Why Do I Continue to Read Peter King?
- Thread starter John Marzano Olympic Hero
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The fact that he devotes about 20% of his column, the middle of his column mind you, to ask football people about Derek Jeter is all you need to know about Peter King in 2014.
Also:
A) Peter King still lives in ol' NYC, guys;
B) Peter King's dermatologist looks at his anus for carcinoma.
And finally, there is something wonderfully ironic about this, but I can't quite put my finger on it.
Also:
A) Peter King still lives in ol' NYC, guys;
B) Peter King's dermatologist looks at his anus for carcinoma.
And finally, there is something wonderfully ironic about this, but I can't quite put my finger on it.
JohntheBaptist said:
That looks like a genuine trolling attempt by King. Could he be a bit more self-aware than we suspect?
Also, hilarious that he commits that much ink to Jeter, then writes this:
Mr. Baseball Fan with a National Column at His Disposal absorbs The End of Jeter, apparently thinks Paul Konerko's sendoff was underwhelming and left a great player underappreciated, so his approach is to... add to the overwhelming avalanche of Jeter fluff and wonder where the all the people are to recognize Konerko.
Mr. Baseball Fan with a National Column at His Disposal absorbs The End of Jeter, apparently thinks Paul Konerko's sendoff was underwhelming and left a great player underappreciated, so his approach is to... add to the overwhelming avalanche of Jeter fluff and wonder where the all the people are to recognize Konerko.
Konerko is probably getting about the same amount of fanfare as everyone in this list except Ripken. There was a time in the pre-Rivera/Jeter era when great players were celebrated in their hometown at the end of their career and then (hopefully) later in Cooperstown and that was it.
Can someone help me understand why his parenthetical with the margins of victory supports his assessment of the week of games as "strange"? The scores look pretty evenly distributed - some blowouts, some close games, some in the middle.
I legitimately can't figure out what he's trying to say.
Also, this is classic PK:
Um, remember when Andrew Luck and Russell Wilson weren't supposed to be poised when they were rookies? Every. Single. Rookie. Quarterback. At what point do we stop with the surprise over a rookie quarterback not just immediately assuming the fetal position behind the line in their first games?
These guys played big-time college football, often in front of a hundred thousand fans at a time. The NFL is not that friggin' intimidating. The average career is 3.5 years or something. Most players are young players.
Just stop.
I legitimately can't figure out what he's trying to say.
Also, this is classic PK:
Um, remember when Andrew Luck and Russell Wilson weren't supposed to be poised when they were rookies? Every. Single. Rookie. Quarterback. At what point do we stop with the surprise over a rookie quarterback not just immediately assuming the fetal position behind the line in their first games?
These guys played big-time college football, often in front of a hundred thousand fans at a time. The NFL is not that friggin' intimidating. The average career is 3.5 years or something. Most players are young players.
Just stop.
I'll bet it's not that unusual. I found these two pretty quickly.
In his 11th year, Kurt Warner went from 62% to 67%.
And in his 16th year, Brett Favre went from 56% to 65%.
Is there some sloppy/ambiguity here, or has he mistakenly put St. Louis in the Eastern Time Zone.
Asshole. Maybe he's just trying all methods to be better at his profession. Peter King should try it some time. Asshole.
I know we make fun of it all the time, but it really is remarkable how constantly stunned and befuddled PK is with ordinary football happenings.
A 2-1 Cowboys team beats a 1-2 Saints team by 21 points and it's just completely and totally shocking. Why would that be? The Saints lost to the Falcons and the Browns, two pretty undeniably bad teams. They basically look horrible.
Did I think the Cowboys looked great? Not really. But it was pretty clear the Saints defense was atrocious. So, yeah, sorta surprising. But for PK it's just crazy.
Steve Smith playing well against his old team? Total head scratcher.
The Raiders finally shit-canning a shitty coach? Remarkable.
The bombast is exhausting.
A 2-1 Cowboys team beats a 1-2 Saints team by 21 points and it's just completely and totally shocking. Why would that be? The Saints lost to the Falcons and the Browns, two pretty undeniably bad teams. They basically look horrible.
Did I think the Cowboys looked great? Not really. But it was pretty clear the Saints defense was atrocious. So, yeah, sorta surprising. But for PK it's just crazy.
Steve Smith playing well against his old team? Total head scratcher.
The Raiders finally shit-canning a shitty coach? Remarkable.
The bombast is exhausting.
The fact that he keeps talking about the hill in Central Park as if it's some sort of major endeavor is kind of ridiculous.
I looked up the map data from when I ran a 10k there, and the hill he's referring to is an ascent from 25ft to 107ft elevation over a 0.4 mile stretch. Sure, it's a decent hill, but anyone in shape to run 10k should be able to handle it without too much of a problem. It's not exactly running up a mountain we're talking about here.
http://www.runningahead.com/logs/08dbd2ab81cd45b4b8fa6c8325ebe3f8/workouts/940d1f53f45543f3aa8005ac56ee55a2/map
I looked up the map data from when I ran a 10k there, and the hill he's referring to is an ascent from 25ft to 107ft elevation over a 0.4 mile stretch. Sure, it's a decent hill, but anyone in shape to run 10k should be able to handle it without too much of a problem. It's not exactly running up a mountain we're talking about here.
http://www.runningahead.com/logs/08dbd2ab81cd45b4b8fa6c8325ebe3f8/workouts/940d1f53f45543f3aa8005ac56ee55a2/map
joe dokes said:
This is Peter King's awkward and unnecessarily complicated way of saying that in three weeks, Seattle will be playing against the Rams in St. Louis in the early game.
Combined record of opponents during Seattle's "tough stretch": 8-8. Combined point differential: -37.
West Coast teams have a stretch like this every year. Seattle has a five-game stretch later in the season when they play ARI, @SF (on a Thursday), @PHI, SF, @ARI. Now that's a tough stretch.
West Coast teams have a stretch like this every year. Seattle has a five-game stretch later in the season when they play ARI, @SF (on a Thursday), @PHI, SF, @ARI. Now that's a tough stretch.
Agree except not so sure that the Browns are "bad." they lost in Pittsburgh on a last-second FG and lost to the Ravens by 2. They may not make the playoffs but they will be respectable -they're not the Jaguars.MyDaughterLovesTomGordon said:
I wonder if an Islanders fan told him this while getting coffee? Is he preparing for his new piece Monday Morning Goal Keeper?Corsi said:
Weird. I would have thought he would limit his hockey reporting to the Manhattan Rangers. Does he know the Islanders are still in Nassau County?
Johnny Boychuk is not a top 30 defensemen in the NHL (and I love Boychuk). My guess is that PK watched a couple Bruins games in the year or so and saw Boychuk bomb a few in from the point and instantly remembered his name as and said, 'boy that kid is the best defensemen I've seen on the ice today'.
"The Toronto Maple Leafs got Phil Kessel, one of the best forwards in the NHL, from the Bruins, in a Saturday trade for two and maybe three draft picks"
"The Toronto Maple Leafs got Phil Kessel, one of the best forwards in the NHL, from the Bruins, in a Saturday trade for two and maybe three draft picks"
Gah. I couldn't even get past the opening quote from Brady:
I mean, what does that color even add? Literally nothing, except to alert the reader that PK was at Brady's house, something he doesn't even mention in the original article.
The quote also does something that drives me crazy with modern media - it cuts out words in the middle of the quote without alerting readers with an ellipses. Why? They basically make the quote sexier and more concise, but, well, it's not exactly what he said. He said all those words, but not in that way. In this case, it doesn't matter, but how hard is it to at least note that you cut some words out?
I mean, what does that color even add? Literally nothing, except to alert the reader that PK was at Brady's house, something he doesn't even mention in the original article.
The quote also does something that drives me crazy with modern media - it cuts out words in the middle of the quote without alerting readers with an ellipses. Why? They basically make the quote sexier and more concise, but, well, it's not exactly what he said. He said all those words, but not in that way. In this case, it doesn't matter, but how hard is it to at least note that you cut some words out?
MyDaughterLovesTomGordon said:
Wait, he did what?
Because what you described, um, he can't do that. I mean, not with any kind of integrity. Which I guess is the point.
"God smote the skirts of Norway with my invulnerable cock." - Shakespeare, Hamlet
Reminds me of all the fun Stern used to have chopping up Oprah's and Shatner's books on tape.
King is hurt by the fact that natural rivals Houston and Dallas dont play very often. So he suggests that natural rivals play every year.
That accounts for 8 of 32 teams. (And it *doesn't* account for the fact that in the eyes and minds of nearly EVERY football fan, Dallas-Washington is a bigger rivalry than Dallas-houston could EVER be; but so what.)
Then he goes off the rails:
So 1 microsecond after implicitly acknowledging that some of football history's greatest rivalries, like Oakland-KC (going back to the AFL), occurred organically, he invents rivalries and ignores the ones that exist. I didn't know that the Rocky Mountan People and the Pacific Northwest People had it in for each other.
I have little doubt that he has railed against MLB's phony "natural rivals" for interleague play. I can't find it.
That accounts for 8 of 32 teams. (And it *doesn't* account for the fact that in the eyes and minds of nearly EVERY football fan, Dallas-Washington is a bigger rivalry than Dallas-houston could EVER be; but so what.)
Then he goes off the rails:
So 1 microsecond after implicitly acknowledging that some of football history's greatest rivalries, like Oakland-KC (going back to the AFL), occurred organically, he invents rivalries and ignores the ones that exist. I didn't know that the Rocky Mountan People and the Pacific Northwest People had it in for each other.
I have little doubt that he has railed against MLB's phony "natural rivals" for interleague play. I can't find it.
This is classic PK and his total and complete lack of empathy and understanding of how humans work.
Houston-Dallas isn't a rivalry because they're in the same state. They're a rivalry because Houston HATES Dallas, the result of being a second-class citizen in the state despite being the largest by population and Dallas always being "America's Team," and the cities just, in general, being complete and total polar opposites.
Just like Oakland hates all those hoity-toity people in San Fran. It's a class thing and it runs deep.
That's not just going to happen if you force teams to play each other every year for no good reason. Jacksonville and Tampa! Which Florida city is more boring and irrelevant and full of old people?!?!?! Miami and, um, Nashville! Hip-hop vs. Country!!!
How do you nurture a rivalry? Buy inflammatory ads in the other team's market?
Rivalries develop because the teams either play against each other in the playoffs or in big games year after year (Pitt-NE, Indy-NE, Denver-NE) or because of some cultural underpinning. You can't just make that up by forcing teams to play each other every year.
Houston-Dallas isn't a rivalry because they're in the same state. They're a rivalry because Houston HATES Dallas, the result of being a second-class citizen in the state despite being the largest by population and Dallas always being "America's Team," and the cities just, in general, being complete and total polar opposites.
Just like Oakland hates all those hoity-toity people in San Fran. It's a class thing and it runs deep.
That's not just going to happen if you force teams to play each other every year for no good reason. Jacksonville and Tampa! Which Florida city is more boring and irrelevant and full of old people?!?!?! Miami and, um, Nashville! Hip-hop vs. Country!!!
How do you nurture a rivalry? Buy inflammatory ads in the other team's market?
Rivalries develop because the teams either play against each other in the playoffs or in big games year after year (Pitt-NE, Indy-NE, Denver-NE) or because of some cultural underpinning. You can't just make that up by forcing teams to play each other every year.
Oaf doesn't even take into consideration how this scheme would impact strength of scheduling.
Theoretically, it would even out over time ("time" equaling decades), but let's say, for instance, New England gets paired up with Philadelphia in the Peter King Revolutionary Bowl every year, and both teams magically replicate their performances over the past 10 years.
Ya, something tells me the Eagles and their fans are going to be a mite pissed, while the Giants get to bitch-slap the Jets every year in the Peter King Hometown Throwdown.
Theoretically, it would even out over time ("time" equaling decades), but let's say, for instance, New England gets paired up with Philadelphia in the Peter King Revolutionary Bowl every year, and both teams magically replicate their performances over the past 10 years.
Ya, something tells me the Eagles and their fans are going to be a mite pissed, while the Giants get to bitch-slap the Jets every year in the Peter King Hometown Throwdown.
There is so little about that proposal that makes sense with the NFL's current scheduling.
When the forced rivalry game coincided with the natural divisional rotation, you'd have those two non-division foes playing twice in the same season.
And you'd have to have some sort of system to decide what intra-conference, inter-divisional game was being replaced by this rivalry game. The only way to do it and not have it be random would be to eliminate one of the division rotation games based on previous years seeding (e.g. the Patriots don't play the Broncos this year because the East and West are matched up and they both finished first). But of course that has implications on parity and strength of schedule.
When the forced rivalry game coincided with the natural divisional rotation, you'd have those two non-division foes playing twice in the same season.
And you'd have to have some sort of system to decide what intra-conference, inter-divisional game was being replaced by this rivalry game. The only way to do it and not have it be random would be to eliminate one of the division rotation games based on previous years seeding (e.g. the Patriots don't play the Broncos this year because the East and West are matched up and they both finished first). But of course that has implications on parity and strength of schedule.
Five divisions have rivalries that are among the best in sports - AFC East, North, and West, and NFC North and East.
NFC West is a newer grouping of teams, and the historical Niners-Rams rivalry has been weakened by the Rams' move to STL, but it shows every sign of becoming a strong rivalry division- SF-SEA is obviously very hot right now.
The teams in the NFC South are younger and don't have the long histories of some if the other divisions, but ATL-NO is a legit rivalry going back to the old NFC West, the four teams have all been reasonably competitive in recent years, and the division makes geographic sense, so it will also likely only get better.
The only weak division IMO is the AFC South, where every team is either a transplant or an expansion team , there are not really good geographical rivalries (that famed Indianapolis - Jacksonville blood feud notwithstanding). It's the NFL's Island of Misfit Toys - the Colts are only here because there's nowhere else to put them.
So out of 8 divisions, there is only one with weak rivalries. This is not a problem that needs fixing.
TL: DR: Peter King is a moron .
NFC West is a newer grouping of teams, and the historical Niners-Rams rivalry has been weakened by the Rams' move to STL, but it shows every sign of becoming a strong rivalry division- SF-SEA is obviously very hot right now.
The teams in the NFC South are younger and don't have the long histories of some if the other divisions, but ATL-NO is a legit rivalry going back to the old NFC West, the four teams have all been reasonably competitive in recent years, and the division makes geographic sense, so it will also likely only get better.
The only weak division IMO is the AFC South, where every team is either a transplant or an expansion team , there are not really good geographical rivalries (that famed Indianapolis - Jacksonville blood feud notwithstanding). It's the NFL's Island of Misfit Toys - the Colts are only here because there's nowhere else to put them.
So out of 8 divisions, there is only one with weak rivalries. This is not a problem that needs fixing.
TL: DR: Peter King is a moron .
King is at the vanguard of a now firmly established group of sportswriters for whom the story is always framed by their expectations entering the event. Rosenthal does the same today in his coverage of game 2 of the NLCS.
Basically, the story is always either "well, the game was true to form," or, "can you believe it?!?!"
This season is "insane" for PK because he'd already told you how things were going to go, and now they're not going that way. For Rosenthal "THERE IS NO NARRATIVE!" When, well, a game did happen and there was a story to it. Why don't you tell it what it was?
Why can't they just tell us the story of the game? The story of some cool things that happened, without basically framing everything through what they expected?
I mean, isn't it pretty clear the Steelers are a shitty team? Are we really supposed to be fired up about the browns? Just because PK can't believe they don't suck?
Edit:
Also, she's a hero. You don't need a goddamn gender-specific term. Asshole.
Basically, the story is always either "well, the game was true to form," or, "can you believe it?!?!"
This season is "insane" for PK because he'd already told you how things were going to go, and now they're not going that way. For Rosenthal "THERE IS NO NARRATIVE!" When, well, a game did happen and there was a story to it. Why don't you tell it what it was?
Why can't they just tell us the story of the game? The story of some cool things that happened, without basically framing everything through what they expected?
I mean, isn't it pretty clear the Steelers are a shitty team? Are we really supposed to be fired up about the browns? Just because PK can't believe they don't suck?
Edit:
Also, she's a hero. You don't need a goddamn gender-specific term. Asshole.