Peter King of Sports Illustrated appeared on the Dale & Holley show Friday morning for his weekly call-in. He jokingly took credit for Fred Taylor landing in New England, stated that he liked the Patriots in their matchup with the Ravens Sunday and filled us in on which Boston sports legend Drew Brees idolized as a kid.

Plus, hear what Peter has to say about the wheelings and dealings of the coaching carousel in the NFL.

To hear the interview click here.

Sorry about the delay, Peter, but Fred Taylor is a pretty interesting guy to talk to.

Fred is the best. I remember last year when he was unexpectedly cut by the [Jaguars], I remember calling him and talking to him about it and asking him what he was going to do and the one thing he said to me was, “You know, I really want to win.” I forget I think he is godfather to Santonio Holmes or some relation and he’s very close to Plaxico Burress and he’s seen those guys the last two years win the Super Bowl and he said, “I really want to win.” I said, “Well, jeez, you go to the Patriots or the Colts then don’t you?” I said there’s no question in my mind that the Colts would love you and I think Belichick would love you more.

He said, “Yeah, yeah.” You know we had a good talk about different teams and everything like that, but he’s the perfect fit for the Patriots. A veteran guy with a year, maybe two left if he’s used right, and, to me, the Patriots are right where they want to be with him and Sammy Morris right now. I mean with Maroney clearly in the dog house, you got two guys, two veteran guys who you would think they would be able to carve up 30 carries pretty effectively Sunday against the Ravens.

So you think you deserve the credit for Fred Taylor coming to New England.

Of course I do. I deserve credit for everything. Don’t you know that?

Let’s talk about the big game, Patriots vs. Ravens, who do you see winning and why?

I like the Patriots, not only because they’ve obviously had a lot of success playing at home in the playoffs, playing at home period. But I also think that, and this is probably going to cause more than one person to swerve off the road, I think watching the last three quarters of that game on Sunday, if you closed your eyes and just opened them and didn’t pay attention to the number, how much does Julian Edelman play like Wes Welker? And I think the answer is incredibly so. I think he looks so much like him as a player, especially the way he comes in and out of his cuts. I think the one thing he doesn’t do as well, I mean there’s probably a lot of things he doesn’t do as well, I don’t think anybody can get open underneath as well as anyone in the entire NFL as Wes Welker. But, I think the Patriots will figure a way to get him, I don’t know, 11 for 109 and they’ll just be able to move the chains with him, and I think they are just going to try and run it.

On the other side of it I think the key obviously is going to be, the Ravens have averaged 36-37 carries a game the last month. The last time they played the Patriots they only ran it 17 times. So, I think the Patriots are going to see a different team than the one that played in Foxoboro during Week 4.

The Ravens take penalties at the wrong times don’t they?

Yeah, and that’s the one thing, and I think they know it. I think it’s the one thing that Harbaugh has preached to his team, “We can’t do this and survive.” I think they probably won’t be as prone to do that right now as they have been especially when any mistake you make, and I’m sure they are harping on this, any mistake you make in a game against the Patriots could be a mistake that could lose you the game.

What do you think about the excitement over the Jets and the Cowboys?

Well, because the last football game of the season, the Jets looked like the ’67 Packers, and you know again, you are always pretty cautious of about what you ought to think about week 17, but with the first units on the field, that was an absolute pounding on Sunday night. I don’t know how much it means, but that fact is, this Jets team has run the ball very well on some good defensive teams. I’ll tell you this, if I’m the San Diego Chargers, allowing 4.5 [yards] a carry, I don’t want to see the Jets coming to town next weekend, that’s for sure. Again, I just think it’s the fact that they can run and even the fact after they lost Chris Jenkins, they’ve been able to play the run and play defense obviously pretty well.

Out of the three week 17 re-matches, the team that is in the most trouble is Philadelphia, and I’m not sure they can recover.

The thing that bothers me about that game is how, I don’t want to say poorly because he wasn’t terrible, but Donovan McNabb just played a very tepid football game I thought for a game that was so important. Do you remember one big play he made out of that game? I mean he missed downfield, he missed DeSean Jackson, he had that silly fumble around the goal line and you can see it wasn’t his fault, but gee-whiz, dive for it. It was a very uninspired game by McNabb and it’s one of the reasons why if you take a straw pole in Philadelphia today, Donovan McNabb would lose. I think they would rather see somebody else play quarterback next year, but obviously in a town like Philadelphia that will change if he puts a 24-10 win over the Cowboys on Saturday night.

Who’s the MVP of the league?

Manning. It’s funny I was with Drew Brees last night. I’m writing a story about him for Sports Illustrated this week, and we were at a table with quite a few people and I was sitting next to Brees, and the guy across the table said, “OK Peter, why did you vote for Manning for MVP?” Sometimes it’s a little bit awkward if you are sitting next to the guy who everybody else at the table thinks should be the MVP and you’ve got to state your case. I just basically said, look, I think if you look at the two teams and just look at the term value, both of them are incredible valuable, invaluable to their teams. But the three points about Manning that he has over most of the other contenders, I think he is working with a lesser unit, especially on offense. They broke in two new receivers in Austin Collie and Pierre Garcon this year. He lost Anthony Gonzalez since basically the first half of the first game, and he didn’t have Marvin Harrison the whole year. He still has a poor running game, working with a new coach, I just think there were a lot of X factors coming into this year and Peyton Manning in the games that they played like they counted goes 14-0. This is the most accurate season of his career, the second most productive in several categories. I just thought he was the MVP and taking nothing away from Brees. I know people want to vote for him, he’s terrific, and Phillip Rivers. We are not even talking about two other guys in Rodgers and Favre. You know Aaron Rodgers, I did a graphic in my column on Monday, about how you could argue that Aaron Rodgers’ first two years in the NFL collectively are better than Brett Favre’s two MVP years, or at least nearly equal. Favre, you could argue, just had the best year of his career — at least statistically he did. So, I look at all those things and I say just four or five guys, any of whom you’d vote for, and I can’t tell you you’re an idiot, but my game is Manning for the reasons I said.

Out of Manning and Brees, who is more likely to be upset in the playoffs?

I think the Saints. By the time they take the field next Saturday night to play their first playoff game it will have been 47 days since they have played a very good all-around game. That was against the Patriots on Monday Night Football. Think of all the games since then. They go to Washington and they probably should have lost that game, certainly should have lost that game, if the kicker makes a chippy. They then go to Atlanta and struggle mightily and win, and then they lose to Dallas, they lose to Tampa at home, and then they don’t play anyone in Carolina. It’s basically going to be a long time since they played well.

You know the Colts, to me, if I’m the Colts I want the Jets to come to town, we’ll see if they do. But I think the Colts handle the Jets or the Colts fairly easily.

Did this dinner go well with Drew Brees?

I mean look. You’ve got to be able to have your opinions, and you’ve got to be able to talk open with the guys. You know what the funniest things last night, I won’t say funny, but you guys are aware that Drew Brees didn’t play against Carolina, and while sitting set the record for the all-time most accurate season at quarterback ever had.

He wasn’t Ted Williams trying to hit .400, that’s for sure.

You’re not going to believe this. So, I didn’t know this until we talked about it last night at length. I could tell, and I told him about it that a lot of people wrote to me and sent Twitter messages to me and said, “Boy, this guy is no Ted Williams.” And he just sort of shook his head and got this kind of sick look on his face. He goes, “I’ve idolized Ted Williams. Why do you think I wear the number 9? I wear the number 9 because of Ted Williams. When I was a kid I watched a video of great hitters and I was a left-handed hitter, he was a left-handed hitter. There was just a lot of reasons why I really liked him.”

When Sean Payton told him after they had clinched everything that he wasn’t going to play against Carolina, so then he started to realize after he was told he had the record, he said, “Oh my God. Ted Williams would really not think well of me by sitting here.”

He definitely wanted to play in the game. He knows, he told me chapter and verse about Sept. 28, 1941. Williams coming in hitting .3995 or whatever it was, and he knew the entire story, and playing both ends of the double-header going 6-for-8, hitting .406, and he’s memorized it. He’s a little sick about setting this record when the guy he idolized as a kid growing up was Ted Williams.

Explain the Charlie Weis-Romeo Crennel in Kansas City and the non-firing in Cleveland.

In Kansas City I think there was a lot of thought that this was a Scott Pioli hire. But when Pioli hired Todd Haley, look the coaching staff is yours, I want to know who you are hiring but you have to work with the guy everday, I don’t. You have to make a call with conviction, so you want a guy you can have him. So this was Todd Haley’s hire, and one of the reasons is when Charlie Weis was an assistant with the Jets, Bill Parcells told him one day, “Hey listen, I’m putting this kid in your office Todd Haley, Dick Haley’s son and he’s going to try to learn the ropes and maybe be a quality control guy, blah blah blah.” So for three years Todd Haley had a desk in Charlie Weis’ office at Hofstra. Bill Belichick I’m sure remembers this because he was there. That’s how Todd Haley broke into the NFL being taken up the wing of Charlie Weis. So when he had the opportunity to hire somebody who he knew that he could have arguments with, could fight with and have good fruitful discussions on how to work on offense, his first guy that he was interested in was Charlie Weis. Now, I was kind of surprised. I thought what was going to happen was that John Fox was going to leave Carolina and go somewhere and that John Fox would hire Charlie because John and Charlie have gotten to be fairly close. But, it didn’t happen because I believe John Fox is going to stay in Carolina, and I think this was (Weis’) best opportunity to take Matt Cassel and teach him the same way he taught Tom Brady.

With the special teams struggling will Bill Belichick be making a call to Bobby April, maybe one of the best special teams coach in the NFL?

I think he’s going to be one of these guys who, if I were Bobby April, I probably would wait a little while before I made a decision. I have no idea if Bill would be interested in him, I would think he would have to be. But, the fact is, this guy is the best special teams coach. I have very high regard for him, everybody does. He is going to make some money somewhere, and I think that is an interesting thought. I have no idea if it will happen, Dale, but it is an interesting thought.

Michael you asked me about Mangini.

I was going to remind you.

This is what really happened with Mangini, I think. There’s a couple of parts to that story. I’m not sure there is a coach out there right now, with Andy Reid coaching the Eagles and re-signing, and with Jon Gruden off the market because he is going to be working for ESPN at least one more year. I don’t think there is a coach on the market that Mike Holmgren was in love with. I think the other thing, just look at reality. The reality is: A. You owe the guy three years. He had the first four game winning-streak for the franchise in 15 years. The players in the locker room have gone from a little bit of a rebellion to we kind of would like to have this guy back. We are OK with him right now. And I think on the other side, this is about the only momentum the Browns have had in years. They have Mike Holmgren in the building now, there is nobody out there that Holmgren loves, and I think the last straw in this was Holmgren believing that Brian Bable, the offensive coordinator could be a guy to either teach, install the West Coast Offense or adopt tenets of it to work with, so Holmgren could see him in action and then make a judge of it after a year of how he runs his offense. I don’t think this is a finished product in any way, shape or form, and I think it’s possible in a year Holmgren goes looking for Jon Gruden. But, we’ll see what happens. It’s all in Mangini’s hands.

Are the head coach firings done or is Al Davis going to dispatch Tom Cable?

There’s are lot of mixed signals coming out there, but I can tell you two things. I believe that Al Davis is going to have to have a coach in place who gives JaMarcus Russell another chance and probably gives JaMarcus Russell another chance without Paul Hackett, the quarterback coach. Because Hackett thinks that JaMarcus Russell is borderline hopeless. I would think that there is going to be a new quarterbacks coach and the coach next year, even though this team has thrown money at JaMarcus Russell, they’ve got $39 million income including the money he’s due next year. Al Davis does not want to give up a guy after paying him $39 over three years. So the new coach or this coach has to say, “OK, we are going to give JaMarcus another chance.” Unless Tom Cable has some extreme change in attitude, I don’t think he wants to do that. So we’ll see what happens but I think the Raiders are going to make a change.

What do you think Mike Shanahan sees in this opportunity that I don’t see?

Contractual wording that gives him more control of the roster than any other coach under [Dan] Snyder. Also, a very tough guy in Bruce Allen, I’m not saying he’s the man of steel or anything like that, but Bruce Allen is not afraid to say to anyone, “Hey, this is the way it’s going to be. This is the way you told us it was going to be.” My feeling is you have a penitent owner, who after 10 years, who told me two or three weeks ago, “I’ve made a lot of mistakes and I’m letting Bruce Allen have the final say on this coach.” At that time they all knew they were getting Shanahan. The bottom line is that I think Shanahan will have final say over this roster, and I’m convinced that, talking to people in Washington in the organization, they are not going to attempt to win the championship of March the way they have in the past. If Mike Shanahan wants Albert Haynesworth, they’ll go out and break the bank for him. If he doesn’t want him or thinks they should spend their money elsewhere, Dan Snyder is not going to deposit Albert Haynesworth on his doorstep and say deal with it.