Getting back to the original point - Here's how guys like King work: King has a relationship with members of the Sports community. Guys like Peyton and before him, Favre, have kings number in their phone. They throw King some nice quotes, do the occasional interview, give him materials, etc. In turn, King posts some nice puff pieces about them, talks about all the things that don't actually matter or won't be disputed ("He's a standup guy!" "A real family man!" "He just wants to win!")
There are other guys, like Brady, who just do the required media tours, do some local stations/radio, beat writers, etc. and call it a day. They get mediocre coverage.
Then there are guys like Marshawn Lynch or Dez Bryant who actively say "screw this". Suddenly those guys are "a problem in the locker room" "have off the field issues". Guess what, they also happen to be in a contract year, and the quotes are coming from "unnamed sources within the organization". Why? Because they are driving down the contract price, and they are using Peter King to do it. And Peter King couldn't be happier, because he has something to report, and his readership gobbles it up between stories about the coffee he drank last night and the Starwood hotel he stayed at (seriously, why the hell does he bring that stuff up? Is that supposed to be interesting?)
NONE of this affects the product on the field, it's all just filler and page-views for a dying industry.