Brett Favre and the enigmatic Warren Sapp retired on the same day and may enter the Hall of Fame together in August 2013. 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:

7. I think the media world may have just gained an excellent analyst. That's what Trent Dilfer will be if he decides he's had enough in the wake of the 49ers cutting him Thursday. Though he never played well enough to justify the Bucs taking him high in the first round -- he started only four full NFL seasons, and never had a 3,000-yard or 60-percent-passing season -- he was an excellent teammate and good mentor to young quarterbacks such as Matt Hasselbeck and Alex Smith. The game will miss him, but I have a feeling a year from now, if he's done, he'll be the best up-and-coming ex-player in a TV gig.

8. I think if I were you, I would be concerned about a labor dispute in this sport sometime in the next three years. Very concerned. When the league holds its annual meeting in Palm Beach beginning March 29, the sabers will be unsheathed and they'll begin to rattle.

9. I think I owe makeup kudos to Warren Sapp and Sean Landeta, who officially announced their retirements this month. Both made it fun to cover football and were among the best of their generation at their respective positions. Sapp's got a Hall-of-Fame shot, but it'll be tough for Landeta, despite lasting longer than any pro football punter ever; his first game was the first game in USFL history.

10. I think these are my non-football thoughts of the week:

a. Cost of Being a Journalist Dept.: The Newark Star-Ledger reported that the call girl at the center of the Eliot Spitzer sex scandal grew up in the lively Jersey shore town of Belmar. This is what the paper reported Friday about a fact-finding trip to Belmar: "A man who answered the door at the family home in Belmar last night declined to comment and spit at a reporter.''

b. Keep your head down, Mike McGuire.

c. Wade Miller. Bartolo Colon. In other words, New England, don't get your hopes up.

d. Here's the great thing about the NHL playoff race these days: For once, every game is ridiculously important. The other night, New Jersey skated early in the third period in Minnesota, trailing 3-2, with 86 points. That was good for fifth in the Eastern Conference playoff standings, behind three teams with 87 points and a division leader, Carolina, with 81.

The Devils tied the game and won in a shootout. In the span of one hour, they went from fifth place -- a road-disadvantaged team through the playoffs, most likely -- to first, and the team with home-ice advantage through three rounds of conference playoffs. Obviously, that could change a lot in the last 10 games of the regular season, but it shows how competitive the hockey's going to be in the next three weeks.

e. Speaking of winter sports, by the way, I heard Charles Barkley tell Mike and Mike on ESPN radio the other day that his top four NBA MVP candidates would be Kobe Bryant (his winner), LeBron James, Tracy McGrady and Chris Paul. And I thought: The Celtics go from 24 wins last year to 52 this year (with 17 games left) -- they've won four more games than any team in basketball -- and it's obviously a direct result of the Kevin Garnett acquisition. I don't care what the stats say, MVP is about who impacts his team the most and leads his team to heights it wouldn't have reached without him. How do you not have Garnett in your top four?

f. Coffeenerdness: Arizona receiver Larry Fitzgerald was determined last Tuesday to make his 12:40 p.m. flight to South America (via Dallas) to begin a three-week vacation to Chile, Argentina, Brazil and Peru. He was also pressing to get his restructured contract signed before departing.

Aware that the negotiations would go right to the wire, Arizona VP Rod Graves went to the airport while wrapping up the final details with Fitzgerald's agent by phone. Once approval came, Graves and Fitzgerald were in the Terminal 3 Starbucks at Sky Harbor Airport. He signed the contract with minutes to spare -- and he made his flight, barely.

g. Old-fashioned baseball? Maybe that's what Ty Cobb would call sliding into second base, spikes up so high they puncture the fielder's leg above the knee. But what Shelley Duncan did last week was dirty. A hard slide is one thing. Sliding with your spikes three feet off the ground ought to get you suspended for a week. MLB whacked him for three days. To me, it's not a very severe message to send before a season in which the combatants (and I use that word literally) play 18 times.

h. Just finished The Appeal, John Grisham's latest gem, and two things occurred to me. One: I really love Grisham. I've read every book of his, except one -- Playing for Pizza, the short one about an aging NFL quarterback who finishes his career playing in Italy. Actually, I read 50 pages, but I couldn't get past how wildly unrealistic the whole thing was.

Two: The Appeal was so good and so compelling because Grisham showed us a side of the legal process we don't think about very much, if at all -- how it's possible to mess with the election of judges. And he showed the grave consequences that can happen with something as seemingly irrelevant to most of us as a state Supreme Court can be compromised. Fascinating.

One final point: Some of the dirty tricks in his Mississippi election, with strings pulled from hundreds of miles away, reminds me of what can happen in elections today. It's got to be pretty frustrating to be, say, Barack Obama, and get blamed for the views of a fire-and-brimstone preacher you've listened to over the years.

i. Happy marriage, Mike McCarthy.

j. Can't wait for baseball.

k. Cool attitude from Baltimore manager Dave Trombley, a baseball lifer who finally has a chance to be a big-league manager after years beating the bushes. And even though he's about to get his brains beat in by the AL East, here's what he told host Chris Russo on WFAN radio Saturday: "How can life be any better for me? I spent 20 years riding buses and eating peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches in the minor leagues. Now I'm a major-league manager.''

l. Chris Russo, you're a generous man.

m. Thanks for the speedy delivery, Mrs. Dice-K.

n. Happy St. Patrick's Day. If you're in the vicinity of Montclair, N.J., and want to experience the best real Irish place in this part of the world, go have a couple at Tierney's on Valley Road. You'll thank me around the time the second bagpiper is doing a lap of the place.