Why Do I Continue to Read Peter King?

PBDWake

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MyDaughterLovesTomGordon said:
How does math work?
I know this is snark, but plugging average player career length here is misleading without the proper weighting. Admittedly, I'm stuck at work on my phone and haven't looked up the numbers, but what are the percentages of undrafted players vs drafted players on each side of average career length? If the numbers bear out as most would expect they do, and the undrafted players are the ones frequently washing out in a year or two, then the drafted players will have on average longer careers, meaning more drafted players are in the league at a given time than that simple formula includes, which means more drafted players on each team. Not to mention that it only includes the 7 norms rounds of the draft and not the compensatory picks that go into each year.
 

MyDaughterLovesTomGordon

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I mean, yeah, I was being hyperbolic, but the math is fine. I'm sure drafted players last longer than non-drafted, and there are compensatory picks, and blah, blah, but the facts remain that only 32 x 8 players, maximum, can enter the league via the draft each year and that leaves a pantload of spots for undrafted players and we're well beyond the point where it should be remotely surprising that an undrafted player does something good.

On the super bowl champion Patriots, one quarter of the players are undrafted. Weird.
 

LuckyBen

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Ed Hillel said:
So he thought by default the Pats would be no. 1, but they "struggle" on D (because yards!) and drop behind the Packers who didn't exactly light up the Bears. Then he states that the Ravens could win the AFC without Suggs. He really is clueless and it amazes me that people are buying into the narrative that the Beoncos-Ravens game was great.
 

Leather

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Once again: King is counting on getting access to Manning for his retirement tour.  He needs to downplay the suck.
 

RIFan

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MyDaughterLovesTomGordon said:
I mean, yeah, I was being hyperbolic, but the math is fine. I'm sure drafted players last longer than non-drafted, and there are compensatory picks, and blah, blah, but the facts remain that only 32 x 8 players, maximum, can enter the league via the draft each year and that leaves a pantload of spots for undrafted players and we're well beyond the point where it should be remotely surprising that an undrafted player does something good.

On the super bowl champion Patriots, one quarter of the players are undrafted. Weird.
Math is wrong because you're starting with a false pretense. The NFLPA's average includes any player that was on a roster at some point, including those who were training camp fodder and never made a regular season roster. Your overall point stands that there are numerous in drafted players in the NFL, although it's no where near the 40-50% of roster levels that your math would suggest.
 

Corsi

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"Peyton Manning had one of his least effective games"
 
 
That's one way to put it.  The End of Peyton Manning is going to be the most unreported story of this season.  It's going to be couched with "poor timing with his receivers," "jusssst missing on the deep ball," "dropped balls by his receivers," "Kubiak's focus on the running game," etc.
 
The lines these chumps will be running out there come Week 5 are going to be hilarious.  They just can't bring themselves to admit that it's time to bring Manning back around the barn.
 

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MyDaughterLovesTomGordon said:
Third, there is PK's standard observation (in coalescence with now out-of-a-job Easterbrook) that it's simply AMAZING that undrafted people did good things in the NFL. Hey PK, I've got a bit of math for you: There are 53 players on the sideline every week. A team generally only drafts 7 players a year. The average NFL career, according to the NFLPA, is only 3.3 years. Let's call it 4. That means, each year, you draft 7 players who last about four years each. So, that's 28 players on your roster who got drafted. THUS, the odds would say that just under half of your fucking players on your fucking team are likely to be undrafted. 
 
 

MyDaughterLovesTomGordon

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Okay, fine. Now I did the research. THIS GUY did some awesome math and says the average DRAFTED player's career (excluding those who were drafted and never made a team) is 5.7 years. 
 
So, EIGHT (cuz now we're going to assume everyone gets a compensatory pick, because why not) times 5.7 equals 45.6 players per team who were drafted and still playing. 
 
Yes, my 40-50 percent estimate was foolish and hyperbolic, BUT 8-10 players per team who are undrafted and contributing is still a lot and fuck Peter King and fuck all of you for your witty memes. And I mean that last part in the nicest way possible. 
 
Sincerely, 
MDLTG
 

Humphrey

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I just don't see how anyone can sing the praises of a team whose star player looked horrible at the end of last season and then goes out and wins a game where no offensive touchdowns were scored.
 

MyDaughterLovesTomGordon

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There is no Rev said:
That's still not how the math works.
 
WHY IS EVERYONE INTENT ON KEEPING ME IN SUSPENSE?
 
Seriously, how does math work? Assuming everyone plays to exact average:
 
Year zero: 8 guys drafted - 8 guys total
Year 1: 8 guys drafted - 16 guys total
Year 2: 8 guys drafted - 24 guys total
Year 3: 8 guys drafted - 32 guys total
Year 4: 8 guys drafted - 40 guys total
Year 5: 8 guys drafted - 48 guys total
Year 6: 8 guys drafted, 8 guys die - 48 guys total
Year 7: 8 guys drafted, 8 guys die - 48 guys total
 
Ad infinitum. 
 
What am I missing? For reals. 
 

jimbobim

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Humphrey said:
I just don't see how anyone can sing the praises of a team whose star player looked horrible at the end of last season and then goes out and wins a game where no offensive touchdowns were scored.
Yeah Manning looked horrid. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. And the Ravens were a dropped Steve Smith touchdown away from Manning being the Broncos achilles heel being storyline number 1. 
 

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I'm scratching my head trying to figure out where MDLTG is off the mark with this, if it's that obvious that a simple replies like "math class" and "that's not how math works". It doesn't seem that obvious to me, but admittedly I'm 15 years removed from my last math class in college.
 
Maybe we need to look at the median career length rather than the average? Still, I'd think we are at a reasonable enough approximation using the average.
 
This is admittedly somewhat off topic as it pertains to Peter King, but if you guys could enlighten the rest of us less informed, I'd be interested in understanding this better.
 

ifmanis5

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Corsi said:
The End of Peyton Manning is going to be the most unreported story of this season. 
Yes and it was already the most unreported story of last season. His performance in the playoffs against the Colts was awful but nobody, especially Nantz and Simms, wanted to go near it. Just a few hushed 'perhaps we've seen the last..' sentences.
And of course, the pile on Brady after the Pats-Chiefs game last year was a lot more vocal. But that's another thread.
 

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6. San Diego (1-0). Really impressed with the Chargers’ scoring 30 unanswered points against a good Detroit team.
 
A Detroit team so "good" that PK then doesn't bother listing it in the five also-rans to his top 15.
 

joe dokes

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Trying not to sound too tinfoil-hatted, but King's whole piece reads like he got tired of hearing from people calling him a Patriots Homer after he finally started ripping the NFL over Ballstuff. So to avoid such criticism, he'll just avoid praising them unless its abolutely necessary. (19 completions in a row; Gronk).
 

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MyDaughterLovesTomGordon said:
 
WHY IS EVERYONE INTENT ON KEEPING ME IN SUSPENSE?
 
Seriously, how does math work? Assuming everyone plays to exact average:
 
Year zero: 8 guys drafted - 8 guys total
Year 1: 8 guys drafted - 16 guys total
Year 2: 8 guys drafted - 24 guys total
Year 3: 8 guys drafted - 32 guys total
Year 4: 8 guys drafted - 40 guys total
Year 5: 8 guys drafted - 48 guys total
Year 6: 8 guys drafted, 8 guys die - 48 guys total
Year 7: 8 guys drafted, 8 guys die - 48 guys total
 
Ad infinitum. 
 
What am I missing? For reals. 
 
Yep actually told you above, it's about weightings. More specifically, you cannot discern a distribution from an average. Check it out.
 
OK, imagine just two positions and looking at them over a 15 year period. Not let's imagine that we knew the average career length was five years.
 
Using just the mean career length, that would be, on average three players playing at each spot over the three year period, for a total of six players in that span, right?
 
Now let's ad another piece of information. Let's say that five of those players were undrafted free agents. Based solely on the averages, it would be safe to conclude that UDFAs took 83.3% of all snaps.
 
HOWEVER.
 
What if one player played for 15 years and the five UDFAs played for three apiece? You get the same averages, but here only 50% of the snaps are taken by UDFAs.
 
You can't figure out the distributions based on averages.
 
There's usually a couple of problems like this on the SAT that count on people not really "getting" what information averages gives you and to misapply it.
 

MyDaughterLovesTomGordon

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Ok, I do see that and how it would make my first post especially shitty, but in my second and most recent posts I was only talking about average careers for drafted players. If we know the average career of a drafted player, and we're only talking about drafted players, and there is no other variable, the math seems to work. We know how many drafted players you can expect for each team. 
 
Thus, any other players would be undrafted players.
 
Sorry to have derailed everything, and I appreciate the serious response. 
 

dirtynine

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Why is the math necessary when the exact distributions and percentages are already known? The number of UDFAs on rosters can be looked up, right? I guess to prove a universal truth, yes, math is good, but extrapolating from, say, the last decade of existing numbers seems like it would be sufficient to prove PK is a dumbass.
 

Bellhorn

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MyDaughterLovesTomGordon said:
 
WHY IS EVERYONE INTENT ON KEEPING ME IN SUSPENSE?
 
Seriously, how does math work? Assuming everyone plays to exact average:
 
Year zero: 8 guys drafted - 8 guys total
Year 1: 8 guys drafted - 16 guys total
Year 2: 8 guys drafted - 24 guys total
Year 3: 8 guys drafted - 32 guys total
Year 4: 8 guys drafted - 40 guys total
Year 5: 8 guys drafted - 48 guys total
Year 6: 8 guys drafted, 8 guys die - 48 guys total
Year 7: 8 guys drafted, 8 guys die - 48 guys total
 
Ad infinitum. 
 
What am I missing? For reals. 
 
You're missing that Rev only has a clue what he is talking about 40-50% of the time.
 

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Bellhorn said:
 
You're missing that Rev only has a clue what he is talking about 40-50% of the time.
 
But you can't always determine which 50% he's in at any moment
 

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Corsi said:
 
That's one way to put it.  The End of Peyton Manning is going to be the most unreported story of this season.  It's going to be couched with "poor timing with his receivers," "jusssst missing on the deep ball," "dropped balls by his receivers," "Kubiak's focus on the running game," etc.
 
The lines these chumps will be running out there come Week 5 are going to be hilarious.  They just can't bring themselves to admit that it's time to bring Manning back around the barn.
 
And it's weird because you'd think Peyton would want/need the Jeter farewell tour, but first he'd have to admit his performance has slipped to the point retirement is imminent or necessary.  Tough spot for Pey-Pey's ego.
 

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Marciano490 said:
 
And it's weird because you'd think Peyton would want/need the Jeter farewell tour, but first he'd have to admit his performance has slipped to the point retirement is imminent or necessary.  Tough spot for Pey-Pey's ego.
 
Pey-Pey needs less than 2000 yards to surpass Favre as the all-time passing leader.  He could be a disembodied torso, like the knight from Monty Python, and he'd still stick around to get that record.
 

Corsi

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From the idiot's mailbag today.  Infuriating.
 
Thursday is not going to be a good night for Peyton Manning to shut up people about, you know, his game falling off a cliff. What is more difficult for a quarterback than, collectively, this perfect storm: Traveling to Kansas City, on a short-week Thursday, for the Chiefs’ home opener, K.C. coming off a five-sack plundering of the Texans in Houston, Justin Houston healthy, Marcus Peters fortifying the secondary … I mean, Peyton Manning could get embarrassed plenty on Thursday night. I seem to remember another quarterback getting embarrassed at Arrowhead early last season. Name of Brady. So I’m not sure I’d draw many conclusions from a bad night for Peyton Manning in Arrowhead if it happens.
 
 
But that doesn’t mean Manning is finished. He might be. But I think one of the things that gets a bit lost is that Manning, at 39, is still adjusting to what his arm is allowing him to do. Even if he doesn't have the fastball anymore, and he almost certainly does not, I think he is going to be smart enough to figure a way to move the chains and be productive and not turn it over excessively.
 
 

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Corsi said:
From the idiot's mailbag today.  Infuriating.
 
 
 I seem to remember another quarterback getting embarrassed at Arrowhead early last season. Name of Brady. So I’m not sure I’d draw many conclusions from a bad night for Peyton Manning in Arrowhead if it happens.
 
Agreed Corsi. I read that line and just sighed. I mean I thought Brady swiss cheesing and having a historic performance over pretty much the same defense that annihilated Peyton would give writers some pause before immediately lumping the two together and essentially saying "Well Brady did it so can Peyton."No Peter they are only comparable if you squint and refuse to take into account the playoffs and the second half of last year which taken together would seem to suggest Tom has just surpassed Manning completely.  Or maybe more accurately held steady while Manning has continued to regress due to age slowly winning it's battle with him. 
 

rodderick

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The thing these people are missing with the Brady comparisons is that even in the games he played poorly to start last season, there was nothing you could clearly point to and say it was the root cause of his troubles, certainly nothing physical. Manning can't move at all and his arm is as weak as it has ever been. He's been mediocre for what amounts to about half a season now, and there are clear signs of physical deterioration that would explain his struggles.

I mean, there's reason to believe Peyton is simply incapable of performing up to his standards anymore. That's unfortunate, and he absolutely could be effective enough for the Broncos to still be successful, but anyone who has watched him play of late and says he'll be fine because Brady struggled and then snapped out of it is simply oblivious to the nature of Manning's issues.

I also saw some people say "he overthrew Sanders, how weak can his arm be?", which is laughable. A high school QB can throw a ball 40 yards in the air, the question is if that ball arrives there in time or with any accuracy, otherwise you're severely limited as an offense. Manning as of now lacks zip to put the ball in tight windows in intermediate throws and hangs his deep balls forever in the air, in a way that either he overthrows his target or allows the defender time to catch up. The margin of error with him is razor thin now. He can still move the ball and convert some third downs to keep drives moving, he'll probably have respectable numbers by year's end, but the days of Peyton Manning winning you games with his arm are likely over. People simply don't want to entertain that possibility, but everyone's time comes eventually.
 

Corsi

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rodderick said:
I also saw some people say "he overthrew Sanders, how weak can his arm be?", which is laughable. 
 
Jason La Canfora was on Toucher & Rich this morning and discussed this.  He said that because Manning has to put his entire body into these deep throws, he loses any sense of touch he may have.  Like you said, on his deep balls, and even some of his intermediate routes, the ball just seems to float and flutter endlessly.

To this point, La Canfora is the only mainstream guy I've heard ding Manning, and even he did it on regional radio, rather than a national platform.
 

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As an aside, I'd love to see a "Peyton Manning Self-Sack" ticker added to some website like PFT. Those flops always make me giggle.
 

MyDaughterLovesTomGordon

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How anyone could possibly get through that shit anymore I have no idea. 
 
I think he has the first line on F5 and it's the mantra he trots out every. single. week: THE NFL IS SO UNPREDICTABLE AND WEIRD IT'S CRAZY. 
 
It's as though the entire NFL exists for him and only him. He doesn't talk anymore about what happened. Instead everything is framed by what he THOUGHT would happen. Or what some nebulous THEY thought would happen. 
 
Who thinks the Seahawks are finished?
 
And just look at this five crazy fucking things:
 
1. The NFC East is going to be bizarre. I mean, no shit. That's what EVERYBODY thought. It's going to be an uneven, messy, not very good division. 
 
2. The Eagles are bad. I mean, yeah, some people thought the Eagles would be good, but who thought the Sam Bradford trade was a good one? What pedigree does Chip Kelly have in the NFL? Who didn't criticize Kelly for making what many thought were very strange personnel moves?
 
3. Baltimore is Broken. Okay, sure, Baltimore is generally thought of as a good AFC team. But who didn't think losing Suggs would hurt them. And he just completely discounts how difficult it is for east coast teams to go out and win on the west coast and that the home field advantage is huge out there (just as it is for west coast teams coming east). So, Baltimore should have won against Denver, but lost one of its best defensive players, and then lost a game to Oakland, who lots of people think has a great young quarterback. Whatevs. 
 
4. Atlanta doesn't suck. Well, they squeaked by the Eagles (who you just told us are incompetent) and then the Giants (who just about everyone thinks is awful). Okay? I guess 2-0 is just crazy?
 
5. Johnny Football, blah, blah. What, because Josh McCown has earned the undying love of the Cleveland fans? Because we're supposed to be impressed that Cleveland beat Tennessee, which was the second worst team in the league last year? No one could have seen that coming? Is he drunk. 
 
6. Apparently he is drunk, because his list of "5 things" is actually six things long, and he wants me to be surprised that Andy Dalton is good. Um, yeah, no shit. That's the whole narrative around Dalton. He's great in the regular season and sux balls in the playoffs. Is the playoffs Pete? No, he's beaten Oakland (who you're shocked beat Baltimore) and San Diego in their home stadium (and San Diego sucks on the road, in general). 
 
Why does everything have to be cast as some kind of fucking surprise? Why is it so hard to write, "Julio Jones has turned in a particularly impressive performance. I got a chance to talk with him and he said some funny stuff." Instead it's literally something "we never saw coming."
 
Never. It's impossible. No wayzers, dude. 
 
Blech. 
 

John Marzano Olympic Hero

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Why does everything have to be cast as some kind of fucking surprise?
 
 
Because it keeps football fans thinking that football writers are geniuses. 
 
If you spend all winter, spring and fall telling them stuff: Philly is going to be great, the Colts did awesome in the offseason; and then both teams come out and lay a turd in the first two weeks, instead of saying, "Jesus, I was wayyyyyy wrong about what I wrote three months ago", you go with the old chestnut, "That's why they play the games folks! This National Football League sure is unpredictable!" 
 
In other words, you make sure that what you wrote in the past is still true (Frank Gore still has a lot left in the tank! That will help Andrew Luck!) while also acknowledging that you probably were wrong. BUT you aren't wrong because you're thinking was wrong (NEVER!) you're wrong because football is so unpredictable. No one could see that shit coming! And the secret is that most football fans (or sports fans in general, all sports writers [and fans] do this shit all the time) aren't quite sharp enough to realize that Peter King knows about 5% more than they do. 
 
There is never any accountability for sportswriters because they always move the goal lines. Always. Ever hear someone try to debate a sports radio talkshow host? You start talking about Brady's passer rating and the next thing you know you're talking about Pete Peters' 1981 GAA. And that's the game, always muddy the waters, always keep your readers and listeners clueless. Give them enough information, but not enough that they don't need you any more. 
 
Football isn't a difficult game to understand. Baseball isn't a difficult game to understand. Neither is basketball, hockey, soccer, tennis, golf or the Olympics. But sportswriters want the unwashed masses to think so (as do General Managers and coaches -- Jesus, especially football coaches) because it makes their jobs seem that much more important which justifies all of their salaries. Because if American sport fans finally realize that professional sports are played by dunces, managed/coached by dunces, run by dunces, owned by dunces and written and talked about by dunces, this whole house of cards will fall in on itself. 
 
Peter King writes as if he's always surprised because I think his life is one constant surprise after another. How did a marginally talented, schlubby looking, not particularly charismatic, greedy creep become a multi-millionaire TV star and writer, who lives in Manhattan and has some of the most powerful people in the athletic world at his beck and call? Because he's an idiot savant when it comes to the overall game of Professional Sports in 21st Century America. 
 

Leather

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Interesting, but I'm confused by this line:
 
Brady Sr. is astounded at the lack of compliments Belichick has publicly thrown his son’s way. It’s not the Belichick way. It’s not the Patriots’ way. “They couldn’t care less. They are not trying to shine his star,” he said. “If Belichick had 53 guys named Joe, he would love it.”
 
 
The word "astounded" seems...wrong.
 

MyDaughterLovesTomGordon

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drleather2001 said:
Interesting, but I'm confused by this line:
 
 
The word "astounded" seems...wrong.
Also:

“I'm glad Tom's our quarterback. I love Tom. He's a great player and he's been a great leader for us. He does so many things for our football team on and off the field and he's been a tremendous competitor, tremendous player. So, [I’m] privileged to be able to coach him, and have him on our team, and we meet on a regular basis, a couple times a week and I really, I mean, I enjoy coaching him. He's a terrific player.”
 

Van Everyman

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MyDaughterLovesTomGordon said:
Also:

“I'm glad Tom's our quarterback. I love Tom. He's a great player and he's been a great leader for us. He does so many things for our football team on and off the field and he's been a tremendous competitor, tremendous player. So, [I’m] privileged to be able to coach him, and have him on our team, and we meet on a regular basis, a couple times a week and I really, I mean, I enjoy coaching him. He's a terrific player.”
Regarding compliments, one of the things I love about this quote is that it reminds me that for Bill, the measure of a player is based entirely on what he shows on a football field or in the locker room. In contrast to, say, Don Shula (whose A Football Life is an exercise in hagiography), you never hear Belichick say word one about whether a player is a "good person," a "family man," to say nothing of religion, morals or even "playing the game the right way." Instead, when he does compliment a player, his comments are almost exclusively about that player's dedication to his craft, team and competing – and how rewarding it is to coach a player like that.

I actually think this is one of the things that people actually resent Belichick for – not only because it makes him seem like an automaton only concerned with winning but also because it so roundly rejects the notion that athletic excellence has fuck all to do with character or moral fiber.

It's a very pure notion – and something I realize when I read that quote that I really admire about Belichick.

Along with the winning of course.
 

Leather

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• The Patriots wake the echoes … of 2007. They’re already using the “U” word in New England. As in “undefeated.” New England went 16-0 in 2007, and advanced to a flawless-looking 3-0 Sunday against Jacksonville. More about that later, but as one of the ’07 team leaders, Rodney Harrison, opined Sunday night: “It’s 2007 all over again. Tom Brady’s playing like he’s 29, 30 years old.” Brady is 38, and he threw his 400th and 401st pro touchdown passes against the Jags.
 
 
This is classic King.  
 
Step 1) Look at a situation that deserves a story;
Step 2) Embellish the situation to make writing said story easier.
 
Is there anyone "In New England" who is seriously discussing an undefeated season?  Would anyone in New England even dare after what happened in 2007? I doubt it.
 
 
That was a sick team eight years ago.
 
 
King is also 8 years behind with his hip slang.  What a cool dude, homies!  
 
 
Fuck off, King.