Against the advice of multiple doctors, Shawne Merriman is opting to play this season with two torn ligaments in his knee. Robert Beck/SI Peter King's Mailbag Peter King will answer your questions each week in Monday Morning Quarterback: Tuesday Edition. Name: Email: Hometown: Question: SEND Follow Peter King on Twitter

Quote of the Week I

"He will very quickly find out he's not the player he should be. I hope he figures it out before there is irreversible damage."
--Dr. Neal ElAttrache, director of sports medicine and orthopedic surgeon at the Kerlan-Jobe Orthopaedic Clinic in Los Angeles, in the San Diego Union-Tribune, discussing how Chargers linebacker Shawne Merriman will feel this season while playing with two partially torn knee ligaments. He also said Merriman will feel instability during games.

Quote of the Week II

"Our governor is going to be vice president, and we still don't have an Olive Garden.''
--Alaskan Kerry Baranou, bemoaning the local dining choices while celebrating the prospect of Sarah Palin going to the White House, in Sunday's New York Times.

Quote of the Week III

"I pay a lot of attention to it. I never thought I'd see it in my lifetime and until [the] Iowa [primary], I still had my doubts whether it would happen. It's thrilling. It's important. When we won the Super Bowl, people said to me they never thought they'd see an African-American coach in that position. But this is so much more significant, obviously. It's great for our country.''
--Indianapolis coach Tony Dungy, on Barack Obama winning the Democratic presidential nomination.

I asked Dungy if he'd be interested in making an appearance with Obama, if the senator asked.

"I would do it,'' he said, smiling broadly.

Quote of the Week IV

"I would hope to God that it would be [better] because [the show] on HBO it just got bland. It got bland, it got boring, and it just sat there that it was a foregone conclusion that somebody was supposed to tune in because it was what it was. You have to entertain the people.''
--New Inside the NFL panelist Warren Sapp, in the Boston Globe, opining that the Showtime version of the long-running pro football show will be better than the HBO version.

Fairness in Journalism Department: I worked on HBO's Inside the NFL for the past six years. Not that I'm sensitive about the quality of the show or anything like that, but this boring, bland show must have really put a lot of people to sleep. Three times in the past six years, this show that just sat there won the Emmy for Best Sports Studio Show. Not best football show. But best studio show in all of sports television. Three times, more than any other sports show in the past six years. Better than all the ESPN shows, better than the FOX shows, better than the shows on Showtime parent CBS.

Emmys are often awarded to shows that put voters to sleep, particularly shows the voters are comparing to the two-hour ESPN pregame spectacular and the bells-and-whistles, grab-the-headlines Fox show ... and, well, to all the other shows on the burgeoning sports TV landscape that outspent the HBO show and used more people in front of and behind the camera.

It'll be interesting to see the first production meeting at Showtime, when someone reads that quote to that boring co-host of the HBO show, Cris Collinsworth, who is only the best studio analyst in recent sports TV history. He never "entertained the people.'' No, not Cris. Remember last year, Warren, when every other sports TV analyst was covering his rear end on Bill Belichick and Spygate -- and I mean every one -- and Collinsworth ripped him a new one for dishonoring the game? There's a case of the totally bland Collinsworth just showing up for the paycheck every week. I can hear Sapp in that production meeting next week: "Cris, I didn't mean you. You're the greatest! It was all those other guys who put me to sleep!''