After two weeks of interminable hype, desperate casting for soft-focus storylines and looped footage of Super Bowl XLII, Super Bowl Sunday has arrived, a day that is mostly all the things I just mentioned plus a football game. We’ll get our Super Bowl live blog underway later this afternoon. In the meantime, more Peter King inanity to hold you over until the Puppy Bowl.

Not good fans, and therefore the usual assemblage of the uninitiated and members of Red Sox Nation who Peter King typically writes for in his weekly column, where any player who isn’t a big-name quarterback or one of his friends is surely being introduced to the nation for the first time. Who is this Cortez Kennedy? One of the defensive stalwarts of his era? A charismatic star who was frequently featured in national NFL promos? Or is he Seattle’s Starbucks quality control officer, who is tasked with enforcing the chain’s standards and dispatching the manager of any nationwide location that PK has suggested is serving watery, nutmegless coffee? ONLY ONE MAN KNOWS FOR SURE.

When we last left Peter King he was extolling the virtues of The Blind Bean, and now he’s back to throw a bunch of crap at the wall. Not because he wants to, mind you. No, the life of SI’s second most prolific mock drafter is not an easy one, but somebody has to do it.

Well actually that’s not true. As a matter of fact the whole thing is an exercise in futility. And nobody knows that better than our other friend, Bill Simmons. The Sports Guy finally broke down and officially relinquished his title as the only sportswriter/blogger to never write a mock draft. HE IS AS UNIQUE AS A SNOWFLAKE, NO ONE DENIES THIS!

But let’s set that little bit of nonsense aside and return our focus to Mr. King…

One of the reasons Gil Brandt, the godfather of the NFL Draft, thinks this one will have more “I’m shocked” moments is because of the pre-draft smokescreens by the teams picking high this year. Washington GM Bruce Allen and coach Mike Shanahan have always been pros at disguising their draft intentions.

Actually, when the Redskins are involved it’s called a smoke signal.

Scott Pioli, in his second draft in Kansas City, has his front office locked down.

Meanwhile in Seattle, Pete Carroll is pretending to leak information about his team’s draft plans by linking to the music video for Kanye West’s “Love Lockdown” on Bing.

The Seahawks, Bills and Jags have muzzles on too.

They wouldn’t stop nipping at the heels of other teams.

Allen and Mike Shanahan have said they might take a quarterback at number four.

They also told Peter that his pants make his ass look like a heart.

Well, they might.

And Ben Roethlisberger might show up and smack Roger Goodell across the face with his cock, leaving an ashy trail in its wake. I’m not saying it WILL happen, but it MIGHT happen, so it’s worth mentioning.

1. St. Louis
Sam Bradford, QB, Oklahoma

Rams need a face of the franchise — and an accurate deep arm. Bradford’s both.

Maybe he’s born with it. Maybe it’s Maybelline. Maybe his arm won’t fall off.

4. Washington
Trent Williams, T, Oklahoma

Got a sick feeling Shanahan wants to deal down, pick a QB. Crazy, but that’s him.

Can you be more specific? A sick feeling can mean anything. Is it like the time you ate that thing you thought was a fig or is it like the time you scraped off the mold before finishing the sweet cream cheese hidden underneath?

5. Kansas City
Bryan Bulaga, T, Iowa

Sinking on most boards, but GM Pioli sees meat-and-potatoes left tackle for a decade.

Meat and potatoes is to offensive linemen as deceptive speed is to wide receivers. The first analyst to use the phrase “lunch pail” after Bulaga comes off the board wins the draft.

7. Cleveland
Eric Berry, S, Tennessee

But if Williams or Okung’s around, this will be a very tough call for GM Tom Heckert.

The fuck it will.

11.* Giants (from Den.)
Rolando McClain, LB, Alabama

TRADE: G-men desperate to get long-term middle linebacker. Figure they can’t wait until 15th pick.

Good speculative trade. Lofty speculative trade.

I actually like this pick quite a bit. I have McClain listed at number four on my big board. That’s a lie. I don’t even have a big board. I’m a total fraud.

13. San Francisco
Joe Haden, CB, Florida

Lucky Niner night, getting the best corner in the draft in the middle of the first round.

The Lucky Niner is also the name of the strip club where Peter cut his teeth as a young dancer under the pseudonym Lance Desire.

I don’t really understand what’s lucky about this pick. Yes, they’d get the best corner in the draft, but it’s not as if Haden is a projected top five pick who is going to slide into their lap like Lance with a crisp 20 in his man thong.

14. Seattle
Jimmy Clausen, QB, Notre Dame

It doesn’t fit after Charlie Whitehurst deal, but ‘Hawks think he’s a top-5 player in draft.

What doesn’t fit? Whitehurst and Hasselbeck are expected to compete for the starting job, which leaves Clausen as the third stringer. Sounds like a perfect fit to me. Unless the team is trying to improve, of course.

15.* Denver
Brandon Graham, OLB, Michigan

Broncos would be happy with Kyle Wilson, Dez Bryant or Maurkice Pouncey here.

Translation: No. Fucking. Clue. Hey, they could take an outside linebacker, but they could just as easily take a cornerback, a wide receiver, a center, or a point guard.

18. Pittsburgh
Maurkice Pouncey, C, Florida

The Pouncey fan club is growing. Six mid-first-round teams could take him by early 20s.

No rush, there’s another one coming out in next year’s draft.

22. New England
Dez Bryant, WR, Oklahoma State

“Coach Belichick? Dez Bryant’s babysitter on line two.” I don’t care. I love the pick.

Bryant’s babysitter? The man has a name, Peter. And that name is Deion Sanders.

23. Green Bay
Sergio Kindle, OLB, Texas

Bookend for Clay Matthews had 34.5 tackles for loss his last two years at Texas.

The iPad may be flashier, but remember, after a while that backlit screen can take a toll on your eyes. RESPECT THE LIGHT EMITTING DIODES BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE.

24.^ Miami
Ryan Mathews, RB, Fresno State

I know Dolphins love Mathews and would settle for him … but like others here too.

They love him enough to settle for him… MAYBE.

25. Baltimore
DeMaryius Thomas, WR, Georgia Tech

Anquan Boldin. Donte’ Stallworth. Thomas. Talk about rebuilding the weakest point of a playoff team.

Mel Kiper, Don Banks, and Charles Davis agree with King. Talk about being in good company.

27. Dallas
Taylor Mays, S, USC

I say they rue the day they don’t take tackle of the future, but Dallas likes speedy safety.

Everyone knows that the tackle of the future is still under development at the Tyrell Corporation. One day the Voight-Kampff test will be given alongside the Wonderlic the NFL Combine, and that will be a day worth ruing.

28. San Diego
Jared Odrick, DT, Penn State

Ideal draft for Chargers is Dan Williams in first, Stanford RB Toby Gerhart down the line.

Waaaay down the line.

29. New York Jets
Jahvid Best, RB, Cal

This pick makes no sense — unless you think Leon Washington and LaDainian Tomlinson are short-timers.

Or unless you think Shonn Greene is dying of cancer.

30. Minnesota
Tim Tebow, QB, Florida

A hunch. Nothing more. Brett Favre lasts another year (two at the outside) while Tebow grows.

But exactly how will Tebow grow? Could he grow wings and literally fly into the endzone while defenders are left to gawk at his resplendent plumage?

Let’s call it a hunch. Nothing more.

Note: Drew is unavailable today, so I’ll be tackling PK duties this week.

When we last left wistful reader Peter King, he was extolling the virtues of Brookline Booksmith, despite his fondness for the Kindle. So what about this week? Will Peter be satisfied with his stay at the Doral Resort and Spa? Will he be disappointed by South Florida’s lackluster support of their hometown hockey team? Read on.

It’s right, it’s fair, it’s just, it’s good, it’s shocking. You were not dreaming…

It’s the special release of Uzuri African Blend from Peet’s!

As the fifth team bus — the one with mostly family and friends of the team — sped from the stadium to the Intercontinental Hotel in downtown Miami for the most raucous of postgame parties, this merry band of Saints partisans sang and chanted and Who-Datted to their heart’s content.

These fans lead the league in Who-Dattedness

“Oh when the Saints … come marching in …”

Uh…those aren’t the lyrics.

It got quiet for a minute, and Carville piped up loudly: “I still can’t believe we won the Super Bowl!”

He’s normally so reserved!

In the middle of the rolling party, someone else piped up: “Can you believe we called that onside kick?”

No, it caught everyone totally off-guard.

Oh, I can.

Because you’re a liar.

It had Sean Payton written all over it.

Just like Peter’s composition book.

“Ambush,” Payton said cavalierly, almost diffidently…

It’s funny because those words are basically antonyms.

In this case, Ambush was so mind-blowing because:

a. Morstead never attempted an onside kick in a game before Sunday night in his life.

Really?

b. Morstead never practiced onside-kicking until 12 days ago.

Isn’t that what training camp is for?

c. Morstead can be a bundle of nerves.

But none of this stopped Peter from seeing it coming.

Payton knows how lethal Peyton Manning is, and he knew he ran the risk of giving the Colts 30 extra yards if the onside kick failed, but he knew it wouldn’t fail.

Because Peter told him so.

He put his trust in the hands of a kicker, Morstead, kicking the first onside kick of his life, and in a special-teamer, third-year safety Chris Reis, perhaps the most anonymous of the 45 Saints who dressed Sunday. Morstead because he was the kicker, Reis because he was the feistiest of his kick-chasers

He has the guts of a catburglar.

and would scratch and claw for the ball if he had to.

And the mentality of an actual cat.

The ball at first lay underneath Reis’ legs as bodies flew in trying to get it. “I was able to get the ball into my hands and just cradle it here,” Reis demonstrated for me later in the locker room, with his hands cradled around his stomach, slightly bent over.

Quasi-Madonnaish.

“White ball!” Reis heard one official yell in the mayhem. The Saints were wearing white. Good.

Saints. White. Good. Okay, I think I get it.

“Blue ball! Blue ball!” he heard another official yell. The Colts were blue. Bad.

If you say so. This is all very confusing.

“The Colts were punching at it and grabbing for it, trying to get it out. But I didn’t care if they broke all my fingers.”

Peter felt the same way when he snagged the last Kit Kat bar in the press box.

“I can’t believe it,” said Morstead, a rookie from SMU. He’s a tall kid, wiry and athletic and thoughtful.

He’s all sinew and brain.

What happened, fella, is you and Chris Reis just made a play that was the biggest one in preventing Peyton Manning from winning his second Super Bowl…

Because it’s always about Peyton.

…and sent your city into orbit.

Oh yeah, that too.

I thought Indianapolis lost this game as much as the Saints won it.

Who dat say dey gonna let the Saints win?

GM Bill Polian told me outside the stadium after the game you can’t blame Garcon because he got “jacked” at the line of scrimmage.

And you told him that’s some bullshit, right?

Maybe…

No. No maybe, that’s bullshit.

…but I watched the replay a couple of times early this morning, and he was well away from the jacking when the Manning pass clanked off his hands.

Thank you. And thank you for typing “the jacking.”

I hated the decision by the Colts, on third-and-one in the final minute of the first half with two timeouts left by the Saints, to run into the middle of the line.

It’s not like they were running into the teeth of the ’85 Bears.

Manning’s got 10 conversion throws that he can get one yard with in his saddlebag, and the call is Mike Hart burrowing between a couple of sub-300-pound blockers — Jeff Saturday and Ryan Lilja. Hart got stoned for nothing.

Nobody gets stoned for nothing. Oh, you mean he got stopped. Yeah, that happened. You know, they probably should have thrown the ball there! Sorry, I too got stoned. And it wasn’t for nothing. It was to make this column tolerable.

I don’t like how they would have left themselves 89 yards to go in 45 seconds with one timeout to get a touchdown.

As opposed to calling one of Peyton’s “10 conversion throws that he can get one yard with,” that would have left them with 89 yards to go in 45 seconds.

I know the logic is, Make sure you don’t give the other team a possession before the end of the half. Run the clock. Well, they didn’t convert. And the Saints got a possession. And the Saints scored.

Your logic is no match for my hindsight.

Third: the onside kick. Not to beat a dead Colt, but you simply can’t make that mistake in a game of this magnitude.

The mistake was letting Hank Baskett on the field.

Drew Brees was brilliant. He had a true MVP performance.

But the Colts lost the MVP just as much as Brees won it.

This game puts him in a league with Manning and Tom Brady at the top of the league’s quarterback pecking order. It’s a trifecta now, not a daily double.

A trifecta is when you correctly pick the first three finishers of a race, in order. A daily double is when you pick the winning horse in two different races. I believe the term your looking for is a “three-horse race.” But let’s not let that get in the way of you saying what everyone else has been saying all year.

Now for the Hall of Fame section.

I decided to vote for a player I had previously denied because another voter whom I know and respect said, ‘C’mon.’ Good enough for me.

Sharpe’s a mystery to me too…

Is he eligible for the trifecta?

A mystery, except that so many of these guys are good. I fear it’s so difficult to compute these crazy numbers that wideouts and tight ends are putting up.

Sharpe had 813 career receptions. 813! We need the guy from NUMB3RS to tell us what that means. And none of that scientific mumbo-jumbo, give us an everyday analogy that anyone watching CBS on a Friday night can understand.

I did not support the Denver running back because I felt his numbers and impact were shy…

And he never returns my texts.

I called Little Saturday night…

Good phone call. Lofty phone call. But a Hall of Fame phone call? Sorry, not for me.

Quote of the Week II

“Not bad for number 24.”
– Sean Payton to me, before taking the podium to do his postgame press conference.

In the offseason, I ranked the 32 teams from top to bottom, and I ranked the Saints 24th on my list.

Wait a minute. Coaches actually read this crap?

“I think Russ is the greatest guard to ever play pro football,” Starke said after Grimm went in to the Hall of Fame. I disagree, but as I said earlier in this column, Grimm’s the guy I’m happiest for after this year’s balloting.

You never said that.

1. New Orleans (16-3). At 10:05 p.m., soon after the Saints won the Super Bowl (can’t believe I just wrote that), my friend Josh Norman, who lives in New Orleans, texted me thusly: “Utter delirium in New Orleans right now.” At 10:28 came this: “I’ve been all over the world and I’ve never seen a celebration as epic as this. This is beyond words. The earth is vibrating.”

It’s an earthquake. SOMEBODY SAVE THE NORMANS!

2. Indianapolis (16-3). I know everyone’s concentrating on the Colts not being able to convert third-and-one late in the first half, gifting the Saints with three points before halftime, and for allowing New Orleans to recover an onside kick. But for my money, the Pierre Garcon drop midway during the second quarter was just as big.

Also big: The second half.

3. Minnesota (13-5). So if Brett Favre does retire, who’s next? McNabb? Vick? Pennington? The one name I never hear for the starting 2010 QB job in the Twice Cities is an interesting one: Tarvaris Jackson.

That’s because it’s not interesting.

4. New York Jets (11-8). I’ll bet you a lot of money Rex Ryan gave his middle-finger apology through gritted teeth and hated every word of his statement.

And I’ll bet you a lot of money that Rex Ryan thinks Peter King is a twat.

9. Baltimore (10-8). If I’m the Ravens, I pounce on Donte’ Stallworth with a totally incentive-laden contract. It’s just what they need…

Another player who settled out of court with a dead guy’s family.

10. Philadelphia (11-6). Breakout Eagle of 2010: LeSean McCoy.

Breakout movie of 2010: Avatar.

14. Cincinnati (10-7). Terrell Owens in stripes will happen the day I run an ultra-marathon.

He said run, not walk.

But more than that, he’s a great football player, with no weaknesses. Scouts now have to look twice at 6-foot quarterbacks who are very smart. I know I’d have my eyes open.

Somebody get Eric Crouch on the phone, we might have been wrong about him all along!

Really though, Brees was the first pick of the second round. It’s not like he was written off as a shrimp who could never compete in the NFL.

Late in the third quarter, Hartley was an MVP candidate, with 46-, 44- and 47-yard field goals, the first time in Super Bowl history a kicker has had three field goals outside the 40-yard line. Not bad for a second-year guy who played college ball at Oklahoma.

He says that like Oklahoma is some obscure Division II outpost.

There are many things in the world I do not understand…

What’s with everyone driving everywhere? Surely they’ve discovered the unbridled joy of walking.

Why is there a hockey team adjacent to a shopping mall in the middle of Luxuryville, Fla.? Rick Gosselin and I went to the Panthers-Flames Friday night…

Surely they could have built it closer to Shantytown.

(yes, we are hockey loons)

I was told there would be icing.

Armen Keteyian’s investigation into the death of former Titans quarterback Steve McNair has ignited renewed skepticism surrounding the apparent murder/suicide. While revelations about the alleged shooter and her relationship with the young man who provided her with the murder weapon may be old news to the police tasked with investigating the crime, it has opened the door for outside observers to don their sleuthing hats. One such amateur crime solver has taken to Twitter to air his suspicions. Good suspicions. Lofty suspicions.

You know what’s a reallystrange twist? Lemon in your coffee!

Only in LA, people!

Open like the bar at Amanda Bowers’s wedding (congrats, kiddos, and enjoy the illy sampler pack).

Those two exchanged more texts than Brett and I did all of last season.

Smells like Italian roast, with just a hint of…MURDER.

Seriously though, how many calls/texts is too many? If they had exchanged 25 texts would your suspicions wane?

If I buy a gun can we discuss my theory that McNair was murdered by the Freemasons? I am not a crackpot.

Everyone over at Sports Illustrated is crafting their own sports bucket list, and their preeminent Buckethead Peter King delivers about what you’d expect. His complete list can be found here, continue after the jump for some highlights.

1. Short-season Rookie League games

That’s like, baseball, right? We’re off to a blazing start.

Not sure where, but in places like Billings, Mont., and Casper, Wyo., with the sun setting over the left-field fence, with purple mountains majesty above thy fruited plain. Preferably with a local micro brew in my right hand.

If Casper, Wyoming is known for two things its the Casper Ghosts rookie league team and delicious craft beer. Actually Peter does bear a striking resemblance to Tim Ray, the Ghosts’ Adventure Guide.

2. Texas-Oklahoma (when both are ranked in the top five)

Fine.

3. Manchester City at Manchester United

Of all the soccer matches in the world he picks the Manchester Derby, England’s approximate equivalent of Jets-Giants.

I saw City play this spring, and the energy level for a match against Blackburn was splendid.

So Robinho wasn’t playing?

I can only imagine what the locals do when they’re playing the other locals. This time I’ll dress better. I bet there were 5,000 men with coats and ties at the Manchester City grounds.

Jack Del Rio would love it here! Unfortunately the scene was marred by another 42,000 fans wearing jerseys, singing Blue Moon, and carrying on like ruffians.

5. Pittsburgh Steelers intrasquad scrimmage/practice

Get the fuck outta here.

The players take yellow school buses to the site…

Even the elite flyers?

…and sign autographs ’til the cows come home.

Good cows. Keystone cows.

Only in western Pennsylvania, folks.

Literally. THERE IS NO OTHER PLACE ON EARTH WHERE THIS HAPPENS.

My favorite:

Amateur: The 14-inning, 3-2 Montclair (N.J.) softball victory over rival Cedar Grove in the Essex County Tournament quarterfinals in 2003. Southpaw Mary Beth King threw all 187 pitches for winning Montclair — and scored after tripling in the bottom of the 14th to win it.

Huh. I wonder what ever became of her.

SI: Peter King’s Bucket List

Peter King shows how a man about town can look cool, all while RESPECTING THE SUN. Our own Christmas Ape had some fun with the picture, which you’ll find after the jump. It’s well worth the trip.

Fin.

Allow me to apologize in advance for the lack of venomous vulgarity in this week’s breakdown of Peter King’s reviled Monday Morning Quarterback column. Drew’s unavailable today, and while Princess Assloaf provides the usual amount of retardation today, I can’t help but soften my stance somewhat, given that King kindly filmed the above segment as the opener for Saturday’s Blogs with Balls conference, where Christmas Ape and I both appeared on panels to swear about how to “make it big” in blogging. Yes, do it right, and you, too, can barely eke out an existence! Join the movement!

After the jump, prepare to not talk about Favre (read: talk about Favre) and get informed with totally unbiased recommendations for summer reading!

I’m mostly going off Favre Watch for a week (I can just feel the disappointment out there) to talk about some other quarterbacks, Donovan McNabb and Mark Sanchez most notably.

That Sanchez! Just like Johnny Damon!

Then it’s onto something I do far, far too little — promote reading.

Yes, usually Peter does the opposite by subjecting us to his column.

Not to be preachy, but in the IM/Texting/Twitterization of America, I’m going to give you five superb summer options, including the most vivid, riveting war book of our time. I’m not a history buff, but I’m a huge fan of books that put you in the middle of something historical.

So he’s not a history buff, but he IS able to tell you which book is better than all others on a historical subject.  That’s the kind of expertise uninformed hyperbole you can’t pay for!

A lone paragraph on Favre first:

This comes one whole paragraph after he said he was “mostly” going off Favre Watch.  Nice restraint.

He’ll be on HBO tonight with Joe Buck on his new show, “Joe Buck Live,” and it’s a good get, obviously. America might be totally sick of Favre, but everyone in the business wants to hear about his probable return to football.

What Peter King says: “The entire country is sick of Brett Favre, but everyone I work with wants to hear about Brett Favre, so I’m going to push this on my readers all across the country.”

What Peter King means: “FUCK YOU, readers.”

There’s a reason Roger Goodell’s always on the elliptical trainer.

Goodell told him about this thing called “physical fitness.”  It’s even better than walking!

At any league meeting or Super Bowl, you’re bound to see Goodell, at 5:15 a.m. or some similar early hour, dripping with sweat in the fitness center of some hotel.

Peter knows because he stumbled into the gym in search of free coffee.  So hard to find before 6 a.m.

In three weeks, he and close to a dozen community leaders in Seattle will attempt to climb the 14,411-foot peak at Mount Rainier to raise –they hope — more than $1 million for the United Way.  “I’ve been staring at that mountain since I was a kid,” Jim Mora told me Friday, “and it’s time I do something about it.”

Oh no!  Mora’s going to nuke Rainier off the map!  He’s mad with power!  Why did Holmgren give him the nuclear codes?!?!?  WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYY??????????

The climbing schedule would sound hellish for a world-class athlete, never mind a 50-year-old commissioner. On the morning of July 7, the climbers will trek to about 10,000 feet, set up tent, and sleep until about midnight.

Will they be starting at the Visitor’s Center?  Because that’s at 5400 feet, and you can drive there.

Speaking of the Seahawks …

This kicked off seven MORE paragraphs about the Seahawks, all on the first page of MMQB.  Peter did, however, stop short of giving a hat tip to daughter Mary Beth.

I’m concerned about how little I’ve read the last few years. Maybe it’s e-mail, maybe it’s the voluminous easy sites that magnetize you to them four or five times a day…

“…maybe it’s all the time I spend bitching about coffee and listening to old messages from Favre on my answering machine.”

…when 10 or 15 years ago I’d have sat down and read something of substance.

Something like…?

I’ll pick up the latest Grisham (I’ve loved them all except “Playing for Pizza,” which seemed nonsensical to me) and have it done in two days.

Oh, John Grisham.  Interesting.  See, when I think “substance,” I generally think of something that might challenge my intellect.  But no, a novel about lawyers in danger that you can breeze through in two days is substantive reading for people who assume that following road signs is more efficient than taking three minutes to study a map to plan a driving.  Golly, I can’t wait for literature recommendations from a Grisham fan.

1. Tears in the Darkness: The Story of the Bataan Death March and Its Aftermath, by Michael Norman and Elizabeth M. Norman.
The Normans, husband and wife, are good friends of our family.

You have to be fucking kidding me.  Of course.  Of course they are.  In fact, I feel naive for not seeing this coming.

It would be shame — for you — if you thought my affection for the Normans colors what I think of the book they worked on for the past 10 years. I don’t consider myself anything close to a history expert, nor a fan of the military genre, but this is such a vivid slice of an important piece of American history that anyone with the slightest interest in where we have come from simply has to read this book.

I don’t want to take away from the book, because I haven’t read it and it may very well be excellent.  At the very least, the Bataan Death March is a war crime that more Americans should know about.  However, King’s recommendation essentially read like this: “I don’t know much about history, and I’m not a fan of military books, but this book that close friends of mine wrote is the best military book of our time.”  Please pardon my skepticism, sir.

The temptation in a war book is to make one side full of good guys and the other side the bad guys

Wrong.  Any historical (that is, non-memoir) account of war worth its salt owes it to the reader to at least attempt to show both sides.  But what do I know?  I’m just a history buff who enjoys the military genre.

But the Normans made the Japanese soldiers as human as the Americans, writing that on the morning of one attack, Japanese lieutenant Ryotaro Nishimura “woke his men at three o’clock and huddled with them at breakfast: miso soup and an egg over a thick porridge of barley and white rice. Japanese soup always reminded the men of home, but on this morning the troops complained the miso had a ‘strange’ flavor, and Ryotaro Nishimura knew that the men had awakened with the metallic taste of fear in their mouths.”

I mean, wow. It’s like that for 398 pages.

Well done, Normans!  Nothing wins over Peter King like the story of an unsatisfying meal!  He felt the same way the last time he ate at Capital Grille!  Why, Peter once had a pumpkin spice latte from Starbucks that tasted kind of metallic!  He knows the taste of fear!

Tweetup Updates. I’ll be having four of these before the start of the football season… Preliminarily, I’ll be at the Los Angeles Coliseum on Monday, July 13 (with Sam Farmer of the Los Angeles Times); in Albany on Monday, Aug. 3; in Indianapolis on Monday, Aug. 10; and in Boston in early September at a site to be determined.

Readers, that’s what we call “marching orders.”

Quote of the Week I: “When we were looking at taking Mark, I studied all the great generals to see what those men were like early in their careers, see how they reacted. It’s all about how they reacted in battle, what happened when the action was really live. You see that in Mark, his calm.”
– New York Jets owner Woody Johnson on rookie quarterback Mark Sanchez

Holy fuck that is stupid.

I realize you get excited about your players, particularly about the man you believe is the next long-term quarterback in franchise history, but that is one of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard an owner say.

Wait, what?

**reassembles exploded head**

Sometimes we forget that, for all of his non sequitur ramblings, Peter King can actually use his spongy head to formulate decent thoughts about football.  Consider this your carrot, fatass.

Factoid of the Week That May Interest Only Me: MMQB hero of the month Austin Wood, the Texas left-handed reliever who threw 13 scoreless relief innings in the NCAA Tournament, was rewarded for his pluck last week. The Detroit Tigers selected him in the fifth round of the Major League Baseball draft, making him the 150th overall pick in the draft.

I think it’s time to remove the “May” from the title of that section.

I think you’re going to see an announcement soon that Matt Millen is joining Bob Papa in the Thursday night NFL Network booth. Assuming it happens — and I’m sure it will — ESPN is getting busted in the chops by this in almost the same way NFL Network got busted in the chops when Jon Gruden jilted the Network for ESPN.

Oh no!  Jilted by Matt Millen!  Now the company won’t be subjected to failure and financial ruin!

The big difference is, Gruden left the Network high and dry; Millen will still be doing the work he previously agreed to do for ESPN.

Oh, so… ESPN wasn’t busted in the chops at all.  In fact, this thing Peter King thought he thought has been a waste of everyone’s time.

You might ask why ESPN agreed to allow Millen to do the Thursday night games and beat himself up by giving himself three separate jobs, at least in November. Good question. I’m told it’s because he really wanted the Thursday night gig and wouldn’t have been a happy ESPN camper had he gotten turned down.

You can’t lose talent like Millen!  No one wears a mustache like him!

I think [the Plaxico case] is a very slippery slope for Roger Goodell. He’s on record as being opposed to discipline for a first-time offender until that offender has his case adjudicated in a court of law. So on the surface, he seems bound to have to give Burress his day in court before bouncing him. The mitigating factor here is that it’s such an open-and-shut case; Burress has never argued that he didn’t possess the gun, and he has never argued that he didn’t fire the gun. But if Goodell lives by his precedent, he’ll let Burress play until he’s tried. I’m not trying to be a cop here. I’m just saying this continuance for Burress, on all sides, might be legally justifiable. But it stinks. That’s the only word for it — it stinks.

Bah!  Damn you, legislative process!  Peter King demands justice immediately!  You hear that, Schlereth?  YOU OWE KING A CAPITAL GRILLE DINNER!!!!

I think the Rex Grossman signing in Houston says one thing to me:

Texas bitches gonna get impregnated with the long ball.

The honeymoon’s over for Dan Orlovsky as the walk-in, no-doubt backup to Matt Schaub.

Oh no!  The city of Houston barely even had a chance to fall in love with the terrible quarterback on its bench!  Now that they’re got an erratic mediocre guy in front of him, they don’t know WHO to love!

I think the next interesting football-related journalistic battle line might be how many clicks NBCSports.com can take away from the field by acquiring profootballtalk.com. Today, NBC will announce it has reached a deal with PFT that will allow the site to exclusively license its content to NBCSports.com. Mike Florio, the dogged founder and writer for the site, is giving up his day job (lawyering) to devote more time to PFT, so NBC could be getting even more valuable content than PFT has been publishing.

But not more valuable than the new SPRINT FAMILY PLAN!!!

I must be un-American. I hate “Sweet Caroline” in the bottom of the eighth at Fenway. How’d that dumb song ever get picked as a fan anthem?

Holy shit.  That’s two feathers in your cap this week, King.  Three if we count the Blogs with Balls video.  DON’T TRY TO WIN ME OVER, JERKASS, or I swear to God I’ll take your daughter out to a nice seafood dinner and never call her back.

Have you noticed a lot of baseball players look like they’re wearing pajamas, not form-fitting uniforms?

Yeah, it’s almost like they’re wearing them in the traditional style.

Peter King wants men in tighter pants, dammit!  It’s not a sport unless he can salivate over the outline of your beefy haunches.

Amazing but true in Saturday’s New York Times: The Yankees have sold out one game out of the first 30 home games this year at the new Yankee Stadium.

Probably has something to do with charging $500 for a ticket during a recession.  Amazing but true.

How does Luis Castillo show his face Friday night when the Mets play at home for the first time since The Drop? Not just The Drop, either … how about picking up the ball with two Yankees steaming around the bases and throwing it to second instead of throwing it home? Insane.

Well, Castillo’s getting paid $6.25 million this season.  I would assume that he has a stipulation in his contract to show his face in his home park even after he costs his team a game.  But by all means, Peter, act like the play affected much more than 0.6% of the entire season.

Coffeenerdness: Settled into a good routine here in Boston at night, working or TV-watching in the last couple of weeks before vacation, and brewing a small pot of Peet’s Major Dickason’s Blend decaf. That’s some great coffee. Sounds like the script for a commercial.

“Peet’s decaf!  Great for watching TV at night!”  Lofty ad campaign.

Mike McGuire, back in Germany, is beginning to focus on his favorite pastime, the NFL. “So you know I was a Drill Sergeant for three years and a Drill Sergeant Leader. My thought is that with all these in-shape super-hard NFL players, we should take a couple of them, work them out and do a two or three day “In the Life of a Basic Training Soldier.” That would be awesome. I talk with my wife all the time about what I would do to them and see just how good of shape they are in. People would watch that. I know that NFL fans would be interested.”

That’s a fucking stupid idea.  The purpose of Basic Training is to get soft-bodied recruits into shape and to teach them discipline.  It’s not exactly scaled to challenge professional athletes.  “Oh wow!  That’s amazing!  Julian Peterson can do TWENTY push-ups!”  The only conceivable way this could be interesting is if we got to watch Vince Wilfork try to run three miles.

Mike McGuire, NFL network programmer. You’ve got a retirement job, Mike.

The NFL Network may disagree.  Don’t quit your day job, Mike.  Whatever that is.

That’s right, SI’s preeminent coffee and travel blogger turns 52 today. In honor of the momentous occasion we’ve compiled some first-rate gift ideas.

-Land
-Elite flyer medal (really just the plastic wings they give to kids to get them to behave on the plane)
-Red Sox championship ring
-Brett Favre stubble
-Walking cane
-Reimbursement from Schlereth
-Long term parking for one seldom used car
-Toone P. Wiggins gift card
-A copy of Coldplay’s Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends
-Season 3 of House on DVD

Continue after the jump for our own special gift to the birthday boy.

Don’t eat it all in one sitting…ah, who the fuck am I kidding. Just try not to eat the aluminum foil.

Image via Flickr

It’s the first extended interview Dreamboat’s given in almost a year, and SI turned to its biggest non-stroke-impaired NFL writer for the heavy lifting: Peter King.  (“That Brady’s so cool he keeps Kit Kats from melting on a summer day!”)  From the press release:

Exuding confidence in his surgically rebuilt left knee, Brady tells SI that his recovery is on schedule and that he is running and cutting without pain or restricted movement. King writes: “He was convincing when he said he was ‘as confident as anyone could be that I’ll be ready to play, back to playing normally, when the season starts. I’ve done everything I could to push myself, sometimes too hard. Right now, I’m doing everything. Literally everything. There’s nothing I can’t do.’ ”

Brady tells King that he has learned much about himself during his forced layoff and that he is so anxious to play again that he looks forward to the grind of two-a-days. “‘When I was playing every week, I bitched about the little things,’ he said. ‘Like, God, we’ve got to go outside today? It’s raining! Or, why is Bill dunking the ball in soap? Or, why do we have a meeting at 7:30 to talk about everything we’ve already talked about. Geez! Then when you’re not playing, you realize that you would [gladly] do any of that—whatever they wanted me to do.’ Brady drew an analogy based on his parenting experience with his 21-month-old Jack. ‘I don’t see him everyday”—Brady shares custody with former girlfriend Bridget Moynahan—‘and we play when I change his diaper: lifting his leg up, playing with his toes, biting his feet. There’s a different appreciation. If you had him every day, you’d go, Let’s just get this done. But when you get him, say, one week a month, you’re like, This is so cool!’ ”

“If I had to be a parent every day, it sure would get boring!”

In addition, Brady tells King that he’d like to play for 10 more seasons: “I want to play until I am 41. And if I get to that point and still feel good, I’ll keep playing. I mean, what the hell else am I going to do? I don’t like anything else. People say, ‘What will you do after football?’ Why would I even think of doing anything else? What would I do instead of run out in front of 80,000 people and command 52 guys and be around guys I consider brothers and be one of the real gladiators? Why would I ever want to do something else? It’s so hard to think of anything that would match what I do: Fly to the moon? Jump out of planes? Bungee-jump off cliffs? None of that s— matters to me. I want to play this game I love, be with my wife and son and enjoy life.”

Hmmph.  All in all, he sounds disgustingly well adjusted for a two-time Super Bowl MVP/baby-daddy of a Hollywood actress who instead got married to a supermodel.  And that’s probably the most infuriating thing about Brady: for all the “Best Dressed Man Alive” articles and goat-holding photoshoots, he never comes across as an ignoramus or a total asshole.

Which is why we should hate him even more.