SI's Peter King wants you to curb your dog but also wouldn't mind if a plane blows up

It’s hard coming up with content as the playoffs wind down, but Peter King provided some fodder today and since he tries to provide fantasy advice, he’s fair game. His latest MMQB is truly a tour de force of all his usual pablum: starts off making cyber man-love to Peyton Manning, segue ways into his fine 15 and awards where he slurps Peyton some more (along with everyone else whom he wants to keep on speed-dial), then enters that increasingly uncomfortable part where he gets a little TOO personal, if you catch my drift, and THAT is where I finally begin to truly hate the guy.

The bottom of page 4 talks about how a TSA worker FINALLY caught him failing to pack his toiletries in a zip-loc bag. “I have never carried my (toiletries) in a one-gallon Ziploc-type see-through bag, I guess because it's the most asinine law or rule ever created by an empty Washington suit in history. And that covers some ground. I just had no respect for it,” he starts off, concluding with, “I bet I've taken 60 flights with the rule being what it is, and why was this the first TSA woman doing her job? Not that I minded everyone else not doing the correct job.”

So, Peter King doesn’t mind that planes may blow up in the future because the law is 'asinine' and it’s okay to not follow laws (or rules; there’s a difference, Peter) that are 'asinine'. Okay, he has the right to feel this way; this is America, after all.

He also has the right to look like an idiot and have this idiocy written about on the Internets.

I say that because this looks incredibly idiotic when compared with the ‘story’ immediately preceding this one. In it, he stops slurping Peyton just long enough to slurp Drew Brees (or maybe he locked them both in at once like a pair of fingercuffs) and virtually pins a medal on his chest for picking up his dog’s ‘business’. “Second in the MVP voting, first in the all-pro voting at quarterback, and he picks up dog doo. That's what I call a heck of an American,” lauds Peter.

So, let me see if I’ve got this straight. We have these things out there called “laws” (or “rules”, says Peter). But they don’t really matter; you can ignore the ones you don’t like. If you happen to follow a law Peter thinks should be ignored, you’re being a stick in the mud and inconveniencing people. If you follow a law Peter likes (I’m assuming Peter doesn’t like looking at dog crap, although he likes writing about crap, both his own and that of animals), you deserve a medal.

Personally, I would be happy to pick up some extra dog crap around the neighborhood if it would guarantee 100% that a plane won't blow up. Or, if Peter wants, I can instead stand next to him and stop him from talking about crap (figuratively and literally). Makes no difference to me.

Playoff Wrap Up: Dildos

I have this nasty habit of getting myself wrapped up in certain shows I'm watching. Too much PTI led me to name one of my teams "Pardon the Domination" and I strongly consdiered changing it to "I <3 Sarah Chalke" (that's a heart) because I was OD'ing on 'Scrubs' reruns on Comedy Central.

So, anywho.... Adult Swim's been running Metalocalypse every weeknight now, so I've got one of the character's voices stuck in my head. Unfortunately, he's supposed to be Swedish and so he pluralizes words that are singular and vice versa. He also refers to everyone and everything he hates as "dildos". I originally had the 'brilliant' idea of writing this as him, but judged the risk vs. reward ratio to not be in my favor.

Still, I figured if the 'gurus' out there were still doing their jobs (I'm still doing mine!) they'd probably look at these past four games and, needing a paycheck, foolishly recommend that certain players leap up in the rankings for next year. Let's call these players 'dildos' because while they offer momentary satisfaction, they're not the real thing, baby!

• Mark Clayton (BAL, 6 rec, 73 yds): I said this already when responding to a Sportsline article touting fellow BAL WR Demetrius Williams (who posted a goose egg), do you really want to waste a middle round draft pick on a guy who's QB is Steve McNair and is thus one play away from his QB being Kyle Boller? Also it looks like while they'll bring in Rick Neuheisel to be O-coord, Billick will still call the plays (how does this work? Billick calls plays from Neuheisel's playbook or does Rick just run the practices?). Regardless, you NEVER know who's going to make the grabs for them any given week. Don't forget, there's still Todd Heap and Derrick Mason (an old McNair bud from their Titan days).


• Rashied Davis (CHI, 4 rec, 84 yds): now, THIS is where those 'gurus' will try and earn their money. Come fantasy draft time, they will most likely be touting either this guy or Mark Bradley as the heir apparent to Mushin Muhammad and gushing over how he and Berrian make a "potent 1-2 combination". Don't buy into it! Grossman will throw to ANYONE. Sunday just happened to be Davis' moment to shine. They've still got Desmond Clark at TE and two solid running backs (one of which COULD be a dildo but damned if I know which one right now).


• Devery Henderson (NO, 1 rec, 35 yds): Formerly nicknamed "Delivery", he hasn't really brought the mail lately. Joe Horn's status for next year will determine where the 'gurus' rank Henderson, but just realize he's short (but fast) and can disappear for games at a time.

I thought long and hard (get it?!) about sticking Jabar Gaffney in here, but... man.... did you SEE the game today? After last week, I was thinking he was the next Bethel Johnson but now he could definitely be the David Givens to Caldwell's Deion Branch.

I'm also concerned about Brian Westbrook for next year. There's a small degree dildo potential if McNabb returns and starts winging it all over the field. Westbrook will still get his yards, but TDs may be tougher to come by. He could be 'the next Tiki Barber' in more ways than one.

So, be careful out there come draft day. Don't get reamed, ok?

Blog Needs Content... Badly

Those of you who recognized the title as an homage to the arcade game Gauntlet, congrats, you just passed a geek test!

Those of you who are still checking back in the wake of the much appreciated links from Deadspin and The Big Lead are probably wondering two things: 1) where's the fuckin' content and 2) where's the fuckin' swearing?

It's hard to solve the first problem. Few of the FFB 'experts' out there are writing articles during the playoffs, save for maybe a Top 100 list for next year's draft, which I really don't feel like tearing down right now. Besides, I subscribe to the 'tier method' of ranking, so I don't really care if Laurence Maroney is slightly ahead of Donald Driver.

That said, two articles do come to mind, both from Sportsline: one about how Vick will fare under new coach Bobby Petrino and another about how great Vince Young is and/or will be. You could almost swap the QBs and both articles would still hold water. Or better still, just write one article (I guess they pay by the posting over there at CBS) because it boils down to this: both QBs have a world of 'upside', largely due to neither team having a D so the QBs will be wingin' it and runnin' it all game. The only difference between the two is that Young's receivers can actually catch the ball (or maybe he throws a more catchable ball, hmmm?). I think both articles end with the standard "grab this guy early, he'll be worth it!" boilerplate that seems so common around the FFB expert 'industry' that's formed these past couple years. Here's my 2 (common) cents: we'll talk more about this come draft time, but rank your QBs into tiers. These two will probably end up in the same one and then it'll come down to how many QBs you start and how comfortable you feel with each. It'll also depend on each QB's bye week and the bye weeks of your other players. I wouldn't base my whole draft around either of these guys, is what I'm trying to get at.

Oh, here's something else. Bill Simmons had a chat today (short one, by his standards, and of course, no new column) and someone asked why NFL Network doesn't have a fantasy show. He said he didn't know but failed to mention ESPN's apparently-failed attempt at one, creatively entitled "The Fantasy Show". It's hard to understand how he could've forgotten; he was touting this back before week 1 since he was like a creative consultant or something. Maybe the WorldWide leader finally regained control over him after his little dig against Lupica last week. Still, though, the show wasn't bad. Too much Jaws is definitely a bad thing, but it was balanced out by Antonio Freeman's "Free's Flex" segment where he correctly predicted the rises of Marques Colston and, later, Devery Henderson. Oh and Danni Boatwright! Eventually, though, my DVR started recording poker and billiards in the show's timeslot and a Google search informed me that either the show was on 'hiatus' till next year or it was only scheduled to run the first ten weeks of the season.

Hmmm.... got through all of that without cursing. So if you made it THIS far you're probably wondering if I'm gonna go the way of Kissing Suzy Kolber, whatever's at the other end of the spectrum, or somewhere in between. In real life, I curse like a sailor, but it just looks so weird for me to type, you know? Don't get me wrong, I LOVE KSK; I'll probably get fired for reading it at work some day. But at this point in time, I don't see the... ummm... point. Couple that with the fact that I've been watching WAY too many 'Scrubs' reruns where they actually say 'poo' instead of 'poop', and there you go!

Now, when week 5 rolls around and Marques Colston proves to be the 2nd coming of Nate Burleson (you read it here FIRST!), I will DEFINITELY let the 'fucks' fly. Consider yourself warned.

Wild Card Wrap-up: Impressions, Depressions, Confusions

Who impressed me this past weekend

• Chad Pennington: 300 yds, 1 TD, 1 INT, 1 FL. He's now made it through 17 games on his reconstructed shoulder(s) and is probably now a viable #2 heading into next year. I'll use this bullet to give props to Cotchery and TE Chris Baker as well. Not saying 'draft them', tho!


• Brian Westbrook: 141 yds rushing, 1 TD, a couple catches. McNabb will be back behind center next year, but here's hoping Andy Reid or whoever calls the plays realizes everything runs better when you... umm... RUN!

Who depressed me

• Shaun Alexander: 24 rushes for 69 yds (2.9 yds/rush), 0 TD. Oh, you thought he might catch a few, too?


• Larry Johnson: 13 rushes for 32 yds (2.5 avg), 5 rec for 29 yds, 0 TD. Well, maybe that'll get the letdown out of his system and he can start fresh next season.


• The rest of the Chiefs O: do I need to type in the gory details? Green was horrible. Herm had zero desire to bring in Damon Huard, adjust his gameplan away from running LJ into the line on every play, or both. And remember a few days back where I slammed Sportsline for recommending a close look at #2 WR Sammie Parker? Yeah, who's the bitch now?! (Yeah, I just used profanity, that's how jacked up... err... JACKED UP... I am)


• Brandon Jacobs: 2 rushes for 8 yds. More telling - towards the end of the game he was NOT on the field for 3rd and short. Yeah, it WAS Tiki's day, but still...


• Jason Witten: 3 rec, 57 yds, 0 TD, 1 FL. Okay, not 'depressing' but I'm VERY sensitive to Witten's performance this year, so why stop now?

Who confused me

• Corey Dillon / Laurence Maroney: combined, they were a decent back. Who the hell knows what this means for next year, though. May want to draft one of these guys around where you'll be drafting the Denver backs next year *shrug*.

Yahoo's Year-in-Review

Editor's note: if you're reading this article due to the link on The Big Lead, welcome! I have a more recent article (that they should've linked to instead) you can get to by clicking here.

This came out on the 28th, but I kept waiting thinking that they had something bigger planned, but I guess not: Fantasy High Fives. It's not a bad article per se, it's just redundant. It says the same thing over and over again. The three writers talk about their top 5 this and bottom 5 that and there's a ton of overlap and "me too"-ing.

Actually you could argue this was a very common sensical article, which begs the question "How come I can't get paid for stuff like this?" :)

So, let's go a little deeper. One way they could've gone was "Five Players to Avoid in 2007":

• Corey Dillon: hit paydirt 13 times this year but finished with 816 yds on 199 carries (4+ yds/carry). Factor in Maroney getting even more touches next year and Dillon being another year older and Dillon should go later next year than he did this one. He's one to watch during the playoffs, especially around crunch time.


• Any WR in the first round: If you look at Yahoo's Year-End Looks Leaders you'll see there wasn't much difference between the perceived 'studs' and the 2nd or even 3rd tier.


• Any TE before the 4th round: Coming into the season, I thought the TE position was as stacked as it ever was. But guys like Witten and Crumpler (3 of his 8 TDs came in one game) disappointed and Rivers took a while to click with Gates. Tony Gonzalez was hurt for a few games, Shockey had his 2nd worst year (yardage-wise) as a pro and Kellen Winslow II was hamstrung by the QB carousel in Cleveland.


• Larry Johnson: don't laugh. He set the record for carries and he still has a playoff game to go. Jamal Anderson was NEVER the same after he set the previous record. I'm not saying don't draft him, but you may want to swing a draft-day deal afterwards.


• Darrel Jackson / Deion Branch: keep an eye on DJ Hackett during the playoffs; he may assume the #2 WR role.

Whom to watch in the playoffs (sez Sportsline)

Backward cap wearing idiot #1 is back today with a player on each playoff team that you should look at because maybe he should be drafted next year. He ranges from the obvious, like Joseph Addai and Cedric Benson (although it seems like 'gurus' have been pimping Benson for AGES now even though Jones is still the man in Chi-town) to the obscure.

For example, there's Samie Parker (KC WR). Did you even know who the #2 WR was in KC? I did, but only enough to avoid him. Face it, the #2 WR is #4 in the QB's progression, behind LJ, Gonzo and Kennison (heck, you can maybe even throw the #2 TE, Dunn, into the mix!). And as long as Herm is committed to Trent Green as the starter, do you REALLY want to waste a draft pick on Parker?

Then there's Demetrius Williams (BAL WR). My first problem is that McNair is another year older next year and Kyle Boller is the backup. My 2nd is we still have no idea who will be running the offense next year, Billick or someone else. Note that under Billick, you couldn't really pick a Baltimore WR to confidently plug into your lineup (I should know, I got burned by Clayton for 2 weeks). Again, do you really want to burn a draft pick here?

Also, what about Jeff Garcia? If he goes to a new team next year where they don't run the West Coast O, he's going to struggle like he did in DET and CLE.

Okay, now that I've knocked the Sportsline guy down, I'll prop him up a bit (JUST a bit). I like his mention of Vincent Jackson (SD WR) and Reche Caldwell (NE WR). But that's IT!!!

What that Sportsline article SHOULD have looked like

Good read this AM from SI.com's Don Banks, which I'll link to here. The part that most piqued my interest was his paragraph on Jacksonville. Gee, I wonder why?! Anyway, he talks about Leftwich being trade bait and Del Rio letting Garrard and 3rd stringer Quinn Gray compete for the starting job. I don't know about that. I think they'd be better off brining in Trent Dilfer and just letting him hand-off to Jones-Drew every down, with the occasional screen- and shovel-pass mixed in.

Sunday Low Five: Mocking Sportsline's latest article

Now that the season is over, backward cap wearing idiot #1 over at CBS Sportsline has hastily put together a list of resolutions (1 for each team). Well, this is why I got into this game in the first place: tearing 'experts' a new one! If I'm Captain Common Sense, this guy must be Captain Obvious. Let's begin, shall we?

• Oakland: he says "a whole new offense". I say...ummm... yeah, that pretty much sums it up. Way to go out on a limb there!


• Detroit: he says "a fill-in for Kevin Jones". I say, "I hope said fill-in is NOT named Marshall Faulk, and while you're at it, how about better all-around play from John Kitna?"


• Cleveland: him: "a QB that's better in the 4th quarter". Me: I haven't seen any Cleveland games this year so I have no idea how bad their QBs were in the fourth. Instead, how about a head coach with a clue and some passion, rather than the stoic Romeo Crennel?


• TB: him: a new left side of the O-line. Me: Improved health for Cadillac, a #2 WR and a TE so Gruden can finally run the West Coast offense the way it was meant to be run.


• Arizona: him: a new O-line. Wow! Really? What a stretch! Improve the unit that was the biggest question mark coming INTO the '06 season. Way to reach out to all those Edge owners, guy! Instead, how about improvement for Leinart?


• Washington: him: a healthy Portis. Me: it goes well beyond that. They'll need continued maturation from Jason Campbell and a solid #2 WR as well.


• Minnesota: him: new WRs. Me: and a new QB and a new TE and a "win the division and you can shave my porno-stache" guarantee from head coach, Brad Childress.


• San Fran: him: a new QB. Me: WHAAAAAA???? Alex Smith was 'okay' this year and next year he'll be in Year 2 of the Norv Turner offense. How about instead SF decides whether they want to stick it out with Antonio Bryant and the problems he causes?


• Houston: him: everything BUT the receivers. Me: yeah, 'cuz Eric Moulds was a STUD this past year! Houston could be the next Denver - the place where any RB can get 1000 yards, so I don't think they need a RB. Oh and Jake Plummer is NOT the answer, either. If bringing him lights a fire under David Carr, that tells you something about David, does it not?


• Miami: him: a better O-line. Me: that's a good start, but Daunte still has yet to show he can succeed without Randy Moss, regardless of the O-line.


• Atlanta: him: better WRs ("that's easy", he adds). Me: "that's TOO easy," I say! Instead, how about picking an offensive philosophy and sticking to it for more than 2 weeks. Are you a running team that only passes when it has to? Or are you going to bend over backwards trying to prove Vick can be a stud passer?


• Green Bay: him: Favre's return. Me: well, that'd be good b/c then you'd always know what D to start when your opponent has Favre, I guess.


• Buffalo: him: a new O-line. Me: Geez, can you be any less insightful? How about better health for McGahee and continued improvement from Losman, cuz you can't pin ALL his woes on the O-line.

And, that's it. He doesn't do every team, just the 'offensively-challenged' ones. How nice. What about a good reaming out for Rex Grossman (oh, wait, that'll come after Chicago gets bounced from the playoffs)? What about solid QB play for JAX, regardless of who's back there (and WRs who can catch, too)? What about hooking Delhomme up to the juvenation machine so he can recapture the magic of 2 years ago? What about health for Larry Johnson, who just broke the single-season record for rushing attempts? The last guy to set the record, Jamal Anderson, broke down very VERY quickly after he set his record.

Week 17 Wrap Up (Dang, I'm pretty good at this!)

Well, wouldja look at this:

• Mark Bradley (CHI): 1 rec, 75 yds, 1 TD


• Cedric Benson (CHI): 109 yds rush, 1 rec, 22 yds


• Adrian Peterson (CHI): 1 rec, 37 yds


• Mike Williams (DET): 2 rec, 28 yds, 1 TD


• Devery Henderson (NO): 2 rec, 71 yds


• Brett Favre (GB): 285 yds, 1 TD, 1 INT (off by 65 yds which is a whopping THREE points in fantasy-land, so there!)

Looks like the only one I messed up was Terrance Copper, who went catch-less. Maybe I've got the chops for this after all!