Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Olympian Effort in Baseball?

Oh baby! Baseball’s really revving up now as baseball articles intrude on the Olympics and basketball coverage inundating the sports pages. But, this happens just as I was starting to get into Bode Miller and Lindsay Vonn, and, if I must say so, Julia Mancuso. And the ice dancing, something I ordinarily wouldn’t watch, drew me in last night as the coverage led off with a piece on White and Davis, one of the two American entries skating in the top 5.

What struck me were the sacrifices these two had put in for so many years of their lives. It makes you realize that these Olympians are athletes, highly trained athletes in every sense of the word. And then to see them put up some ridiculously high number to vie for gold was very gratifying. Their attitudes were great too, happy that they did their jobs pretty splendidly and only hoping for the best. They wound up with silver, of course, and I had to grudgingly admit that that Canadian couple looked pretty damned good too. (How’s that for analysis)?

It made me wonder too. Do baseball players try that hard to achieve excellence? More particularly, do Mets players try that hard? More particularly even than that, does Oliver Perez even toss the ball around in the off-season?

I pick on Perez as I had just finished reading that Sandy Koufax was impressed with him and that Jerry Manuel was impressed that he could duplicate the same delivery twice in a row. I can understand Koufax being impressed with his arm. Koufax was notoriously wild early in his career. His success came relatively late. I can recall watching some of his early games, wondering what all the fuss was about him. He couldn’t come near the plate some games.

Let’s hope Ollie’s career takes a similar path. That’d be nice. It’s encouraging too that Manuel had some good things to say about him. At this point, I don’t think Manuel would go out of his way to say good things about someone who has arguably been the Mets greatest failure.

But really, how hard is that guy capable of working? And how long will he be able to keep it up? I guess 2010 will tell us. We’ll see if he can become the #2 starter the Mets have needed. Not that a good or even great performance from Perez would have made any difference last year.

But, all in all, there have been a lot of good indicators coming out of Mets camp. You hear that Pelfrey dropped 25 pounds, not that that’s necessarily a good thing. I can recall Sid Fernandez, one of my all-time favorite Mets pitchers, dropping weight and being dreadful. But Pelfrey’s dropping some pounds is a good sign of effort.

Carlos Beltran, too, seems over his funk, or at least that has become his story. I personally don’t think Beltran is the type of person to worry too much about anything. And while he was obviously perturbed with the Mets and their medical staff, it sounds as if it was for good reason. He knows it, the Mets probably know it, and the whole incident just smells of bad public relations and bad communications within the Mets hierarchy. Again.

Ah well, let’s face it. Everything can’t be rosy. Sometimes it’s tough to be a Mets fan. For example, I had been looking forward to watching Omir Santos break out and have a good year. Next thing I know, he’s out and Rod Barajas is in. Why? I have no idea. And Santos won’t even be the second catcher. That job will go to another guy, Thole, nobody’s ever heard of. Why? I have no idea. Maybe it’s excessive perspiration or he needs a breath mint once in a while. He sure seemed to hit in the clutch. How bad can his pitch selection be?

And speaking of pitch selection, there’s the story out of Yankee camp that Burnett and Posada have worked out their differences, or, alternately, that there was never a problem to begin with. That Girardi gave Burnett Molina to catch all his games was just some kind of miraculous coincidence. Posada isn’t as stupid as he looks….or something.

Ah geez, there’s that Yankee hate coming out of me again. I just can’t help myself sometimes, like Newman (from Seinfeld) railing against the postal system. At least he had Kramer to rein him in and bring him back to reality. I have to rely only on Yankee beat writers and the few pearls of what is supposed to be wisdom from Brian Cashman.

Okay, he finally got them a World Series. After outspending the entire free world for baseball players for around ten years or so, he finally got one. Let’s anoint him baseball’s version of Bill Walsh. Oops, there I go again.

But really, the difference between the Mets and Yanks is astounding when it comes to PR. The Mets say nothing, the Yanks spin stories. For example, Joba is officially off his pitch count, but, oh by the way, he may be going to the pen.
I’m still amazed the Yanks let Johnny Damon go. He was the perfect Yankee in that nobody was ever more full of baloney. He’s thrilled to be a Tiger, he always wanted to play for Detroit, he’s happy with his one-year contract for 8 mill. Heeeere’s Johnny….

Let’s see now, is there a point to these ramblings? I’ll tie it all up with this….if the Mets put as much effort into communications as they expect their players to put into baseball, things would be better. And if the Yankees put as much effort into baseball as they put into baloney, they’d probably have some more Series rings to their credit.

Oh, and they really should have made more of an effort for Damon/Matsui. I can’t wait for crunchtime in Yankee games when it’s all on the line for, um, Granderson? Nick Johnson? Heh-heh.

Saturday, February 20, 2010

Jose Reyes Batting Third?

Jose Reyes batting third?
My first thought is that it takes his legs away, his biggest asset. So no matter what else may be good about it, it’s a bad idea. Sure, he might be able to hit .300 in a good year. And yes, he could probably hit for power a bit. And he had no problem driving in runs from the leadoff spot when he had the chance. And it’s true that he doesn’t walk very much so his on-base average suffers. And even Jose Reyes can’t score if he doesn’t get on base.

What that means to me is that he’s only a good leadoff hitter, not a great one. He only played sparingly before 2005 and after 2008. From 2005 to 2008 though, he scored 99, 122, 119 and 113 runs. . So how mediocre is that? Not very. Could he have scored more if he walked more often? Absolutely. But he averaged mid-sixties in the RBI’s department for those years from the leadoff spot. How might that number be reduced if he were not such a free swinger?

Reyes also stole a lot of bases in those years, averaging about 65 per year. Although runs scored is the most obvious stat affected by stolen bases, the stolen base also has residual effects not necessarily so obvious in the box score, all of which have to do with the underlying asset that makes the stolen base possible. That is speed.

Speed drives the opposing pitcher crazy, putting added pressure on him to keep the runner close. It also makes him throw more fastballs, making it easier for the next batter to hit. I can’t quantify it as those stats aren’t even kept (it would be impossible to determine it, what would the next batter have hit without Reyes on base in front of him) but his speed adds to the number of runs produced and scored by those following him in the order, not just the next batter but every batter who steps to the plate while Reyes is on base before him.

So Reyes is one hell of a leadoff hitter because he has speed, not just as determined by his on base percentage. Batting third, many times there will be somebody on base in front of him. Reyes will still have his legs, of course, but it won’t matter…he won’t be able to use them.

In exchange for the loss of all this chaos on the bases and turbulence in the pitcher’s psyche, we get a number 3 guy whose batting averages over those same 2005-2008 seasons were .273, .300, .280 and .297, marginal at best for a number 3 guy. So we’re trading a good to great leadoff hitter for a poor number 3 hitter.

None of the above takes into account the enjoyment that Reyes’s type of game has on the fans. Games will only be almost as enjoyable. Instead of leading off the game with a ball of fire, we lead off with…..whom? Luis Castillo? Angel Pagan? Somebody please get me a bag; I’m going to be sick.

This faulty thinking is really the first time I can recall thinking that Jerry Manuel over-manages. Even when he was changing relief pitchers every third of an inning, I figured he had good reason. He had all these situational pitchers and nobody who could get guys out from either side. Even when he put such an emphasis on hitting to the opposite field last year, a move that may have screwed up some successful swings (see David Wright), I figured his approach really couldn’t cause much harm. (I think it actually was helping Beltran before he went down with his injury).

But this move is just not well thought out, which really isn’t like Manuel at all. My hope is that it’s just a ploy…the old “if you don’t walk more, I’m going to bat you third” ploy. Whether this will have any influence on the oblivious Reyes at all is highly questionable. I think Jose is really untouchable as far as being influenced too much by anything, much to the dismay of Mets fans sometimes.

What the possibility of this move does do though is dampen my enthusiasm for both the season in general and the Mets in particular. I used to be a Minaya-Manuel guy. I’m not so sure of that anymore.

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Three Words for Mets Panners

In mid-winter every four years, a young man’s mind must surely turn to the thrill of watching the sport of curling….a cold and slick variation, it would seem, of horseshoes or maybe bocce, except for two crazed assistant sliders who accompany this foot-long disk down the ice, somehow magically determining whether the disk will attain its target. Gimme a friggin’ break….and pardon my Latvian.

Latvia, of course, was in the Olympic news as they faced off against their captor Russians in ice-hockey. That thriller could be witnessed on MSNBC also while the regular NBC affiliate carried the ever more popular men’s (using the term very loosely) ice skating. Woo_Hoo!!

And all that nonsense is still more interesting than college basketball and the NBA, where too many teams are chasing too little talent in a star system with not enough stars to go around. And the Knicks might even get Tracy McGrady…about 6 or 7 years late…all in what I’m almost sure will be a thwarted attempt at picking up one of the five or so superstars in the game.

Thank God for baseball. Thank God for the Mets. Thank God for the National League. And damnation to all the rest…the hated Yankees, all Steinbrenner’s money, all Cashman’s Verducci pitch-count crap, the designated hitter rule and finally, all those alleged Mets fans and prognosticators just lambasting Mets management for just about every move they make…or don’t make, as the case may be.

My USA-Today Sports Weekly now informs me in their early-season power rankings that the Mets are the 22nd best team in baseball. I hear on the radio that they’ll finish no better than 4th in their division. What baloney!

How does a team that was a title-contender in 2008, a team that lacked only relief pitching, drop so far in every man’s opinion? Here was a team that picked up that needed relief pitching in 2009 but here also was a team that was then unlucky enough to lose its three biggest stars to injury.

At the same time this Mets team experienced every possible malady known to mankind. They lost one of those relief pitchers very early too. They lost just about every player for significant portions of the season, including their #1 starter, Johan Santana.

And, in order to just get through that stinking 2009, the Mets did some good things. They picked up Jeff Francoeur from the Braves to play right field. Along the way and into 2010, the Mets got arguably the best left-fielder in baseball in Jason Bay. They also picked up two very decent pitchers out of Japan and one Kelvim Escobar who could turn out to be as good as a number two starter, or at the very least, a nice long reliever.

Okay, so they didn’t pick up a second baseman to replace the guy who hit friggin’ .300 and did his job in every conceivable fashion. And they didn’t renew Carlos Delgado, one of those stars who went down in 2009. The one glaring error, but only in retrospect, was the re-signing of Oliver Perez for big big dollars. Failure, thy name was Ollie.

Most of these alleged Mets fans will also point to the failures of Daniel Murphy at first base and do not relish seeing him man the position for 2010 as well. Not me. I think Murphy will improve a great deal over his 2009 season. Most young players do. And he’s got Keith Hernandez in his corner, a hot corner, teaching him the finer points of defense….and I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s talking some hitting as well. Keith has never been bashful.

So let’s re-hash and simplify. All those Mets-panners say we’ll get nothing out of either Japanese pitcher, nothing out of Kelvim Escobar, nothing out of Jeff Francoeur, oh, and lest I forget, nothing out of Mike Jacobs, who they acquired for power at first in the event that Murphy continues to do nothing.

Well gee whiz, guys, I think that’s God-awful pessimistic thinking, even for Mets fans. The only real missing piece from 2008 will be Carlos Delgado. Instead of replacing his power at first base, the Mets have added power in left field. And I’m sure every fantasy baseball player in the land would take Jason Bay over Carlos Delgado, any day of the week.

Oh, and Carlos Beltran will probably return in June. He’ll miss April and May for maybe 35 games. That leaves only about 125 in which he’ll play. Chances are he’ll be the old Carlos Beltran, the 5-tool guy who does everything. April and May will belong to Angel Pagan and Gary Matthews Jr., either of whom I’d take over a lot of centerfielders in the game.

So here’s the lineup in June….
1. Ss Jose Reyes – switch - .286 – 100 runs, 50 sb’s
2. 2b Luis Castillo – switch - .292 – 70 runs
3. 3b David Wright – right - .309 – 100 runs, 100 rbi’s
4. Cf Carlos Beltran – switch - .283 – 100 runs, 100 rbi’s
5. Lf Jason Bay – right - .280 – 100 rbi’s
6. 1b Daniel Murphy – left - .275 – 70 rbi’s
7. Rf Jeff Francoeur – right - .271 – 90 rbi’s
8. C Omir Santos – right - .260 – 75 rbi’s
9. P Pitcher

Before Beltran’s return in June, there will be a deficit in left-handed power as Wright, Bay and Francoeur all bat from the right side, which is somewhat problematical unless Pagan bats in the middle of the lineup and really doesn’t hit for power. (Detractors will assert that Francoeur and Wright don’t either).

Catching has also been cast as a problem but I don’t think so. Anyone watching Omir Santos knows that he hit .260, and chipped in 40 rbi’s in only 280 at-bats. I suspect two things…one, that he’ll be even more productive with more at-bats and two, he’ll continue to improve as 2009 was really his first year in the majors. Santos could probably deliver over 80 ribbies in 2010.

Let’s go Mets!

Saturday, February 13, 2010

An Easy Transition to Baseball

Geez, I let myself get really lazy about writing, as there was nothing I cared about going on this week anyway. Winter Olympics, Lindsay Vonn, bad Rutgers and Seton Hall basketball teams, the Nets and Knicks…please. As I have spent considerable time re-watching the Super Bowl though, let me for one last time ruminate on that wonderful game for all Saints fans and for all proponents of the underdog…something that you may not have heard.

You may recall the pivotal play of the game…the Tracy Porter interception of Manning. I’ve heard that play discussed and re-discussed but nobody mentions that a Saints lineman, probably Will Smith but I can’t be sure, since the rush part of the play was so ignored by Phil Simms, makes Manning rush the throw. Yeah, it was a maximum blitz (against Simms’s advice), but still it was those defensive ends that got in there, the other one being Bobby McRae.

You hear Wayne was slanting in, Wayne was slanting out, Wayne was late in the break, Wayne should have broken up the play, all kinds of stuff about Wayne. They mention that Manning hurried the throw but not why very much. It seems to me that Manning doesn’t make that type of throw if not for Will Smith.

It looked to me like a slant that Manning should’ve waited out for one more tick or two to throw. Yeah, you could say Porter jumped the route, but only in the sense that he was right there. He just had to react to the throw, which was right there for the taking. Not to disparage Porter’s play…after all, he made the Favre interception too, that saved the Saints win against the Vikings…but he had a lot of help from that blitz.

Anthony Hargrove was a factor too. Hargrove actually got hurt on a prior play, making Manning hurry a throw to Collie that missed. Nobody mentions Hargrove’s desperate effort to get to Manning on the play. Nobody mentions Manning had to hurry the throw to Number 17 because of it.

Another guy that could have gotten more attention was Jonathan Vilma. He was great the entire game. But that game could have gone in a much different direction if not for his knocking down that pass to Collie in the endzone. It came on that 3rd and 5, forcing the Colts to make that critical decision of whether to go for the three or punt (or go for a first).

Of course, the field goal missed, the Saints lead was held to just one, and the failed kick gave the Saints great field position. The change in the attitude of both teams after that miss is almost palpable. The Colts are hanging their heads while the Saints look ready to kick ass. You could make an argument for Vilma kicking off that entire chain of events with his breakup of that pass.

The other somewhat neglected factor was the coaching. The obvious errors were pointed out, the decision to go for the field goal, the failure to put the ball in the air right before the half (thus giving the Saints their field goal opportunity back again). But there were other problems with the coaching too, the conservative defense that got victimized all game by Brees, and their failure to put the game away twice.

Everything was coming up roses for the Colts in that first quarter. That Colston dropped pass and an overthrow by Brees on his first series, put the Saints in a ten-point hole. If the Colts had stayed aggressive in the second quarter, they could have danced in the streets after the game instead of having to watch the festivities with their heads down.

Instead of putting the game out of reach, they played conservatively and the half ended at 10-6. After the Saints scored to take the lead, Manning and the Colts came right back and scored a TD of their own. That could have been another game-changer if the Colts had stayed aggressive. Instead it wound up being their final score and the Saints went on to score 18 unanswered.

Never has there been a better example of a lack of aggressiveness losing a game. Caldwell coached it as if he had the better team and all they had to do to win it was to not make the big mistake. So the Colts were playing to not lose while the Saints were going all out all the time. Similarly, never has there been a better example of aggressiveness winning a game. Sean Payton could have been MVP if coaches had eligibility for it.

Oh well, another football season is over. One good thing about protracting the NFL season is that baseball then becomes a thing right around the corner, so to speak. Perhaps just coincidentally, the Mets finally made some badly needed moves along with just about every other team doing the same. So the hot stove stuff coming to the forefront of things right now means I’ll never have to watch a basketball game. WooHoo!

My favorite Mets team had been beat up all over the dial for not making essential moves to strengthen the club. What about first base, what about another pitcher? What about yada yada? Well, Mike Jacobs, although he’s coming off a meager year, adds a power element to that first base position to team with Daniel Murphy, the much-maligned Mets incumbent there.

And they picked up a very good and well-seasoned Japanese pitcher in Hisanori Takahashi. He’ll be fighting to become either the fifth starter or a relief guy, but definitely adds to the competition in camp. It should be interesting to see how both he and Ryota Igarashi will develop and how they’ll interact with themselves and the rest of the team.

Yankees fans may scoff. None of these acquisitions are sure things, anathema to Yankees fans. But I look forward to them working out, making the pennant that much more enjoyable.

Monday, February 8, 2010

One Man Couldn't Win It

You couldn’t have too much of a problem accepting Drew Brees as the Super Bowl MVP. After a bit of a rough start, he completed just about everything that left his hand. He threw the ball hard, he threw it soft, the ball always rotating in a perfect spiral. He threw from the pocket, he threw on the run, he sat in the pocket, he slid back and forth and one time he even shook a defender off him. And he continued to be the team’s unquestioned leader on the field.

But a football team is more than just one player. Nobody seemed to understand that before the Super Bowl and nobody will want to hear that now. America loves heroes. No…let me amend that…mankind loves heroes. That’s why many countries still hang on to their royal houses, I guess.

Peyton Manning had been the anointed one before the game. We heard that he was the best quarterback ever to play the game. He was the MVP for the regular season. He was a coach on the field, he worked harder than anyone and he brought those young Colts wide receivers into synch with him in a sophisticated offensive scheme.

Those same groveling sycophants are now making Manning the goat. Now he has fallen into the abyss. He threw the key interception. He called an inappropriate timeout. He couldn’t overcome a good football team playing great all by himself. He couldn’t overcome a conservative game plan for a team seemingly playing not to lose. He couldn’t overcome a team convinced they were figureheads for the resurrection of an entire once-drowned city.

And now Drew Brees is the god (and the King of Bacchus too). As good as he was though, the Saints wouldn’t have won without those other guys, the offensive line that gave him time to throw, the running backs who ran hard, broke tackles and provided an outlet for him when all those marvelous receivers had Colts hanging off their backs, most notably Marques Colston and Devery Henderson but also Lance Moore who only proved a contortionist could play wide receiver in the NFL.

And there was that marvelous Saints defense. Not just cornerback Tracy Porter or linebacker Jonathan Vilma or those smart and active players on their defensive front, the ones who made Peyton Manning throw in a hurry, the ones who even seemed to have the great one confused at times.

Even the special teamers were terrific, not just Garrett Hartley who kicked 3 long field goals to keep them in the game or even Thomas Morstead, the combo placekicker and punter who placed that all-important onsides kick to set up the black and gold in their dominating second half. Courtney Robey and the rest of those bombers provided solid kick coverage all day long. And a no-name like Chris Reis recovered that onsides kick.

An NFL roster has, I believe, 53 active players. At any one time, there are 22 players on the field. There are also the head coaches, the coordinators, offensive and defensive, and assistants for every conceivable function. In professional football more than any other sport, the head coaches and coordinators are sometimes more important than any single individual on the field. They call the plays. They decide who plays. The entire plan of the game is theirs.

And so it was yesterday. Any number of Saints players could have been named MVP. After watching the game again and then again, I discovered that virtually every Saints player played well. The only exception may have been Usama Young, a Saints defensive back who was immediately victimized by Manning and Garcon after taking over for an injured Jabari Greer, hardly an indictable offense.

While all of this may sound like so much claptrap to the more cynical, football is truly a team sport. No one man can win a game all by himself, not Peyton Manning, not Drew Brees, not Tom Brady, and not the immortals of yesteryear, Montana or Aikman or Bradshaw or Unitas. And the converse is true as well, although this writer may want to make exceptions for Brett Favre, Brad Childress and Herman Edwards.

Boldness won the game. Timidity lost it. There was that bold Saints onsides kick, but there was also a failed attempt to score on fourth and goal rather than take the easy three, a move that could have hurt much more if the timid Colts didn’t go 3 and out, allowing the Saints to get their three after all. The Colts decision to kick a field goal from 51 yards out, although seemingly a bold move, was actually motivated more by their desperation to put points on the board against a team they realized they couldn’t stop.

The Saints played to win the game. They pulled out all the stops. The Colts played not to lose. If one man can be legitimately canonized, it is Sean Payton, the Saints head coach who set the tone. If any one man must be the goat, it would have to be Colts first-year head coach Jim Caldwell, who talked only about a lack of execution after the game.

I couldn’t be more thrilled. I had rooted for the Saints all year long. I had predicted Saturday that they’d win this game, citing their ability to run and pass the ball, citing the injury to Dwight Freeney, and figuring that they’d get the turnovers they’d need to win the game, even against the great Peyton Manning.

Of course, it didn’t work out exactly as I had thought. I had thought Bush and Pierre Thomas would run the Colts into the ground. But they only did so after first catching a pass. While I thought Freeney couldn’t play well, he actually did make one play. While I thought the Saints would force fumbles, they only recovered an onsides kick and made an interception for a touchdown.

And I thought that a good team would beat even the great Peyton Manning.

Saturday, February 6, 2010

All Saints - The Clock and the Rock

It’s finally time to choose. With about 29 hours left to Super Bowl whatever (I can’t make out all those L’s and X’s and I’s…always thought it was stupid), it’s high time to choose a winner. And after due consideration, I just have to go with the Saints.

I’ve been leaning towards them all year really. They justified my faith too for much of the year, before all kinds of injuries crippled their defense and then some of their offense too. They went from good to bad to worse…and then to good again just at the right time, for the games that counted.

And my reasons haven’t changed from my last column, the one that talked about how much Dwight Freeney meant to that Colts defense, and how the Colts beat two one-dimensional offenses in the playoffs, Baltimore and the Jets, while New Orleans had to kick butt against Arizona and especially the Vikings. I also intimated then that there was some kind of magic surrounding the Saints, who just seem luckier than everybody else.

Well, nothing that’s happened in this past week has changed my mind. If anything, my feeling for the Saints just got stronger. If I thought Freeney would play at even 75% of his best, or if I thought that his backup was strong, or if I thought those last-minute hurts and ow-ies were going the way of the Colts, I might have changed my mind.

For those of you who never played football, or for those of you who never played hurt, you can play through some injuries, as “PrimeTime” has pointed out to us all week. For a guy who never made a tackle in his lifetime, he surely says all that with certainty. My guess is, like many other idiots on television, he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

A defensive end can’t play with a badly sprained ankle. Sorry, folks. Hamstrings hurt…fine. Shoulders hurt…fine. Even if your knee is a little out of whack…fine. Ankle?....forget about it.

Okay, say Colts fans….but the Colts have won without Freeney before and they haven’t missed a beat. Yeah? And who were they playing? Now, mind you, I’m not saying the Colts aren’t a great team. And I’m not saying that Manning and Company won’t put points on the board. And I’m not even saying the Saints will put up 30 or more versus that Colts defense without Freeney.

I’m just saying the Saints will put up more.
A look at this week’s last-minute injuries showed me a Colts wide-out who couldn’t finish practice. But no worries…it was only Reggie Wayne. The Colts have a nickel back ailing too. The Saints are doing fine, thank you, unless you count that kick-returner. Nothing’s really changed that much. The Saints still have a versatile offense with an opportunistic defense. The Colts still have Manning and a few force-fed young receivers, and a defense that never could stop a running team that also could pass the ball. (Please note that last phrase…it’s the big one).

I think we’ll be seeing a lot of Reggie Bush Sunday night. I just wish he hadn’t told the whole world that Sean Payton pretty much told him so. Nice poker face, Reggie, what an idiot! But no harm done really, the Colts had to figure the Saints would try to run. Besides, I think it’s a feint…they’ll be running Pierre Thomas straight ahead at that light but quick Colts defense. Reggie will probably be running to Freeney’s side…um, I mean the Freeney-less side of things.

Getting back to these young Colts wide-outs, how will they react to all that poking and swiping at the ball these Saints defenders like to do? If there is a wildcard in the deck, it’s that, fumbles. As these teams stand against each other now, this game is even. If there are turnovers, they should go the Saints way. They always seem to.

Against the Vikings, the Saints made Adrian Peterson a mess, even as he scored three touchdowns. As good as he was that day, he couldn’t knock the Saints out. He had to constantly worry about that thing he was carrying with the points on the end. They knocked Favre to the ground quite a few times too. And that defense was going for the ball the whole long afternoon. How often does Favre mess up a handoff to a running back?

The weather won’t be a factor. The report says it’ll be sunny with temps between 47 and 69 degrees. If the weather turns bad for some reason, and there doesn’t always have to be a reason for showers in Miami, that should also favor the team that can run the ball, the team that’s trying to strip that ball as a runner tries to regain his balance. (But I don’t expect bad weather).

The Vikings were a running and passing team. The Saints beat them. The Colts are a passing team only. They could try running Addai and Brown and whoever else they have in their stable of running backs but they’ll go nowhere. If the Colts should take a lead, they’ll have trouble running the clock. If the Saints should go ahead, it’ll be Thomas and Bush and a tick-tick-tock.

Then there are the intangibles. I have no idea which team has the advantage there. There was the Saints defensive coordinator saying they were going to go after Manning, there was Reggie Bush bragging about how often he’d be getting the ball, there was Dwight Freeney showing everybody his bare ankles, there were the rest of the Colts saying nothing.

I’m a big believer in pressure though. Put enough pressure on anything and it will eventually break. The veteran Saints are treating this as only a big game. The younger Colts remember their chances for an unbeaten season going down the hole in the name of keeping players healthy.

But their players got hurt anyway. The Saints got well. (Tick tock).

Saints win…..27-23.

Monday, February 1, 2010

That Fickle Finger of Fate

I know it’s finally Super Bowl week because I’m actually watching the Saints de-plane at Miami International. Oooh Boyy! There’s Jeremy Shockey and Reggie Bush…woohoo! And there’s the fabulous Benson family. And I can look forward to more hours hearing about Katrina.

Well, in at least one respect, it’s good. At least one team has shown up. That indicates there indeed will be a game…eventually. But it won’t be before a zillion interviews and about 5 zillion clichés. And I can only hope that wild and crazy guy, Colts head coach Jim Caldwell, will kinda keep to himself this week.

This game, when it’s finally played, will hinge on Dwight Freeney’s leg hinge, his sprained ankle. When you think of offense, you think Peyton Manning. When you think of defense, you think of Dwight Freeney. If Freeney, whose main asset is speed, is hampered by an ankle sprain, he becomes just another guy who takes up a lot of space.

The Colts have been the best team in football this season. I really don’t think there can be any question about that. Manning is the real fly in the ointment for opponents. That fact was characterized most perfectly against New England, whose coach of coaches Bill Belichick elected to go for a fourth and one in his own territory with the time winding down rather than have to watch Manning drive the length of the field to beat him. Of course it didn’t work, Belichick’s Pats had to give Manning the ball about 40 yards closer to the endzone than they would have otherwise, and it was all over but the shouting (speaking of clichés).

The Saints had been undefeated too. But with each successive win, they won less convincingly. They did it with unlikely interceptions and forced fumbles and it seemed every win was an act of God. Yes, they had Drew Brees and Marques Colston, Shockey and Meacham, but they also had unlikely heroes almost all the time, guys like Devery Henderson and Pierre Thomas.

But what ultimately stopped the Saints was defensive injuries, in the secondary and defensive line. It seemed those turnovers just weren’t coming anymore, putting more pressure on the offense to outscore the opponent. And it just didn’t happen those last three games of the season.

The Colts had a very different ending to their regular season. They just gave it up, their perfect record, their chance at NFL history, their opportunity to put a lid on Don Shula and those Miami Dolphins of yesteryear, Csonka and Mercury Morris and Jim Kiick, and that feared 53 defense. They gave it up to avoid injuries for the playoffs.

So, as luck would have it, the fickle finger of fate landed on Dwight Freeney’s foot in the playoffs. Those 13 ½ sacks he had in the regular season would be meaningless. He came out of that Jets win with either a bad ankle sprain or some kind of ligament injuty, take your pick, but either one is pretty bad for a guy who depends on speed for his game.

The Colts were awesome in the playoffs though. They looked anxious to prove a point in thrashing the one-dimensional offenses of both the Ravens and the Jets, even though the Jets surprised them early with a passing game they really hadn’t shown all season.

While the Colts had it easy, the Saints had to face Arizona and Minnesota. There would be no Joe Flacco or Mark Sanchez barking out signals on the other side of the line from that opportunistic Saints defense. They had to face Kurt Warner and Brett Favre, two sure future Hall of Famers. But they came out on top, absolutely pulverizing Warner and the Cards while just squeaking by the much tougher and more versatile Vikings.

While it could be argued that the Vikings gave the game away, Childress and then Favre having found imaginative ways to throw the game away in the final minute, the Saints had to deal with the best running back in the NFL, Adrian Peterson, and their craftiest quarterback, who they may have forced into retirement.

The Vikings had a fearsome defense too. The Vikes had everything. The Vikes held the Saints offense to one of their lowest outputs of the season. But they couldn’t win the game. They fumbled the ball time after time and kept giving the Saints life when things looked the darkest for the black and gold. That fickle finger kept pointing at Peterson and Berrian and, in the final analysis, pointed straight at Childress and Favre.

If the Colts weren’t the best team in the NFL, the Vikings were. But they couldn’t beat the Saints. That same fickle finger made all those Saints injuries go away. It seemed to poke the ball out of Vikings’ hands and, down the stretch, that finger maybe even stuck itself through Favre’s ear right into his cerebrum.

And now Freeney’s hurt. While the injury could be just a ruse, I don’t think the Colts’ braintrust is that imaginative. There is no Belichick to mislead, confound and confusticate, just earnest Jim Caldwell and his hard-working band of real football players, which is still saying a lot, Freeney or not.

Without Freeney, Brees will have time to find all those receivers down the field, and pass defense was never the strength of the Colts, not this year anyway. The Saints could score early and often, putting enormous pressure on Manning, a master of pressure situations if there ever was one.

But when will enough become too much for Manning? He has already complained of being tired, after the Jets game, when the New Yorkers had taken that early lead that Manning had to take back. And he was brilliant, finding Pierre Garcon and Austin Collie and that elusive tight end of theirs.

It’s still early but even the great Manning may have trouble scoring at will against pesky veteran defenders who always seem to come up with the ball.