Peter King

Sports Illustrated’s Peter King joined the Dale & Holley show for his weekly visit to talk about all things NFL including the downfall of Josh McDaniels, whether the Jets should be worried about Mark Sanchez and how hard it is to vote for receivers for the Hall of Fame.

King said that the Patriots win over the Jets solidified their place as the top team in the league, and also reinforced concern about Sanchez. “The one lesson I take from that game,” King said. “Sanchez really worries me [now].”

About the Patriots, King said, “They’re the best team in football right now. With all due respect to Atlanta and Green Bay and whoever else, Chicago, I don’t know how you watch them in recent weeks [physically handle] the Steelers. I’ve been so, so impressed by them, especially this past week. I’m ripping Sanchez but the Patriots had something to do with that too. I just think they’re rounding into the kind of shape you need to be rounding into in December.”

More highlights from the interview are after the jump.

On the firing of Josh McDaniels:

The last straw wasn’t really spygate. The last straw was he was trying to save Steve Scarnecchia’s skin. I believe that fervently from talking to several people very close to this story that he did not order this, that he was trying to bury it so Scarnecchia’s pro NFL career wouldn’t be ruined, which it is. Be that as it may, losing to the Rams and playing feebly on offense against Kansas City, having at least 85-90 percent of their ticket holders and fans being adamantly opposed to McDaniels staying, it was a decision Pat Bowlen felt he had to make now.

In 1993, if you’re in Cleveland people were thinking about Bill Belichick the exact same way that they’re thinking about Josh McDaniels in Denver. I’m not suggesting that he’s going to be Belichick some day, or anything like that, I’m simply saying that he reminds me from being around him an awful lot of Bill Belichick. Just in his intelligence, his approach to the game, thinking four steps ahead. And just like Belichick in 1993 in Cleveland, he was lousy at handling the other third to 50 percent of the job; the public side, the media side, the internal in the building side. He was lousy at that. It showed. He had no power base, he built up no big allies in the building.

Josh will get another job in the NFL and I think he’ll do a good job and he’ll have learned a lot from this one.

On Peyton Manning and the Colts:

There’s basically going to be an AFC South championship game next Sunday in Indianapolis between Jacksonville and the Colts. Right now I think Jacksonville is better on both lines, more solid on both lines than the Colts. The Colts [Thursday] night, obviously they stopped the bleeding and they needed to desperately. I think they’re going to be good enough on offense, my question is they gave up 28 points last night to a team that hadn’t scored a touchdown in three games.

Manning’s going to have to score in the 30s for them to win any significant games the rest of the year.

What has made the Bears so successful?

Special teams and defense and Mike Martz’s realization that this is a different animal he’s coaching and he can’t drop back seven steps and have Jay Cutler survey the field. He’s going to get killed. He literally just won’t last. I think those three things have combined to overcome a terrible offensive line and one that needs about three new pieces.

I think the Patriots on Sunday will be smart enough to keep the ball away from Devin Hester. This strikes me as a game that will be fairly low-scoring game and a game that could be decided by one special teams play. You don’t want to let Devin Hester make that play.

How will the weather impact the game?

I’m sure Cutler is going to be prepared and it won’t freak him out too much. I obviously like [Tom] Brady in a game like this. I just think he’s probably going to make fewer mistakes in a game like this, especially in a game where it’s going to be really important for your receivers to be exactly where they’re supposed to be. I just trust Brady to make fewer mistakes in a game where 40 percent completion percentage could well win.

Will the Jets have a hangover from the Patriots loss?

I think it already has had a little bit of a hangover. To be a great quarterback in New York, you’ve got to be a great quarterback in weather. On a windy night down on the field, he failed miserably. I think it has to has to have had something to do with the weather. I thought he tried to make throws like it was an October day in Green Bay where maybe it was chilly, maybe a little windy but he going to throw his passes the way he always threw them. He didn’t account for the wind. A bad game for Mark Sanchez.

In his first five games of the year he threw no interceptions. His last seven games of the year he’s thrown eleven. All of a sudden Rex Ryan was worried enough to call him down to the office. Sanchez is so much more important to them now because their pass rush stinks. If you don’t have a pass rush you got to think that going into a game against Tom Brady you might have to outscore them and that’s the only way they would have a chance.

The one lesson I take from that game, Sanchez really now worries me.

As a Hall of Fame voter, what’s the most difficult part of evaluating receivers?

We can’t decide what a Hall of Fame receiver is. My feeling is they are going to be so many guys from this period, not only receivers but tight ends. Right now I consider Shannon Sharpe to be a no-doubt Hall of Fame tight end. I vote for him every year. Having said that, I’m not just going to look at his numbers – 815 catches – and say OK that’s my line of demarcation. That’s my 500 home runs, like in baseball. That’s not it. You have to determine what a guy did and the teams he was on and how much he helped his teams. I look at Shannon Sharpe, his 815 catches, a passable but not great blocker, and a guy who was on teams that won 12 consecutive playoff games. He was very valuable to his team.

Let’s look at wide receivers for a second. The problem I’m going to have when these guys get old and start retiring, you’ve got Isaac Bruce, you’ve got Andre Reed, you’ve got Tim Brown, you’ve got Cris Carter, you’ve got Marvin Harrison, you’re going to have Reggie Wayne. In my opinion, it’s foolish based on the logjam at other positions – Charles Haley, Richard Dent, Dermontti Dawson, there’s a lot of great players knocking at the door. You’ve got to determine with these guys what criteria do you use. I just feel you’ve got to use the eye test.

The eye test tells me Cris Carter is the best boundary receiver I’ve ever seen. He had great hands, he was a touchdown machine for a while, I think he deserves to be in. So I advocate for him. I don’t advocate for Andre Reed. I’ve had a lot of discussions with Bill Polian about over the years. I just thought he was a complimentary piece who doesn’t strike me, despite his numbers, as a Hall of Fame football player. Those are individual decisions we all have to come to. It’s not easy. I’m not saying I’m right and somebody else is wrong. It’s maddening at the receiver position.