Peter King was straining to remember the name of the movie.

“You know the one where Robert Redford runs for office,” he said.

The Candidate?

“Yeah, The Candidate,” King said. “Remember when he wins the election and goes to a top aide, ‘What do I do now?’ That’s how I feel about this.”

This is the launch of King’s new site, MMQB.SI.com. Sports Illustrated officially hit the button to go at 8 a.m. this morning.

It appears to be SI’s version of the Bill Simmons-inspired Grantland with one difference: The content will be limited to the NFL. Much like Grantland, don’t expect to find tick-tock stories on who’s going to start at quarterback in Philly and a mountain of stats.

King explained in a debut post this morning:

We’ll be the thinking person’s site for pro football. If you follow us this season, visit TheMMQB.com three or four times a day between now and the Super Bowl, read our stories, watch our videos and listen to our podcasts … and if after doing that you don’t think you’ve been enlightened about the sport America loves, well, then I should be fired.

Indeed, this is an expansion of King’s highly successful Monday Morning Quarterback concept. SI gave King an open slate and told him to create a site on America’s most popular game.

Here’s the complete rundown in a post last week.

King, 56, says, “We’re all trying to figure out ways to be reinvented.”

Kings’ way is a bit more ambitious than most. I talked with him last week about the goals and hopes for the new site.

This thing is really happening. How does it feel?

It’s a little bit like when I was a kid on the night before opening day. I was a big Red Sox fan and I’d sit there like a nerd and write out the lineups for both teams. Now I’m deciding what stories to run. It’s sort of like making a starting lineup.

It’s different for me. It’s the next thing I was hoping to do. To be able to make some decisions and to run something my way. Fortunately, I have a lot of smart people around to help me.

Why did you want to do your own site?

The ability to say this is what I would like to do and here are the people I would like to do it with.This is an attempt to stay ahead of the curve and not get crushed by the curve.

In 1997, I got asked to do “Monday Morning Quarterback.” They needed content for SI.com. I had no idea it would be as widely read as it was.

That taught me a lot. Any time there is something new offered to you, you better consider it. You don’t know which way the media is going. Pay attention to new trends. If you don’t, you die.

What is your vision for the site?

What I like to do, and part of the excitement in this, is to bring people inside the NFL. Access. If you look at what I’ve done at Sports Illustrated, that’s a big part of it.

(This week), we have a story about a guy who got cut from Jacksonville in June. I asked him if he would do it. He said he really didn’t want to. Then he decided to do it. I think it is riveting. It takes you inside what it is like to be cut by an NFL team.

This is what I want to do: Experiential journalism.

What will a typical day look like for MMQB?

Once we get into the season, we’re going to post new stories or videos, or a combination of both at 8, 11, 2, and 5 (ET). Obviously, if there’s news, we’ll check in. During training camp, we won’t be as tied to the clock.

We’ll have regular features such as a 3 questions, 3 at 3. Our first subject is Joe Namath.

What about statistics and game coverage?

We’re not going to run NFL statistics. There are plenty of places to find that. We’re still talking about how we’re going to cover fantasy football. We don’t know if we’re going to cover games. We’re still making the decision.

It’s all about figuring out what the consumer of the NFL wants. I don’t know what the consumer of the NFL wants, but I have a gut feeling they want us to get to as many games as possible.

You’ve hired three writers (Robert Klemko, Jenny Vrentas and Greg Bedard), two of whom are in their 20s. What does that say about the direction for the site?

They’re young. They have new ideas. I don’t have all the answers. I don’t have half of the answers. I want young people telling me this is what we should do. I want their ideas.

You are going to use Richard Deitsch to write about the NFL and media. Don’t know if you’ve heard, but you might have to ride herd on him.

Thanks for the heads up. Richard is going to do a weekly column and then longer pieces about the business. TV and radio, and TV in particular, is how the vast majority of people experience football. We want to make sure he has the opportunity to do the stories he wants to do.

You had options to go to other places. How important was getting the site in your decision to stay at Sports Illustrated?

I could have done this elsewhere. Sports Illustrated wasn’t the only place that gave me the opportunity.

I have a loyalty to Sports Illustrated. I know why I am where I am. I wouldn’t be in this position if not for the platforms Sports Illustrated allowed me to have. Sports Illustrated is the right place to do this.

This is all new. Do you envision the site might look different a year from now?

We’re still making a lot of decisions. We’re still a work in progress. We want to make sure we don’t repeat mistakes if we think we’re making them.

You mentioned The Candidate in talking about this new site. Does that mean Robert Redford will play you in the movie version?

Of course.