitable.”

Pasquarelli told me to stop naming so many players and coaches and goats of the week, and I said, OK, I’ll think about it. Then, after last week, when I had six players sharing offensive and defensive honors, Godich, a former editor of mine at the magazine, e-mailed to tell me I was a foolish ninny, or words to that effect. They’re right, of course. I’m going with a max of two in each category the rest of the way, and I’m going to try to keep it to one per category each week. Because I know how meaningful these ritzy awards are to the players and coaches involved.

PLAYER OF THE MILLENIUM: JAMARCUS RUSSELL. Look at how relatively disciplined he was this week.

Factoid That May Interest Only Me

I guess I don’t mind foreign football, though I have doubts it will work.

Maybe if London had any decent coffee. MAYBE then, it would work. Until then, I remain skeptical.

But if I were a fan in Miami, New Orleans or Tampa in the past three years, I’d have a big problem with it.

The New England-Tampa Bay game Sunday in London was a home game for the Bucs. The Bucs haven’t hosted the Patriots in a regular-season game in Tampa Bay since 1997, and under the current scheduling format, which calls for NFL teams to play at out-of-conference foe at home once every eight years, the Patriots won’t be in Tampa ’til 2017. Tom Brady will be 40 then. Who knows? He may still be playing, but I’d bet Brady will never play a regular season game in Tampa, ever.

OH NOES! NO BRADY IN TAMPA! SACRE BLEU! Tampa has a Brady-based economy! They rely on his octennial visits. It’s their Olympics!

Aggravating/Enjoyable Travel Note of the Week

If you traverse this great land…

The barren salt flats of Rhode Island… the pedestrian walkways of the Back Bay… the majestic Cliffs of Laguna….

…you know the difference between gum-chewers and gum-poppers. Chewers are barely audible. Poppers somehow make a snapping sound with each chew. Know what I’m talking about?

/buys thirty packs of Trident

It’s madness, I tell you.

On Saturday, about 30 minutes into the Boston-to-New York Acela trip, I found myself sitting in front of a gum-popper. Across the aisle in the quarter-full car were two silent Kindle readers. Behind me, with his Bose headphones silencing all the noise in the car (including his gum-chewing), was the nearly rhythmic snap-pause-snap-pause-snap of the clueless gum-popper.

ASSHOLE! YOU’RE RUINING EASTERN CONNECTICUT FOR ME!

I had three choices: ignore it and go on with my typing…

Hey, because typing makes no noise of any kind.

…tell the guy to please stop popping, or move to the opposite end of the car.

Ooh! Chew his gum ass out, Pete! Give it to him like he’s the Blackberry Storm guy!

I moved. Gum-popping, I think, is one of the truly annoying things that we just have to put up with. Like the 35 erectile-dysfunction drug commercials per Sunday.

Or old Viagra jokes. THEN THE GUY ASKED ME TO DONATE TO BREAST CANCER RESEARCH. BASTARD.

Tweet of the Week

Before this, I thought Johnson was a smart guy.

You did? What tipped you off to that? Was it the fact that he likes spitting on chicks? Or the fact that he likes breaking into his neighbor’s house? All early indicators were that Larry Johnson was a fucking Rhodes Scholar before this.

Percy Harvin. What a force. And how valuable he’s become. Did you see Favre run 35 yards downfield to check on Harvin when he was shaken up in the second half of Vikes-Steelers?

No way! He ran a short distance to check on an injured teammate? Brett Favre defines heart. He’s the key ingredient of any championship torte.

One good sign (and there aren’t many) for Steve Spagnuolo in St. Louis: Danny Amendola can play. He’s a good returner and Welker-esque receiver.

Semi-Edelmanish!!

I like the assuredness and self-confidence Alex Smith showed subbing for the struggling Shaun Hill with the 49ers. I bet Smith starts again next week.

What a bold prediction. Hey kids, I have an inkling you might be hearing more from this Schaub fellow!

Rashard Mendenhall’s the man in Pittsburgh now. Face it.

No. NO. I will not accept that reality. I demand Willie Parker be thrown back on the field to suck.

Houston’s better than we think.

MAYBE!

The Jets had two runners over 120 on the road, which is great … until you realize it came against the Raiders.

BUT SHONN GREENE IS STILL MY PLAYER OF THE WEEK.

How the Raiders can follow an inspired 13-9 win over Philly, a team just as good as the Jets, with a 38-point loss to the Jets is beyond me.

Really? You’re surprised the Raiders are inconsistent? Maybe if you underlined that fact in your head.

Sidney Rice is flowering with Favre throwing him the ball.

At last, he is becoming a real woman.

It pains me to say it, obviously, but congrats to the Yankees. They’re the best team in baseball, and they deserve to be facing off against the defending champs in the 2009 Arctic World Series.

I LOVE YOU, DEREK!

Baseball has to do something about its postseason schedule. Come on, Bob Costas. Rattle a cage or two.

Use your magic wings and Tinkerbell wand!

Call me 112 Across.

Is that your diameter?

I’m at a book signing last Wednesday for Monday Morning Quarterback: A fully caffeinated guide to everything you need to know about the NFL, in Boston, and this fellow I don’t know, Brendan Emmitt Quigley, comes up to me in line and introduces himself. Says he’s a “crossword constructor,” hands me a card with said title on it, asks if I remember my wish to one day be in the New York Times crossword, and tells me to make sure I read the Sunday crossword. Intimates I’ll be in it, and for more than one clue.

Reader Ricky writes in:

So, Peter King’s dream of being in a NYT crossword puzzle comes true. He writes about it in MMQ thanking the guy who was dumb enough to write the puzzle. KING MISSPELLS THE GUY’S NAME IN HIS COLUMN. King spells it “Brendan Emmitt Quigley.” I cut and paste the guy’s name from the column to see if i could figure who this idiot is. His real name is Brendan Emmett Quigley. However, I do suppose anyone who guys by Brendan Emmett Quigley deserves to have his name misspelled. But still.

Whoa. Now, a month ago, I wrote in this column that my goal in life was to be in the crossword, which was a bit tongue-in-cheekish but nonetheless something I thought would be extremely cool. My wife and I are crossword people, but we can’t get past the Thursday puzzle generally. Anyway, come to find out that I’m actually the theme in the puzzle, for wishing I would one day be in it.

Well, isn’t your life just all sunshine and rainbows. Ironic such an honor would be so readily bestowed upon the clueless. Now you can steal even more foul balls with impunity, you cocksmacker.

That raised the ire of one Keith Olbermann, a much more famous man than I am, because he’s been trying to get in the puzzle, even appealing to editor Will Shortz.

“Tonight, a special 90-minute Special Comment for Mr. Will Shortz. Mr. Shortz, at long last, have you no decency? It was YOU, good sir, who promised me a slot in that puzzle. It was YOU, good sir, who knew full well that I deserved that clue over Peter King. Are we no longer a democracy? Do promises mean nothing to your administration?”

And so Keith gave me a few raspberries Sunday on the Football Night in America show.

“Talk to me through my lawyer, Peter.”

Anyway, the King-themed puzzle clogged up a blog run by crossword aficionado Rex Parker in New York, eliciting comments like: “This puzzle is about the weirdest thing I’ve seen in the NYT. It’s like a love letter to one guy…

Rex, join me every Monday. You have no clue how deep the self-love letters run…

Why anyone else should care, I don’t know. If you wanna put the guy in a puzzle, just put him in a puzzle. No need to beatify him like this.”

And from ‘Meg’: “I did not have a negative reaction to this puzzle. Actually, I feel kind of sorry for the guy. I mean, if your goal in life is to be mentioned in a puzzle … So I felt like BEQ was doing this poor sot a favor more than showing adulation.”

Did this chick really just use the word “sot”? Does this woman live inside a Wizard of Id strip?

And this: “For Peter King’s egomania to be rewarded so laboriously is icky.” And this: “Build it around a Winston Churchill quote, or even someone alive and not nearly as famous. But a blowhard sportswriter — with a Brett Favre infatuation — who has his share of critics?”

I love you, anonymous Times puzzle fiend.

And, finally, this: “It doesn’t matter how well known Peter King or the quote is or how much Peter King likes Brett Favre, who I’ve despised from the beginning of his career for a lot of reasons, one of which is that he’s supposedly a ‘blue collar’ player on a ‘blue collar’ team. That drives me nuts! Do people think the players on these ‘blue collar’ teams all go to offseason jobs at the brewery or the steel mill? The Canton Bulldogs haven’t played in years. Now that was a blue-collar team…

Semi-Romoesque! Says it was a blue collar work day to me!

…The Packers and the Steelers get their players from the same places all the other teams do. Also, that stupid fiction everybody subscribes to that somehow the northern teams play better in the cold. Most of their players grew up in Houston! Auugh! I can’t stand Brett Favre! Don Meredith, now there was a quarterback.”

Oh, wait. Sorry. That letter was apparently written by a Blue Star commenter.

Aaah, the crossword crowd. Anyway, thanks for the highlight, Brendan.

Or whatever your name is!

Coffeenerdness: I’ll tell you what we need in midtown Manhattan — a Starbucks open until midnight on Sundays.

And a Texas State Book Depository Museum. I’d go seven times a day if I could. Did you know Oswald really DID act alone?

As my MacBook Air expired Sunday…

MACBOOKAIRMACBOOKAIRMACBOOKAIR

I had 4,500 forlorn words for MMQB written, but they were locked in the snowy vault of the white screen. Uh-oh. Screwed. So I went about recalling everything and rewriting everything, miserably, with only green tea and deli coffee as strong as a dying housecat. I needed something to kick in around 5 this morning. What’s the closest Starbucks to Rockefeller Center with late Sunday hours?

I don’t know. Why don’t you look it up, fuckface?

And now, answers to the Peter King crossword puzzle:

ACROSS

3. Most humane train (ACELA)
5. You should respect it (SUN)
10. Land baron (FAVRE)
12. Johnny Damon lookalike (MARKSANCHEZ)
13. Criminally melted candy (KITKAT)
16. Extraneous urban asset (CAR)
17. The perfect save (VOICEMAIL)
18. Alarming new fashion trend 9UGGS)
19. Disturbing trend on I-95 (TRAFFIC)

DOWN

1. No room at the Inn? (WESTIN)
2. Led NFL in smiles during 2008 season (TONYROMO)
4. Unknowable science (CHEMISTRY)
6. Crime committed by film companies (EXTORTION)
7. Favre? (FAVRE)
8. Chain restaurant with coffee-flavored water (JILLIANS)
9. Ohio home of Toone P. Wiggins (SIDNEY)
11. Two wonderful? (JETER)
14. Moniker for SI scribe Banks (BRASCO)
15. Pre-ferred prefix (SEMI)
16. Car part, defined (CLUTCH)

As it just so happens, your weekly King eviscerator Drew Magary is unavailable today, so this PK-themed crossword puzzle will have to satisfy you until Drew’s MMQB breakdown drops tomorrow. We’ll post the answers in a few hours.

ACROSS

3. Most humane train
5. You should respect it
10. Land baron
12. Johnny Damon lookalike
13. Criminally melted candy
16. Extraneous urban asset
17. The perfect save
18. Alarming new fashion trend
19. Disturbing trend on I-95

DOWN

1. No room at the Inn?
2. Led NFL in smiles during 2008 season
4. Unknowable science
6. Crime committed by film companies
7. Favre?
8. Chain restaurant with coffee-flavored water
9. Ohio home of Toone P. Wiggins
11. Two wonderful?
14. Moniker for SI scribe Banks
15. Pre-ferred prefix
16. Car part, defined

p.s. Fuck you, Will Shortz.

When we last left throwback-loving douchebox Peter King, he was declaring Kyle Orton the next Tom Brady, marveling at the friendliness of Sun Country Airways, and getting into a Twitter throwdown with Mark Cuban, which marks the single most inconsequential dispute in recorded history.

But what about this week? Will Peter again be forced to down can after can of Illy? Will he be hit by any cinderblock walls? Will Kathy Holmgren be a bitch and not let him watch any football? Read on. But I must warn you: there is a section on hot cocoa prices here that will leave you STUNNED AND OUTRAGED.

No less respected a voice than Michael Wilbon blogged last night…

Wilbon blogs, eh? And here I thought blogging scared the hell out of him. Silly me. I should have known that someone as RESPECTED as Wilbon would give blogging more credibility, especially when he tells you that Sean Taylor deserved to get shot and bleed to death.

that this is the most depressing time to be a Redskins follower he’s seen in 29 years of living and working in Washington. “I’ve never seen so many of them looking droopy and depressed than Sunday night following the pathetic 14-6 loss to the Chiefs,” he wrote. When you play an 0-5 team, at home, a Kansas City team in the midst of the biggest rebuilding project of any in the league, and you generate more three-and-outs (seven) than points (six), it’s time to do something. Anything.

And so last night, Redskins vice president of football operations Vinny Cerrato met with coach Jim Zorn and asked him (well, asked might be a little kind) to relinquish the play-calling duties.

That’s not even the best part. The best part of the story was this tweet from Jay Glazer:

@Jay_Glazer zorn saved his job by agreeing to give up play-calling. he and cerato meet tomorrow to discuss who

Vinny: You can keep your job, Jim, if you agree to stop calling plays.

Zorn: Okay, who would you like to do it?

Vinny: Oh, we dunno THAT. Let’s you and I figure it out tomorrow over coffee.

“Jim’s doing too much,” Cerrato told me. “He’s coaching the quarterbacks, putting the game plan together, calling the plays, coaching the team…

“He really shouldn’t be doing any of those things.”

…We need Jim to coach the team, to do what a head coach does. It’s been 14 games now [the Redskins are a toothless 4-10 since last Halloween], and we’ve got to do something.”

“We need Jim to stand silently in the corner and watch as we bang his wife.”

This is simply an act of delaying the inevitable, of course. Zorn cannot survive.

Odd, given that King said THIS two weeks ago…

I think… and trust me on this… Jim Zorn’s going nowhere soon other than to work coaching the Washington Redskins.

Oooh, that one should go in the new book!

I expect Washington to give this new play-calling thing three or four weeks, and when that doesn’t work, then Zorn will be dismissed. I was told Sunday night that the logical in-season successor, defensive coordinator Greg Blache, doesn’t want the job, and it most logically would go to secondary coach Jerry Gray.

They should make Blache the head coach specifically because he doesn’t want to be. That already makes him ten times smarter than Jerry Gray. Semi-Joseph Helleresque.

Speaking of big-name coaches, it wouldn’t surprise me if Dan Snyder had dinner with one of them this weekend.

Oh, you think? Dan Snyder will dine with anyone who has a name he recognizes. OOOH, LOOGIT! SEAN YOUNG IS IN TOWN. VINNY, GET THIS WOMAN ON SPEED DIAL. I LOVED HER IN “THE BOOST”.

Jon Gruden will be in town to do the Monday night game for ESPN. Jon Gruden wants back into football. Jon Gruden can coach quarterbacks. Be careful, Jon. Be careful.

I’m think, this dangerous!

The Saints look like the best team in the league to me.

Well, there’s a revelation for you. UNDERLINE THAT POINT IN YOUR HEAD. Say, you know who looks like they might not make the playoffs? The Rams.

By several measures, the Giants entered Sunday’s game at the Superdome as the best defensive team in football. Midway through the second quarter, I turned to Tony Dungy in our NBC viewing room at Rockefeller Center

I KNOW TONY DUNGY AND WE WATCH GAMES TOGETHER ON VERY LARGE SCREENS WITH OTHER FAMOUS PEOPLE IN A HISTORIC BUILDING COMPLEX BECAUSE I WORK FOR A MAJOR NETWORK. Also, I own a MacBook Air.

In the spring, I power-rated the Saints as the 24th-best team in football. I thought there was no hope for their defense. “Twenty-fourth!” Sean Payton said to me a few months ago in amazement. Talk about one I wish I had back.

Another one for the new book!

The Saints aren’t the best defense in the game, but they make up for any lack of talent by playing with an edgy attitude

They quote Sum 41 songs right in the fucking huddle! Those young whippersnappers don’t care about nuthin!

“We have a lot of fun in practice,” (Greggggg) Williams told me. “I really piss off Drew Brees.

“Because I’m a cock and Todd Haley is my bastard love child, you see.”

I think a Minnesota-New Orleans NFC Championship Game would be one of the most anticipated football games of this era. Think of it: Brees and his all-world offense in one corner. Brett Favre, if he survives the year, in the other corner, with his sidekick Adrian Peterson. God, don’t let any of those three men get hurt before January.

If Brett got hurt… I just don’t know what I would do. I can picture him now… sitting at home in a cast… just being a guy… watching The History Channel, which would very much surprise you about him. Tragic.

There’s nothing wrong with Adrian Peterson. Nothing.

That’s odd, because I specifically remembering the world declaring that Adrian Peterson is terrible right before this game. Really. Everyone said it. You could hear it from the mountaintops. Thank God Peter has corrected us all. Light: brought.

I wonder how teams are going to play Minnesota going forward.

Uh, throw for a zillion yards on them because Antoine Winfield is hurt?

There’s no better combo platter (Favre and Peterson) of rusher and passer out there now, and I challenge you to think back to when there was.

Okay.

/thinks for seven seconds

Manning and James
Elway and Davis
Kelly and Thomas
Warner and Faulk
Aikman and Smith
Brees and Tomlinson
Montana and Craig

Kurt Warner and Marshall Faulk come to mind, but Faulk wasn’t the inside runner Peterson is.

But Faulk is a better receiver and rarely fumbled. So… STOP MAKING ME PICK ON MY OWN TEAM WITH YOUR STUPID, EASILY DEBUNKED OBSERVATIONS.

Finally, Peterson entered the season with a gaudy career average of 5.16 yards per rush in his first two years. Jim Brownish.

Quasi-Gayle Sayresian.

As one of my editors at SI, Dick Friedman, observed, how about a Harvard quarterback and Yale coach beating the big, bad Jets?

Mmm. Yes. Indeed. There’s nothing like an Ivy League intellect to outsmart a team that commits six turnovers.

The Fine Fifteen

Actually it’s the Nice Nineteen this week.

Not the Solitary Sixteen?

3. Indianapolis (5-0). The schedule-maker’s nice to the Caldwellmen

Far nicer than when they were the Dungylads. Will they keep it up? I don’t know? Could Peyton Manning potentially, one day, turn into some kind of starchild? I don’t know. Has this yogurt gone bad? I don’t know.

6. New York Giants (5-1). Abysmal, pathetic, awful in all ways. Also just one game, against football’s best team.

They’re human. Also, it only counts ONE game. Not two and half, as you may have guessed.

8. Pittsburgh (4-2). It is a mark of how good Ben Roethlisberger is that he threw for 417 yards, with two touchdowns, and no one noticed.

I know! Why won’t anyone notice this man who was won two Super Bowls and has been in numerous television commercials? HE’S SO QUIET! He’s like a Falcon! They always purposely place a blue dot over his body during highlights, and I can’t figure out why. It’s an injustice. If only he were famous enough to be accused of rape!

12. Baltimore (3-3). I’m tempted to throw them out of the Fine Fifteen entirely.

No! That would be unfair! They’d have to play in the NAIA then!

13. San Diego (2-2). Seems like about two months since the Chargers played. Actually it’s been 15 days.

“Let me just ruin my own metaphor right here.”

14. (tie) Philadelphia (3-2). Anyone wondering if just maybe Kevin Kolb would have played a better game in Oakland than Donovan McNabb?

White people who live in Philly?

14. (tie) Miami (2-3). Not sure how long they’ll be here. Next three games: vs. Saints, at Jets, at Pats. As that noted football analyst Scooby Doo would say, “Ruh-Roh.”

Oh, nice! A pop culture reference! NOW DO BARNEY RUBBLE.

Has any quarterback in NFL history completed 85 percent of his throws in snowy/wintry-mix weather like Brady played in Sunday? I doubt it.

But let’s not check the record book. We might find possible candidates that way! Like this one:

90.91% Ken Anderson, Cincinnati vs. Pittsburgh, Nov. 10, 1974 (22-20)

Why are people in the media always gobsmacked when teams pass in the snow? It’s snow, you fucking idiot. Runners are prone to slip on it, which is why it’s smarter to air it out.

Offensive Players of the Week

JaMarcus Russell, QB, Oakland.

Uh, what?

Russell removed the arrows from his back long enough to play good, but not great Sunday in Oakland. But no player in the league had been as bad in the first six weeks of the season as Russell, so his outing against the Eagles is worthy of mention here, with congratulations. Russell completed 17 of 28 passes for 224 yards, with a TD and two interceptions.

Russell played badly Sunday, but not as badly as he usually does. So let’s congratulate him for NOT sucking. Even though he threw two picks and was still generally incompetent!

Coach of the Week

I can’t take credit for this one; Tony Dungy deserves it.

AND I KNOW HIM. WE ARE FRIENDS AND I SAVE HIS VOICE MAILS IN A SAFE DEPOSIT BOX.

MVP Watch

3. Adrian Peterson, RB, Minnesota. Interesting when people are asking what’s wrong with your game and you’re averaging 5.2 yards a rush and more than 100 rushing yards a week.

Okay, seriously now. Who the fuck was asking what was wrong with Peterson? SHOW YOUR FACE, STRAW MAN.

The Eagles and Andy Reid’s agent, Bob LaMonte, are in negotiations to extend his contract beyond the 2010 season, after which the current deal is due to expire. It’s not that the fandom is up in arms over the talks, but many Eagle fans are ambivalent about Reid

No, many Eagle fans would like to see Andy Reid boiled in his own drippings.

Factoid of the Week That May Interest Only Me

I looked at his badge: Hot chocolate $10.

GTFO. Who knew stadium concessions were pricey?

Sixteen ounces of chocolate-flavored water.

NOT EVEN COFFEE-FLAVORED, MIND YOU.

Readers of this column know I’m a faithful follower of the Red Sox.

And thank goodness we know that. TROT NIXON, YOU DEFINED TOUGH.

And maybe the Yankees aren’t any different from many teams and many products all over sporting America. It’s just that, $10 for a cup of hot chocolate, I think we’d all agree, is over the top.

You’re in a fucking stadium. Shit will be unreasonably expensive. Expense it to SI and shut the fuck up.

Let me put it this way. Thirty-one years ago, I was an intern for the Cincinnati Enquirer…

Oh my God. Holy shit. Are we really doing this?

“In my day… they made hot chocolate from ground kidney beans! And it only cost ye a half a farthing! And it was heated by rubbing it against a Chinaman’s shoulder!”

…and was lucky enough to get one of the paper’s tickets a few rows behind home plate to a Reds-Cardinals game at Riverfront Stadium, on June 16, 1978.

And I thought to myself, I bet I can steal a foul ball from some snot-nosed kid.

That night, Tom Seaver pitched the only no-hitter of his career. Face value of the ticket: $8. In fact, the Reds didn’t have a $10 ticket in those days.

And the infield was made of dried biscuitmeal! And the players wore uniforms with leather tassels! A FINE TIME IT WAS.

Ten notes from a quickie trip to Texas last Monday/Tuesday to see U2 at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington:

Oh, Jesus.

U2 was good. Breathe, Ultraviolet, Walk On, City of Blinding Lights and New Year’s Day sounded best to me. I liked the acoustics, relatively speaking, in JerryWorld.

Really? Because pretty much everyone else said the sound there was horrendous. You must have had good seats. Next to Tony Dungy!

Never, ever, ever eat airport Chinese food.

Especially after a colon cleansing!

I know it smells good

Mmmmm, week-old lo mein. One whiff, and I’m in Kowloon.

when you pass by, but remember the last time you got it, and the sesame chicken was 70 percent breading, 15 percent inedible goo over the breading, 6 percent gristle, 4 percent tough meat, and 2 percent sesame? It hasn’t changed. Walk on by.

Sage advice. SOMETHING YOU COLLEGE COACH JACKALS COULD STAND TO TEACH YOUR KIDS.

When in Dallas, I strongly, strongly recommend the Sixth Floor Museum, nee the Texas School Book Depository. Last Tuesday was my third trip there…

And on that third trip, I finally realized: THIS place is important for more than books!

and I’d go again tomorrow.

In fact, I’d go every day. Because the second I leave this depository, I totally forget everything I’ve learned.

You take an audio tour for $13.50, and you stand on the same floor as Lee Harvey Oswald stood, and you look out the same windows onto Dealey Plaza that he looked onto on Nov. 22, 1963.

Good shooter. Lofty shooter.

It’s moving, and you can’t help but be emotional when you see the boxes stacked in the same formation that supposedly they were stacked for Oswald when he shot out the open window at John F. Kennedy 46 years ago. I’m not even a Kennedy buff, nor am I a history buff…

I couldn’t even tell you what the initials FDR stand for.

but I think it’s one of the most vivid museum tours you can take, anywhere.

But there was no slavery in this building, and that I found disappointing.

“What’s this with you and Mark Cuban?” Aikman asked me. “Wish I knew,” I said.

Well, you see, I was an asshole to him over Twitter and he was an asshole back!

Saw one of the strangest airport signs-of-the-times I’ve ever seen when changing plans in Atlanta on the way home: a flu-shot kiosk.

So weird. Who knew people would set up flu shot kiosks in a public place where germs are easily spread? KRAYZEE. YOU CAN’T MAKE THIS STUFF UP!

Every aircraft should have a hand-disinfectant dispenser.

But not a flu shot kiosk, because that would be odd.

Since when did it become OK for flight attendants to pass the hat for a cause?

Since when did it become okay to beg me for money? By the way, please donate generously to Dr. Z’s stroke resort fund. With your help, we might be able to one day spoon fed him Cabernet!

I’m all in favor of breast-cancer research and fund-raising, but on airplanes?

Or our precious trains?

Every leg of every Delta flight? On an early-morning Delta flight, one flight attendant told us she’d let us sleep as long as we donated enough money (chuckling), but then semi-strong-armed us (’We can do better than $315, folks!”) when the first passing of the hat didn’t result in enough money for her liking. I’d be interested in your responses on this, but it struck me as a little creepy.

Flight Attendant #1: We’re low on our donation goals this week.

Flight Attendant #2: Bummer.

Flight Attendant #1: Wait! Peter King’s on this flight! He makes a stupid amount of money!

Flight Attendant #2: Maybe, if we ask enough times, he’ll dig his wallet out of his gutfolds!

(asks seven times for money)

Flight Attendant #1: Jesus, that bastard can’t take a hint.

One guy in front of me boarding the packed Dallas-to-Atlanta flight had a rolling bag, a fat briefcase and a lined trench coat. He stopped at about row 21 and shoved all of it in the overhead bin, completely filling one bin designed to store the stuff of two or three passengers, and then closed the bin. A couple of minutes later, the flight attendant announced that people would have to start checking their bags because the overheads were full. Thanks, pigman.

HOW DARE HIS TRENCHCOAT BE LINED?! Possibly with goosefeathers? I demand to know how airlines can allow people with thick coats on board!

Tweet of the Week

@judybattista, who is Judy Battista, the fine New York Times football writer, Tweeting at 10:23 Sunday night.

That’s me copying a quote that Peter King copied from a reporter who copied another reporter. Fourth-hand opinions, exclusively at KSK!

Could Michael Vick be any more invisible?

Particularly at night, given his very dark skin?

Seattle wins at home by 41, then loses at home by 24. That’s the season in Seattle.

That didn’t make any sense.

I think we’ve all heard just about enough on Rush Limbaugh’s failed part-ownership bid, and I don’t have much to add.

Oh, thank God. Because the last thing we need is some rich liberal assho…

Except this:

I shouldn’t have known that was coming.

Yes, I feel sure he would have gotten rejected had he advanced further down the ownership line, because he would be the kind of distraction the league doesn’t want. It might not be fair…

NO! HE’S NOT IN THE FINE FIFTEEN ANYMORE!

Actually, it’s perfectly fair. The NFL is a private enterprise, and therefore they can choose to exclude shitheads like Rush if they choose. That’s a conservative viewpoint, one that cost Ludacris his Pepsi contract. So perhaps Dittoheads should lay off the Holocaust poetry. To do otherwise would suggest they’re just a bunch of hypocritical assholes. And that would be a stunning turn of events!

by the time you read this, we may find out that Jets’ nose man Kris Jenkins is gone for the year with a knee injury.

Oof. No more pussytubing for LONG time, gang.

Wes Welker, 10 catches for 150. Ho hum.

Ho hum. Just another AMAZING DAY FROM THE GRITTIEST RECEIVER IN HISTORY. Except that this is the first time Welker has EVER gone for 150 yards or more. Other than that, he has games like this at least five times a week.

Jacksonville: 33 first downs. Maurice Jones-Drew: 33 rushes. For 133 yards.

Oh my God! MJD is Adam Dunn! He’s had the most interesting career of any football player in history!

I would like more football out of FOX’s NFL pregame show and less yuks.

Oh, like when you were faux begging Tony Dungy not to leave NBC on the pregame show last night and everyone strained to laugh? Agreed.

Rex, you know you’ve got to take the holding duties away from Steve Weatherford, your punter. Weatherford’s mishandled snap prevented Jay Feely from attempting the potential game-winner against Buffalo.

Rex: Oh, so it was Weatherford’s fault! Christ, I should have known that! It all makes sense now! Thanks for telling me via column, Peter! Even though I can’t read!

d. Washington’s offense. It’s offensive.

e. Biggest Redskins problem isn’t Jim Zorn. It’s the offensive line caving in so consistently.

d. This bullet point. It should be shot.

e. Bullets aren’t the problem. It’s the retard who’s had too many Illys.

I’ve gotten a kick out of your e-mails and Tweets asking when I’d be coming to City X or State Y for a book signing

Biloxijim wants you come to the AT&T phone bank! He’s got coffee filters to sell you!

Coffeenerdness: You can rotate in some different food every once in a while, Starbucks. That wouldn’t kill you, that little imagination.

Take a page from the Toone P. Wiggins playbook. Did you know they have over 75 different kinds of crumbcake?

Congrats, Laura King, for running your first half-marathon Sunday in San Francisco. Wish we could have been there. You’re an inspiration to your too-dormant old man.

Congratulating people for running a half-marathon is like congratulating them for making it through sophomore year. RUN THE FULL 26.2, YOUNG LADY. AMANDA BOWERS DID.

You’re good, Jon Lester. Really good.

I’d buy hot cocoa from you! Can I call you Derek from now on?

When we last left name-dropping thought football enthusiast Peter King, he was making a stupid amount of money, resisting the temptation to have a slumber party at various players’ houses, and marveling at barren moonscape that is Eastern Connecticut thru his Acela cabin window.

So, what can we expect from our lofty companion this week? Did he get swine flu? No? Could he get swine flu? Is there a way to capture swine flu in a syringe and inject directly into him? No? Are we sure about this?

Just asking.

Let’s dig in…

As impressed as I am with Josh McDaniels in the wake of his 20-17 overtime victory over his mentor, Bill Belichick (I detailed much of that in last week’s column), I’m just as impressed with (Kyle) Orton. Will it last? I don’t know. Will the bubble burst? I don’t know.

Is Kyle Orton some sort of prodigal alchemist? I don’t know. Will bears one day learn to hang glide? I don’t know. Why did that German man just spend five minutes in the shitter with the New York Times and then put it back? I don’t know. For you see, journalism is like chemistry…

But right now, he’s every bit the surprising find to McDaniels’ Denver team as Tom Brady was to the Patriots in 2001.

1. Tom Brady didn’t play a snap of football until 2001. Kyle Orton has been starting games for years.
2. Tom Brady won the Super Bowl that year. So perhaps it would be wise to resist sucking the whiskey out of Orton’s cock just yet.

Underline this and put it in your mental bold print:

OKAY!

I’m not saying Orton is as good as Brady or ever will be

But you kind of just did. I have it underlined in my skull.

what I am saying is that he’s doing for the Broncos in 2009 what Brady did when Drew Bledsoe went down with an injury in 2001. Brady led the Patriots to a Super Bowl win no one saw coming. Can you sit there right now and say Orton might not do the same thing?

Yes. Yes, I can. He won’t do the same thing, considering that Peyton Manning is destroying the fucking world right now.

Sunday at Invesco Field at Mile High (what a silly stadium moniker)

Indeed. What a stupid name. When the hell did they get THAT dopey name for it? Oh, eight years ago? Well, then.

In Baltimore, the Bengals completed the AFC North Hat Trick. Three Sundays, three AFC North wins. And good things, evidently, come in threes, as in three-point wins

All good sentences, evidently, come fully explained, as in I explain what I just wrote in the previous clause.

Most important is the Bengals have established a physical presence, led by punishing rookie linebacker Rey Maualuga. “He hits you like a cinderblock wall,” Lewis said.

HE’S CINDERBLOCK CYANIDE!

Seriously though, I do wish walls would stop hitting me all the time. The other day I walked by a wall and it reached out and smacked me right in the cock.

The Bengals could have been the same old Bengals a couple of times Sunday. Ed Reed picked off Carson Palmer and ran 52 yards with a second-quarter interception for a touchdown, sending the crowd into a frenzy with the first points of the day. On the last drive of the game, Ray Lewis hit Chad Ochocinco coming across the middle so explosively that it tore his helmet off; Lewis got hit with a 15-yard penalty for unnecessary roughness on a defenseless receiver.

“You could have folded then,” I said to Marvin Lewis.

“I could have asked you an actual question then,” I said to Marvin Lewis as I worked the shaft.

There are some interesting developments in Cleveland, with the scratch-and-clawing 6-3 upset of the Bills Sunday, following Adam Schefter’s report on ESPN that the Browns willingly allowed a rookie running back, James Davis, to practice recently without pads against fully padded defensive players, resulting in a season-ended shoulder injury for Davis.

Wait, WHAT?! What in the living fuck?

DAVIS: Hey Coach ‘gini, mind if I practice without pads and expose myself to brutal injuries?

MANGINI: Sure. So long as you remember today’s quote I posted in the cafeteria!

Michael Crabtree signs: Well, throw a parade.

Now that’s what I call sarcasm!

I’ll have a few thoughts on the uselessness of the holdout below in 10 Things, but let’s use this space for something useful — like what Crabtree’s role will be.

All variants of the word “use,” evidently, come in threes. But let’s waste this space for something more wasteful… WHAT IS THE DEAL WITH AIRTRAN?

After his third practice with Crabtree, quarterback Shaun Hill told me he thought Crabtree could be a useful piece this year. “He’s got strong hands, late hands,” Hill said.

Lofty hands.

Happy birthday, Brett Favre

You’ll never guess what I got you!

(Favre) said he hasn’t had anything to drink but water, has sworn off sweets, hasn’t been hunting…

BUT WHO WILL TEND THE DEER STAND?!

…and said he’s throwing totally pain-free. I asked him about the gigantic welcome-to-Minnesota billboards Wrangler, one of his employers, has put up around town. “Haven’t seem ‘em,” he said.

“Wouldn’t know the first thing about them, except that the cyan needs to be adjusted maybe one or two degrees in Photoshop if they really want the jeans to pop on the sign.”

“All I see is the road between my house and the training facility.” Tunnel vision.

The focus of a pedophile.

2. New York Giants (5-0). Take it from me…

Meryl Streep is one HELL of an actress.

…I had plantar fasciatis one summer in the mid-nineties. Stepped on a rock with my bare right foot in July.

Good rock. Maualugian rock.

It still bugged me in December and didn’t go away completely until I did aggressive physical therapy.

Hmm. Who knew injuries persisted until you actively worked to rehabilitate them?

It’s like going through the day with a toothache. It never goes away.

Unless you do physical therapy, which you did not.

You can live with it by stretching and massaging it, but Eli Manning’s going to feel this ’til after the season.

Unless he begins doing physical therapy. And is more physically active than Peter King. HE MIGHT HAVE IT FOR LIFE IF MY OWN EXAMPLE IS ANY INDICATION. Will it last? I don’t know.

4. Indianapolis (5-0). Three road night games in the past 21 days. What team has played three road night games in a four-game span in NFL history? Doubt it’s ever happened.

But let’s not verify this. I only work for one of the biggest sports media conglomerates on earth, with infinite resources at my disposal.

7. Cincinnati (4-1). Not only are the Bengals in control of the AFC North, but also they’re 3-0 in the division, 3-0 on the road … and, oh yes, Carson Palmer’s back, and he might be as good as ever. He’s certainly as clutch as ever.

HE DEFINES JETER.

11. Chicago (3-1). Idle ’til an interesting battle of the whippersnapper quarterbacks — Cutler vs. Matt Ryan — at the Georgia Dome next Sunday.

Not to mention the ragamuffin running backs!

12. Pittsburgh (3-2). I don’t like dropping the Steelers four spots after a road win. I understand it’s not fair.

SO UNFAIR. Interesting Fine Fifteen nugget: You don’t qualify for the playoffs if you drop below #10!

It’s dubious that NFL Network can have (Deion) Sanders on the air commenting on anything relating to Crabtree when he’s advising him.

Indeed. Journalists should not be covering players that they advise. Not unlike what Peter admitted to doing in February of this year. JOIN ME IN THE WAYBACK MACHINE…

I said to Favre he should at least talk to (Mike) Tannenbaum; why wonder sometime down the road if it might have been a smart way to spend one final year or two in the NFL? A few nights later, Tannenbaum and Favre finally spoke and Tannenbaum began the sales job on Favre.

GOTCHA, BITCH.

Back to King’s original point. Hint: It’s useless!

Second, there’s no question Sanders is good on TV and makes good analytical points about all aspects of the game. The problem is, you don’t know when you’re listening to him who his sacred cows are, who he’s training, who he’s taken under his wing.

In other news: Did you know Bill Belichick visits cancer babies? It’s a side of him many people don’t get to see, but I do! HE LOVES CANCER BABIES AND IS A VERY WELL-READ PERSON.

Is he over-praising Ray Lewis or Ed Reed because he’s so tight with them? Or is he over-praising scores of other players because he’s worked out with them or advised them or mentored them or exchanged texts with them before and after games?

Remember: this is Peter King talking about another person. Who is not Peter King. TEXT HIM, JAY!

MVP Watch

2. Eli Manning, QB, New York Giants. It’s sort of cute to have the Mannings 1-2. I’ll admit that.

Almost as cute as the Bowers twins! Little whippersnappers!

3. Darrelle Revis, CB, New York Jets. Well-documented. I love him. Shutdown machine.

He’s like a wall that covers you.

Enjoyable/Aggravating Travel Note of the Week

Tried one of the low-cost carriers to and from Minneapolis for the Packers-Vikings game last Monday. They sure are friendly at Sun Country Airlines, and they fly big planes…

OOOH BIG PLANE! I’M THINK, THIS LARGE!

and, though they pack ‘em in like sardines, it’s at least non-stop at a sub-$300 round-trip fare.

BUT WHERE THE FUCK IS MY KIT KAT?

Shameless MMQB Book Promotion of the Week

And that sort of peerless analysis is why I make the big bucks.

So buy my book. It has old predictions that turned out to be wrong!

Tweet of the Week

“Never heard of HDNet till tonight. Sue me. I cover football, not television.”

I cover football, DICK. By the way: nonfootball thought of the week, Part G, section subset 6W: Derek Jeter can play for my team ANYTIME.

Then Cuban accused me of being condescending to his channel.

Which you were. Don’t make me defend Mark Cuban, fella.

And so on. The Tweeters loved that. @Iluvcollinfultz wrote: “Oh, HELL YES! Old man Twitter catfight!! Ding, ding, ding!!” And @PatIVERSON wrote: “Round 3! King sidesteps a Cuban punch, throws a body blow! Intense!”

“Play nice, fellas,” came in a while later, from @qbkilla, someone who always played nice. Warren Sapp.

Warren Sapp! WHOA! It’s like a rare Hollywood Squares episode! Also, I know Tony Dungy.

f. The Patriots ought to wear those togs every single, solitary time they wear white.

Every time they wear white and are alone?

Gorgeous. Classy.

Sexy.

And those helmets with the real Patriot snapping the ball … fantastic.

Holy shit. The Pat Patriot logo is one of the dumbest fucking logos ever conceived. It looks like it was drawn in an 11th grader’s notebook. The Patriots never won anything in those fucking uniforms. And this year, wearing the throwbacks, they’ve lost to Denver and barely beaten Buffalo. Awful, horrible Buffalo. But if you Pats fans would REALLY like to go back to uniforms that make you play like complete ass, be my fucking guest.

Bill Belichick has to be verrrrrry comfy with his manhood to wear that cheerleadery pompom ball on the top of his hat.

I expect more from a coach who has Sun Tzu books in his personal library. Now excuse me while I enjoy this Sunrise chai with my pinky out.

Loved the Chiefs’ Texans helmet. Strange, of course, with a map of Texas on the side of helmets the day they play a Texas team, but good helmets nonetheless.

Indeed. They’re the exact same as the Chiefs regular helmets, only they’re geographically incorrect. Awesome.

The Broncos uniforms were so ugly I actually like them.

I like old things, like U2’s music!

Matt Hasselbeck. I’ve said it before and will again: If he stays upright, Seattle contends for the playoffs.

Now there’s a bold statement. This just in: Matt Hasselbeck is kinda important!

Rashard Mendenhall, you’re making Mike Tomlin’s job tough. With 242 yards and a 5.5-yard average carry the last two weeks by the second-year back, what’s Tomlin going to do when Willie Parker returns from his turf toe?

Uh… not play Willie Parker?

Tough decision.

The Lions are not terrible. They compete.

They’re human. Also, they’re 1-4.

Tony Romo threw for 351 with no turnovers and took only one sack … without Terrell Owens and Roy Williams. He threw for Miles Austin, Patrick Crayton and Sam Hurd 25 times and netted 304 passing yards from those throws. What’s that say to you? Says it’s a blue-collar game to me.

What does that even mean? Yes, it was a real lunch pail game out there for Romo. He threw to his available wideouts. THEN HE WENT HOME AND WATCHED THE HISTORY CHANNEL, WHICH YOU NEVER WOULD HAVE EXPECTED.

e. Patriots 27 carries. Laurence Maroney five. Wall, meeting handwriting.

If it’s a cinderblock wall, that handwriting is in for a good smack.

g. Chris Berman said this Sunday morning, and it’s still true: Darrius Heyward-Bey has more names (three) than catches (two).

It’s funny because it’s obvious and old!

Magic’s over, Kerry Collins. It’s Vince Young’s turn.

You’re gonna have to do a lot more to make me believe in you, like doing a Sling Blade impression. RECKON I LIKE DEM FRENCH FRIED POTATERS HMM MMM.

I demand to know…

Shouldn’t THIS be the name of King’s book?

…why the volume on some television commercials is 30 percent higher than the volume on the regular program. And if I find out it’s anything like the sponsors pay more money to get their volume raised, I vow to never buy that advertisers product again.

THIS MEANS YOU, WESTIN!

Earlier this morning, 2:06 a.m. Because my hotel coffee stinks out loud…

MARRRIOTTTTTT!!!!!

…I get my coffee on the outside. (Sound familiar, Mr. Seinfeld?)

NOT!

Tonight, on the walk back from NBC’s studios, I stopped at a midtown deli in need of some caffeine. But not wanting to risk the coffee, not knowing how long it’d been in the urn, I got an Illy Issimo cold cappuccino — 8.4 ounces of (I hope) two shots of espresso and lowfat milk and cocoa. I’ll need it an hour from now. The early results are encouraging. That is, I’m not drooling on the keyboard.

And just look at my flawless syntax. It comes in threes, that is to say, there are three awkward transitions per sentence! Usefully used is my uselessness!

I wasn’t sure it would be possible for the Pam/Jim wedding episode of The Office to be better than I thought, because it was a much-anticipated show.

This sentence brought to you by Illy! Illy: For When You Want To Sound Like Kige Ramsey!

But it was a superb hour of television. I won’t spoil it for you

OMFG! THEY MOVE TO MONTCLAIR!

With Drew having left for the airport to see his Vikings play the Packers (and then subsequently realizing that his flight was booked EIGHT DAYS LATER), the weekly ritual of mocking the NFL’s noted sports and travel writer falls on someone else’s shoulders this week. Hopefully you’ll still enjoy the same dick joke taste. And personally, I don’t know what the dealio is with SI.com, but now it seems that I can’t copy excerpts from that site from Google Chrome into our Wordpress editor. BRING BACK MY COPY AND PASTE SO I CAN RIDICULE YOU IN A LESS TIME-CONSUMING MANNER, KING! HOLD STILL WHILE I BEAT YOU DOWN, YOU FAT BEANTOWN BITCH!

1. The Giants might or might not be the best team in football, but I can tell you this:

TELL ME, GODDAMMIT! I’M ON VERITABLE PINS AND NEEDLES HERE!

They’re the deepest.

Oh.

“Jerry Reese is a psychic, I think,” Justin Tuck said from Kansas City, where the Giants had ho-hummed a 27-16 win over the Chiefs. It’s the second straight week New York toyed with a bad team, and the Giants have won their four games by an average of 11 points.

THEY’RE A GREAT TEAM BECAUSE THEY’VE BEATEN TEAMS THAT EVERYONE KNOWS ARE TERRIBLE! WHAT’S WRONG WITH MY GODDAMN CAPS LOCK?!

We’ll start to find out how good the Giants are Oct. 18, when they visit the Saints, with New Orleans coming off its bye.

NEW ORLEANS HAS BEEN BEATING SHITTY TEAMS JUST AS WELL as you. Oh, there we go.

2. The Saints look like the best team in football.

But are they the deepest? STOP HOLDING OUT ON ME, YOU CHINO-CLAD FUCK!

The Giants, Colts and Vikings might be too, and Denver and Baltimore and New England … well, proclaiming a best team is a foolish pursuit on Oct. 5.

So is taking a shit in coach class, but foolish pursuits are the spice of this man’s life.

But if the Saints are the best, I credit a decision Sean Payton made back on Jan. 13, sitting by the firepit in his backyard in Louisiana with a cold beer in his hand.

Was it behind the wheel of a Bentley in Miami? Because I think I’ve heard this story before…

At the time, he really wanted to hire Gregg Williams as his defensive coordinator; Williams had a history of making chicken salad out of chicken feathers, and Payton knew his talent on defense was decent but limited, particularly in pressure packages.

HIS DEFENSE WAS MAKE OF CHICKEN FEATHERS! CHICKEN FEATHERS RIPE FOR CHICKEN SALAD PREPERATION!

“So I had a couple of beers in me,” Payton told me over the weekend, “and I start thinking, ‘I make enough money. We really need this guy. I’m going to offer some of my own money to try to make this happen.’

His own money! Sean Payton makes a SICK AMOUNT OF MONEY! How sick? ‘Swine flu’ sick?

So the next day, I walk into [general manager] Mickey Loomis’ office and say,

“Marry me!”

‘Mickey, take $250,000 of my salary, add it onto our offer for Gregg and let’s get this thing done right now.’ Mickey called [owner] Tom Benson, they discussed it, and they agreed. So we upped the offer.”

IT WAS NOT THE BEST OFFER, BUT IT WAS THE DEEPEST!

One other thing: Payton knew it was important to Williams that he work with his son, Blake, an aspiring football coach who prepped at Princeton, and so the Saints brought him in as an offensive assistant working with the line.

He “prepped” at Princeton, and they know a thing or two about chicken salad! All they do there is eat!

Williams saw the welcome mat. He took the three-year coaching offer, and the match has been perfect.

Great story. I might even FUCKING SAY IT WAS A GODDAMN LOFTY STORY! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO MY CAPS LOCK, SI.COM?!

3. Feel-good story of the year? Denver.

Feeling up story of the year? Shawne Merriman.

[T]here’s one thing you have to love about the Broncos: They’ve got a Patriot way (what a coincidence!) of tuning out the outside crappola and focusing on the only thing that matters — the next play.

THIS IS A CRAPPOLA-FREE WORKPLACE, YOU FAGGOTS! TAKE YOUR CRAPPOLA TO THE LOADING DOCK! THAT GOES FOR YOU TOO, HETEROS!

How can you not love this game tonight?

It’s like two evenly-matched bowls of chicken salad! Chicken salad for everyone!

One of the keys to Minnesota-Green Bay, obviously, is the Vikings sticking to the type of football they’ve played in their 3-0 start.

IF YOU DO WHAT YOU DID WHEN YOU WON THOSE OTHER GAMES, YOU MIGHT WIN THIS GAME! THAT’S VERY HELPFUL TO YOUR CAUSE!

Minnesota’s on a 54-46 run-pass ratio, and why not?

Seriously, why the fuck don’t teams just throw the ball 80 percent of the time? GET TO WHERE THE FUCK YOU’RE GOING. Do I drive 46 percent of the way to work and then park and WALK THE REST OF THE GODDAMN WAY?! I SHOULD THINK NOT, CAMEL COCK! Or…maybe this is why not.

You can’t take away the Favre drama tonight in Minneapolis, but the football’s going to be really exciting.

Better than Chiefs-Rams? You promise?

Quote of the Week I

“What’s it gonna be next week? Two-hand touch?”

WHY CAN’T I DIVE TOWARD TOM BRADY’S KNEE WITH IMPUNITY?

– Baltimore pass rusher Terrell Suggs after getting a questionable roughing-the-passer call by referee Ron Winter for brushing against Tom Brady’s knee while Suggs was on the ground at New England Sunday.

He dove at Brady’s knee and made contact. If that didn’t warrant a flag, there wouldn’t be any quarterbacks left in this league.

Forty percent of the Green Bay active roster has never met Brett Favre. Of the 53 players eligible to dress for the Packers in the Metrodome tonight, 21 joined the team after Favre’s departure in March 2008.

Why, it’s almost as if they MOVED ON AS A TEAM WITHOUT HIM! I’M STUNNED THAT THE CITY OF GREEN BAY DIDN’T SIMPLY SHUT DOWN THE FRANCHISE WHEN HE LEFT! Seriously, how the fuck is this STILL an angle?!

Enjoyable/Aggravating Travel Note of the Week

Let’s go with “Aggravating”…I’m sorry? Oh, I thought you were polling me.

For 24 years, I lived in New Jersey, until moving to Boston last winter.

FACKING FAGGITT or something. Blah blah blah, that thing that Drew does.

I’ve found myself getting melancholy for the Garden State. Friday and Saturday illustrate why.

Do tell!

Spent Friday at Jets camp, 30 minutes west of the Meadowlands in Florham Park, with lunch in tony Madison with Darrelle Revis and Jerricho Cotchery.

NO, GODDAMMIT! THAT WAS SARCASM!

Had pizza and Peronis with lots of old friends in Cedar Grove at Lombardi’s, which has the most underrated thin-crust pizza in Essex County.

Thinner crust means you can fit more in your pockets!

Drove into the city Friday night around 10, passed Giants Stadium and realized how old I am; what was I doing driving past a Springsteen show at the Meadowlands and not stopping for the final hour?

Probably because he sucks. Seriously, if Springsteen would have been from Albuquerque, nobody would have given a shit. But you Jersey fucks have built a reputation propping him up as the messiah, even now. THE GUY HASN’T RELEASED JACK SHIT FOR 15 YEARS! But hey, that Super Bowl halftime was something. Good show. BUT IT WAS NOT LOFTY! Not lofty…

a. Why, FOX, why? Why show the top 10 plays of Brett Favre’s career? How many celebrations of his career have you done, and how many more will you do?

Pot, you remember Kettle, don’t you? From the stove?

h. Wow. Did you see that handshake between John Harbaugh and Bill Belichick? Harbaugh belichicked Belichick! Gave him the dead-fish handshake that Belichick has given Eric Mangini and Rex Ryan.

First time I’ve ever heard “dead fish” used to describe a handshake. But with Belichick, the term describes him almost universally.

i. I really like Steelers returner Stefan Logan, who’s 60 percent the player Darren Sproles is … at about 10 percent of the cost.

The guy that was robbed by a white man last night and almost single-handedly let the Chargers back into the game last night? Yeah, he’s great.

b. Indigent Retired Players Day. Leroy Kelly, a Hall of Famer, has a pension of $176 a month. Scores of players, well into the hundreds, don’t have the medical care they need. The league and its players are making headway toward ameliorating the crisis, but not soon enough.

Smarter minds than mine can figure out how to draw attention to these issues, but I do know this: A much-needed bridge between players and owners would be built if the owners spent the kind of lockstep verve on these issues some weekend as the league, the players and its network partners did in unison on breast cancer awareness Sunday.

Seriously, NFL. Fuck your pink shoes and fuck you.