A few questions:
A) PK fact-checks his info on P Manning's injury by going to WebMD. You've got to be kidding me. Can't he talk to another team's doctor? There's a lot of difference between both how much an injury affects a pro athlete vs the general public and the resources available to pro athletes to recover from injury.
B) It's preseason. Why should fans have to pay big bucks just to see PK's buddy Brett play for one quarter?
C) Did I really need to read about PK preparing for his colonoscopy first thing Monday morning? UGH!

"I think I don't want to hear what great fans the Jets have. Not for a long time. That crowd Saturday night was a disgrace. At least half the stadium was empty for Favre's debut in a Jets' uniform. I expressed my amazement to a few fellow scribes Saturday night -- emphasizing that N.Y. traded for an all-time-great quarterback, not a broken-down one -- and they gave varying reasons for the poor turnout. Like it's the middle of vacation month for New Yorkers, and it's a preseason game. Horsefeathers. If you really love your team, and you have season tickets, you should have been at that game unless you were in Tibet. Ridiculous"

Is he serious?

Cancel the vaca Favre is in town. How dare you Jets fans!Don't make the most of it on one of the few remaining summer nights this year go and see a crappy preseason game.

A) PK fact-checks his info on P Manning’s injury by going to WebMD. You’ve got to be kidding me. Can’t he talk to another team’s doctor? There’s a lot of difference between both how much an injury affects a pro athlete vs the general public and the resources available to pro athletes to recover from injury.
You mean the Dr.s that said Marvin Harrison would be fine after the same injury? He could have found some unbiased MD, but I wouldn't say the Colts org has credibility on this sort of thing.

another team’s doctor?
I should pay better attention to what I quote before disagreeing with it.

Cue someone ripping PK for his comments on Chris Johnson at about post #11.

That's right giving Quick Chris Johnson some love.

Now if Vince could just get it together...

That thing about Olympic athletes having to be over 16 can't be right - GB entered a diver of 14.

Oh I see - it's gymnastics only.

I got a chuckle out of the mental image of King walking around the locker room at Giants camp, asking offensive linemen about olympic gymnasts.

What did PK say about Chris Johnson? Johnson looked like a mix between Willie Parker and Jereous Norwood. I actually was really impressed with Kenny Phillips of the Giants at S, and the Panthers Kicker on kickoffs as well.

Does his "Jets fans are buttholes for missing Favre's preseason debut" remind anyone of his "wow, when you're sitting in the stands, TV timeouts and stuff are really, really annoying!" column a few years back? PK has very little idea of what being a (non-paid) sports fan is like, does he? The economics of it? Homeboy needs to pay for his own game and travel tickets and sit in the regular seats for a season, get the flavor back.

1) If one thinks the Vikings are a Super Bowl contender, and Jackson is the long-term starter and if one thinks Jackson is the weak link, then how does he benefit from missing the Green Bay game? How does the team benefit? It's not like there will be less pressure on him in the playoffs. Better that he deals with his butterflies early than that he seizes up in January.

2) Considering they both torched Dallas, aren't those results of less import for Schaub or Cutler than for the Cowboys?

3) Shafting the Jets to go to the Patriots isn't exactly honorable. Intelligent, yes. Honorable, not so much.

4) Um, because Favre isn't a legend in New York and the Jets still probably aren't a good team and who wants to fight New York traffic to watch Favre play two series when he'll be around for four months?

5) Can we please have a moratorium on anecdotes involving Peter King's ass?

T Jackson is trying to pick up 6-7 rushing yards when he gets crushed and injured by Ray Lewis. That is a bad play in the regular season and stupidity on stilts in the preseason.

11

You forgot to complain his take about Chris Johnson's performance.

Colonoscopy - not so much a sports-related topic....

Jets Fans - should they really have to blow an evening, paying for tickets, parking, etc, for a chance to see Favre throw a half-dozen times in a meaningless game? If you can make it - sure! If you've been planning a family reunion for a year and a half or you're spending the vacation time you have to put in for back in January with your kids - not so much.

"He's been able to exercise his arm,'' Polian said. "Even when he was bedridden at the beginning after surgery, he was throwing the ball. But it's been tough on him. He watches practice tapes, reads the practice scripts. In due time, this too shall pass. But like I told him, 'Let's be sure when you come back, you come back for the rest of the year.'"

I giggle when I think of a football guy using a sentence like that. Imagine Millen using a similar phrase.

#12 Sorry.

6) Peter, have we discussed the term "boom-and-bust running back" before? Perhaps we should do so now.

In re: Manning his knee and the doctors treating - an interesting note that he does make is:

"Manning wasn't going to practice that day. Rather, he has spent much of the summer getting treatment for his recovering left knee on his own --somewhere -- and, from what I hear, has been absolutely wearing out the physical therapist"

Sounds like Manning is also aware of how the team doctors did with Harrison and didn't want to trust them. I somehow feel that the team doctors' job on this one will be to rubber stamp his specialist's opinion.

11. Schaub hasn't played Dallas yet. I don't know what team the Texans played this past week, but it wasn't Dallas.

But yes, I am VERY worried about our pass defense.

Apparently, Schaub had his brilliant day against the Saints and their noted stifling pass defense (dead last in pass defense DVOA last year). Rosenfels went 6 for 8 for 94 yards and 3rd string QB Brink went 1 for 1 for 8 yards. So your point about opponent's strength still stands, I suppose.

#16 My mistake. The construction of the paragraph (and let's not turn this into a Grammar Rodeo again) made it sound like both Cutler and Schaub had feasted on Dallas. Incidentally, what worries you about the Cowboys' pass defense? Despite the continued presence of Roy Williams and Pacman Jones' ongoing struggles, I would have imagined the secondary was a strength.

What I find puzzling is that nobody in the football media has done a story of how two NFC North coaches are going "all in" with quarterbacks of unknown skill. Jackson has NFL games under his belt, but I think you can count on one hand the number of non-Viking fans who think the TJ is the best option for the Vikes. And folks have all sorts of questions about Rodgers.

Just really interesting that nobody has sat back and looked at the two situations.

Of course, the truly dumbfounding situation is that Lovie Smith has had a LOT of looks at Rex and Kyle and despite the results is moving forward with those two goofs.

While also gutting his receiving corps.

You wanna talk about FASCINATING......

I'd like to sign the "no more talk about PK's ass" petition. Although the alternative might be "PK talks abour Brett Farve's ass" and that would be worse.

They gave out a huge contract to Terrence Newman, who just suffered his second injury in as many seasons that's going to probably cause him to drop in performance (he was never 100% last season, despite playing in 14 games and starting 12). I think his body is starting to break down.

Ant Henry is pretty solid, maybe above average as a corner at this point in his career but nothing special and he's aging as well.

I never thought Pacman was a top 10 corner in this league... he's flashy, athletic and gambles a lot, but he's not a very steady cover guy and he's not done anything to make me believe otherwise. Oh and he's coming off a year off from football (which has proven bad for many other players) and he hasn't even been reinstated.

The rest of the corners are rookies or young former FA rookie development guys who everyone around the team thinks are good, but none of whom are proven to do anything.

And I think Ken Hamlin did not do anything to deserve his pro-bowl nomination last season. The rest of the safeties are either named Roy Williams or more young former FA rookie development guys.

So really, a lot of the perceived strength lies in Newman being healthy and one of the young guys or Pacman actually proving to be worth something... which they haven't so far. I guess you could say I'm concerned in counting the chickens before they're hatched or what have you.

Temo- Anthony Henry doesn't have blazing speed, but he has good ball skills. He picked off 10 passes his rookie year, and had a quiet 6 interceptions last year. He is certainly an above average corner.

I agree Hamlin and Roy don't deserve probowls, but Newman is a stud when healthy.

Jeff Fisher said that Pacman Jones was the best return man he has ever seen. Even if he is an average corner, he will help improve this team.

Mike Jenkins is a highly touted pick as well.

Nobody is calling Dallas the best secondary every, but how many teams don't have problems? To call them questionable if X player gets hurt...

"who calls a place the "University at'' something, by the way?"

The school is called the State University of New York at Albany, just as all the other SUNY schools are officially called SUNY at Buffalo, SUNY at Stony Brook, etc. (depending upon where they're "at").

I would also like to sign the petition of PK not talking about his own ass, and would like to add an amendment to include ANY football player's ass. I would extend it to all asses, but what if Adriana Lima ends up in his column?

22) The NFC north not only has two unproven quarterbacks, but 4.
Has Kitna done anything of note in his career? Maybe his 8-8 season in Cincy with Palmer as a rookie, but nothing else I can think of.

The NFC North has to be the worst division by far.

"The school is called the State University of New York at Albany, just as all the other SUNY schools are officially called SUNY at Buffalo, SUNY at Stony Brook,"

True, but most NYers refer to them simply as SUNY Albany, SUNY Geneseo, SUNY Potsdam et al.

Re: 26

What has Kitna done? Started 111 games, thrown for over 25,000 yards, and 147 TDs. He is not a top-5 QB, probably not even top-10, but he is hardly unproven.

I don't know what his dvoa is, but I would bet it is at least close to average. I don't think we can say that for Grossman.

Yeah, it's not really accurate to say that Kitna is unproven. He's proven himself to be a solid starter. Not a superstar, but a guy that is near the median for starting QBs. Add his durability into the evaluation and he's even a bit higher.

The Lions clearly know what they can expect from his play. The other QBs in this division.....?

John, the NFC North would beat the NFC West most days of the week. Badger's point about the weirdness of the qb personnel decisions in the North is very good, however. It wouldn't surprise me in the least to see Childress lose his head coaching career over Tavaris Jackson, and it wouldn't suprise in the least to see somebody lose their head in Green Bay, if Rodgers stinks while the Pack wins seven games, especially if the Jets win nine while Favre plays well.

In Chicago, the pooch is getting so thoroughly screwed that the qb position is just another element to Angelo's madness. In Detroit, Millen is Millen, and more importantly, Ford is Ford, which says all that needs too be said.

#13, yep, Tavaris Jackson's decision to take a big hit, while scrambling in a preseason game, causes me to doubt him more than anything else he has done on the field in his career. QB play doesn't get any dumber than that.

Kitna is proven - he's just proven average-to-below-average. For a Detroit Lion (or for an NFC North QB) that's pretty damn good.

RE 26:

Now you're going to learn that Adriana is an avid powder puff player.

I am not Kitna fan but he is not a bad player. The guy was playing for the Lions who chose not to run the ball, would give him 5 men in protection, and would ask him to stand in the pocket while those 4 receivers got open on their moderate routes. What John Kitna was asked to do was very different than what a "game manager" was asked to do. With the Lions style of play, you would expect a player to pick up more yards, more Td's and also more interceptions ( which did happen in the past few years). The more INT's killed his dvoa, but John Kitna throwing screens in Buffalo would yield different results just as Trent Edwards throwing 35-40 times per game in Detroit would. You have to compare Edwards more to what Warner was doing in zona.

There were some games were Kitna took a beating because he had 5 lineman, a back in the backfield, and 4 receivers. The other teams would blitz him and he would get sacked and crushed like Patrick Ramsey playing under Spurrier. With 4 wide there was more potential reward, but there was also huge potential risk on getting your QB killed.

One of my main complaints about DVOA is that it doesn't take style into consideration. Kitna reading the defense and throwing and completing a 15 yard out pattern is much more difficult than Trent Edwards throwing a 1 yard screen where the back picks up 14 additional yards.

I like how Lynch, unlike a lot of veterans, eschewed more money and more playing opportunity to go to New England.

I guess throwing up in your mouth is always unpleasant, sure was after I read that. Does anyone still believe this meme anymore? I guess Asante Samuel doesn't. When you think about it though, maybe Lynch just wanted to win a ring before he retired.... oh wait.

If that one Chinese gymnast -- the one on the left of the photos of the gold medal Chinese gymnastics girls holding their medals -- is more than 12, my name is Mao Tse-Tung.

Does it occurr to PK that the best way of telling someone's age isn't always just by looking at them. Maybe they should just forget about all the vetting and scrutiny that goes into the games and simply have PK at the end of a phoneline ready to pass his judgment from 8000 miles away having watched ten minutes of floor routines on TV. Maybe they should just have given the medal to the US for looking a bit more mature at 16 than the Chinese. Anyhoo it looks like PK has a long march ahead of him.

He then goes on to praise the grace of the American women's team (which is fair enough, but not exactly a unique moment in Olympic history). I don't remember PK writing squat about the fairly big lack of class that the US mens gymnastic team showed at the last Olympics when everyone in the stadium could clearly see that the South Korean athlete had done enough to win gold, but someone had added the scores up wrong. Olympic gymnasts have mnemonic memories when it comes to points ratings for difficulty and the SK athlete was perfect, the US team must have known something was up, but still protested the attempts to award the gold to the fellow who had performed best on the day.

Re: 33

Reminds me of that old line (altered slightly) - "What are you going to believe, the Communist Chinese Government or your own lying eyes?"

From everything I've read the vetting and scrutiny (at least with regard to age) begins and ends with the kid's passport. I suppose if someone filed a protest the IOC might want a birth certificate. But if the government is willing to forge/lie on a passport, I don't think a birth certificate would be to tough.

I'm not saying the Chinese are lying (though the NYTimes has certainly found some 'inconsistencies' in the matter) just that regardless of what you or King believe, it's impossible to prove.

Does anyone still believe this meme anymore? I guess Asante Samuel doesn’t.

Asante Samuel is a young player in high demand - high enough to become the highest paid defensive player in Philadelphia's history.

John Lynch isn't in the same class at this point, and probably more importantly, he's had a long career. I don't think it's crazy to say that a vet at the endpoint of their career would choose comfort over money.

31 - the NFC North would beat the NFC West most days of the week.
Will, it would be tough to come up with a better example of damning with faint praise. You and Badger are right though when describing the NFC-N QB situation. I can't recall a time ever when only the worst team in a division had a servicable QB and the other teams' QB were unproven (or, in the case of the Bears, just sucked).

Jon Kitna has his flaws but one thing you have to admit is that he is one tough son of a b*tch. Martz tried to get the guy killed in 2007, and he stood in there week after week and took a beating. At times I thought Martz was running some bizarre experiment to see how few blockers he could use and see if Kitna still got up after the play was over.

So a priest's ass, a rabbi's ass, and PK's ass walk into a bar.... oh wait, moratorium. Damn, it was funny, too.

> "I don’t think it’s crazy to say that a vet at the endpoint of their career would choose comfort over money."

And how much more money could Lynch have made elsewhere, exactly? Maybe $500k? I agree in principle with the original commentator that these unsupported claims from the likes of a Peter King are a bit sickening. John Lynch himself spurned the Patriots' offer for the Broncos when he had the opportunity to make some real money in 2004, with the Patriots coming off a championship season at that time.

Jimmy, I don't think your version of the events in Athens is entirely accurate. The South Korean gymnast or coach didn't protest the incorrect degree of difficulty being used to score the event immediately, and to change the scoring after the competition really would have been like correcting a blown call in the end zone that occurred midway through the fourth quarter, only doing so after the game was over!

I don't think there is an American football fan anywhere who would ask that a team forfeit a game in such a manner, and I don't see why gymnasts should be held to a different standard than football players. Neither sport is like golf, where self-policing is critical to the sport. Both sports are very closely officiated, and what the officials rule is deemed final, subject to review prior to the commencement of a new exercise in gymnastics or a new play in football. I thought the people calling for Hamm to forfeit his medal were irrational.

More generally, I have problems with enjoying gymnastics in generally and girls gymnastics especially. I tend to not like sports in which subjective judging plays such a huge role, which is why I so often don't like boxing nearly as much anymore. I also don't like it when a sport has a such a small window, in terms of the age of the top-flight competitors. The fact that a 30 year old female gold medal gymnast now is about as unlikely as a 60 year old starting NFL quarterback causes me to be less interested, no matter if the Chinese gilrs are 16 or not.

42. Also, gymnastics is gay.

(j/k, but someone had to say it!)

Badger, there's a pretty good chance that the Vikings would have made the playoffs last year if Kitna had been their qb, and you are entirely correct about what Martz did to Kitna. Alex Smith's best chance at salvaging his career is to not start, or even earn the number 2 spot on the depth chart for the 49ers this year, thus avoiding the Martzian bludgeoning, get cut next offseason, and get a chance on another roster, without a constant ringing in his ears.

#42

She's certainly the exception, but a 33 year old just won silver in the women's gymnastics (link in my name).

Charlie, I'd guess the vault is the exercise where it is most likely to happen. I've never payed very close attention, but I think in the past thirtyish champions were far more common than is now the case.

45. “I have total respect for her,” the United States gymnast Shawn Johnson said. “I don’t know how she does it, how her body holds up. I’m already hurting and I’m only 16.”

Even among football players, how many 16 year olds can say something like that?

#45: And she won a gold medal in the European Championships earlier this year.

I also question Will's math, in the sense that I'm pretty sure the window for gymnastics is probably ~4-6 years on average, which is the length of an average career in the NFL.

The Olympic age rule probably cuts that window down to ~2-4 years, but that's a criticism of the Olympic rules, not the sport.

I don’t think there is an American football fan anywhere who would ask that a team forfeit a game in such a manner, and I don’t see why gymnasts should be held to a different standard than football players.

Because it's a different sport? Realistically, your argument doesn't make a lot of sense. Judgment calls that have direct effects on the outcome are relatively rare in football. They're not in gymnastics.

The analogy isn't quite apt, either. It's more like finding out that a team (accidentally) played the entire second half with a player that was initially listed as inactive, and the refs didn't catch it.

One play just doesn't have nearly the same impact. The response from the losing team in most of those cases would be "we didn't lose the game due to that one play."

(Incidentally, I find cross-sport criticism - that is, fans of one sport criticizing another sport - incredibly silly. If you don't like the sport, you don't like the sport. Don't try to rationalize why you don't like the sport. Similar criticisms could be leveled at the sport you're a fan of, so why bother?)

Badger, that is what I was getting at in post 34. Jon Kitna was one tough SOB playing in 4 wide, 5 lineman, 1 RB sets where the other team knew Kitna was throwing and had no rushing threat.

Patrick Ramsey was in a similar situation in Washington when Spurrier had him dropping back with 5 blockers and having 5 men run out for passes. He took also beating.

Pat, how's my math in saying that Super Bowl champion teams have had a greater proportion of starters older than 30, than winning World Championship and Olympic Gymnastic Teams have had team members older than 30, since gymnastics became a sport which paid well?

Pat, realistically, your criticism of of my opinion doesn't make a lot of sense. So what if judgement calls play a larger role in gymnastics? The rules specifically state that official mistakes aren't reviewable after an exercise is over. Furthermore, just like in football, a competitor's strategy, and thus the final outcome, can change in response to an official's ruling, meaning one cannot say with certainty that competitor A would have won, if official B had correctly ruled C instead of incorrectly ruled D. Or are you arguing that the gymnastics' ruling body is being irrational in putting a time limt on when judges' errors can be overturned?

Also, your analogy is far more inapt than mine, in that it supposes a violation of the rules from the beginning of the competition to the end, instead of a judge's error concerning one moment of the competition.

Incidentally, I find it incredibly silly that a person would criticize another person's reasons for preferring one aesthetic experience over another, as long as that stated perefence is rooted in measurable observation, and not contradicted by a large body of measurable observation. Thus, it would not be silly if someone were to take issue with someone's contention that they prefer coffee without sugar to coffee with sugar, because the former is too sweet.

However, to take issue with someone's stated preference for spectator sport A, to spectator sport B, due to B's outcomes being more dependent on subjective judgement, is really silly, espcially when the person taking issue has acknowledged that B's outcomes are indeed more dependent on subjective judgement.

Pat, are next going to tell me that my preference, for watching "The Godfather" to watching "Star Wars", because I like fictional stories rooted in early and mid 20th century American criminal organizations, more than fictional stories rooted in events which took place a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, is silly? Are you going to tell me that my prefrence for Rembrandt to Pollack, becasue I don't like abstract expressionism as much, is silly? How silly of you!

Of course, my coffee analogy is inapt, in that describes more correctly a sensual experience. Let me rephrase; it would not be silly to take issue with someone who contended that they preferred beach volleyball to ice hockey because he liked sports in which fights between competitors took place with some frequency. It would be silly to take issue with someone who contended that they preferred beach volleyball to ice hockey because they preferred sports in which the competitors wore bathing suits or other beach apparel.

Of course, there is a certain sub-set of the population which would pay very good money to see certain beach volleyball players in swimsuits getting into fights!

My understanding of the snafu with the gold gymnastics medal at the last olympics (or rather the way it was explained to me at the time) was that it was scored correctly in terms of they did manage to work out what the athlete had done, and there was no disagreement over it. They then added the score up wrong. The fact that the Koreans didn't immediately protest was down to them not understanding what the hell had happened.

As far as I am aware (I would happily stand corrected should a gymnastics expert present himself and explain everything) the closest analogy to a football game would be if two teams played in a superbowl and team A scored 1 TD and 2 FGs, team B scored 2 TDs and the officials cocked up the adding up and gave team A the win. Although the scoring in gymnastics is a lot more complicated.

re19
Texans play game against Saints on Saturday night. The hilgites were on the sports channels like Espn and NfLN. Bush scored a Td and M Colsont scored another one. I don't know what team won the game.

re:34
Yes, Kitna better than average fan say he is. Chris is right when he write Kitna played in crazy offense of Mike Martz. Martz didn't even like to run ball. Just make QB throw it all game long and hope he doesn;t get taken off field on stecker becaususe you know Kitna is going to get sacked in that offense. Martz didn;'t even care. Kitna should of filed for workman's comp.
J.T. Osullivan if win job going to take beating this year. Kitna will have more relaxing season.
Alex Smith if win job in SF (where Mike Martz is coaching now) will probably get injured worse than Chriss Simms got injured in 2006 game. Simms had a ruptured spleen. Smith will probably get two spleens ruptrred becausue Smith is more of a pansy than Osullivan.
Other Qb they have is Shaun Hill, but he is crappy.
He is not as tough as osullivan but ti tougher than Smith.

re43
is it gay to watch it in highdef?

Jimmy, I'm no expert, but my understanding is that the judges applied the wrong degree of difficulty; as if an official gave a team one point for a field goal, instead of three, early in the fourth quarter of a game eventualy lost by one point.

RE : The Hamm Controversy

For anyone who's interested, Wikipedia has a pretty good summary (see name link).

My summary of their summary :

1) Yang Tae Young was given an incorrect start score, which all the judges agreed on at the time.

2) However, scores must be protested before the next round of equipment under the rules. So the judges have an out.

3) However, you can't assume that Young would have won with correct scoring, since Hamm could have increased his difficulty to compensate (he went after Young and had increased his difficulty in other competitions in the same way).

4) The Wikipedia analogy is like replay being used after a basketball game to show that a 2 point basket was actually a three point shot, i.e. the points awarded were not what was attempted.

Hiarity. PK is pure hilarity. Don't take anything from Cutler of Schaub's performance, because it's the preseason. But a guy who averages a stunning 27.25 on four carries (oh, and 1.4 on the other 10 carries... but we don't talk about that) well, hot damn! get your drool buckets ready! I haven't watched Chris Johnson play, I don't know what teams he's faced or what string of defenses he's faced, I'm not knocking him. I'm just baffled that PK can be falling all over himself praising boom-and-bust performance like that, and then a page or two later pointing out (correctly) that you can't learn a damn thing from the preseason. It's just so goofy that I can't help giggling a bit.

Pat, how’s my math in saying that Super Bowl champion teams have had a greater proportion of starters older than 30, than winning World Championship and Olympic Gymnastic Teams have had team members older than 30, since gymnastics became a sport which paid well?

Your math? Not so good. NFL players don't start to become world-class competitors at 14. They start at 22-24, on average.

So you should be comparing the percentage of players older than 30 on NFL teams to percentage of players older than ~20 in gymnastics.

And while I think the NFL would win there, I don't think it's by a ton. If you look at the percentage of "30+" to "20+," (i.e. inclusive of 20) I think it might be close.

Remember, you said I also don’t like it when a sport has a such a small window. As in, "range of ages." I don't think the range of ages in gymnastics is substantially smaller than that of football. It's smaller, certainly. But not that much smaller. Maybe 75% as wide.

Pat, realistically, your criticism of of my opinion doesn’t make a lot of sense. So what if judgement calls play a larger role in gymnastics? The rules specifically state that official mistakes aren’t reviewable after an exercise is over

The rules in football say a field goal isn't reviewable, either, but when a semi-mistake was made, they conferred, and fixed it.

Besides, you're assuming I agree with the rules in gymnastics. I think it's borderline crazy that scores can't be reviewed afterwards when it's clear that they don't exactly put a heck of a lot of checks and balances into the system on the floor.

Pat, are next going to tell me that my preference, for watching “The Godfather” to watching “Star Wars”

I'm not saying your preference is silly. I never said that. I said criticizing another sport because you don't like it is silly. (I did, really. That's what it says up there. "Cross-sport criticism" not "preference of a sport." Why would I care what sport you prefer?) If you had given a bunch of reasons why "Star Wars" was stupid and "The Godfather" was so much better, I'd say "yes, you're being silly."

Criticism was meant as "a comment expressing fault" not "critical discourse."

Pat, your boss says that times are tough, and he's going to have to cut your pay.

But don't worry, the pay cut will be insubstantial... only 25%.

Pat, perhaps you can consult your dictionary, and explain how the following....

"More generally, I have problems with enjoying gymnastics in generally and girls gymnastics especially. I tend to not like sports in which subjective judging plays such a huge role, which is why I so often don’t like boxing nearly as much anymore."

....is not merely a statement regarding preference (by the way, to head off the tangent, I plead guilty to writing the word "in" where it doesn't belong). All I am saying is that I, as in me, have problems liking gymnastics, and boxing, due to the degree of subjectivity involved. If I say I don't like "Star Wars" , because I don't generally like science fiction, am I criticizing "Star Wars"?
Why are you being so silly?

Regarding other issues, neither one of us has an age distribution chart comparing champion gymnasts with champion football players, but I believe my assessment is better than yours. In any case we also differ on signifigance of a window being 75% as large. I apologize in advance for being so silly as having a preference which you interpret, in a silly fashion, as criticism.

Perhaps you can let me know whan a football team has been asked to forfeit a game after the final gun, due to a referee's error midway through the fourth quarter.

Oh, and you know what else is silly?

Threadjacking on a football site... to argue gymnastics!

#60: Wrong portion of your comment.

It's this one: I also don’t like it when a sport has a such a small window, in terms of the age of the top-flight competitors. The fact that a 30 year old female gold medal gymnast now is about as unlikely as a 60 year old starting NFL quarterback causes me to be less interested, no matter if the Chinese gilrs are 16 or not.

When I first read it, it seemed like more of a "ha ha the NFL is better" comment than it does now, but strawman exaggerations like that do tend to seem negative.

Oh, and just for amusement, Bob Costas used "truism" incorrectly yesterday on TV. Chalk another one up for linguistic change.

In any case we also differ on signifigance of a window being 75% as large.

Really?? I'd say the total variation in "window sizes" between sports is way, way bigger than ~25%.

If I might venture a guess, I'd say that it's possible the fact that the Olympics are held only every 4 years (and thus the average competitor only has one, maybe two Olympics) is a pretty big contributing factor. If Super Bowls were only held every 4 years, the short window for NFL players might seem just as significant.

#61

To be entirely fair, PK did start this one.

I just always cheer for the person arguing semantics with Will Allen.

But don’t worry, the pay cut will be insubstantial… only 25%.

I didn't say 25% wasn't substantial. It's just not that large. I could live with a pay cut of 25%, especially if the other option was getting let go.

(Seriously, do you think most people couldn't handle a 25% pay cut? Really? I couldn't when I was a grad student, but with a real job, eh, I'd manage.)

masocc, it's no more silly than Peter King's column, which, after all is the subject of the Extra Point.

Pat, I guess you'll just have to trust me when I say that when I write "I don't like it when..." or "causes me to be less interested", in regards to something with neutral moral element, like the age distribution of champions in a sport, I am expressing preference, not criticism. As to Costas, I didn't hear him, so I can neither agree or disagree with your assessment. If it is important enough for you to mention it, I'll stipulate that your assessment is correct.

Stevie, don't forget; I love you too, buddy!

Re: Manning's injury being compared to Harrison's.

The injuries were to the same parts of their body, but under different circumstances, to different degrees and with damage to the surrounding area in Marvin's case.

Rookie TE Tom Santi had the exact same condition and surgery two weeks before Peyton (Bobman suggested a conspiracy, that Santi was used as a Guinea pig). Santi was running last week and could return to practice this week.

Actually, after a bit more research, I take back the previous statement about the window for women's gymnastics. In 2004, the USA Women's Gymnastics team (which won silver) was captained by a 25 year old, and they also had a 26 year old on the roster as well. One of the Russian gymnasts (the silver all-around) was 25.

It looks like, on average, about 1-in-4 or 1-in-5 of the gymnasts are 20+. That's from averaging the first 20 or so from 2004.

So it doesn't look like the windows are that different at all. Looking at the Eagles roster, for instance, about ~9/53 are 30+, which is basically the same.

Pat, what were the ages of the youngest people on those teams? The window on the Giants last year, just for the starters, was 12 years. I think it was 11 years for the Colts the year before, about 10 years for the Steelers' championship team, and at least 13 years for the starters on the Patriots' last championship team. I wonder what the window was for the gold medal gymnastic teams in the last four combinations of Olympics and World Championships.

re43
is it gay to watch it in highdef?

Only if you're watching dudes, RaiderJoe.

I became more curious, so I looked it up; in the last three World Championships in which there was a team competition, 2007, 2006, and 2003, the age ranges of the rosters for the winning team was 6, 4, and 4 years, respectively. I'm not going to take the time to look up the 2004 Olympic Gold Medal team, or any other championship teams, but it appears that the age range of championship women's gymnastic rosters, which is a more precise definition of my colloquial use of "window", may not even be 50% as wide as champion NFL teams.

Beating this horse completely dead, the 2004 US team may have been an outlier, with a 10 year window. The gold medalist team of that Olympics, Romania, appears to have had only a two year window.

I would be disappointed if there weren't some sort of off-topic or tangential discussion in a PK thread.

I believe that I charted a couple of plays last season where the Lions used only 2 blockers. I may have miscounted, though. It might have been 1 blocker.

PK is just about completely out of touch with respect to exhibition games. (That's right, not preseason, exhibition. Exhibition exhibition exhibition.) You already get screwed into paying full price for them if you're a season-ticket holder, and now you're supposed to waste an entire evening going to the game (when you wouldn't have done so otherwise) because they have a new starter? I never met anyone here who was all excited about going to a Colts exhibition game to see Peyton play.

If you didn't know how exhibition games worked in the first place (highly unlikely if you've bought season tickets), it only takes one game to learn.

Barely related to these subjects ... it was a pleasant surprise to see Melissa Stark hosting some of MSNBC's Olympic coverage. I'm hoping she'll get an offer from a real sports channel again at some point ...

I was thinking maybe Mike Martz's offensive theories would work better in the arena league, but then I then thought maybe Martz is really yearning to run a pick up football game on the NFL level. You know, 2 hand touch, everyone goes out for a pass, count to 5 mississippi before you can rush the QB.

#72: With only ~4-5 people on a team, the age range is naturally going to be smaller if you assume something like a Landau distribution for ages, especially if you assume that the peak performance for a gymnast is ~16-18, trailing off to ~22-24.

The fact that you've got one team with a 2 year range and one team with a 10 year range pretty much shows that. The variation's just going to hop around like mad.

But looking at the age distribution from the 2004 Olympics, if you assume (note the assumption!) that 14-16 year olds are being held out for concerns other than performance, then the age distribution in gymnastics looks pretty similar to the age distribution in football.

If you had a 4 or 5 man football team, you'd end up with a much, much tighter age range as well.

Well, Pat, I'm not going to plot the age range of every championship team for the past 25 years, but I'll note that other than the 2 and 10 year outliers, the teams I cited were more bunched in the middle. In any case, I made no statement of criticism; I merely stated my prefrence for sports in which the competitors were more widely spaced in age, whatever the reason.

#76: Uh, yeah. But that's what we've been talking about. They're spaced just as far in gymnastics as they are in football, give or take a tiny amount.

Well, to be fair, they would be if FIG got rid of the age rule. If you go from "average young age" to "oldest you've ever seen", it's 14 to 33, or 19 years.

In football, that would be ~22 to 41 or so. Not sure what football's "oldest you've ever seen" should be, but it's probably 44 (Testaverde), so it wins out a tiny bit.

I think the problem is that you don't like the small age range on a single team. But then you shouldn't be making comments like "a 30-year old is less likely..." because the age distribution of the sport is ~roughly the same as football. It's just that gymnastics has smaller team sizes.

Pat, I think championship NBA teams, with rosters much closer in size to gymnatics teams, also have had a much wider range of ages on teams. This year's Celtics, for instance, probably had an age spread of thirteen or fourteen years. The Spurs championship teams of recent years also probably had a similar spread, just guessing.

Whether this is due to FIG rules or not is not something I have commented on; the rules of a sport are a good part of what goes into whether I enjoy it as much as other sports.

I apologize for engaging in hyperbole, given the consternation it has apparently caused.

PK responds in his Tuesday e-mail bag.

He seems so blinded by his man-love for Favre, that he just can't see the points his e-mailers are making.

I love Favre, but this comment was especially ridiculous:

"We'll stay home rather than experience one of the great moments in the recent history of our franchise"

The PRE season debut of a 39 year old future hall of famer is really one the greatest moments in recent Jets history.

Jets fan, it your recent history really that bad?

That's what I think is the problem. By definition, no pre-season game can possibly one of the greatest moments in a teams recent history. But because it's Favre, PK somehow think he elevates is to that status.