FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Monday, July 26th, 2021
PETER KING OUTLINES OPTIMISM IN BUFFALO & CLEVELAND AND DISCUSSES NFL VACCINATIONS IN THIS WEEK’S “FMIA” COLUMN
“Crazy to think a 10-win season with an early playoff out would be disappointing, but that’s where these teams are. They’re not better than the best team in the AFC, Kansas City, but they’re close.” – King on the Bills and Browns
“This year, the gloves are off. There’s a vaccine, and if you’re not going to take it, your football life will either be much harder than the 80-plus percent of vaxxed players, or it will be extinct.” – King on the NFL’s plan for unvaccinated players
“The smartest thing here would be a compromise – Green Bay getting one more year out of Rodgers then guaranteeing him a trade next March.” – King on Aaron Rodgers and the Packers
STAMFORD, Conn. – July 26, 2021 – Peter King previews the optimism in Buffalo and Cleveland heading into the 2021 season and discusses NFL vaccinations in this week’s edition of Football Morning in America, available now exclusively on NBCSports.com. King also outlines scenarios for Aaron Rodgers and the Packers and discusses Deshaun Watson’s situation in Houston.
The following are highlights from this week’s edition of Football Morning in America:
BUFFALO & CLEVELAND
King: “I do not remember a time when Lake Erie football was this anticipated, coming off the combined Buffalo-Cleveland record of 27-10 last year, coming off playoff victories for both…Crazy to think a 10-win season with an early playoff out would be disappointing, but that’s where these teams are. They’re not better than the best team in the AFC, Kansas City, but they’re close.”
Cleveland guard Joel Bitonio to King on the state of the Browns: “Fairly incredible. It wasn’t that long ago that I went three years without winning a football game…The NFL is built for parity, and now it feels like we’ve got the coaches and front office who have a plan behind every move they make.”
Current Bills and former Browns safety Jordan Poyer to King: “Both places live and breathe football. Buffalo’s a little crazier. I mean, you got people tailgating all weekend, jumping on tables on Saturday with the game 24 hours away. You really don’t understand till you get here. These people are NUTS.”
Browns General Manager Andrew Berry to King: “It’s always cool when you have rabid fans and franchises with rich traditions turning it around. It’s good for the league…The reality of it is we’re both still chasing Kansas City.”
King on keys for the Bills this season: “Can the Bills’ good chemistry survive the adamantly anti-vax stance of a couple of players, including the outspoken Cole Beasley? And will the constant probing, inside and outside the team, poke holes into the Bills’ solidarity.”
King on the Browns: “In Cleveland, can Baker Mayfield take the next step and improve his 62.8-percent accuracy – the way Josh Allen became a more accurate passer to key the Bills Offense last year?”
King: “We’ll know the AFC power structure before the first pitch of the World Series – at least involving KC, Cleveland and Buffalo. Cleveland is at Kansas City in Week 1, Buffalo at KC in Week 5…Whatever happens, Cleveland (if Mayfield is as consistent as he was the last half of 2020) and Buffalo look built to last, with explosive offenses and solid defenses.”
VACCINATIONS
King: “There are three teams, at least, in the NFL as of this morning that are in the upper 90s in percent of players vaccinated, with zero unvaccinated coaches and key team staff members. In this day and age, that seems incredible, to have maybe one to four holdouts on a 90-man roster, given where we are with vaccines in this country. But the reason is not hard to figure out.”
King on the NFL’s COVID plan: “Last year, the NFL and the players union empathized with the hardships and never mentioned the F word. Forfeit. This year, the gloves are off. There’s a vaccine, and if you’re not going to take it, your football life will either be much harder than the 80-plus percent of vaxxed players, or it will be extinct.”
Agent Drew Rosenhaus to King on vaccines: “I have players adamant they won’t get the vaccine. They just don’t want to be told what to do. I think there will be players who decide they don’t want to play because of this issue.”
Agent David Canter to King: “If you’re on the street, and unless you were really good last year but got injured, you will not get signed by an NFL team. GMs are already losing their minds over the vaccine, and they’re not going to take [marginal] players who won’t get the shot.”
King: “Several people in the league think the key is to be patient…The worst thing to do to convince strong-willed players to get vaccinated is to browbeat or threaten them. So the NFL is still determined to play the long game.”
King: “The NFL, one official told me, is hopeful that with all teams reporting no later than Tuesday, the reality will set in and the unvaccinated will realize they’ll be second-class citizens. As angry as some players will be about it, the league hopes the disadvantages of being unvaxxed will sway enough players so that most or all teams will have herd immunity.”
King: “On Friday, the NFL’s medical director, Dr. Allen Sills, said 80 percent of all players were either fully vaccinated or were one shot in, nine teams had at least 90 percent of the players vaccinated, and only five teams were at less than 70 percent.”
Sills on the vaccine: “I think that this is truly one of the most remarkable scientific achievements of our lifetime. I mean, I’m old enough to remember us landing a man on the moon and that was an incredible culmination of so much work and effort on so many people. To me, this is equally impressive in an altogether different way because you had so many people around the world who worked on the development of these vaccines.”
RODGERS AND WATSON
King on Aaron Rodgers and the Packers: “The smartest thing here would be a compromise – Green Bay getting one more year out of Rodgers then guaranteeing him a trade next March, Rodgers buying his freedom by working in Green Bay for six more months. Rodgers doesn’t want to do that, but if the alternative is the Pack freezing him out of football in 2021, maybe he considers it.”
A friend of Aaron Rodgers to King on his contract situation: “(Rodgers) knows he’ll make up whatever he loses this year on the back end, in future years.”
King on a possible trade scenario for the Packers: “Denver gets Rodgers. Green Bay gets: First-round picks in 2022 and 2023, quarterback Drew Lock (two years and a potential option year left on his rookie deal), wide receiver Jerry Jeudy (three years and a potential option year left on his rookie deal).”
King on Deshaun Watson: “Multiple reports Sunday said Watson will report to Texans camp, evading the $50,000-a-day fine. The Texans would have the distraction-avoiding option of not having Watson on the practice field or in the public view.”
King on the Texans: “It makes no sense for (Texans) GM Nick Caserio to trade Watson when his value is diminished today; he needs to wait till whatever happens legally with Watson, and when the likely NFL sanction of Watson is meted out. When Watson’s fate is known, that’s when a team should trade for him.”
King on the Eagles and Watson: “Philadelphia’s the most logical target – and I’d argue that acquiring their next quarterback would be smarter next March than it is now. Maybe Jalen Hurts has a stunningly great year and the Eagles think they’ve got their quarterback of the future. Maybe the Eagles will be in position with three first-round picks to sit and take their next quarterback in the draft or trade up for him. Or maybe they’re in the best position of any team in the league to deal for Watson.”
King on young AFC Quarterbacks: “The AFC is deeper in young quarterbacks than it’s ever been—and that included the Marino-Elway era in the mid-nineties. Think of it: (Patrick) Mahomes, Lamar Jackson, Josh Allen, Watson (an AFC-er for now), (Joe) Burrow and Justin Herbert are 25 or younger. Amazing.”
Read the full FMIA column here and catch the weekly Peter King Podcast here.
A new “Football Morning in America” posts every Monday morning exclusively on NBCSports.com through the NFL season. It was announced in May 2019 that King signed an exclusive agreement with NBC Sports Group that included writing a weekly Monday morning NFL column for NBCSports.com; making regular appearances on PFT Live with Mike Florio; and continuing to contribute to Football Night in America, the most-watched studio show in sports.
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