Coming to you live from the East Orange Ramada -- and in proper Peter King form -- here are 10 things I learned tonight at the Dr. Z benefit event.
1) Dr. Z looks good. He's completely aware and alert, and according to his wife has made amazing progress in physical therapy. Unfortunately, he still can't speak -- if any of you have relatives who have had a bad stroke, you know that sometimes the words just get completely scrambled between brain and vocal cords. (Aphasia, although Dr. Z's problem is solely creating speech, not understanding it.) From what I gather, much of the money raised tonight will go towards some intense speech therapy.
2) Adam Schefter is still alive. Apparently, he is hiding in Dick Cheney's undisclosed location until his new ESPN contract kicks in, but he came out of hiding tonight to be on a panel with myself, Sal Paolantonio, and K.C. Joyner.
3) Everybody believes that Brett Favre to the Vikings is a done deal.
4) Secret reason why Brett Favre might want to sign with Vikings: Brad Childress has shocking comedy skills. Unable to attend, he sent in a little video of him goofing off and begging Dr. Z for a mock draft so he would know who to pick. It's hard to describe how funny Childress was without actually watching it yourself.
5) Best exchange during the question-and-answer with the two New York coaches (or as close as I can remember):
Questioner: "I'm a Jets fan, and listen, I love that Mark Sanchez is able to throw the ball deep, but don't we need somebody to go catch it?"
Rex Ryan: "Well, we happen to feel..."
Questioner: "Wait, I have a second part also. What's up with Vernon Gholston?"
Rex Ryan: "Ummm..." (pause) "Let's see if I can answer that first question."
6) In his answer to this question, Ryan was very high on David Clowney as the Jets' deep threat in 2009.
7) Best question asked of the coaches: Female journalism student who asked Rex Ryan about rumors that the Jets are interested in Plaxico Burress. With Tom Coughlin sitting right there next to him, of course. Coach Coughlin was silent on the issue with a cheshire cat grin.
8) While lots of people are talking about Michael Vick, there actually don't seem to be teams that are really interested in him. The one rumored dark horse: Believe it or not, the Patriots -- not as a backup quarterback, but more as a Wildcat-type weapon. The Patriots have spent a lot of time this offseason trying to find their own response to the Wildcat, and were also very interested in drafting Percy Harvin.
9) Coolest attendee: Yogi Berra. Really!
10) The 18-game season is coming. It is really just a question of what the owners will have to give the players association to get them to agree to it. All the owners feel the money is there to be taken. Dick Ebersol of NBC Sports was also in attendance and was nice enough to talk a little bit about the television outlook on the longer season. As he pointed out, the money that is there to be made per week is not the same if you stretch the regular season into January, because the big advertising season is over after Christmas. Adding two more games doesn't equal 9/8ths the income. On the other hand, January basically gives the NFL a captive audience in the Midwest and Northeast. The NBA, NHL, and NASCAR are not happy about the prospects of an NFL season that extends into the third week of February.
The whole thing was very cool and Peter King was pretty amazing to put it all together.