A Peter King Two-fer!!!!

It MUST be Tuesday! So Peter King, like all lazy sports journalists, decided to rank the top whatever of whatever just to get people pissed off and increase traffic. Ho hum. However, he's now written an article expressing his surprise that many people called him on being a moron. Very...um...meta.

ANYway, let's take a crack at this:

Readers, readers. Here's my question after seeing your e-mails on Monday night: Did you read my column? Or did you only look at my ratings of the starting NFL quarterbacks and say, "He's nuts! Kitna ahead of McNabb! Schaub ahead of Vick! Vince Young ahead of Roethlisberger! Loco!''

Well, those are some fucking ridiculous claims, so let's do King the favor of looking back at his initial column and see if there's something we're missing.

The rankings are in the order of who will have the best seasons in 2007 and 2007 only.

That's really all I see by way of clarification. But I felt like it was better than not to give ol' Petey the benefit of the doubt. So keep in mind that his rankings (which seem completely out of whack to nearly everyone with a brain) aren't about who's had the better career but who King thinks will be better next year. Got it?

K.

Remember what I said: These are my ratings for 2007. Of course Jon Kitna's has a high rating; he's playing for the Lions and pass-game guru Mike Martz, and if he doesn't have a big year, he should pack up and go home to Washington and pick apples for a living. Of course I'm going to question Donovan McNabb's ability to play a full season, after missing 13 games over the last two seasons.

Okee dokee. Let's see here. Where do we start. How about: Mike Martz was the OC of the Lions last year. So LAST YEAR will probably serve as a good barometer for how these QB's will perform THIS YEAR (with some consideration over whether McNabb might get hurt)

In 2006 McNabb had a QB rating of 95.5, only SLIGHTLY better than Kitna's Mike Martz enhanced 79.9. Even though McNabb only played 10 games to Kitna's 16, he only passed for 3 less TD's (McNabb had 18, Kitna had 21) and McNabb's 18/6 TD/INT ratio was significantly better than Kitna's 21/22. Furthermore, though I don't have any numbers on the issue, McNabb most likely won more than the Lions's THREE GAMES as starting QB

So basically, even HURT FOR SIX GAMES, McNabb was a more valuable member of his team than Kitna. Despite the fact that Mike Martz will STILL BE THERE, and despite the fact that many sportswriters popped a huge chubby over Calvin Johnson's great build and explosiveness, it's highly unlikely Kitna will have a more successful 07 campaign than McNabb. Possible? Perhaps. Plausible? No chance.

Some other claims King makes that has his readers hopping mad and rightly so:

--Vince Young ahead of Roethlisberger

The fact is, for whatever reason, Roethlisberger has been inconsistent for much of the past two years. That's not something I invented. It is fact. As I wrote, his completion percentage has sagged 3.7 and 3 percent in the past two years, not risen. Maybe last year it was a result of the accident; what was 2005 all about? And though I still like Roethlisberger and his potential, my column was about the order in which I liked quarterbacks in 2007. And right now, until he proves he can put another good season on the board, Roethlisberger's a middle-of-the-pack quarterback to me

All very cogent, and generally well-researched analysis. But did you notice anything about the defense of this favoritism towards Young? Hint: HE DOESN'T MENTION YOUNG. Despite the media love-affair with Young, his numbers were pretty mediocre in 2007. Yes, he "wins games," and "gets the job done"---or at least, he did in 06---but his 66.7 QB rating was a lot worse than Big Ben's rookie-year rating of 98.1. If we assume Young will get better (something King DOES NOT assume about, for instance, Rex Grossman) then, yes, it seems likely that Young will have a better year than Roethlisberger. But guess what: he didn't last year. And he's not likely to this year.

Another one:
--Drew Brees over Carson Palmer

Frankly I don't have a problem with that in theory, but look at king moron's justification:

I put Brees ahead of Palmer for a simple reason -- Brees did more with less last year.

Yes, Palmer has a great WR corps, but BREES DID MORE WITH LESS? Let's think about The Saints offense: Bush, McCallister, and Colstom all put up huge numbers. Chad Johnson might have had his worst year of his career. Seriously....King's almost certainly right with his pick of Brees over Palmer, but somehow he still manages to be completely wrong!

Oh and he has Romo over McNabb. Oh God--this shit is too much. Just read the damned article or something.