The last guy standing in for Peter King during his four-week vacation from the MMQB column (but did he grow a mustache in order to take a vacation from himself?) is Saints coach Sean Payton, who wrote the thing from his own vacation.
And it shows.
No offense, Sean. But it’s a rambling series of blurbs, with only random superficial insights and scattered attempts at semi-humor.
(Uh-oh. Payton is angling for my job.)
He points out that, each year, the playoffs feature four to six teams that didn’t qualify the prior season. (Actually, last year the number was seven -- with five new teams in the NFC alone.) And while Payton wisely doesn’t tap the Saints as one of the teams to crash the postseason party in 2009, he thinks the Jets will make it.
Payton also takes a little slap at NFL Network for failing to seal the deal with Jon Gruden, who jumped to ESPN before formalizing his Thursday Night Football contract with the league-owned broadcast outlet, and Payton offers to have defensive ends Will Smith and Charles Grant climb Mt. Rainier in lieu of serving four-game suspensions to start the season.
Bottom line, Sean. Don’t quit your day job. Until the day before you sense that you’ll be getting fired from it.