1. I think The biggest conundrum in sports — not just football, but all of sports — is how difficult it is to predict who will be a good NFL quarterback coming from college football. In the five drafts from 2018 to 2022, 15 quarterbacks were selected in the top 15. As of this morning, eight have either failed or been average or worse: Zach Wilson, Trey Lance, Justin Fields, MacJones, Dwayne Haskins, Baker Mayfield, Sam Darnold, Josh Rosen. The jury is out on two more, Daniel Jones And Kyler Murray. Only five – Burrow, Herbert, Tagovailoa, Allen, Lawrence – are solid starters or better. As I look at all the teams with QB needs this year, I wonder how the Giants and Patriots and Bears and Seahawks and Bucs are going to make sure they aren’t part of the majority who fail QB Prospecting 101.
2. I think I love taking a deeper look at a given big game and figuring out all the options for a coach, and it gave me food for thought when Carolina and Chicago played a memorable game on Thursday night. Mike Florio and I discussed this piece in detail on the PFT show Friday morning. Let’s play. You make the call, shall we? The situation:
The Panthers should have trusted Young on fourth down
Mike Florio and Peter King discuss why the Panthers should have believed in Bryce Young on fourth-and-10 against the Bears to build confidence in the rookie QB.
A. Carolina Trails, 16-13, with 1:40 to play. Panthers ball, fourth-and-10 at the Chicago 41-yard line. The Panthers can try to tie the game with a 59-yard field goal, or they can throw the ball in Bryce Young‘s hands; Convert the fourth-and-10 and keep the drive going, and don’t convert it and give the ball back to Chicago with maybe 90 seconds left in the game.
B. Analytics say go for first down. According to Next Gen Stats, the Panthers have a 24 percent chance of converting the first down and a 23 percent chance of making the field goal. Additionally, Next Gen states that Carolina has a 15.2 percent chance of winning if they compete here. Attempting the field goal gives Carolina an 11.2 percent chance.
C. The big factor for me is this: Say Carolina’s Eddy Piniero hits the field goal. Drawn game. The Bears get the ball back, say at their 25-yard line, with 1:30 left and all three timeouts. They have 45 yards of range and the time it would take them to attempt a game-winning 48-yard field goal.
D. Young had converted on all three fourth-down attempts he attempted in the fourth quarter, but none from more than 10 yards. As Florio said, the team isn’t going anywhere and here was Carolina’s chance to give a beleaguered player a chance to be a hero.
e. France went for the field goal and ended up a few yards short of the end zone. I bet Reich wants that decision back. I bet when the Panthers flew home to Charlotte he wished he had put the ball in Young’s hands. But — and this is the point — it was still only one in four that Young would have converted, so it’s not like Reich’s decision guaranteed the loss. Carolina probably would have lost anyway. Still, Young has a better chance there to make an impact and follow through.
3. I thinkmy, my, how Travis KelceLife has changed. Germany on Sunday, Kansas City on Monday, Argentina on Friday, Kansas City again on Sunday, today the training week begins for the Super Bowl rematch Philadelphia-KC next Monday. Here’s just a gut feeling: Kelce got four targets when Miami suffocated him in coverage last week. It wouldn’t surprise me if he gets at least 10 points next Monday against the Eagles. Patrick Mahomes I don’t want to force it on anyone, but I think he knows he can’t wait forever for the young receivers to blossom.
4. I think I wanted to tell you about it last week. First, look at the above photo of an appearance I made on Mike Florio’s daily PFT show with co-host Charean Williams while I was in Germany 10 days ago. Now think about it. When I made this hit from the practice facility where the Dolphins were working, I took into account these variables that were part of this 20 minute telecast:
- I was in Frankfurt, Germany, 4,500 miles from the NBC Sports studios in Stamford, Connecticut.
- Florio was at his home in West Virginia.
- Charean Williams was at her home in Texas.
- Our three shots were fed into the NBC Sports control room in Stamford, placed in a “three-box” and then streamed internationally on Peacock, NBC’s streaming channel.
- My video was shot on my iPhone, on a tripod set up by producer Kristen Coleman in Frankfurt. When I went back and watched the video, I was amazed at the purity of the footage – how crystal clear all three of us were. Especially me, on an iPhone!
5. I think It’s the old man in me. But when I have three people 4,500, 450 and 1,100 miles from our studio and my video camera is an iPhone a continent away, it blows my mind that we can provide lag-free, pristine television.
6. I think I’m not sure how the whole Michigan thing will turn out, but I wonder if Jim Harbaugh Being forced out of college football in the next two or three months raises the question of whether any team in the NFL will take on this headache. Robber? Commanders?
7. I findJust to throw it out there, here are my best ones Bill Belichick-options on the open market, if any, Robert Kraft “parts ways” with Belichick (2-8 this year, 27-34 after Brady) after the season:
A. Dallas. I think the only way the Cowboys could be in play is if they don’t win the division, have a few poor games down the stretch, and go winless in the playoffs. In this case I could see Jerry Jones Chasing Belichick and repeating history from two decades ago. Before you say Belichick would never work for Jerry, remember back in 2003 when we all thought Bill Parcels would never work for Jones.
B.Washington. Interesting regional thought: Belichick grew up in Annapolis, 23 miles from FedEx Field. At first glance, it seems like an odd combination – a progressive new owner teaming up with a trophy trainer who could be a dinosaur. Would not Josh Harris Do you want a dynamic trainer in the long term? But if Harris thinks age is just a number with Belichick, I could see him kicking the tires.
C. LA Chargers. I’m doubtful Dean Spanos would have a relative blank check for Belichick. But if LA goes winless or out of the money again in the postseason, Spanos could spy Belichick. Additionally, Belichick is 18 wins before the break Don ShulaRecord for coaching wins. Who knows how many away wins he will have this year. Fifteen? Sixteen? He would have to assume he could win at least eight games a year Justin Herbert.
D.Chicago. Makes no sense if property and Ryan Poles believe they want to get the quarterback and offense right to commit to Belichick, 72, next year. So this seems far-fetched.
8. I think My football story of the week is Sam Farmer from the LA Times Jared Goffand its development in Detroit. The most interesting part is that Goff admits to Farmer that he insisted on an exit interview with the coach Sean McVay when he was sent away by the Rams. One of his best friends on the Rams, Andrew WhitworthHe met with Goff immediately after the deal. As Farmer reported:
Then the quarterback told him he was proceeding to an exit interview with McVay.
“I’m like, ‘Wait, what?'” Whitworth recalls. “And he said, ‘I told Sean I still want to attend our exit meeting…’ And I said, ‘You’re crazy.’ Why do you want to make an exit?’ And he said, “I want him to tell me straight to my face what I did wrong.” I want to hear it from him. How do I get better?’ He wanted closure.”
Goff recalled that two years later he did not elaborate on what was said in his last meeting with McVay, saying only, “I got some answers and drew a lot of conclusions. “He was direct.”
9. I think I want to wish the former NFL quarterback good luck Matt McGloin, who was elected Tuesday to do something far more important than just playing a game for a living. McGloin, of Scranton, Pennsylvania, is one of the new county commissioners in Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania, McGloin’s home district. The win comes a decade after the former Penn State QB started his first of seven NFL games for the Raiders. He beat them Matt Schaub/Andrew Johnson/DeAndre Hopkins Texans in Houston before November 10, his only NFL win.
10. I think These are my other thoughts of the week:
A. Veterans Day Story of the Week: Gilma Avalos of WNBC-TV in New York with the fight between a service dog, Marley, and a veteran suffering from PTSD on Long Island. Save a pet, help a vet. Great theme for Paws of War, which brings together dogs (Marley was about to be euthanized) who need homes with vets.
B. “He is looking for me. I’m right here, buddy. I didn’t leave you.” Great job, Paws of War.
C. The NFL isn’t the only league that prefers to over-punish players and discipline them for completely normal plays. Giannis Antetokounmpo was thrown out of a game for glaring at an opponent!
D. I’m addicted to “M*A*S*H” reruns. I haven’t watched the movie in 40 years and never caught the reruns, but now my wife and I watch it once or twice most nights. This is great writing, great acting and so, so touching.
e. I just saw the episode at the end of season three when Col. Henry Blake cheered and cheered as his tour was over and he received the news that he was returning home to his heaven in southern Illinois and he described emotional about how much he loved and missed his wife and he left, and then Radar O’Reilly enters the operations room with the news that the plane carrying Colonel Henry Blake has been shot down over the Sea of Japan. “There were no survivors,” he said. Gasp! My God, why would they kill a wonderful man like Henry Blake!
Q. The cruel truth of war, of course, is that very good people are killed in it. This was “M*A*S*H”’s way of being extremely real. Here I was, tears streaming down my cheeks as I thought about the rerun of a 48-year-old sitcom. That’s why this show was so great.
G. Americana Story of the Week: The New York Times’ Kim Severson on our growing love of drive-thru restaurants:
H. As Severson writes, we’ve gotten used to all the alone time during the pandemic, and we’re clearly hungry for more alone time post-pandemic.
I. Severson writes:
Drive-thru traffic increased 30 percent from 2019 to 2022, according to a report from food service research firm Technomic. Meanwhile, the number of people eating at fast food restaurants fell 47 percent in the first half of 2023 compared to the same period in 2019. Drive-thru restaurants now account for two-thirds of all fast food purchases, according to a September report from Revenue Management Solutions.
As momentum builds, the $113 billion fast food industry is moving forward. Popeyes executives are cutting the size of its dining rooms in half. Taco Bell is experimenting with eliminating these altogether in favor of more car lanes. Chick-fil-A plans to open a two-story, four-lane drive-thru in Atlanta next year that can carry 75 cars at a time and deliver food from its kitchen on a conveyor belt.
… The most striking explanation could be a societal change: people emerged from the pandemic with less tolerance when dealing with strangers. Ronald Gross, a retiree with three grandchildren who lives in Brooklyn Park north of Minneapolis, sat in his car in a Taco Bell parking lot on a recent sunny afternoon, eating a Chicken Chipotle Melt.
Before the pandemic, he went to restaurants like McDonald’s to eat. Now he stays at the transit. “I got out of the habit,” he said. “I think I’m like a lot of people who don’t necessarily enjoy being social anymore.”
J. How insightful.
k. Americana Story of the Week II: The Wall Street Journal’s Betsy McKay on the decline of traditional book clubs and the meteoric rise of a new kind of book club.
l. “I won’t read a book that people say you have to read. I did that in college and I never have to do it again.”
M. In Easton, Massachusetts, there is a Silent Book Club that meets at a brewery and all members read different books. It’s called “an introverted happy hour.”
The Silent Book Club has grown by about 75 percent this year to 525 chapters worldwide. Co-founders Guinevere de la Mare and Laura Gluhanich started the club when they were overbooked professionals in San Francisco looking for time to read without having to worry about the hosts.
The West Seattle chapter, which began last fall, is so popular that its meetings take place in at least 10 venues simultaneously, including coffee shops, bars and a record store. Participants also gathered on the beach to read.
[In Easton]Erin Meany, a self-described introvert, waited in her car in the parking lot and didn’t want to go inside until a friend arrived. Then she saw other people come in alone with books. “I’m like, ‘Okay, I can do this.’ These are my people,” said the 29-year-old clinical social worker.
N. Reporter Job of the Week: The Wall Street Journal’s Nikita Nikolaienko and Ian Lovett with an incredible spy-versus-spy story about how a murderous attack on a Ukrainian village felt like an inside job, with one of its own residents the gave Russians a hint:
O. According to the Journal reporters:
HROZA, Ukraine — When the Mamon brothers were growing up in this farming village near the border with Russia, Andriy Kozyr would occasionally stop by the family home. Once, returning from a construction job abroad, he brought them a scooter and a toy gun, as well as cognac for their parents.
This is how people got along in Hroza before the Russians invaded at the beginning of last year. The invasion split the village into enemy camps. Kozyr enlisted in the Ukrainian military and was killed in combat. The Mamon brothers worked for the Russian forces that occupied Hroza.
After Ukraine recaptured the village just over a year ago, residents eyed each other warily and were no longer sure which of their neighbors they could trust. Her suspicion was not misplaced. On October 5, dozens of residents gathered at the cemetery on the outskirts of Hroza for Kozyr’s funeral and then went to the village cafe. At 1:25 p.m., a rocket pierced the building, killing 59 people in and around the cafe. For days, white body bags lay on the playground next to the building.
The strike was so specific in its timing and location that the surviving families were convinced that one of their families had called the strike. How else would the Russians have found out about the funeral? Why else would they target a small village with a small military presence, killing a fifth of its population?
P. That’s why journalism is so important. We need to know how the world really works, and without reporters on the ground (literally, I believe, in the middle of the war in Ukraine) we would never know.
Q. Podcast of the Week: My friend Tim Rohan has an excellent multi-part pod in Meadowlark’s Sports Explains the World series – “Volley and Serve: From Wimbledon to the Front Lines.” It’s about Ukrainian tennis player Sergiy Stakhovsky, who shocked the tennis world when he knocked out defending champion Roger Federer at Wimbledon in 2013… and is now fighting with the Ukrainian military to repel the Russian invasion. What a story.
R. Amazing: Stakhovsky beat Novak Djokovic in European junior tennis and then beat Federer at Wimbledon. A decade later, you’ll find out why he’s doing something he thinks is much, much more important. Rohan traveled to Ukraine to find out the true story.
S. One of the reasons I think it’s so compelling is that you get a great (and simple) history lesson about the conflict and the roots of the conflict along the way. It is very worth your time. One thing I love about podcasting is the ability to dive deep into a great story you never knew before. I’ve never heard of Sergiy Stakhovsky. Now I feel like the world should know him, thanks to Tim Rohan.
T. Stachowski’s war cost him his marriage (he also has three children) because his wife believes family should come first. It’s torture for him because of his love for the country. He felt like he had to do this. He told Rohan, “We are all walking a fine line, but someone has to walk it.”
& Congratulations to my friend Rich Eisen on NFL Network’s 20th anniversary this month. He’ll be joining me on the Peter King Podcast, which comes out on Tuesday. (We recorded it in Frankfurt last week.)
v. A few previews: I told Rich that I thought Mike Mayock’s development was a big key to the network becoming TV in big offseason events because I loved watching Mayock scout every year Combine contributed a six-minute soliloquy about all 32 teams in the league. So if you’re wondering why you should wait until the Saturday Combine to find out who Carolina selected in the seventh round, here goes: Along the way, you’ll get 32 smart riffs from Mayock on the state of every team in the league. Rich pointed out another important factor in the network’s early success. I won’t spoil it here. Check out the podcast this week to hear his thoughts.
w. Answer to the quiz from the “Awards” section: Himir Smith-Marsette played water polo his freshman year of high school in Newark, New Jersey
X. REST IN PEACE, DJ Hayden, who came back from serious heart problems while attending the University of Houston to have a good career in the NFL, primarily with the Raiders. He died along with five others in a car crash in Houston on Saturday, a horrific accident that claimed six people’s untimely lives.
j. And congratulations to a great person and old soccer friend of Mary Beth King from Montclair, NJ. Yael Averbuch West. MB and Yael were teammates on the Montclair Kangaroos travel team at the time. As GM of Gotham FC in the National Women’s Soccer League, Yael has orchestrated a comeback story from worst to first. Gotham FC finished last in the 12-team league last season and then won the NWSL championship game with a 2-1 win over OL Reign on Saturday night in San Diego. (Shame to see the Reign’s Megan Rapinoe(The last soccer game ended with an apparent ruptured Achilles tendon in the third minute.) I am so happy for Yael, who made soccer her life at a young age and played with tireless skill. Apparently she built a champion with the same drive.