Peter King, Championship Sunday

King breaks down yesterday's Championship games.

[A] few words on what we saw last night in the Baltimore-Pittsburgh Texas Cage Match. This is now officially the best rivalry in football. It just passed New England-Indianapolis in my book. The thing is, it's a little bit like the running of the bulls in Pamplona, or Balboa-Creed. I'm not sure how often I want to see it. I'm afraid someone's going to get maimed.

[Sorry. Last night's game was unwatchable. It took forever to play (thanks to a discouraging number of injury timeouts and multiple lengthy replay reviews), there were five combined turnovers, dropped passes (followed by Sweed acting injured), stupid penalties (wasn't that "roughing the punter" penalty the ultimate irony compared to the rest of the absurdly violent game?), multiple players leaving with concussions, and Willis McGahee's near paralysis. That wasn't the *best* anything.]

If I'm Larry Fitzgerald or Kurt Warner, I'm saying a prayer the night before the Super Bowl. First, to give great thanks for one of the more incredible ascensions to a conference title ever. And second, to humbly ask, "Please do not let me get killed out there."

[Fitzgerald irony alert!]

I'm one of 44 voters for the Hall of Fame, and I could well be in the vast minority on this. But Warner, at this point, even with the victory over the Eagles, making him the second quarterback in NFL history (Craig Morton, Denver and Dallas) to quarterback different teams in the Super Bowl, is not yet a Hall of Famer to me. The reason, mostly, is longevity.... It comes down to this: Do five outstanding years make a Hall-of-Fame career?

[I guess not, according to King.]

In essence, five great years got Gale Sayers into the Hall of Fame, and I supported that.

[(nodding)]

I think the Ravens are going to have to pay Ray Lewis. I know he's 33, and a 13-year vet, and logic says you don't pay someone really big money at that stage of his career, but how about $15 million to sign, and a three-year deal with low base salaries -- say, totaling $9 million? He made as many heart-and-soul plays as anyone playing this weekend on the defensive side of the ball, and I think he must be rewarded.

[Nice. Anytime you start an arugment with "logic says X, but...," you know you are on the right track. This is the "Benjamin Button" approach to running a sports franchise. The player gets older and presumably less productive, but his subsequent contracts remain high-priced (or increases in value) because the team wants to retroactively "reward" the player for past performance. Good luck with that.]

The Arizona crowd sounded important over the TV.

[Huh?]