King on M&M: Bodden one of worst FA's ever

Sports Illustrated's Peter King joined Mut & Merloni Friday at noon for his weekly appearance. King gave his thoughts on the Patriots reportedly cutting cornerback Leigh Bodden in a surprise move.

"I think its extremely surprising and I have no clue why it happened," King said. "My gut reaction was it has to go down as one of the worst free agent signings the Patriots have ever had, because they signed him obviously after that good year in '09. Then obviously he gets hurt and misses last year, in essence. And this year, never really plays well."

The Patriots signed Bodden to a four-year, $22.03 million extension in 2010 after he tied for the team lead with five interceptions in the 2009 season. But as King pointed out, a shoulder injury forced Bodden to miss all of 2010 and it has been a struggle for Bodden six games into the 2011 season.

While the cut may surprise some, King said the move shows that New England is not concerned with what those outside the organization think.

"It just says that the Patriots could care less about what the public perception is and how much money they wasted," King said. "Once a guy is not in their plans anymore, he is gone. He's history. And they don't care how it looks."

New England faces the Steelers Sunday in Pittsburgh. King said that the move to cut Bodden is surprising considering the talent Pittsburgh boasts at the wide receiver position.

"The odd thing, obviously, for this thing right now is that they're going into a place this weekend with Devin McCourty slumping and they're going into a place this weekend where they've got the best, probably, young, deep-threat tandem in football right now with Mike Wallace and Antonio Brown," King said. "Who's going to cover those guys? [Bill] Belichick must have figured that he either wasn't going to play Bodden or he wasn't going to help them this week in any way."

Following are more highlights from the conversation.

On the importance of the game against the Steelers in terms of the Pats getting the No. 1 seed in the AFC again: "It's hard for me to imagine them right now not winning the 1 seed if they win Sunday, but you're right, that's a big if. As a matter of fact, I picked Pittsburgh to win the game. ... And just when I say something like this, they'll probably hold [Ben] Roethlisberger to 103 yards passing and they'll shut out Mike Wallace. But to me this has the makings of a game where the Patriots get riddled. Who knows? Many times in life when that happens, not only with New England but with other teams, it doesn't happen that way. But what's of no doubt right now is that Devin McCourty is not playing as well as he did a year ago and New England is really going to be tested by a team that throws the ball deep as well as anybody in football does."

On the downfall of the Colts without Peyton Manning: "They have never been able to build a really good shell around Manning in part because the quarterback makes so much money and also in part because I think that they have become so totally reliant on him running the show on offense that somebody else comes in, everybody's looking around. Look at how many passes this year Dallas Clark has dropped and missed. It's just a bad year all around."

On Joe Flacco's struggles in the Ravens' 12-7 loss to the Jaguars on Monday: "I think it raises extremely valid concerns about him. Here we are, I'm in the middle today of doing a couple of things for our NFL midseason report in Sports Illustrated next week. Here we are, we're basically, Sunday, we're halfway through this season. Somebody has to explain to me how Joe Flacco in his fourth year in the NFL, this guy who came in and played so well in his first couple of years, was so precocious. How in the world, with a better receiving corps than he's had, how in the world is he completing 52 percent of his throws? That is the most mind-boggling statistic this year in the NFL. I think right now the Ravens are all scratching their heads and they're trying to say, 'What can we do well on offense?' Because I have to tell you something, I don't know what that is."

To hear the interview, go to the Mut & Merloni audio on demand page. For more Patriots news, visit the team page at weei.com/patriots.