In his latest edition of “Monday Morning Quarterback,” Peter King wonders aloud why no team has signed former Bucs linebacker Derrick Brooks this offseason. King sought the opinion of former player Warren Sapp, who, as always, was ready and willing to share his thoughts on the subject.

“I’ll tell you the real reason,” his friend Warren Sapp said over the weekend. “Because it’s not the same for the veterans anymore. The NFL doesn’t need us. In this NFL, the old vets don’t factor in. The kids don’t listen to nobody. Nobody! My last year in Oakland, I’d try to talk to some of the kids. Tommy Kelly, Terdell Sands. But they had no interest. I thought the ghosts in that building were so valuable, but none of the young guys cared. Once in a while, one of the old legends would come in the building, or make a trip. Jack Tatum would be around, and I’d say, ‘You know who that dude is? You know how he played?’ And the kids would be like, ‘Nah, I don’t care.’

“The game’s different now. Look at Vince Young. Why wouldn’t he listen to Kerry Collins? I’m sure Vince thinks, ‘Nobody’s been through what I’m going through. Nobody’s been through my kind of pressure.’ Are you kidding me! Kerry Collins, fifth pick in the draft, has all the ups and downs, gets benched, makes those racist comments, has the alcohol problems, moves from team to team, comes back, has success … Vince Young should suck up all the knowledge Kerry Collins has to offer! There’s no better role model for him.”

I have heard that Collins went out of his way last year to try to help Young when the struggling quarterback was having his quasi-breakdown. Young had no interest. Maybe Sapp’s on to something. If he is, it’s a sad commentary on the kids of the NFL. I remember being in Tampa last year to do a story for SI on Brooks playing Adrian Peterson and the Vikings, and I thought at least one of the young linebackers, Barrett Ruud, tried to siphon off Brooks’ knowledge.

“I always wonder during games, ‘How Derrick get there so fast?’ ” Ruud said. “Then I’d watch the tape, and I’d see he started running to the spot before I would have, because he just knew his keys and he knew the tendencies of the offense better than anybody else.” But I also heard that while Ruud was a willing listener, the other young ‘backers weren’t.

In the specific case of Young not wanting Collins’ help last year, that could have been because VY was embarrassed about his situation. I know if I was embarrassed about a personal situation I wouldn’t necessarily be ready to talk about it to everyone — especially if they weren’t a family member or close friend.

But in general, Sapp is probably onto something, although I don’t think this only happens in the NFL. That just comes with the territory of life. Younger people always think that they have all the answers and it usually takes a little adversity to convince them to seek the advice of those who have already been through the ringer a few times.

It would be nice if every rookie sought the advice of veterans and didn’t repeat the mistakes of those before them. But the reality of the situation is that everyone has to live and learn from their own mistakes. Collins probably wouldn’t be the man he is today if he hadn’t gone through what he did a few years ago. Maybe Young will take what happened last year and turn it into a positive going forward.

I will say this though, it would be nice if younger players respected those who came before them a lot more than they do now. Everything is always, “me, me, me” in professional sports and I’m sure younger players could learn a lot from the way legends played before them.

Jerry Jones handpicked the Ravens for the Cowboys’ final game at Texas Stadium because he apparently thought they would be an easy victory. Oops. (SPORTSbyBROOKS.com)

Peter King discusses Sammy Baugh, the playoff race in each conference, and breaks down the current MVP watch in his latest edition of Monday Morning Quarterback. (SI.com)

The Love of Sports compiles its “All-Disappointment Team” for the 2008 NFL Season. (The Love of Sports)

Detroit News columnist Rob Parker recently asked Lions head coach Rod Marinelli if “he wishes his daughter had married a better defensive coordinator?” Ouch. (Deadspin.com)

Best headline from the Week 16 in the NFL: “You Stay Classy, Fatback Who Rides the Coat-tails of Reggie Bush and Chris Johnson.” (Kissing Suzy Kolber.com)

Here are your Top Ten Boston Sports Stories of 2008. Good for Boston…makes everyone else want to throw up. (Small White Ball)

In his latest edition of “Monday Morning Quarterback,” Peter King of SI.com discussed Tony Romo’s health status for Week 11.

I think this is Romo’s health status as of this morning: Talked to Romo on Saturday, while he was on his final two days off of a bye week, and he told me, naturally, that he would definitely play against Washington on Sunday night at FedEx Field. But it sounded like he’d be affected by his partially healed broken right pinky finger. The break is just below the top knuckle on his right little finger, and he’ll play with a splint on it.

“It won’t be all the way healed,” he said. “It’s still probably a good two or three weeks away from that. I don’t know where it’s exactly going to be, healing-wise, in Washington, but my timing will be fine.”

The key is whether Romo will be able to throw a hard 15-yard out. Any quarterback who can’t throw a liner to the sidelines is going to be a detriment. “I had to throw one of those this week,” he said. “I’m not going to lie to you. There was pain when I threw it. But I can take the pain. If I’ve done it once, I can do it again.” Romo also told me the finger “has gotten healthy enough so I could take a hit on it.”

We’ll see.

Dallas-Washington, with huge playoff implications, is a pretty big game. Dallas-Washington, with a marquee quarterback an injury risk, with the eyes of the nation on him, makes it a compelling watch.

I think expecting Romo to light up on Sunday night would be unrealistic. He’s going to struggle and I think the Cowboys will too, although they need him to play. Brad Bollinger (that’s not a mistake) is/are awful and if Dallas has any hope in turning around their season they need Romo on the field.

Just don’t expect that the Cowboys’ offense will run like it did before he was hurt. If Dallas is going to turn around its season, it will need the defense to step up big time.

In his latest edition Monday Morning Quarterback, Peter King of SI.com wants to know what those teams that won on Sunday all have in common with each other. If it wasn’t obvious before it is now: Peter King would love to make babies with the New England Patriots.

Check out his first two paragraphs:

Look at Sunday’s big winners and tell me what they have in common.

Baltimore, Tennessee, Arizona, the New York Giants, Atlanta, Indianapolis and New England. Yes, New England, even after an 18-15 loss to the Colts in Indianapolis.

What? Look at Sunday’s big winners and there’s mention of a Patriot team that choked against the Colts?

King did explain himself:

I include New England in this group for a simple reason: Tom Brady has played for eight minutes in 2008, and the Patriots are 5-3. There are lots of good stories in the first half of the season, but none are as surprising as New England sharing the AFC East lead with Matt Cassel playing quarterback for 31 of the team’s 32 quarters. The Cassel story illustrates why the Bill Belichick/Scott Pioli way is so effective. Remember the hue and cry to go get Chris Simms, Daunte Culpepper or Tim Rattay when Brady went down? The Patriots said: No, we’ll stay in-house for our quarterback, because how can a Simms or a Rattay learn the offense as much as Matt Cassel, who’s been here four years? If we’ve trusted Cassel to back up Brady, why don’t we trust him to play?

And I believe this: If Cassel gets hurt at some point down the stretch, or when he leaves in free-agency after the season, the Patriots will put 2008 third-round pick Kevin O’Connell under center, or use him to back up Brady. The quarterback is develop-able. That’s the New England mantra. Brady got developed. Cassel got developed. And O’Connell will too.

He makes a good point, but I still think it’s kind of funny that King chose the words he did. The Patriots didn’t win and quite frankly played dumb football against the Colts on Sunday night and King essentially called them winners. I might be getting too technical, but why not just say, “Even though they lost, I’m going to include the Patriots in my discussion and here’s why.”

But Petey can’t help but lather himself in Patriot soap every week and take a nice long bath.

From Peter King’s Monday Morning Quarterback:

I think I’d be surprised if the Baltimore Ravens did not have some sort of bounty — financial or otherwise — or at least some quiet pact, to try to knock Hines Ward onto the Pittsburgh sideline when they meet Dec. 14 in Baltimore. And though Terrell Suggs has sanitized his initial statements on bounties with a statement issued through the team’s PR staff (the most carefully sculpted, crafted words that Suggs has ever been assisted in feeling, if you know what I mean), it’s probably better to listen to the man who was Suggs’ head coach with the Ravens until this year.

Writing on his WNST.net “Brian Billick’s Blog” in Baltimore, Billick opined: “So-called ‘bounties’ by players [are] a commonplace occurrence in any locker room and similar to the bravado displayed on most schoolyards. Players are constantly motivating each other by putting a certain amount of money in a pool and the cash going to the player that ‘knocks’ so-and-so out of a game, or gets an interception for a TD, or pancakes a defender on a running play. This is standard operating procedure in virtually every locker room in the NFL … What is worth commenting on is how stupid it is to talk about it afterward. Locker room talk should be just that.”

Pretty revealing.

I kind of downplayed the issue when it first came out, but maybe the whole “bounty” issue is a big, underlying issue in the NFL. Still, what can the league do about it? They can fine players if they talk about it later but other than that, how are they going to stop players from getting together over the phone or secretly in the locker room and having money on trying to knock an opponent out?

In his latest edition of “Monday Morning Quarterback,” Peter King of SI.com writes this about Jeff Garcia:

5. Tampa Bay (4-2). How admirable is Jeff Garcia? He goes 15 of 20 with no picks or sacks against a formidable Panther D, and all he talks about after the game, in effect, is how he appreciates the chance to be an NFL quarterback.

Admirable? Garcia didn’t seem to appreciate the chance to be an NFL quarterback this offseason when he demanded a new contract from the Bucs or else he’d sit out of football.

“MMQ” is the best but King is off on this one.