Thursday, December 31, 2009

Eagles-Boyz and Week 17 Picks

Week 16 was an unqualified success. 10-4-1. Very satisfying. Cumulative stands at a very nice 94-78-3.

The miserable performance the Giants threw in totally messed up my weekly 4 best bets. Oh, and a popular theory says the Giants biggest problem is attitude. I say that's nonsense. Their biggest problem is they play confused. Especially on defense. It's so obvious. The only game the defense held up on was the Skins game. They're pretty stoppable. If I were the new Skins head of operations, I'd seriously consider a new quarterback. Really.

And now Osi says he's on the way out. Why IS that exactly? All I know is that the Giants used to have a defense, have almost always had a good defense, and I can't really get used to this bunch. It's the coverage, stupid, and the pass rush, that just isn't there. Seems Antonio Pierce could have made a big difference. But maybe not.

My comment on the Jets for that selection (over the Colts) was "who knows who'll play for Indi ?".........Manning was pissed, it was great, heh-heh.

I thought the big radio guy went too tough on the Jets for defending their victory. I mean, they won. What would you have said if they had STILL lost? Let's face it, these Jets will say stupid things because....well, they're a long way from diplomatic, and it doesn't take much success to go to their heads. But they're a tough bunch on defense. Would you rather have them talk about execution? (finger down throat)

The Jets are having a party at Giants Stadium at halftime. I have a feeling the Bengals will do all they can to put a damper on proceedings. That doesn't mean the Jets will necessarily fold either. It's just that it might be a very tough game. I may even eschew NFL Redzone to watch the WHOLE thing. After all, fantasy season is over for me. (I did take third though, woohoo!)

The tough thing is watching the Jets offense. It can be a painful thing. And I'd hope they let Sanchez loose a little throughout the game, I think they'll need his arm against the Bengals. The kid throws a nice pass, epecially when he's on the run. Seems like caging a tiger to put these shackles on him. Yeah, I know, he turns it over but still.....he's not friggin' Craig Morton, ya know?

But Week 17 is dominated by the Cowboys-Eagles game. It's got everything...tradition? You bet. Exciting players? Yeah, well, I've shown two of them up top there. Jason Avant isn't even DeSean Jackson or Jeremy Maclin, two even more spectacular receivers. He made a really nice catch at the goal line on what looked like a deflection against the poor Broncos, and then later on Asante Samuel just did what he does best....intercept the ball and get it going the other way.

Anyway, my point is you've got these wacky young guys and Number 5 going against a none-too-brash Tony Romo, that gigantic offensive line and Jersey's own Miles Austin. Then there's Marion Barber and geez, Jerry Jones too. What a friggin' circus it could be!

Anyway, let me extend my current winning pct to the final week.

For your Week 17 consideration:
Favorite Spread Underdog 4 Best My Pick Reason

MIN 9 Nyg * MIN It's all over...even the shoutin'
NYJ 10 Cin Cin Ocho Cinco's playing...why not the others?
BUF 5 Ind Ind Difficult to pick Bills under any circumstances
CAR 5 NO CAR Panthers gone wild. last two
CLE 1 Jac Cle Browns favored again! Keep Mangini?
DAL 3 Phi Phi Eagles are better...for NFC East title and poss 2 seed
Chi 3 DET * Chi Did ya see da Bears-Vikings game?
Hou 8 1/2 NE Hou Another one-hand clapping affair
Pit 3 MIA Pit Both have chances..Steelers have the goods
49ers 7 STL * 49ers First time non-losing since 2002, for big Mike S.
Atl 3 TB Atl Falcons have the QB
ARI 3 Pack ARI this is the first of two meetings
DEN 13 1/2 Chiefs * DEN Broncs hope Bengals beat Jets
Bal 11 OAK OAK At home with nothin' to lose and 13 1/2
SD 4 Was SD Who knows how bad Skins are


The best bets for Week 17:



Vikings – Must get well for playoffs, tough loss to Bears....Favre against that horrible Giants secondary. Peterson against that deflated D.



Bears– Bears showed a lot against the Vikings as for potential, the Lions don't have much to motivate them.



Broncos – after tough Eagles loss, they'll run the Chiefs wild. They have a decent shot at playoffs.



Niners – I really think the Niners players will take advantage of a losing team as tribute to Singletary. A win and they'll have the best Niners record since 2002. Optimism will abound in the city by the bay.


That's it. HAPPY NEW YEAR !!

P.S. Okay, Mets fans, we have Jason Bay at long last. Let's see ...that lineup....1.Reyes, 2.Castillo?, 3.Beltran, 4.Bay, 5.Wright,6.Delgado7.Francoeur 8.B. Molina?9. Pitcher

Then....starters the same for now....Santana, Maine, Pelfrey, Perez, Niese, Parnel...........,then Kelvim Escobar and Ryota Igarashi added to relief corps....hmm.

Prices will be coming down, folks...

J -E -T - S...........

Sunday, December 27, 2009

Week 16 Picks

Well, week 15 was my worst ever. Two wins and two ties. All the rest were bad. An amazingly bad week. Still cum is 84-74-3.

Here’s the picks for all the games, with spreads again from The Star-Ledger

Favorite Spread Underdog 4 Best My Pick Reason

GIANTS 7 ½ Panthers * GIANTS GIANTS need the win
COLTS 5 ½ Jets Jets Who knows who’ll play for Indi
GB 14 Sea GB You are what your record sez, no?
BROWNS 3 Oak Oak Raiduhs have a defense
CIN 13 ½ Kc Kc Too many points
ATL 9 Buf Buf Circle the wagons
MIA 1 ½ Tex Tex Tex better all around
NO 14 Bucs NO Make up for last week
PATS 9 Jags PATS Jags awful in last week
PIT 3 Bal * Bal Ravens just better
PHI 7 Den Den Game will be closer
ARI 14 ½ Rams ARI Warner to all?
SF 13 Det * SF Back to Singletary
Dal 7 SKINS * Dal What’s to recommend Skins?
MIN 7 CHI MIN Vikes embarrassed in last


The best bets for Week 16:

Cowboys – Cowboys back to Cowboys football. The Skins have regressed if that’s even possible.

Niners – Mike S has his Niners rounding into form while the Lions are improving but are overmatched in this one.

Ravens – Ravens have a defense, at least, and I’m not sure anymore WHAT the Steelers have, except for a very lucky quarterback.

Giants – This is partly just hoping that last week wasn’t an anomaly-nice word, that

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Colts-Saints by any Measure

It’s amazing that after all these weeks, we still don’t really know which teams are the best. The quality of teams is entirely dependent upon injuries and current form, so the “best” becomes a moving target. Some teams come on at the end, as the Giants did in 2007. The Cowboys, if they can keep it up for another couple of weeks, may be that team this year, as unlikely as that may seem.

But, in the NFC, there’s slim pickin’s. The Saints proved their vulnerability to the Cowboys. The Vikings were shellacked by the now 6-8 Panthers. The Eagles beat a pretty good Niners team and the Giants pasted the Skins. But it would be hard to rate any of the NFC teams with the AFC Colts or Chargers. The closest candidate might be the Eagles.

Week 15 was a horror for some of those NFC teams, and myself for that matter. Nothing figured. If a monkey made my weekly picks, he would’ve killed me.
Minnesota was vastly disappointing. I know this because my best early-year fantasy pickup was Sidney Rice. His QB, Favre, had no time at all. Period. And the great Adrian Peterson did nothing against the now 6-8 Panthers, who proved their inconsistency once again, in a good way.

The Saints looked awful but that might have been the Cowboys doing. Drew Brees had no time to throw. DeMarcus Ware was everywhere. Brees, my fantasy QB, had his first truly bad performance. But if anybody ever had an excuse, it was Mr. Brees. The Cowboys were gangbusters.

The Eagles played a nice game vs. Mike Singletary’s 49ers, and in so doing, to my mind climbed up a few notches. Much as baseball pitchers can have quality starts, teams can have quality wins…good offense, defense and special teams. And it was their 5th win in a row.

The Packers have a great aerial attack and they showed that once again against the Steelers. But their defense leaves a whole lot to be desired, so they lost to Big Ben and the Steelers in the final seconds….just a horrible loss.

While I’m happy the Giants did play better, can they do it two weeks in a row against those same Panthers that kicked butt against Minnesota? While the Skins win proves they can perform with their backs against the wall against a team in turmoil (bye bye Coach Zorn), can they show up again this Sunday?

Personally, I don’t think so. They’ll have to show me.

The Cards kept the lowly Lions in the game till the very end. The Cards will drive you crazy…totally schizo for two years running, but they did do just enough to hold on. And you get the feeling that they’re always a little better than your eyes are telling you.

So, if I had to rate the NFC right now, it’d be Saints, Eagles, Cards, Cowboys, Vikings and Packers. Sorry Giants, you just missed my cut, and you’ll probably miss the actual playoffs cut too. It’s interesting to note that the QB’s involved are Brees, McNabb, Warner, Romo, Favre and Aaron Rodgers, quite the respectable group.

In the AFC, the Colts beat the Jags but sure gave up a lot of points in doing so. The Pats just did what was absolutely necessary against the Bills. Then there are the Bengals and the Chargers, but not in that order.

The Bengals had a lot to play for but the Chargers didn’t let the Bengals take it away from them sheerly on intensity. That’s really saying a lot. Phillip Rivers did his weekly thing with Vincent Jackson and Antonio Gates and their defense did just enough.

There are really only four legitimate AFC playoff teams. The rest are pretenders, the strongest being the Ravens, but all are moderately to seriously flawed. But, with feet held to the fire (I’d feel sorry for the fire), the best AFC teams are the Colts (big surprise), Chargers, Patriots and Bengals; then there are a host of “coulda-beens” headed by Baltimore, and then the Broncos, but Pittsburgh and five other teams are 7-7, and still eligible.

Even the Jets are still in the hunt.

Incidentally, the four best AFC teams are qb’d by Peyton Manning, Philip Rivers, Tom Brady and Carson Palmer. The Ravens, led by Jersey Joe Flacco and the Broncos, led by Kyle Orton, would seem to be a step behind but the Steelers, should they make the dance are lead be Big Ben Roethlisberger.

The others don’t deserve mentioning, though some might make a case for the Texans’ Matt Schaub. I wouldn’t.

I like using the differential between points scored and points against as a measuring stick . In the AFC, the Colts have the best differential at 146. Second best is, a surprise, the Ravens, at 125, then the Pats at 121. Every other differential is ridiculously small by comparison.

In the NFC, the Saints differential is 185! The Vikings have a 127. Pack 100 and the Eagles a very nice 113. The Cards, on the other hand, have only a 55. If you’re curious, the Giants have a 44, the Cowboys 70. I won’t bore you with the rest.

They say defenses win championships. In the AFC, the Ravens, of course, have a great defense, which contributes mightily to their point differential. They have fewer points (225) scored against them than any other team except the Jets, who lead at 221. But they’ve scored only 282.

In the NFC, the best pure PA stat belongs to the Cowboys, at 250. The next best defense as measured by PA belongs to the 49ers, a non-contender. The other NFC teams really aren’t that great defensively, including the Saints at 298. The Giants have a horrible 342, hardly the stuff of contenders.

Then there’s that axiom “You are what your record says you are”. The Colts are 14-0. The Saints are 13-1. It would seem pretty clear by that measure.

Friday, December 18, 2009

Week 15 NFL and Aspetta! to Mets Fans

Well, Week 14 worked very nicely, thank you. The weekly record was 10-5, making the cumulative a nice comfy 82-63-1. Oh, and did I mention going 4 for 4 on best bets, thus pocketing another ten big ones?

The first best bet was the Eagles to cover vs. the Giants. I said there was no way the G-Men should be favored and unfortunately for the Giants, Coughlin and especially Sheridan, I was only too right.

Miami beat the Jags who were favored in Jacksonville, and my thought was that there might be more Miami fans in the stands than one might think at any other stadium, and that the Fish would prevail, or swim faster or sumthin’. That worked out too.

I felt really strongly about the Skins running ALL over the Raiduhs and lo and behold, Quinton Ganther went nuts and the Silver and Black turned black and blue, 34-13.

Another line I thought was all messed up was the Boyz being favored over the Chargers. Even a 3-point spread was ridiculous. The Chargers proved me right by holding on for a 20-17 outright win.

On top of all that, my fantasy team, dem Crabs, won in the first round of the playoffs, romping behind Brees and Colston, Grant and Ganther, a late pickup.

So life is good, and there are some real nice matchups scheduled for Week 15. I’ve continued my practice of ignoring Thursday games so I’ll just say that the Jags defense really isn’t so super. The Colts couldn’t be stopped or even slowed down very much.

Week 15 resumes Saturday night, of course, with the big Cowboys-Saints matchup in N’Awlins and the Saints are favored by 7, a pretty big spread for a Boyz team backed up against the wall. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Here’s the picks for all the games, with spreads again from The Star-Ledger

Favorite Spread Underdog 4 Best My Pick Reason

SAINTS 7 Cowboys * Cowboys Boyz need the win
JETS 4 Falcons Falcons Falcons too good to end so badly
PITT 1 Pack Pack You are what your record sez, no?
TITANS 3 Mia TITANS Very strong run D and home cookin’..
Pats 7 ½ BILLS Pats Pats away not so hot but still….
Cards 12 LIONS Cards Schizo Cards come back big
EAGLES 8 ½ Niners Niners A real defense shows up
RAVENS 11 Bears Bears 11’s too much if Bears show up
CHIEFS 2 Browns CHIEFS Browns improving but road wins hard
Texans 10 RAMS * Texans Still a lot to prove for Texans
SD 7 Bengals SD Hard to weigh Henry loss
DEN 14 Raiders * DEN New QB in hostile digs
SEA 8 Bucs * SEA Hawks tough at home
Vikes 9 CAR Vikes What’s to recommend Car?
Giants 3 SKINS SKINS Giants just run around stupid


The best bets for Week 15:

Cowboys – It’s been almost painful seeing the Cowboys get roughed up. They may play better away from home and Saints defense can be had. Brees and Colston, Meachem, Shockey, all these weapons may have to score a LOT. Boyz may be able to control the ball for long stretches.

Texans – Texans HOT and Rams are NOT. Texans may be finally growing up and won’t have to do too much to pull away from a struggling Rams squad.

Broncos – Gigantic spread but the Raiders go with a veteran QB they pulled off the street. Seems like a punishment for Russell. Can’t imagine a team responding to that kind of thing. Broncs happy and they do have a running back or two to pound the ball.

Seahawks –All that noise in Seattle should rattle the young Bucs and 8 points doesn’t seem to even things up that much. This could be another blowout.

I’d just like to bid a fond farewell to Johnny Damon. It looks as if his Yanks career is over. He’ll wind up somewhere else at more years and money and wish he and his agent weren’t so greedy. Damon was as responsible as anyone for the Yanks resurgence to the top and they really don’t have anyone as clutch as he was, unless it was Matsui who’ll be hanging his hat in La-la Land.

Matsui will probably wind up being another great pickup for the Angels, much as was their one-year Bobby Abreu deal of last year. But his knees are very shaky and the Mets couldn’t realistically look to him for any long-term solutions.

I wish folks could show a little more patience with the Mets. I applaud their move back towards Holliday. Bay is over-rated and Mets shouldn’t tie up their long-term future with anyone, never mind a Jason Bay.

As for pitching, we’ll see how their Igarashi signing works out. He should be an adequate setup man for K-Rod. The Mets could see a resurgence from any one of their young arms, especially given the return of Reyes and Beltran to the lineup.

Free agency isn’t the only route towards acquiring a hitter and it seems to me that a trade may make more sense in the long run. I think they could offer any of several of their young pitchers as bait for a guy with power. They just aren’t all that rare.

So….as my Dad would often say….aspetta!

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

The Worst and Best of 2009

I think I’m going to be sick. Tiger Woods has been named Athlete of the Decade by AP. What timing, huh?

I don’t even care whether he is or not but it seems the AP is trying to get in the good graces of Tiger, amidst all the well-deserved media (and universal) criticism. If not for his good graces, the award was given to make sure he’d return to the game so that AP writers would have something to write about, as if there’re no other good candidates for a little more press.

I’m not a moralist but Tiger has lived a despicable existence for a married man, not because he fooled around but because he fooled around and took almost no pains to disguise the fact. It was okay with Woods to embarrass his wife and his kid…..over and over again.

So spare me if I spit on your award, AP. I’m happy not to be a part of it.

Speaking of despicable human beings, Bret Favre was hailed in a recent Newark Star-Ledger article that boosted him for MVP, as if there were no other candidates, as if there were nobody performing better, not Peyton Manning, not Drew Brees or Philip Rivers, to name just a few.

The writer in question also seemed to think all the criticism was unfounded, a theory that just doesn’t wash.

Let me say it one more time. Favre ruined the Jets season last year by playing hurt. He hid his arm injury to keep his consecutive games record alive. He didn’t care what he did to the Jets season. That he had a perfectly willing Jets management to assist him in that regard isn’t really the point. The man needed an arm operation LAST YEAR, not in the off-season so that he could come back totally healthy with his rocket arm working perfectly well for his old team’s biggest rival.

Favre certainly has been great this year. And he was pretty great for a lot of years. And maybe he would be a viable candidate for NFL MVP this year. But he cheated the Jets and the Jets fans. He took a playoffs season away from them. That’s my problem with Favre. The fact that he never met a camera or microphone he didn’t like has nothing to do with it.

Let’s see….who else can I pick on? Oh, I know, how about Serena Williams, the latest quasi-star to get a break from the U.S. press and the powers that be in tennis.

She deserved a suspension for her ugly emotional display (and arguably, assault upon the lineswoman) at the U.S. Open. She got a fine instead. She now has the green light to ruin everybody’s good time at another major tennis event. Along the way, we can listen to her whine that the whole ugly matter should be put to rest.

She not only ruined the Open, she also robbed the winner, Kim Clijsters of Belgium, of her victory on the court, a hard-fought and decisive victory, one for which Williams had no ready excuse. She hadn’t launched her crippled act. She hadn’t tapped into the trainers-session delays she had used in several important past matches to demoralize opponents who had finer tennis skills but couldn’t match her for gamesmanship and rules-twisting.

There is still some good in the world though. As this is the Christmas season, let me now focus on some positively good people, some people who aren’t just talented but who always seem to personify hard work and class.

How about Mark Teixeira? Teixeira did nothing but good things for the Yankees in 2009, earning every bit of his money and hustling all along the way. I’ll always remember his scoring from first base with the winning run against the Mets on a fly ball that 99.5 % of the time gets caught. But since it was Luis Castillo, the ball wasn’t caught. Teixeira stole one for his Yankees, not with his considerable talent but with his remarkable hustle.

How about Eli Manning? All Eli does is try to win. He can’t quite manage the fine sense of humor his brother has always had. And he doesn’t have his brother’s accuracy to be perfectly honest.

Eli just had exactly the confident but humble demeanor his team needed in 2007, one that he still brought to the table this year and last, no matter that he was robbed first of his wide-outs and then of his defense. You never hear a word of complaint from Eli, although I suspect his receivers hear about their route-running from time to time.

How about Drew Brees? Here’s a true man of stature who lacks only height, a guy who has been “dissed” throughout his lifetime by football experts, a guy who kept Philip Rivers on the bench in San Diego, where he started his pro career, for two full years, a guy who should have won the Heisman in 2000 but lost to the taller Chris Weinke from Florida State (but did finish ahead of LaDainian Tomlinson and a fella named Michael Vick).

When Brees was eligible for free agency in 2006, the Chargers elected to let him go with nary an unkind word from Mr. Brees, to the Saints, who Brees lead to their first NFC Championship Game in his first year.

Ever since his acquisition, Brees has been top notch offensively, starting every game for the Saints and gaining over 4400 yards in his first two years before topping the 5000 yard mark in 2008. This year, Brees is once again among the NFC leaders in yardage and touchdowns, this despite the fact that the Saints are running more than ever in their quest for that elusive Super Bowl victory.

Unlike Peyton and Brady, though, Brees throws to everyone ,usually making sure every wide-out gets his touchdown each game, making household names of Marques Colston, Robert Meachem and Devery Henderson.

He’s the best of 2009 and King of Bacchus too!

Monday, December 14, 2009

Giants Embarassment

I’ve about had it with the Giants. That Sunday night display of clueless defense was just too much for an old cornerback. I mean…where was the coverage? I could understand a breakdown in coverage on a single play. On a bad night I could understand even a couple of mistakes. After all, these are supposed to be pros.

What a sad joke they are! What a poor excuse for a football team! Except for the offense, which, to their credit performed admirably all night long (except for Manningham), this team stinks out loud. Last night was not an isolated incident. This team’s defense has been horrible ever since Spagnuolo went to St Louis to coach the Rams.

We could have expected a period of transition, similar to the beginning of the Giants Super Bowl season of 2007, when the defense turned it around after three weeks of horrible coverage and awful losses. After all, a professional defense is a complicated thing. You’d expect that a few weeks would be needed to digest it.

But what you wouldn’t expect was what happened last night. Let’s review:

FIRST HALF
First Philly possession – 7 plays to a Brent Celek TD, big 32 yard completion to DeSean Jackson, Philly needed no third downs in the drive.

Second Philly score – starts with Jacobs fumble after Giants were moving the ball. Fumble scooped up and returned 60 yards for a TD.

Second actual offensive possession - Philly actually had to punt.

Third Philly possession – 12-plays, Philly settles for a field goal.

Fourth Philly “possession” – 72-yard punt return for TD.

Fifth Philly possession – 8 plays, 2 third downs, one went for 23 yards down the middle to Celek, one to DeSean Jackson for 44 yards. Vick scored the TD.

Second HALF

First Philly possession – The new guy in the defense (Jonathan Goff) gets an interception! Manning fumbled shortly thereafter.

Second Philly possession – Philly had to punt AGAIN (holy cow)

Third Philly possession – 60-yard TD to Jackson on first play after Giants score

Fourth Philly possession – another punt – WooHoo!

Fifth Philly possession – 12 plays, 91 yards, TD, McNabb passes to just about anybody wearing green, they were all open.

Sixth Philly possession – Philly just burning time – punt, meaningless possession

Every time Philly needed a score, they got one. Philly could score at will. The Giants were helpless. McNabb had all day to throw. Almost literally. The secondary couldn’t cover anybody. Again.

I’ve been saying all year long that this new defensive coordinator was not working out. Now I’m saying Coughlin isn’t working out. The man did nothing, through all the blown coverages, through all the losses, through all the embarassments, he’s done NOTHING, except to protect his horrible defensive coordinator.

I said several weeks ago the Giants wouldn’t make the playoffs with that defense. (It doesn’t take a rocket scientist after all). The only reason they have a chance at making the playoffs at all is that Dallas is faltering and has a tough remaining schedule.

But they were actually favored against the Eagles, a remarkable fact that indicates how over-rated the Giants really are. They are no match for the Eagles.

The Eagles have a coach who actually knows how to coach. When there’s a problem, he fixes it. He responds to changes in his environment. Reid may pass too often and forget about his running game but he realizes his mistakes and reacts. Coughlin just stands there looking confused and making excuses.

Maybe I’m being too hard on Coughlin. I wonder if this clueless DC was his choice. I wonder if keeping him is within his realm of empowerment…perhaps not, and, if not, I apologize.

But somebody has to take the hit for these year-long failures.
The G.M. has certainly done nothing, either to adequately replace the safety that went down or to replace the middle linebacker when he went down. Let’s give him some of the blame too.

But maybe he can’t spend any money. After all, the Giants haven’t sold nearly all the PSL’s they’ve needed.

So maybe it’s the fan’s fault. Ownership is punishing its fans for not buying up the seat licenses, for moving from mezzanine sections to the upper deck, for not drinking the tres cher Kool-Aid.

In any event, I’m through even rooting for this team. It’s tough to keep pulling for those who don’t even try to help themselves. The Giants are as bad now as they were in the sad years before George Young was hired, when the Mara brothers were fighting each other and neither one knew what he was doing.

And it’s not just the defense. The special teams have been almost as bad. At least two of the wide receivers look as if they’ve never played football before, Manningham and Moss.

About 90% of high school receivers know how to drag a leg after making a catch near the sideline. Manningham is uncoachable, apparently. Either that or the coach(es) don’t know how to teach. Sinorice Moss just never picked up route-running or anything else.

Okay, I’ve said enough about that sorry organization.

In lighter matters, the Jets looked really solid yesterday. I know the Bucs aren’t very good but the Jets beat them slowly and inexorably to the end. Their second-string QB didn’t take any chances and the running game under Thomas Jones wore those Bucs down. Their defense was unbelievable. In fact, statistically, they have the best defense in the league.

They get Atlanta next at home and the Falcons haven’t shown much; they’re all banged up. Then they get two ridiculously tough opponents, the Colts and the Bengals, but both those teams may be coasting by the time the Jets come to town.

But, even then, they could easily miss the playoffs as there are so many other teams in the hunt.

But, playoffs or not, I like the Ryan-led Jets. Ryan has made mistakes but he’s admitted them and then taken action to change things for the better.

The Giants simply have not.

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Week 14 Picks and Hot Stove Stuff

Finally, it happened. Week 13 wasn’t very good for me. Not that 6 and 8 is so horrible but after consecutive weeks of 9 and 5, 9 and 6, and 8-4 and 1, it just feels lousy. Just looking things over, the Steelers continued their downward spiral, something I didn’t expect, and Texas is apparently worse than I thought.

My best bets were just 2 and 2. So, after winning this 4-pick bet last week for a pickup of ten bucks, I lost my imaginary dollar again. The Eagles beat up the Falcons as I thought, and the scared-for-their-jobs Panthers covered against the Bucs. My next two were less prescient, I fear.

Our G-Men actually covered against the Cowboys, but they played out of their minds….for them anyway. And how often does friggin’ Domenik Hixon run one back? Then the Pats, who I thought would come out like screamin’ banshees after bowing to the Saints the previous week, let Miami and Chad Henne make monkies out of ‘em.

Week 14 begins tonight, of course, and I’m not picking Thursday games but, if I were, I’d still try to pass the game entirely. Both teams are beaten down but, relatively speaking, I’d think the Browns had less pressure this week and could be primed for a nice upset.

As for the other games, with spreads from The Star-Ledger, here’s the picks:

Favorite Spread Underdog 4 Best My Pick Reason

GIANTS 1 Eagles * Eagles No way Giants s/b favored in this
Jets 3 BUCS Jets But it won’t be easy…..
COLTS 7 Broncos Broncos Wishful thinkin’ maybe but DEE…..
VIKINGS 6 ½ Ten Ten Titans on a roll, will cover
CHIEFS Pk Bills Bills This will be a great game
Pack 3 BEARS Pack Pack’s roll keeps rolling
Saints 10 ½ Falcons Saints Saints could score at will
RAVENS 13 ½ Lions RAVENS If they’re not mad, they should be
JAGS 3 Miami * Miami JAGS don’t send me…Fish win
PATS 13 ½ Panthers Panthers They’re home but geez, 13 ½
TEXANS 6 Seahawks Seahawks Lucky if they win at all
TITANS 13 Rams Rams Here’s a real barn burner
Skins 1 RAIDERS * Skins Skins will run the ball
BOYZ 3 Chargers * Chargers Recent form sez no
Cards 3 ½ NINERS Cards I’m mad at Singletary


The best bets for Week 14:

Eagles – That the G-Men are favored at all is anathema to me. Didn’t the Giants play them once before this season? Didn’t they stink it up? Are they that much better now, especially after coming off a big win against Dallas? The Eagles will fly, Eagles, fly on the road to vic-to-reeee…..

Dolphins – let’s see, Jags stop the run, Miami runs, but now they pass too. Then they can run again off the pass. Let’s see, a short trip up the coast, no fans in the stands for the Jags, and maybe some Miami faithful show up in the stands…hmmm

Redskins – The Skins have really bad luck all the time but they always seem to work hard and that’s just the type of thing to take them to victory over the Raiders. They’ll run it and win the battles of the trenches. And all they gotta do is stop Gradkowski.

Chargers –San Diego is just loaded right now and the Cowboys just keep looking bad. Then they compound things by sending out Bum’s little son to face the ravenous Dallas media. Boyz have to show character to take this one and, my guess is, they come up on empty.

But that’s enough football. The Mets put a bid in for Jason Bay. While I should be doing handsprings, I’m sure, I have to be sad the Mets are afraid of Scott Boras, Matt Holliday’s agent. Holliday’s the better player and a way more consistent player. The Mets need a big bat, sure, and they got one, but I think we’ll be seeing some extended slumps. But hey! Be happy…he’s not Endy Chavez.

Then they’ll be getting the older Molina, Bengie, and he’s always hit a ton and been pretty consistent over his career, but why’s the little man in my head saying that’s why he’ll get injured this year, just in time for the Mets. But, once again, he’s a real live catcher, a major-league catcher…which is to say, he’s not the guy they traded for LoDuca, our last real major-league catcher.

Everybody’s saying the Yanks just improved themselves with the pickup of Granderson in that 3-way trade. Hard to argue with, but if they lose both Damon and Matsui, I say they won’t be stronger at all. Of course, the Yanks, I’m sure, have a contingency for this eventuality and they have all that money…..so…

My guess would be the Mets decided not to go for one of the big-time pitchers. But maybe they’re just biding their time, seeing what develops with the contract demands and the various offers.

And, they’re still looking to trade Luis Castillo, of course, not that he’s been any kind of a problem really. Unless you count dropping Arod’s easy fly ball to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, Teixeira racing from first with the winning run and, oh God, let’s not make me re-live that horror….

Are the Nets or Knicks worth mentioning? If they were, it’d be noteworthy that the Nets finally looked tough in Chicago against the Bulls. And you could notice that the Knicks went off on a very limited run.

I think, though, the Nets are playing harder for Kiki and they’re actually running now, something that they haven’t done since some expert said the only way to win in the playoffs was to play half-court basketball. What they didn’t realize was that the NBA and the refs were going to give the trophy to Shaq, no matter what happened out on the court.

The NBA…..I watched the Bulls point guard palm the ball all night without a call. This is basketball? I ask you??

Monday, December 7, 2009

On A Wacky NFL Week 13

What an NFL Sunday! The Giants inexplicably (or is it?) beat the hated Cowboys (ask Tuck), the world-champion Steelers lose once again, the Saints flash the luck of the Irish coming back to beat the tough but sorry Skins and my Niners and Singletary lose in Herm Edwards style in Seattle.

Then the Pats and Tom Brady not only lose but look bad doing so as they practically give the game away to the Dolphins in Miami. And did anybody else think the Arizona Cards would shock the powerful Vikings? I know I didn’t.

And it’s not over yet. The craziness continues tonight as the Ravens take on the Packers in Green Bay, a big game for each team that will go a long way towards determining their respective playoff chances.

The G-Men-Boyz game was classic. They looked beaten during the week. I thought they’d crumble. I thought that big lug Jacobs would give us more of the same, that their defense would even be worse than usual after having demoted Osi, and that Barber and Jones and Choice would run over them. I thought they’d be soft and fold.
Wow! It didn’t work out that way.

Jacobs actually ran hard into the middle of the Cowboys line, the offensive line gave Eli some time to throw and charged straight ahead on the runs, and then ,when it looked as if the G-Men, after playing so well all afternoon, would blow it by settling for that late field goal, Domenick Hixon finally showed some creativity, not to mention speed, by returning the ensuing punt about 80 yards to put the game out of reach.

The defense squashed the run so effectively that the Boyz just stopped trying. And Romo picked them apart but it didn’t prove fatal. The defense held. The demotions worked. The Giants coaching staff looks brilliant. And Osi came through with a big fumble recovery and runback. New blood came through as Clint Sintin, the high draft choice linebacker, came through in some big spots and Hakeem Nicks caught another touchdown pass.

The game even had a fight (what more could we ask). That nasty Flozell Adams, the same guy who hurt Tuck on a dirty play earlier in the year, seemed to think it’d be cute to push Tuck to the ground from behind. Tuck didn’t think so.

The Steelers without Polamalu aren’t the same team. After Big Ben put them ahead with time running down, they let a rookie quarterback take the Raiders right down the field…no trouble at all, thank you very much, and I guess it doesn’t matter what Mike Tomlin says. It does show how delicate the sanctity of a defense can be, even if it’s just one long-haired freak (a really good one though) who’s missing.

The Saints were just great. So were the Skins for that matter but they have a choking kicker and a safety of their own who really contributed nothing to safety yesterday. Double moves by two different Saints wideouts sucked him in totally, two mistakes that were good for 14 Saints points.

You have to wonder whether the Saints can keep winning this way though. Their secondary, that was great against Brady and New England, got torched for about 400 yards by Jason Campbell. Luckily for them, they had Brees and Colston and especially Meacham, who literally stole 7 points and scored 7 more on his double-move.

As disappointed as Skins fans may have been (after all, it’s been like this all year for them), they couldn’t have been more crestfallen than Niners fans, who could only watch as Mike Singletary mistook Alex Smith for Peyton Manning or Dan Marino, at any rate a much better quarterback (and team) than the one he had out there.

With 51 seconds left in a tie game, from deep in their own end, the Niners came out throwing. It didn’t work very well…surprise! They had to punt, and since they had left time on the clock and had given the Seahawks great field position, all it took was one nicely placed Hasselbeck pass to put the Hawks in field position for the game-winning field goal. Sickening….and season-killing.

A team has to know who they are. The Niners are, or should be, a conservative team that wins games with its strong defense, much like the Broncos, who absolutely slaughtered the Chiefs yesterday as their quarterback amassed all of 187 yards. The Niners seem to think that, since they finally signed Crabtree and since they have an All-Star tight end, they can be the Cardiac Cards from yesteryear. They aren’t. And, for the rest of this year at least, they’ll be something else…irrelevant.

When I picked the Pats to beat the Dolphins last week, I was aware that the Pats always had big trouble winning at Miami. But I told myself it had nothing to do with this game. Surely the Pats would come back strong against the Fish, after the thrashing they had taken on national TV last week against the Saints.

Once again, a team has to know who they are. The Pats seem to think they’re Tom Brady. They were ahead by 14 but twice failed to put the game away from inside the Fish 10-yard line. Last time I looked, they had a pretty fair running game. They didn’t really use it yesterday. After the game, Brady had what seemed like gall to me as he blasted his team for not fighting hard enough at the end of games. To me, it seemed as if they were trying to pad some individual stats on the way to a win they thought they had.

Last night’s game seemed to say a lot about who the final NFC Super-Bowl representative would be. I thought it would be the Vikings or Saints. The Vikes have Brett Favre and Peterson.. The Saints have all kinds of weapons. But the Cards have defense. Hmm.

Tonight we’ll see what the Pack can do.

Friday, December 4, 2009

Week 13 Picks and Go Saints

Week 12 was once again a winner for me as my weekly record was 8-4-1, bringing my cumulative record against the spread to a very healthy 71-50-1. While I can’t expect this good luck to continue, I can be hopeful that this streak goes one more week.

Actually, my best bets weren’t that great (2-1-1) so I didn’t win the ten bucks as I did last week. You wouldn’t think picking 4 absolute locks would be that difficult but, in this very fluky NFL, it’s proven to be a real poser.

My Week 12 best bets were Washington over Philadelphia getting a whopping 9 points, Cleveland over the Bengals getting 14, Arizona getting 3 vs the Titans (the tie), and Miami over the Bills by 3 (the loser). Terrell Owens made a monkey of me and the Fish in that one. The Bills sure didn’t repeat their fine performance Thursday night against our Jets.

Once again, this winning streak can’t continue so consider that as you bet. There are once again some big injuries and uncertainties. Kurt Warner’s status last week wasn’t solidified until Sunday morning.

Anyway, here’s the Week 13 picks:

Favorite Spread Underdog 4 Best My Pick Reason

Den 4 ½ KCY Den Teams going opposite ways
PIT 14 ½ Oak PIT Raiders give up easy
JAC PK Tex Tex Just can’t pick Jags
IND 6 ½ Ten Ten Titans on a roll, will cover
Phi 5 ½ ATL * Phi This could get ugly
CIN 13 ½ Det Det Bengals won’t win big
Saints 9 ½ WAS WAS Brees will handoff a lot
CAR 6 ½ Bucs * CAR They’re all on notice in Carolina
CHI 9 Stl CHI Bears will take advantage
Chargers 13 ½ CLE CLE Browns cover on SD defense
SEA Pk 49ers 49ers Always on the Niners
Vikes 3 ARI Vikes Who’s better? The Vikes
Boyz 2 ½ NYG * Boyz G-Men just seem beaten already
Pats 4 MIA * Pats Pats embarrassed, win big



The best bets for Week 13:

Eagles – Really unimpressed by Falcons defense combined with Eagles recent narrow victories make me believe McNabb will just score early, late and quite often, DeSean or no DeSean, Westbrook or not.

Panthers – Delhomme’s benching will energize Carolina. Peppers will make himself a problem for Tampa Bay’s linemen. Biggest factor is that everybody from the coach to the special teams knows they’re expendable.

Cowboys – I really hate picking the Boyz but this is a game I truly feel the Giants have already conceded. Everybody’s hurt and now Osi is benched? Doesn’t look good for the G-Men. CC Brown may even play, omigosh, that’s really scary.

Patriots –Just as surely as the Saints kicked their butts last week, you know the Pats will come back loaded for bear, or fish. Dolphins just need other weapons besides Ricky, who will get some yards but not so many scores.

On other fronts, let me just put my two cents in for the “powers that be” in women’s tennis. Their heavy fine ($82,500) of Serena Williams was more than I would have expected but less than what she deserved. I’m really tired of hearing both sisters talk about “moving on”. I’m not ready to move on yet. I may never be.

On Tiger’s situation, I just want to voice my surprise that, amid all this speculation about how many girlfriends he’s had, nobody has speculated about what club Elin used to break the windows in the caddy! C’mon people, this is GOLF. When you watch a match, all you hear is what club they’re selecting. (My guess is a low iron, probably a 3).

I’m a little concerned about my Mets. What the heck are they doing? Blanco? With so many needs all over the place, I wouldn’t have expected the first move to be a totally nebulous one….cryptic even. Let’s see…the Braves pick up Billy Wagner and Takashi Saito and we get friggin’ Blanco, who hits way less than Omir Santos, the incumbent.

Yeah, it’s great that Johan Santana recommended him, he’s supposed to be good with pitchers, blah blah blah, but who’s running this team anyway? Oh, and we let Placido Polanco go on to the Phils. I guess we’ll be hoping Luis Castillo still has one more good year. Good luck. Good grief!

Meanwhile, I actually heard a Mets fan call in to complain about Matt Holliday’s lack of range in left field. Gimme a break. Yeah, let’s go all out for Endy Chavez, he’s got LOTS of range.

On the basketball front, which I’ve been studiously ignoring so far, I see Allen Iverson has landed with the Sixers. Good for Allen, good for the Sixers and good for the league. It’s hard to keep LeBron out of the news, not to mention Kobe, but I hope they won’t make him practice. PRACTICE?

Meanwhile, the glow is only now fading from the Saints’ pulverizing of the Pats on Monday Night Football, for all the world to see. I foresaw something like it in last Friday’s column, speculating that the Saints had the pure motivation on their side. Drew Brees and company, Colston, Meachem, Moore, Shockey, et al really gave it to them.

But it was the defense that really came up big, and to see McAllister and Mike McKenzie play the way they did, after just having had joined the team, was fantastic. Kudos to all the Saints, Pierre Thomas too. This is a team you have to root for to go all the way.

Back to the Giants, as they are playing this weekend, I wish I had something nice to say. I’ve been picking on defensive coordinator Sheridan all year and I still suspect he is the biggest problem of a whole slew of them.

Let me end this by wishing all you fantasy players good luck in Week 13 that in most leagues is the final week of the regular season. I need a win and another Brees and Saints week.

Monday, November 30, 2009

A Simple System Simply Works

Wow, what can I write about on a weekend when Charlie Weis and Lawrence Frank both got fired, the Jets earned a hard-fought victory against Carolina using some seemingly cockamamie color-code system to direct their rookie QB, and two NFL games were decided by last-minute touchdowns thrown by the likes of Vince Young and Chris Redman? And let’s not forget Dennis Dixon.

Well, it’s easy really. I don’t really care that much about Notre Dame or Charlie Weis. I figure both parties will make out just fine, thank you. And Lawrence Frank is better off going elsewhere, given the bad roster and bad luck he has been handed. Lawrence Frank will come up roses if it’s true that good things happen to good people.

And all I can say about Vince Young is that I was wrong about him. I’ve been thinking for five weeks now that he’d be a total failure. I’ve been thinking he’s just another one of these great college QB’s who couldn’t make it in the big time. But he lead that Titans team down the field twice from deep, deep in his own team’s territory to ultimately come back and win the game…twice.

And it was great that a backup QB you never hear “boo” about stepped up in a big situation to lead his Falcons team to victory, and on fourth down no less. Chris Redman did just that yesterday to keep the Falcons in the playoff picture, for at least one more week anyway.

And I was amazed as Dixon kept the Steelers in the game against the Ravens for about 4 ½ quarters. He did it on short notice too, as Big Ben Roethlisberger’s headaches occurred only Saturday.

But, without a doubt, the best prospect for discussion is the color-code system that Rex Ryan and the Jets concocted to keep a rein on their rambunctious quarterback, Mark Sanchez. It seemed too simple and a little silly. How confident could we be that the Jets made the right pick? I mean, did this guy ever play football? Was USC always ahead?

For his part, Sanchez was exultant after the victory and was only too happy to heartily accept the color-codes. That at least shows some humility. He may eat franks on the sideline and he might “diss” the entire NYC media population but he does readily accept direction and, too often this season, blame.

But for once there was no blame. Not that he lit up the joint, an impossible feat given the conservative plan, but he did throw for some yardage, not a lot, and he only threw one interception. He didn’t fumble one time.

Two things bother me a little though.

For one, this system worked great in a game their defense easily controlled. Jake Delhomme, as I had foreseen in my last words on the subject, threw the ball all over the yard. His only problem was he didn’t discriminate on the color uniforms to which he threw the ball. The Jets were only too happy to catch it when he did. The Jets took the early lead. The closest the game got was 7-3.

So when was the code any color but red? I mean, maybe he had an amber somewhere along the line, but the predominant color all night had to be red. What happens when they have to give him the green?

The only other troubling thing is that he’d need the system at all. But hey, maybe a rookie QB, who’s had to digest all this new information week after week, needs the focus, needs the hand-holding, to keep his tenuous hold on reality in a game that can be chaotic at best.

I just hope he understands the game a little. A lot of millions went his way. There were reservations from his USC coach Pete Carroll as to whether Sanchez was ready for the NFL at all. Hopefully, Pete was wrong about Sanchez. He’ll be the face and future of our New York Jets for many years to come. He started the season on fire but has stumbled through too many games, games his very tough defense deserved to win.

It’s great to have an athletic quarterback though. Just watching him avoid the rush and take off once in a while gives me hope for the Jets in the future. He’s really not all that accurate, at least not thus far, but he throws very well on the run, and, hell, Eli Manning isn’t all that accurate either, not like his big brother.

And some NFL experts would undoubtedly say he’s too short.

(As this is written, Drew Brees has been beating up the Patriots. Drew is just a hair over 6 feet and seems to manage quite well. They’re now ahead by 38-17 and it’s great to see the Pats get their noses rubbed in it a little. The Saints are now just running the ball into the line so as not to embarrass them any more than they’ve already been. I love sweet justice).

But the point is that, short or tall, a real quarterback has other resources to beat you with. Sanchez seems to have some of them, if not all of them just yet.
Rex Ryan seemed to think so too, and was challenged to find a way to deal with Sanchez’s wilder impulses. He seems to have found just the thing. If it takes a little more communication with the sideline to make the rookie a top-flight quarterback, I’m on board with that.

Maybe when the color does change to green, he’ll respond. The last two Jets games will be against the undefeated Colts and the top defense right now, the Cincinnati Bengals. But the next three, at Buffalo, and then against Atlanta and Tampa Bay, are certainly winnable, especially if Sanchez is working in red mode, or even amber.

Sometimes things that work very simply simply work. Rex Ryan has found a system that’s a lot like that.

Friday, November 27, 2009

On Jets and Giants and Week 12 Picks

Week 11 was very very good to me as the best bets were all good for the first time in six weeks, putting me up $4 as I picked up the ten-spot. The weekly cumulative record was 9-6 to put my season cumulative at 63-46, not too shabby.

My favorite Week 11 best bet was the Niners, who appeared to be getting blown out before coming back to once again cover the 6 ½ point spread. The Eagles were another narrow winner as they edged the Bears by 4 against a spread of 3. The other two picks looked easy as the Falcons covered against the lowly G-Men and the Skins nearly beat the Boyz outright.

Once again, I keep thinking I’m due for a bad week, so bet with your head……and remember who’ll be on the bench or worse this week. Injuries are mounting all around the league.

Anyway, here’s the picks:

Favorite Spread Underdog 4 Best My Pick Reason

Ind 3 ½ HOU Ind Texans have failed easier tests
CIN 14 Cle * Cle Browns found out they can play
MIN 11 Chi MIN Vikes cover a lot
PHI 9 Was * Was Skins looking good-they’ll cover
Mia 3 BUF * Mia Rick-eeeeee
TEN 3 Ari * Ari Warner’s okay, so line is nuts
Sea 3 STL Sea Bulger to Boller for Rams
ATL 12 ½ Bucs Bucs Bucs will find ATL easier than last
NYJ 3 Car Car This is the Pick Bowl
SF 3 Jac SF Niners are my friend
SD 13 ½ Kcy Kcy Chargers nothing after Steelers
BAL 1 ½ Pit BAL Big Ben a target and no Polamalu
NO 2 Pats NO Saints have real desire




The best bets for Week 12:

Cleveland – The Bengals are hurting all over. The Brownies came so very close against the Lions last week and found out they can have an offense too, much like a non-Mangini team. No Cedric Benson figures hugely.

Skins – well, they DO have a Defense. They’re perfectly capable of slowing down those Eagle big-play threats and hey! They have Rock Cartwright too.

Fish – Buffalo’s wagons shot thru with arrows. Circling them will accomplish nothing versus Rickee and all those crazy wildcat options. Also no Marshawn for Bills, jus ol’ Fred.

Arizona – Let’s see, the Cards went to the Super Bowl, the Titans lost their first six and are currently riding a horse named Vince Young, who’ll discover the Cards don’t kid around. Warner will once again be emcee.

Biggest game of the week for me will be the Monday Night showdown between the undefeated Saints and the tough-luck Pats, who managed to lose to the Jets early and then went for a first down on 4th and 2 from their own 28. If they’re not yet tired of Belichick’s nonsense, they soon will be.

I do think the Saints will be more motivated than the Pats, even knowing that the arrogance of the Pats will force them into playing hard. But they’ll be playing for the wrong reasons, i.e. to punish another team for the audacity of playing to a perfect record. The Saints motivation will be more pure, just to win a big Monday Night game to remain unbeaten.

It says here that the Saints have the better team. It won’t be so much Brees vs. Brady as it will be the overall balance of the Saints compared to the Pats. They have a better running game and they have more receivers to go to, not just the same tired Brady to Welker, Brady to Moss combinations. Stop those two guys and stop the Pats.

Meanwhile, I’m almost sorry I picked on Brandon Jacobs as he looked even worse than I thought he would vs. the Broncos. The Giants pass defense was about par for them, which is to say they were lousy, bad, clueless, Sheridan-ian even. Oh well, at least they have Danny Ware, um, I mean DJ.

Seriously, there’s Cory Webster back there and…..well, that’s it. Pick your Johnson, they can’t cover, and then there was the specter of C.C. Brown again. And there’s nobody better at tackling after watching a receiver catch the ball than Boley. It’s hard to imagine he had been the Defensive Player of the Week….ever.

I keep asking myself what’s different about this defense until I really think about it. Pierce’s absence alone could account for a TD or two and they never replaced the likes of Phillips at safety. Then Aaron Ross is still listed as the third corner. What you see is what you get, the likes of Johnson and Johnson and Rouse. God help us.

Although I didn’t pick our Jets to cover the 3-point spread against the Panthers, I am looking forward to the game itself, which will either break a record for interceptions in a single game or go totally the other way as both the crazy rookie and the crazy veteran have been made quite aware of their shakiness. If caution takes over, there could be a lot of punts. If both QB’s just let it fly, it could be a shootout, in an obverse sort of way.

New York’s favorite coach’s latest big brain fart of sitting that rich safety Kerry Rhodes seems to signal that the Jets are looking to the future officially. But what better QB to sit your safety against than the scatological Jake Delhomme? I have to admit though that I’d feel better if two other secondary men weren’t out at the same time. The whole thing makes as much sense as the war in Afghanistan.

But Rex will be funny after the game. Of that we can be sure. Proud and funny and humble all at the same time. I sure hope he knows something the rest of us don’t. Otherwise, maybe the next move will be Tannenbaum’s.

Here’s hoping the rest of Week 12 will be better than the first three games. The Lions and Raiders just mailed it in. The Giants…..?

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Good But Boring-Bad But Funny

You can’t say it hasn’t been entertaining. The Jets are a bad soap opera. The Giants are just, well, I don’t really know what they are. They beat the Falcons. That’s definitely a good thing. But, beyond that, it’s really hard to say anything more.

But you know I will.

Even a casual observer would have to agree that, at the very least, the Jets are a very entertaining team. The quarterback is a nut job, the head coach is even funnier and everybody else just tries to keep their heads up. And that’s okay. Anybody who really expected playoffs this year was just dreaming.

The Giants’ defense stinks. That’s really all you can say. But, with Eli firing bullets and lobs and showing a magnificent touch, and with his bevy of receivers seemingly open all the time, we could really see some shootouts in our future, and that’s not a bad thing either.

I guess that’s the biggest difference between these two teams. The Giants play a great football game, on one side of the ball at least, but they’re a bore off the field. The Jets turn in stinker after stinker on the field, but they’re a barrel of laughs off of it.

Did anybody expect the Jets to beat the Patriots again? I know I didn’t. I did think they’d beat the spread, which was 10 ½, a ridiculous spread, given that the Jets beat them the first time they played.

My mistake was that I thought they’d attempt to cover Wes Welker. At the very least, I figured they’d harass him coming off the line, or knock the bejeezus out of him when he caught the ball, thus discouraging him from perpetrating any further aerial offenses against them.

But that didn’t happen. Welker ran here and there unmolested. When he caught the ball, which was quite often, he either ran for big yardage or hit the ground before he could be pummeled.

And, last but certainly not least, the rookie quarterback started bad, came back a little, and then totally came undone.

But that’s what Bill Belichick teams do to rookie quarterbacks. That Sanchez somehow escaped that fate in the season’s first matchup with New England was nothing short of miraculous. Sanchez tried to win the game, though, and along the way, he threw a perfect long pass to Cotchery in the end zone that brought the Jets back to within 10.

But he started the game very badly by throwing that INT that went for a touchdown. That’s a killer for a team to start the game in a 7-point hole right off the bat. But he brought the team back before imploding and, all in all, I’d rather watch him than his backup. The kid still shows a lot of promise. He reminds me of Joe Montana in a lot of ways, the scrambling, the arm, the demeanor….he just needs the same head, and that will come.

Rex has promised to address his young QB’s turnover problem personally. That’s what makes you love him. It may not be the right thing to do but ya gotta love the attitude. Rex has taken as many shots as has Sanchez, and he’s apparently taken them to heart.

So the Jets are a riot, if not a successful one.

The G-Men are a playoff contender but a boring one. I still don’t think they’ll make it to the playoffs though. Their defense won’t allow it. When their opponent has needed to score, they have scored. That’s not a good sign. And, while Eli was able to take advantage of the sieve of a Falcons pass defense, I can’t imagine he’ll be able to do the same this Thanksgiving against the Broncos.

Philip Rivers and his Chargers did though. But they have a strong defense and a better running game. They have LaDainian, we have Twinkletoes. They have Sproles, we have Bradshaw. Their offensive line blocks for the run as well as the pass. Ours blocks quite well for the passing game but the holes just aren’t there in the running game, and even the powerful Bradshaw can’t run through a wall.

Regular readers may wonder why I keep picking on Jacobs. Well, aside from picking up that 4th and 1 against the Pats in that wonder-filled Super Bowl, he’s done nothing up the middle. He has no explosiveness whatsoever, runs high and doesn’t have that much leg strength. What he can do is build up a head of steam and really roll, once he gets an opening.

That’d be great if they used him a little differently, I guess, but the Giants don’t. And they usually have better options in Smith and Manningham, Nicks and Boss and, well, just about anybody else….Hedgecock?

So I can’t be bullish on this Broncos game. We won’t be seeing Simms, we’ll get their first string of Kyle Orton, and the Broncs do have some receivers who can hurt us, Marshall and Gaffney and Royal and a nice tight end who can catch. The Broncs will be able to pass and they may even be able to run. They also have some nice defenders against the passing game, aka Champ Bailey and Brian Dawkins. Hell, Ty Law is their second-string corner.

Can our G-Men win in a shootout? I don’t think so. The only way they win this game is if they’re able to run the ball and stop the passing game. I don’t think they can do either. (I just deleted a whole passage ripping Sheridan, the defensive coordinator in name only, a new butt-hole). But who’s to blame when the defense has no clue?

Almost everything else NFL-wise went my way though this past weekend so I’m not complaining. My picks against the spread went 9-6, and, better yet, my best bets were flawless and I finally won my imaginary ten bucks. I won in both my fantasy leagues and still have a shot at the playoffs.

Not the Giants.

Friday, November 20, 2009

Quick Hitters and Week 11 NFL Picks

Favorite Spread Underdog 4 Best My Pick Reason

GIANTS 6 ½ Falcons * Falcons If G-Men win at all, will be close
PATS 10 ½ Jets Jets If Jets don’t cover, I’ll cry
LIONS 3 Browns LIONS Browns show no good signs
JAGS 9 Bills Bills New coach, new effort?
Steelers 10 CHIEFS Steelers Steelers embarrassed by Bengals
Colts 1 RAVENS Colts I like beans, not Rice
PACK 6 ½ 49ers * 49ers 49ers like the Midwest
VIKES 10 ½ Sea VIKES Vikes like to cover
BOYZ 11 Skins * Skins Aw, c’mon man…11?
Saints 11 ½ TB TB Bucs have found themselves
Cards 9 RAMS Cards That’s about it for Rams
Bengals 9 ½ OAK OAK Bengals too high, win close
BRONCS 3 Chargers Chargers Bolts keep flashing
Eagles 3 BEARS * Eagles McNabb has a field day
TEXANS 5 Titans TEXANS Titans pass defense, convince me..

Things are really lookin’ good the last several weeks. Week 10 yielded a 9-5 record and cumulative now stands at a pretty healthy 54-40 (or fight). I don’t pick Thursday games and from the lineup I’ve seen, I won’t be missing much. Best bets though suffered once again, a result of the Cowboys and Saints miserable performances.

I must say I took it on the chin for the Saints pick big-time. My brother, the Rams expert, let me know what a horrible pick it was before the game so I’m humbled. He does have a knack now and then, and it’s never a secret.

I keep thinking I’m due for a bad week, so bet with your head……yada yada. I’m half-expecting SHRINKAGE, in my cumulative record that is..

The G-Men haven’t won in quite some time. I’ll be happy if they win by 1. 6 ½ seems kind of optimistic. I mean, really. Just exactly which Giants are going to come to the fore, with all that pressure at home. Even if they’re good, the defensive coordinator will screw it up.

The Niners have really done pretty well when they’ve played in the Midwest and after the Niners last week’s paltry offensive performance and the Pack’s great showing against the Cowboys, I’m expecting a return to form.

Meanwhile, I know the game’s in Big D but this is one of those classic NFC East matchups and the Skins have been looking way better than they had in the early season. They have a lot of making up to do and I think this might be the spot for it.

My Eagles pick is more of a slap at the horrid Bears and their equally horrid coach than it is some kind of affirmation for the Eagles. But somebody has to play some pass defense and the Bears have shown no inclination to do so.
Aside from football, I’m really happy for Michelle Wie finally breaking out and not becoming the Anna Kournikova of golf. And I’m glad she pulled out of her most recent tournament after shooting a 72. When you’re hurt, you’re hurt. Especially if you happen to be 19 years old.

The Mets haven’t made a move yet and spent less on the amateur draft than everybody else. That can’t be good.

Why can’t I get into the NBA this year? And it’s not just the Knicks and Nets being awful, it’s the whole damn thing. Lebron, Kobe, ad nauseum still and why can’t rookies get a break? In what other sport do rookies have no chance at all? Why was I ever watching this stuff? Well, maybe it was Jason Kidd.

The Yanks are supposed to be looking at getting Mark DeRosa. If so, it would be an excellent move. With age all over the place on that roster, it can’t hurt to have better backups. Ask the Mets.

Oh, and I still want Matt Holliday over Roy Halladay. I hope Omar was saving his money for him first. The pitching is shaky but the lineup is very very weak. What if Wright doesn’t break out of his power slump? What if Beltran’s now chronic knee problems continue?

Okay, that’s enough of the quick hitters. And speaking of quick hitters, there’s a fella named Figgins who’s one. What if Reyes can’t come back strong…or healthy…or fast?

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Getting Serious in the NFL

It’s been one of those days here hard by the Short Hills Arboretum as chimney cleaners scurry in and out, up and down, all around la casa. Then the sofa we never needed arrived, the delivery people for it avoiding the chimney sweeps and their ladders by just inches. And all of that happened only after some tedious negotiation and Web searching made it all seem worthwhile.

So I’m already worn out but I did want to throw my two cents in for Rex Ryan, who had a darker day and week than I’ve had. Rex managed to leave ‘em laughin’ after firing his long-time friend and defensive line coach, parrying what had to be annoying questions as to his talented yet brash quarterback and all the time mindful that his audience knew full well that he had cried in front of his team in a post-game meeting, the game that all but broke the Jets’ backs in the AFC playoff picture.

Dick Vermeil made it okay, if not quite fashionable, to cry in front of your players. When you show somebody how much you care, you tend to make them care, and that can’t hurt results at all. Of course, Vermeil was also a hell of a football coach. And while we can’t be quite sure yet whether Ryan is or isn’t, we can be quite certain any failures won’t be because he doesn’t care.

The G-Men had their bye week and all you hear is how players are coming back from injury and hopes are higher for a playoff spot after losses by Dallas and Philadelphia. The Eagles especially will find some tough going without Brian Westbrook and the Boyz looked bad in their loss to the Packers. Roy Williams couldn’t make a big catch or three and the Pack must’ve found at least a partial answer for Miles Austin.

Atlanta lost too, I know, but I still can’t get too excited about the possibility of backing into the playoffs. I want to see them beat Atlanta this Sunday and then beat the Broncos on Thanksgiving. Then I’ll be happy. Let me see that big horse Jacobs finally start running over some people. Let me see Manning go back to Hakeem Nicks or Mario Manningham for some big gainers. Let me see a hurried opposing QB throw some picks. Then there might be some hope for a meaningful playoff game.

Serious teams replace their injured players before it’s too late to make any difference. The Bengals are a perfect example. Cedric Benson went down and they replaced him with Larry Johnson. When Kenny Phillips, the Giants starting safety, was lost for the season, the Giants did nothing. Only when C.C. Brown stunk the place out for two games did the G-Men decide to do anything. And Aaron Rouse may be the answer, but it may not be a strong affirmative one.

I was actually kind of dumbstruck to learn that C.C. Brown was never considered a coverage guy but that he could tackle. Hell, anybody can tackle. Those guys are all over the place. You expect a secondary player to be able to cover a wide receiver. If he can’t do that, he belongs on special teams….only.

That big hole the G-Men allowed to go unfilled for two weeks makes me wonder a bit about the seriousness of their intent. They’re playing the season to get by, to not look totally foolish out there on the field. But that attitude didn’t beat the Chargers, in the final analysis, and it may not be good enough to beat the Falcons or Broncos either.

The G-Men may have caught a break when Falcon RB Michael Turner went down with a high ankle sprain, though, and Jerious Norwood, his backup, is out too. The Giants may be able to throw some extra defensive backs (not that they have them) in there to stop Matt Ryan, as I don’t see the Falcons running a lot.

Then the Broncos’ Kyle Orton went down too in Week 10 and, while he may be the starter against them on Thanksgiving in Denver, he may be hampered some. And we all know what that seemed to do to Eli when he was hurt. Chris Simms would otherwise go for the Broncos and Mr. Simms hasn’t really been lighting it up.

Word in Denver is that even Orton couldn’t have had good numbers with their banged-up offensive line. Well, that’s a bit specious, I think, since Orton did throw two TD passes in the first quarter before he was hurt. But, in any event, with a banged-up Orton and a rusty Simms, the G-Men’s chances seem really good. Of course, they’ll still have the same defensive coordinator. (Just one more dig won’t hurt).

But do ya think Roddy White and Brandon Marshall might take advantage of that secondary, especially if there’s no pressure from the defensive front? I think so, no matter who’s at quarterback.

Okay, that’s enough about the local contingents. They’ve made their beds and they’ve been lying in them. And they didn’t add any support when the springs sort of fell apart. It’ll be hard to feel sorry for them when they find themselves sleeping on the floor, so to speak.

A couple of other NFL teams got serious this week. Buffalo’s head coach Dick Jauron won’t be circlin’ the wagons anymore and the Skins staff will have Sherm Lewis staring over their shoulders throughout. That’s in addition to the Jets parting ways with their defensive line coach. It’s a tough league and at least some teams are making tough choices.

The next tough choice might be made in Cleveland. Our own Eric Mangini (if he was ever truly one of us), has been hugely ineffective there and his GM has already bitten the dust. You know he’ll start getting very serious indeed (assuming he has ever been anything else.

Week 11 should start answering whether the Giants and Jets have been serious enough.

Monday, November 16, 2009

An NFL Upside Down Day

The world turned upside down yesterday. I didn’t even notice until I saw a team that was behind trying not to score against a team that was ahead trying to let them score. Then I watched a press conference that kicked off with the subject presenting a statement that outlined the key points of the game, followed by his implication that no further questions could be expected after his fine exposition.

Then, as if to reaffirm a ridiculous point, I watched a good defensive team with a 6-point lead go for a 4th and 2 from their own 28 yard line with just a little more than 2 minutes left on the clock. The team’s gamble went down the tubes as their delighted opponent scored a touchdown and extra point, leaving their bewildered opponent just 13 seconds to do something about it.

Of course, everybody knows what I’m talking about. The Jets defense, blah blah blah, wonders of the modern football world, whose spokesman just about a month ago asked how the media could dare to ask a question that didn’t hint at his team’s greatness, were trying their best to allow the Jaguars to score.

The Jags were down by two points with time swiftly running down. They were driving through the Jets defense as if they were seashells caught in a wave from a Nor’easter. They couldn’t stop the run and they were clueless against the pass, a team on the run, a beaten defense whose best option was to concede the touchdown quickly so that their offense would have time left to score.

Of course, they screwed that tactic up too. The Jags, immediately detecting the ruse and needing just a field goal to win, proceeded to fall down at the one, and then run around in circles for a few downs so as to totally run out the clock as they kicked the winning field goal.

Witnessing this whole thing was disgusting if you had any good feeling for the Jets at all after their high-mindedness of the preceding weeks. That they could continue their braggadocio even after having lost several games in every conceivable fashion seemed unreal. They were a team in denial.

Well, they know who they are now. Thank all the football gods. They found out who they were in that last Jacksonville drive when they went belly up. Their self-proclaimed great defense had no thoughts of forcing a fumble or getting a pick, or stopping the Jags dead in their tracks to force a long field goal. They just gave up.

Yeah, I know all about the strategy. I know it could have worked out, as unlikely as that seems to me now. But I hate the whole idea. It stinks, it smells bad. If I were a true Jets fan, I’d be embarrassed by the very notion.

A team has to have a personality. The Jets personality had become that of a strong defensive team. After three undefeated weeks followed by strong defensive efforts in several unfortunate losses, that personality was still largely intact….but not after yesterday. Now, they’re just a bad team, no good on offense, no good on defense and certainly no good on special teams.

The theme I kept hearing after yesterday’s disgraceful exhibition was that the team needed to finish, meaning that they had to stop losing games in the fourth quarter. And while that is certainly true, it isn’t the whole story. The Jets need better discipline all around. They need better communications before, during and after the game. They need to somehow accommodate for their lost presence in the middle of their defensive line. And they need to catch the ball.

They probably can’t accomplish all those things this season. But what they can do is try to re-establish a personality, even if it’s that of a brash but formidable defense. The Jets can either fortify that defensive line or change their schemes somewhat to make up for that weakness. They’ll then be something again, that something being a strong defensive team.

I won’t mind terribly if the Jets have a losing season. I rather expect one now. What I would mind is to see a team that is lost, a team that doesn’t know what it is or what it is trying to be. Yesterday’s tactics smelled of that.

As unlikely as it seems to me, Bill Belichick was guilty of the same mistake. He drank whatever Kool-Aid Peyton Manning was handing out and decided that the probability of his offense making a fourth and two exceeded that of his defense stopping Peyton Manning and the rest of the Colts offense on a final drive.

By doing so, he fired up the Colts defense and, unavoidably really, alienated his own defense. That may play into the hands of the Jets or some other opponent down the road for the Pats. If he punted, he may still have lost the game. But Manning would have had to be great once again against a strong defense. And he’d have had to take his Colts a long way, probably around 65 to 70 yards.

But he didn’t give his defense that opportunity. It’s too bad really. It’s out of character too. A man noted for his brilliant defensive schemes decided to gamble it all away on one offensive play, and in so doing, he challenged another good defensive team to be great. It was upside down, inside out and backwards, for anyone really, but especially for Bill Belichick.

And that’s probably the reason it didn’t work.

I’d like to see the world righted again. Rex Ryan should have a dominant defense and so should Belichick. A rookie quarterback shouldn’t be dictating terms to the media, even if he were a good quarterback, which Sanchez so far hasn’t really shown.

I’m quite sure Belichick would have punted against the Jets.

And Horse of the Year should be a tie. Both Zenyatta and Rachel Alexandra proved their greatness.


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Thursday, November 12, 2009

On Sports and New Notebooks

Yeah, yeah, sports, I know, sports. There’s so much going on, right? Rutgers is playing South Florida soon and they’re still in the running for a bowl, no, not that kind of bowl, but close. And BIG game tonight on the ol’ MLB Network, the Niners and da Bears. Be still my heart. Then the Mets are apparently making some noises in Chicago, noises that’ll eventually translate into a player or two or three. That’s the major news of the day.

In other new, the Yanks are considering Damon and Matsui (notice I didn’t say versus) and basking in their newfound World Series glory (for, what is it, the 27th time, who cares, I mean, really). And the football Giants ponder their carelessness and stupidity while the Jets just seem to send Mark Sanchez out to the podium to blame himself for everything… very tricky.

Aah, but let me digress for a moment. it’s so nice to finally have this notebook (an HP 2.2 meg big-screen screamer)working as it should. My docked configuration is working just great now. My old HP keyboard works just great (I’m converting from an old HP desktop) for typing and my wireless mouse makes it one hell of a lot easier to navigate around the screens, no matter how terrific these new touchpads are. A cheap USB hub makes all this a snap, by the way. Printer?... no problem, just stick it in the USB hub. Now, if I just had one more USB cable, I’d be set.

The logistics of the whole thing are slightly problematical though. Wires are, after all, still wires and they have to go somewhere. You’d think all that time I spent as a satellite TV installer would have helped in this regard, but, alas, so far it has not, not on a conscious level at least.

And it took me quite a while to figure out how to get a docked config at all as there are no hardware profiles included in Windows 7. (The answer was to change the way the notebook behaved when the AC power was engaged and the cover was down (closed) position).

Going from Windows XP to Windows 7 is a trip too. Learning those differences along with changes incorporated in the Microsoft Office 7 has been a real challenge and….do I really need all these menus and dropdowns and couldn’t they have included Outlook (the e-mail program) somewhere? I mean, Windows Live Mail looks familiar but am I going to be able to synch the two? Microsoft, what the heck are you doing to me? That Apple store at the Mall is calling me…..”Jimmy…..Jimbo…..look at this”)!

Pardon the lengthy aside but I’m all excited now…and then there’s the HDMI connection to my hot-stuff new Panasonic 42 incher yet to come. And should I get that Google Chrome?

But let’s get back to sports and the Mets, my favorite subject. The word coming from WFAN and ESPN is that the Mets are talking about Matt Holliday and Roy Halladay and there may have even been a trade for Castillo. And, if Bengie Molina is your catching cup of tea, you’re a happy Mets fan right about now.

Let me first throw my blessing upon getting either or both Holliday/Halliday(s). Acquiring one of the best pure hitters in the game in Matt and perhaps THE premiere pitcher in the game in Roy would be just exquisite. Even John Lackey would be quite an upgrade in our starting pitcher rotation.

Bengie’s getting a little long in the tooth though, isn’t he? Or are we just stocking up on power so we can continue our experiment with Murphy playing first base? Whatever the motivation, the man can hit and that’s something Mr. Schneider was never able to provide. And there may be no better alternatives on the free-agent market after all.

Then there’s the second base situation. Luis Castillo had a very creditable 2009. I certainly wouldn’t make replacing him a priority. I’m going to assume he was included in a potential trade for somebody else, maybe a catcher or a first baseman. I’ll throw my hat in for getting a real-live first baseman. Being the Mets, after all, wouldn’t Murphy be a nice pinch-hitter candidate and part-time first baseman?

It will be difficult for Omar Minaya to maintain his focus amongst so many alternatives. I’m assuming he does have his priorities firmly set despite a plethora of needs. Hopefully, power-hitting outfielder is one. First base and catcher would be tied for two.

After all, we have two incumbents who haven’t been too terrible at each spot, if either is not quite capable of being considered a real starter. But both Murphy and Omir Santos show promise. (They could probably start for Kansas City).

Whatever our Metsies wind up doing, it would have to be a step up, wouldn’t it? I’m going to assume our hard luck won’t continue and we’ll have a somewhat healthy Carlos Beltran in center and Jose Reyes at short.

While I can’t get overly excited about Rutgers, they did show some remarkable skill against Connecticut in their last. Beating the Huskies in the final seconds on a long touchdown pass was very impressive even if they made themselves beatable after building up a big lead. I think they’ll nip South Florida.

The Niners certainly have had a lot to say about their matchup with da Bears. Who do they think they are….the Jets? They seem to think they’ll dominate on both sides of the line and I hope they’re right but what about that secondary? Didn’t Vince Young just have his way with you? I think Jay Cutler could carve himself a nice 400-yard game out of this one.

The Giants have a bye and thank God. Hopefully, they’ll take Coughlin’s blaming of himself to heart as I think the head coach is right. It’s largely his fault.

And could some Jets besides Sanchez start looking in the mirror? It’s high time.

Monday, November 9, 2009

Forget the Playoffs

The Giants weren’t awful yesterday, but in a way they were. They got a maximal effort from just about every player. They had the lead with a couple of minutes left, but they couldn’t stop San Diego when it mattered most. When they needed to put pressure on the passer, they didn’t. When they needed to cover their best receiver, they didn’t.

It becomes more and more obvious every single week that the biggest loss from last season is Steve Spagnuolo. They never replaced him. To replace him, you’d need a guy who could inspire players. And, more important, you’d need a guy who had some canoles. The new defensive coordinator doesn’t.

I won’t even glorify him by putting his name in print. This is a guy, though, who had early communications problems with a couple of his stars. This is a guy who didn’t recognize that one particular cornerback couldn’t cover at all. This is a guy who was ignorant of any communications problem when the whole team knew they had one.

Coughlin’s meetings with the team seem to have denigrated into one-way communications. He too could use some canoles, as evidenced by the ridiculous play-calling down by the goal line and his gutless decision to kick a field goal.

But that’s ok. They won’t make the playoffs but they’ll be somewhat competitive from week to week. The games will be entertaining. They just won’t be one of the better teams. They’ll be mediocre. And they deserve to be mediocre. Let the gutsy teams rise to the heights. Let those teams that would have shut the door on those Chargers yesterday reap the benefits.

Not that Coughlin is really that much different from the coach whose team won it all in 2007. He always has played conservatively. I’m reminded of the playoff game against the Cowboys in that 2007 year. He ran three plays into the line, had to punt, and very easily could have lost that one. But he had a defense then. He had a guy named Steve Spagnuolo. Now he’s just got what’s his face.

So I’ve written off this season. The Giants never make changes mid-season and this year will not be any different. And, as long as they stand pat, they’ll be lousy. Well, maybe not that bad, but certainly not approaching good.

Thank the media gods for alternatives. With the NFL RedZone, I’ve been able to stay in touch with all the games. I’ve been able to see the difference between the good teams and the bad. A lot of the difference has to do with having smart coaches. But there is better than a smidgeon that has to do with heart, with intensity, with a fighting spirit.

It’s impossible to play hard for a bad coach, a guy who seems to make all the wrong decisions, a guy who will always lose a tight game for you in the final seconds. My poster boy for this kind of coach is Herman Edwards. He prided himself on his ability to motivate, but his teams just didn’t play smart football. You can still see examples of intellectual defects around the league. Yesterday’s finest example would be the Chicago Bears, who elected to cover the best receiver in the league, Larry Fitzgerald, with just one totally overmatched cornerback. Kurt Warner threw to him at will all day.

Then there are those coaches who are all intellect and possess no ability to motivate. You could name several head coaches for this category too. Zorn, Mangini, and several others, just have teams that can’t sustain any fighting spirit throughout the game. Why play hard for a management group that doesn’t know the difference, or appreciate the difference? How can you make plays when nobody ever says, “nice play”?

The Jets had a bye yesterday, thank God. Their coach Rex Ryan has so far shown himself to be a great communicator and motivator, but, alas, he hasn’t yet shown he can make good decisions. I won’t pick on Ryan though. It’s a little early for that. He can gain the experience that will help him become a better coach. He already has that innate sense of what buttons to push to motivate football players, a sense that takes a much longer time to acquire, if it can ever be truly mastered.

The Jets have to play in the AFC East, a division that has one of the best coaches in the game in Bill Belichick. Miami too has Bill Parcells pushing buttons at the top and what appears to be an imaginative and fiery head coach in Tony Sparano. The Giants have to play in the NFC East, a division that’s got Andy Reid of the Eagles and even Wade Phillips of the Cowboys. The other team is the Washington Redskins, thank the football gods.

You can pretty much bet the farm that both our local NFL representatives will finish behind those teams this year. It won’t be a surprise when it happens, for a team, first and foremost, needs good management and then they need a good quarterback, the manager of each and every game.

Not that I’m picking on either Eli Manning or Mark Sanchez.

Eli’s playing with a bunch of new receivers who, while very talented, don’t seem to be on the same page as Eli more often than not. He’s also got a giant running back in Brandon Jacobs who seems to prefer running the ends, seems to have no explosiveness whatever, and who also opens his mouth only to say stupid and hurtful things.

Sanchez is a rookie, and, while some rookies have made it big in their first years, I don’t see Mark as being one of them. And it won’t entirely be his fault. His defense, despite its bravado, hasn’t measured up in key situations all year. His receivers either don’t get open or drop the ball.
Both teams should have enough to finish third in their divisions. Forget the playoffs.

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

A Feeling for Seven

Thank your lucky stars, if you’re not too disappointed with your particular election results, for Game 6 finally arriving. Since the end of Game 5, since Jeter hit that double play groundball and Teixeira struck out, we’ve been hearing about the starting pitching, and how bad they’re going to be. That’s led to insane discussions of relief pitching, and pleas to bring Mariano Rivera into the game at the earliest possible opportunity.

Seldom in life, or elections for that matter, do things turn out exactly as we thought they might. I think it’s entirely likely that both Andy Pettitte and Pedro Martinez will be great. One’s a super-Yankee and one’s a super Hall of Famer. They should both be relieved of an awful lot of pressure, being that everyone’s expectations of them are so low.

They both have long histories of successes and they both have the hearts of baseball fans firmly in their uniform pockets. Pedro is 219-100 in his career. He’s pitching to put a fine shiny cap on an almost unbelievable career. Pettitte is 229-135 for his career. He’s pitching to go down in Yankee lore as one of their best, alongside names such as Ford and Guidry.

So they both have all the incentive in the world to pitch the greatest game of their career. There’s really no pressure on either of them.

Pettitte is pitching on three days rest. If he fails, it was Girardi’s mistake. He’s 37 years old and has pitched for the Yankees, except for a 3-year stint with Houston, since 1995. So his arm has lots of miles on it. Besides, even if he loses, the Yanks can still pull out a Game 7.

Pedro cares more about his reputation than he does about a Phillies win. That he’s with the Phils at all is entirely a matter of money and opportunity. He looks great. Pedro just turned 38 on October 25th. He can still throw pretty hard and his ball moves like crazy. He changes speeds with every pitch. And of course, he works in and out, up and down, and all the other things a great pitcher does.

Pettitte won’t go more than 6 regardless of the game circumstances. The Yanks are too concerned with pitch counts, and even at this ridiculously late date, their behavior is too ingrained to stop now. Pedro could go the whole nine. If he’s having success out there, they’ll let him pitch himself into the ground. The Phillies relievers haven’t had enough success this Series to warrant any other decision-making process.

I fully expect them to shut down those heavy-hitters on both sides. Pettitte has a couple of other things going for him. He’s a lefty and lefties have been particularly successful in this Series. He’s also great with men on base. Almost nobody is able to sustain a running game against Andy Pettitte. His move to first base is the best in the game and probably illegal.

I figure the game to be even at between two and three runs after 6 innings. That will be where the real fun starts. Pedro will go out there for the 7th and beyond. The Yanks, in an even game, will go to Joba or Marte, depending upon the lefty-righty matchups. It’ll still be an even match after 7, a tired Pedro vs either Yankee is no better than even.

The Yanks will go to Rivera for the eighth. The Phils will stay with Pedro if they’re still even. And then we’ll see the real reason pitchers blow up. It’s not pitch counts that finishes pitchers. It’s pressure. It’s confidence. How many times can a team expect a 4-out, 5-out, 6-out save or hold from a guy who’ll be 40 on November 29th? My guess is not too many times, maybe not even one time.

It’s hard to imagine Pedro going more than 7 unscathed by all that Yankee lumber. But they do have this Madsen guy and he hasn’t been too bad. He throws hard and he’s got a nice breaking ball. Lidge does too for that matter, and I think these Phillies relievers may be primed to shut up all those Yankee nay-sayers.

That’s one scenario, and maybe a more likely scenario could be imagined too. Maybe the years will show on both old reliables and they’ll both be gone early. In that event, the Phillies have some nice answers, either Happ or Myers or anybody wearing a red uniform in the pen. The Yanks have less reliable alternatives to my mind. Hughes has been inconstant, and he’s their most likely long guy, I would think. Of course, there’s Aceves and Coke and all the rest but nobody who really inspires confidence.

In the latter event, the failure of the starters, the Phils have the advantage but it’s probably a slim one. One thing’s for sure though. The attention in this Series will quickly shift to the hitters and then the story will shift to Arod or Utley, the big hitters in this Series, or it could turn to somebody nobody expected, like Scottie Brosius in one of those Yankee stories of yesteryear.

I can’t say as I’d mind if the hero were someone totally unexpected. I’d love to see Shane Victorino have a big game, he of the smashed fingers from Game 5. Both teams have a bevy of secondary stars, if you will, hitters all.

And both teams have legitimate stars who have not yet produced in this Series. Ryan Howard and Mark Teixeira could be having a futility contest. Certainly more could be expected from Rollins in this Series, or for the Yanks, Cano and Swisher, who will be starting tonight. And what about Matsui, who’s been limited only by opportunity?

I’m rooting for a Game 7 though. And, as a long-time Mets fan, I’d like to see a National League team take the whole shebang. This Series deserves to go 7. And I have a feeling that it will.

Sunday, November 1, 2009

Pulling Out All The Stops

A lot was made of two big NY-Philly games occurring on the same day in the same venue. But there was only one game that was played like a big game. Only that terrific World Series Game 4 will be remembered. The Yankees won it 7-4 and they took it from a very determined Phillies team that in the end were only one relief pitcher short of tying the Series at 2’s.

To get it out of the way, let me first say the football Giants were awful in the afternoon game. They have no pass defense. They have no cover guys, they have no defensive line and they have no Steve Spagnuolo anymore. They do have a defensive coordinator with not much nerve and not much imagination. So the Giants lost. The score doesn’t even matter. The Eagles scored at will.

The first intriguing thing about the Yanks-Phils Game 4 was the starting pitching matchup. The Yanks pitched their ace, C.C. Sabathia, on 3 days rest. The Phillies pitched Joe Blanton, their regular guy in the rotation. Phils Manager Charlie Manuel can’t be faulted for not starting his ace, Cliff Lee, as he had never pitched on just 3 days rest before. And the Phillies had beaten Sabathia in the past.

And, if the Phils had managed to survive Game 4, they’d have had their ace going on normal rest in a Game 5, and they’d have likely been up 3-2 in the Series 9 innings later. So the move made sense, I guess. But while it made sense, it seemed to me the game meant more to the Yankees. They were going all out to win. They were pulling out all the stops. The Phillies were doing business as usual.

As things turned out, of course, the game didn’t hinge on the starters. Blanton wasn’t as tough as was Sabathia but he managed to give up just four runs after six full innings. And, when C.C. left in the seventh, immediately after Chase Utley banged a long solo home run to right, the Yanks were still up 4-3.

Damaso Marte managed to get the Yanks out of the seventh and Joba struck out the side in the eighth. There was just one problem. Before he struck out the side, he gave up a tying dinger to Phils 3rd baseman Pedro Feliz. So the game rested on those ninth inning pitchers. The Phils selection was their closer, Brad Lidge, even though Ryan Madsen had just finished pitching a very nice eighth.

Lidge looked just terrific for 2/3 of an inning. It was Johnny Damon who did him in. After taking some pitches and fouling off some pitches and pretty much wearing Lidge out, Damon stroked a single to left. It was an at-bat that a few players mentioned after the game, one that will probably be remembered fifty years from now when youngsters in the stands today discuss the 2009 World Series. Lidge was never the same after Damon.

Lidge then had to face Mark Teixeira, which would have been bad enough. But then Damon stole second, and, as the Phillies had shifted their defense to the right hand side for Teixeira, Damon popped up from the keystone and stole third too, as nobody was covering the bag.

Lidge was a mess now because he couldn’t really use that slider of his that bounces in the dirt with a runner on third. So he proceeds to hit Teixeira with a pitch. Of course, with the Yankees lineup, things never seem to get any easier. Now he just had to face Arod, he of the many post-season homers and rbi’s.

Arod didn’t disappoint either, smacking a double to left that scored Damon with the eventual game-winning run and a hustling Teixeira went first to third. It was academic after that, but Posada drove in both Teixeira and Arod anyway. The game was all but over as they handed a 3-run lead to Mariano Rivera.

But it was a classic World Series game. Jeter and Damon were workmanlike in putting the Yanks ahead and Joe Blanton was cool as he managed the Yankees through the first six. Utley’s at-bat versus Sabathia in the 7th was a beauty and his homer seemed to give the Phils momentum even though they were still down a run. Then Feliz’s shot to left off Joba in the 8th to tie the game at last could have spelled the end for the Bombers.

But even before that, there were unusual things. I mean, how often do you see Ryan Howard steal a base? How often do you see any quick pitches, not just one but two for strikeouts? How about all those meetings on the mound with Sabathia? What gamesmanship was employed by both sides, and Posada and Sabathia were definitely playing with Werth’s mind when they struck him out with two men on. Once again, it was the Yankees who were pulling out all the stops, even the psychological ones.

Charlie Manuel’s supposed reliance on hunches wasn’t so evident for this game. He seemed to be doing everything strictly by the book. He pulled Blanton after six for no particular reason. The move to Chan Ho Park didn’t seem particularly wise as Joe had been pretty much coasting. That Park got them through the seventh isn’t really my point.

Ryan Madsen was pretty good in the 8th too, but that didn’t stop Charlie from pulling him for Lidge in the 9th, probably his last disastrous and fateful move in this Series. Lidge couldn’t handle the adversity Damon threw his way. No, I didn’t see many hunches being played by Manuel last night.

The Yanks go with Burnett on 3 days rest now and, even with Lee going for the Phillies, I expect the Yanks now to finish this one off in 5. The Yanks are playing to win, pulling out all the stops. The Phillies, with as much talent as they possess, are playing by the book.