Peter King is currently on his annual four-week vacation–because apparently penning a 4,000 word essay each week about coffee and travel annoyances [along with a few football tidbits], tweeting up a storm, and appearing on NBC sports means you need four weeks off–and is having some NFL players guest write his regular columns while he’s out.

First up was Matt Birk, who posted his Monday Morning QB column yesterday.  Our advice to Birk?  Don’t quit your day job…although not because it’s bad writing, it’s just that making millions to drive people into the ground is probably a lot more glamourous (and financially rewarding) than penning a regular football column (or penning a football blog, for that matter).

While not nearly as long winded as King, Birk provides a couple of solid pages, including a full on ’10 Things I Think I Think.’  He touches briefly on the Brett Favre/Vikings saga, leading that into a topic near to Birk’s heart–current players needing to take care of former players financially and medically.  While it’s a bit deeper than your average King column, and maybe a bit more of using the column as a forum to further his own agenda on the matter than a regular columnist would be ok with, it’s something we actually agree with Birk on.  He also touches on the Steve McNair situation, without going into too much detail.

In fact, the only area that we think Birk really missed the mark on is with his #1 on his list of 10 Things He Thinks He Thinks, where he says:

“I think Favre will play for the Vikings this year. This will start a civil war between Minnesota and Wisconsin. A truce will be reached in this epic border battle after it is discovered at a tailgate party that Johnsonville Brats (Wisconsin) and Grain Belt Beer (Minnesota) are perfect complements for each other.”

As a true native of Minnesota, Birk should know better–there is no way that Wisconsinites would give up their paint thinner and Miller Lite for the goodness of Grain Belt Premium, and while I acknowledge that Johnsonville makes a decent brat, if it really came down to it, I’m sure that Minnesota’s own Hormel must make a line of brats that is as good (or better) than anything Wisconsin could provide.