Ten Things I Think I Think

Shaun Alexander might be the odd-man-out in Seattle with the Seahawks' recent signings of Julius Jones and T.J. Duckett. AP

MAILBAG Peter King will answer your questions each week in Monday Morning Quarterback: Tuesday Edition. Your name: Your e-mail address: Your home town: Enter your question:

1. I think the sad lesson Seattle GM Tim Ruskell learned from the Shaun Alexander signing two years ago (eight years, $62 million) is that despite the MVP award on the running back's mantel, you simply do not pay a 29-year-old back for past glory. If you have to take heat from the fans, you take it. It's going to end up being about $25 million that the 'Hawks committed to Alexander, including dead money from 2008, once he's cut.

2. I think if the Raiders pay DeAngelo Hall in the range of $9 million a year, they will officially be Daniel Snyder West. Ask opponents if Hall is a premier corner. I did over the weekend, promising anonymity. Got this text from an offensive coach on an NFC South staff: "Avg w flash & big play ability. Don't know how good he wants to be. Classic Oakland. Does have ability tho.''

One defensive assistant told me: "He's above average, but he sees himself as elite. This leads to problems.''

At least Asante Samuel was a major contributor to a three-time Super Bowl team before he got his payday. Hall's not as consistent, and a streaky corner can be a dangerous corner. If the Raiders pay Hall in the Samuel-Nate Clements league, I will have no idea why, other than they'd be paying star money to an immature kid for potential.

3. I think I like the Eugene Wilson signing by the Bucs because they haven't taken on much risk. Wilson's been hurt (ankle, groin, hamstring) too much the past two years -- only 10 combined starts -- to make real money, and he's probably better suited to play safety at this point in his career. But the Bucs paid a one-year, $1.8-million price for him to try to earn a starting corner spot -- failing that, perhaps the nickel role. Monte Kiffin will find a spot for Wilson, if he's healthy.

4. I think I love the signing of Dan Klecko to be a fullback in Philadelphia. He's got the perfect temperament and physicality for it. I like how Andy Reid's thinking on this one. It's not the biggest move of the year, but if it helps keep the quarterback -- Donovan McNabb or Kevin Kolb -- cleaner than they were last year, it's a good piece of a 53-piece puzzle to help build the best team you can build.

5. I think there's one thing left about the Brett Favre retirement that I'd like to leave you with, with a little perspective after the fact. There's nothing sinister about it. There's no resentment of GM Ted Thompson and his action/inactions in the last couple of months, particularly as it pertains to trying to acquire Randy Moss. There's no anger toward anyone with the Packers for not aggressively courting Favre to get him to play one more year.

The one little nugget I didn't post last week when I wrote about Favre's phone message to me the day the news broke was an aside from Favre about how, seemingly, the news got out that there may have been some ulterior motive behind the retirement. He traced it to his close friend and career-long agent, Bus Cook. "Bus is a lot like my Dad. Sometimes he says things he probably shouldn't have,'' Favre said.

You should know that Favre always will think Thompson was dead wrong about not dealing for Moss when he had the best shot of any team in the league to do so on draft weekend 2007. That will never change. But did any of that factor into his decision? Nope.

You should, by the way, remember one more point about Moss, and about his talks with the Eagles. Philly would have had to pay Moss significantly more per year to get him over the Patriots, because, contrary to some of the stuff out in the press in the days after Moss re-signed with New England, Moss was always going back to New England. That is as long as the price the Pats were willing to pay was at least 75 or 80 percent of what he could have squeezed out of some team. And $9 million a year, exactly what the Pats paid for Moss, is probably right at the breaking point for both sides -- it's enough for Moss, who could have gotten a little more in Philadelphia, and it's fair for the Patriots.

I'm one who believes that Moss, once the Patriots got to their number, was never going anywhere else unless "anywhere else'' offered a sick sum, like $15 million a year. Moral of the story, as I see it: Moss did what he said he'd do, which is put a huge premium on playing with a great team and a great quarterback. Had he chosen the Eagles for $2 million a year more, we'd have had all the proof we needed that he's a phony. He's not.

Whatever you want to say about the guy after his wayward years in Oakland (and I've ripped him plenty for how he dogged it there), he said all along he wanted to play with a great quarterback on a premier team, and if the Patriots were in the same ball park, he'd stay. That's precisely what happened.

6. I think the one interesting thing I have left over in my notebook from Afghanistan concerns Pat Tillman. I spoke with some Army Rangers -- not from his platoon, but from one in Kandahar -- who didn't sound very reverential about Tillman. The feeling in the room the night we met with the Rangers was twofold.

They thought he was crazy to leave pro football to serve in the military, though they appreciated it. And once he entered the service, it grated on them that he was treated like a celebrity, in life and in death. "If he dies, he dies, and he's a soldier, just like the rest of those who died,'' one of the Rangers said. "I respect what he did, but once he enlisted, he's the same as everyone else.''

Now, it's easy to feel, sitting here in the United States, that Tillman's one of the great American heroes of our generation. But the resentment from guys who did the same job as he did (and they've done it longer, with several of these guys on their second and third tours of duty) is understandable. Many of these fellows wore a silver bracelet commemorating a dead member of their platoon, killed in combat, and their resentment comes in part from the fact that no one knows this kid's name, and he's just as dead as Tillman.

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