Friday, December 30, 2011

Is It Finally Romo's Time?

Usually I hate to be wrong. But being wrong about the outcome of the Jets-Giants showdown last week was great. That collection of misfits in green lost to the less-talented Giants.

And they did it in totally embarrassing fashion, from beginning to end. From sending out Plaxico as the sole captain for the coin toss to having their head coach get in a shouting match with Brandon Jacobs at the end of the game, the Jets showed their, um, character.

First of all, the Giants can’t be blamed for letting Burress get away. And the man did carry an illegal firearm and shoot himself in the leg. Picking him up in free agency was fine with me but is he really the man you want as the figurehead for your franchise? Was his sole presence at midfield supposed to scare the Giants? If anything, it gave every Giant the affirmation that they toiled for good sane people while their opponents, at least the ownership and management, were idiots.

I’m one of those people who try to root for both New York teams, at least in football. But it’s been difficult to root for these Jets. Surely they have many players worthy of my respect but those aren’t the players I hear about. I hear about the low-lifes, from Santonio Holmes to that disgusting Scott on defense.

And it was great to see them lose. It was great to see them practically eliminated from contention.

I say “practically” only because we’ve seen these Jets be “practically” eliminated before. As unworthy as the Jets are of having any good luck whatsoever, their cup overflows with good fortune, seemingly every year. Three games this weekend have to go the Jets way, along with a Jets win over Miami, in order for the Jets to get into the wildcard. And, with the Jets luck, those eventualities will very likely occur.

And the Giants finally simplified their pass defense, a move that paid off bigtime. All game long, Giants defenders were only a step away from the receivers. Getting any separation at all from their defenders was too much to ask of guys like Burress, who always thinks he’s open, and Holmes, who’s only interested in the red zone.

The things I feared the most, that the Giants wouldn’t be able to stop the pass or the run, didn’t happen. The media is blaming Schottenheimer, the offensive coordinator, for calling so many pass plays and not taking advantage of their strong running game. But the Jets seemed all game to be running out of time.

And how many times did Sanchez drop back only to hold onto the ball? That situation only arises from receivers not getting open, from low-life guys not trying too hard. After all, aren’t their skills quite sufficient to justify being thrown the ball whether they appear to be open or not?

The Jets offensive line took some heat too but it’s been mostly unjustified. No offensive line can function long enough to prevent pressure when the QB can’t really bring himself to release the ball. The Jets just don’t have it, not the talent, not the character, not the inspiration. No, the team that showed all those things were those guys decked out in blue.

The personification of all those qualities was, undoubtedly, Jason Pierre-Paul, who provided one more clinic on how to play defensive end. He was too fast, too strong, too ridiculously athletic for the Jets offensive line, even going against Pro-Bowlers like Ferguson. Pierre-Paul played as huge as his stature, and Tuck and the rest of that Giants front seven played well enough to prevent a lot of double and triple teaming on Pierre-Paul.

So the Jets are almost dead. The Giants are alive.

I wish I could think the G-Men will prevail at home this weekend versus the Cowboys. Their QB is no Sanchez. Their receivers are not named Burress and Holmes. They can put points on the board with the best of them, Romo to Austin and Bryant and Witten. But their defense can be awful, and, waddaya know?, there’s another Ryan, Rex’s brother Rob, running that defense into the ground, blitz after ill-conceived blitz leaving receivers open all over the place down the field.

Theirs is a defense that truly mirrors their defensive coach…..bold…..and stupid, characteristics of all the Ryans, it would seem. This was very clearly evident in the first Giants-Cowboys encounter, a game that Dallas led by two scores with just about 5 minutes left, a game situation that called for a careful defensive approach against a team with Eli and Nicks and Cruz and Manningham.

Instead, the Giants saw blitz after blitz and took full advantage, coming back to take a 3-point lead, and then held it by icing the kicker and then blocking the second kick, a guy named Pierre-Paul once again doing the honors.

Most prognosticators are predicting another shootout for this final but I’m not so sure of that. Will Rob Ryan be that stupid again? Can even a disciplined Giants pass defense deal with all those fine Dallas receivers? I have my doubts. But there certainly have been encouraging signs.

Can Pierre-Paul be a monster again? Will the addition of Osi Umenyiora give the Giants DL even a better pass rush? Is Felix Jones, the Dallas running back, really hurt? All indications so far point to another Giants win.

Maybe that’s what makes me nervous. Might it finally be Romo’s time to do something in the playoffs? Bad hand, bad record, bad defense, can’t Romo finally pull one out? Against all odds? If anybody’s ever been due for some good luck, it would have to be Tony Romo.

The Giants are favored by 3 points. The over-under is 46½. I figure that’s just about right. If so, it won’t be a high-scoring affair and not really a defensive battle either, rather somewhere in between, 25-22 or so, a game decided by turnovers and mistakes.

Who’ll make them?

Monday, December 19, 2011

The Bad Guys Will Win It

I should be happier really. My fantasy team romped behind Drew Brees again and even CJ Spiller went a little crazy. But the Giants failed miserably, starting with the usually reliable Hakeem Nicks, and the Jets were even worse, starting with Santonio Holmes and ending with a defense that just started badly and looked even more horrible as the game went on. Where can I dump all my sweatshirts and tees?

The Giants lack talent, especially on the defensive end, and could probably use a good defensive coach, something that has eluded them since the departure of Spagnola. The Jets have plenty of talent but have absolutely no character, starting with Santonio Holmes. Anybody who can do a stupid endzone routine when his team is down by a few touchdowns deserves to sit for a long, long time.

Not that it matters. Neither of these teams is going anywhere. Neither team deserves to go anywhere.

The Jets defensive performance defies description. They couldn’t stop LeSean McCoy. They couldn’t hold on to the football. They couldn’t rush the passer. They couldn’t contain Vick. They did nothing. It’s impossible to root for a team that not only quits but quits with a smile, as did Santonio.

The Giants are at least a bunch of high-character people. They just don’t have a lot of experienced people on the defense. Oh, and sometimes the offensive people decide to take a week off. Other than that, not being able to play offense or defense, they’re great. At least they have character. They looked genuinely disappointed to have lost a second time to one of the worst teams in the league.

So where does that leave New York sports fans? Well, basketball starts pretty soon. The Knicks will be better, much better in fact, on paper anyway. They’ll have the best front line in basketball with Carmelo Anthony, Amare Stoudemire and now Tyson Chandler. I like some of their support people too. Landry Fields and Mike Bibby are unselfish contributors and, while Baron Davis is totally full of himself nearly all the time, at least he has some talent, when he cares to play.

But, until then, the start of the NBA season, it’ll be tough for us fans. Since both local contingents play each other next week and both can’t possibly lose, we’ll have to wait a little longer to finally turn out the lights on pro football. For two more weeks, we’ll have to listen to the drivel surrounding the playoff hopes of at least one of these sorry teams.

I guess it’ll be interesting to see which one of these local teams will prevail. While I’d like to see the Giants beat the Jets next week and take their sorry inconsistent brand of football to Dallas in the final week, I just don’t think that sorry defense could possibly put together two good weeks in a row.

But at least I can root for them. Except for Brandon Jacobs and that miserable fellow playing safety, the Giants are a bunch of nice guys. The Jets’ only high-character individual is now hurt and Leonhard’s absence from the field no doubt contributed in large measure to that totally uninspiring performance they mailed in on Sunday.

The Jets though have been the luckiest team in the NFL for two years running, having made it to the AFC Championship Game both years, once because an undefeated team sat every player that was any good in the last week of the year and once because nobody else seemed to want it.

I believe in luck. Some people have it. Some teams have it. And the Jets certainly have been one of those teams. When they choose to do so, even without Leonhard, they can play pretty good defense. The Giants can’t play defense under any circumstances. At least not so far.

The Giants ground game won’t beat the Jets. The Jets will stop power backs better than speedy guys. The Jets can score against that ridiculous Giants secondary. The Giants will score too but not every possession. And that won’t be enough the way the Giants defense has been playing.

So, to me anyway, the bad guys will win (that’d be the Jets for those of you not paying attention). That’s if all things are equal, heh-heh. But then the Jets are the lucky team too. I see lots of wide receivers in green doing their airplane thing. Darrelle Revis could make an appearance or two.

The rest of the NFL action, outside of New York, was fantastic. Green Bay finally loses and Indianapolis finally wins. Drew Brees throws for a zillion yards. Detroit nips the Raiders. Ndamokung Suh blocks a field goal attempt, a la Jason Pierre-Paul… the Broncos cough it up to the Pats…..what more could you ask?

The Chiefs beat the Packers under Romeo Crennel and they sure looked happy on the sidelines. The Pack lost two offensive tackles, and the Chiefs hit those Pack receivers off the line. The Packers may be quite beatable now. The Chiefs showed everybody how it could be done.

You’ll hear that Brady beat Tebow. But the result really had nothing to do with either of them except to show that both qb’s can really play the game in their own way. The turnovers were just too hard to overcome for Denver.

And it was great to see NJ’s own Donald Brown change direction and race through the Titans defense for about 80 yards and a touchdown. It was even nice to see Peyton Manning smile again. That Lions-Raiders game was great to watch and who knows that Janikowski wouldn’t have made that 65-yard field goal if that giant arm of Ndamokung Suh hadn’t got in the way.

I’ll enjoy the rest of these shootouts for sure, even the Christmas Eve games, and probably this big Giants-Jets matchup most of all, even if it won’t be a battle of titans. Before you know it, it’ll be time for Santa.

Monday, December 12, 2011

On Heroes and Goats

NFL fans and owners are a tough audience. The Cowboys lose, it’s Tony Romo’s fault; the Bears lose, it’s Marion Barber’s fault (twice); the Chiefs lose, it’s the head coach’s (Todd Haley) fault.

At the same time, Denver’s success is all due to Tebow (Tebow, Tebow, Tebow), the Giants success to Eli Manning and Jason Pierre-Paul. Our predisposition to have heroes, I guess, is the reason there are still monarchies in the world today.

Not that I even mind the hero worship that much, especially in the cases of Eli and Pierre-Paul. Eli was great last night, making all the throws and all the right decisions. Pierre-Paul was all over the field all game long and finally blocked the kick that would have tied the game for the Cowboys. But Mr. Tebow (Tebow, Tebow, Tebow) had a lot of help in that Bears game, even if he very well might be the reason every Bronco player thinks he can be great too.

But poor Marion Barber; his first error was allegedly running out of bounds to stop the clock, thereby giving the Broncos time to tie the game. But he didn’t really run out of bounds. He took a tremendous blow from the side that knocked him out of bounds. His late fumble was actually a strip, something that shouldn’t happen but does sometimes for a guy who gained over a hundred yards for the Bears yesterday and scored their only touchdown on a very nifty run and side-step that left his defender on the ground.

Poor Todd Haley; his team lost Jamaal Charles, one of the league’s top running backs, Matt Cassell, their quarterback, Tony Moeaki, their tight end, Eric Berry, a Pro-Bowl safety and a pretty good linebacker too named Brandon Siler. The real story is that the GM in KC hates the head coach, always has hated him, and was only too happy to finally pull the trigger.

Romo threw for 400 yards and zero interceptions. His “overthrown” pass to Miles Austin is what detractors say lost the game. But as Mom used to say, “it takes two to Tango”, and there’s no better example of that than the curious chemistry between a QB and his receiver. Austin had been out with a bad hammy for weeks and who knows whether he was running full speed or not.

Now everybody’s saying the Giants will be the NFC East Champions. And, while I’d love to agree, it’d certainly help me lean in that direction if I thought for one minute that their defense could stop anybody. They certainly didn’t stop the Cowboys.

But the Giants defense is practically the worst defense in the league. They’ve given up 349 points in 13 games, by far the worst statistic among playoff-caliber teams and exceeded in futility by only Minnesota, Carolina, Tampa Bay, Indianapolis and Oakland.

I keep hearing how bad the Patriots defense is but they’ve surrendered only 274 points, 75 less than the Giants. That equates to a TD per game at least. The Pats have scored a whopping 396 compared to the Giants 324. The Packers, last year’s Super Bowl winner, have given up 278 and scored a league-leading 466. Face it, Giants fans, the pass defense is a sieve. If they manage to cover everybody, it’s an accident.

The Giants still have a long road ahead too. They should dispatch the Redskins at home next week but then they’ll be facing the Jets and, in their last regular season game, they’ll face the Cowboys once again, a team that will have had the taste of revenge on their tongues for three full weeks. Just as a benchmark, the Cowboys defense has given up just 281 points.

What saves the G-Men are their defensive line, even without Osi Umenyiora, Eli Manning and those terrific receivers, Nicks and Cruz and Manningham, and now, the tight end too, a fellow named Jake Ballard who already has 589 yards and 4 touchdowns, pretty incredible for a rookie tight end. Hakeem has gained over a thousand yards already, with 6 touchdowns, but he’s an All-Pro.

Yeah, yeah, I know, matchups are everything. The Giants proved that against those very same Packers last week, forcing them into overtime to finally eke out their 13th victory without a loss. But the very best teams have secondaries who can cover people more often than not. Defensive lines are great but the best QB’s will find somebody, even given just a little bit of time.

Eli has been matching up with the best of those quarterbacks too. Eli can make all the throws and out-think opponents most of the time too. In fact, Eli is one of those guys, like Aaron Rodgers, like Tom Brady and like even Tim Tebow, who make everybody play better. It’s a special gift and doesn’t happen for just anybody.

So what are the Giants missing? Until last night, I would have said it was the offensive line. Until last night, I would have said it was the running backs. But last night I changed my mind. Brandon Jacobs, that big goof usually, was everything I could have ever wanted in a running back last night. The offensive line surrendered no sacks.

But even after last night, I still have to question that secondary. George Allen hated having rookies anywhere on his team. He couldn’t deal with the mistakes. He’d have put a gun to his head last night (perfectly okay in Dallas and much of the country). Those corners and safeties were just clueless last night. They’re only fooled when the opponent decides to pass. And, oh yeah, those linebackers are a little suspect as well.

Of course, nobody stops quarterbacks these days. It’s against the rules. If anybody was watching as Skins linebacker London Fletcher dealt Tom Brady a perfectly legal hit and got called for unnecessary roughness, they’d have been as sick as I was.

The only sure thing though is that, whatever losses are found down the road, it’ll be somebody’s fault.

Monday, December 5, 2011

On Dual Phenomena

The NFL is so strange. The Giants lose and everybody’s deliriously happy because they only lost by 3 points. Tebow wins again and everybody shakes their head. And a fellow named TJ Yates comes in for the Texans and makes the Falcons defense look like the rookies. Oakland does nothing against a Dolphins team that couldn’t do anything right for the first half of the season. And now they’ve won 4 out of the last 5.

Oh, and there’s more. How about Urlacher’s Bears losing to the Chiefs on a decently-blocked Hail Mary? How about Cam Newton having himself a career day in Tampa? And then there was the Bills C.J. Spiller fumbling at full speed at about the 15-yard line and then just barely recovering the ball in the endzone.

You can’t makes this……oh just yada yada….

But sometimes you get an inkling that something weird’s about to unfold. Take the Giants game. A lot of observers seemed to think the Giants could indeed beat the undefeated (and Super Bowl Champions) Packers. And I myself had a similar vision of Cam Newton having a monster day in Tampa. Sometimes there’s just something in the air.

There’s a different energy in the air too inside a football stadium. Some players latch on to it and use it to make plays. And nobody captures that something in the air as does Tim Tebow. The interesting thing to me is that Tebow hasn’t really had to do anything impossible while winning all these games for his Broncos. He’s just made the plays that he’s had to, um, every time.

Now some may say that there aren’t many quarterbacks who could have avoided that stupid Jets blitz of a couple games ago. But that’s not really true. Any QB with reasonable speed could have done that. Everyone comments on his size and his speed that he’s used on seemingly endless quarterback draws and sweeps and, well, just about anything else a quarterback could do with a football. And that is true.

But, all that stuff (the running skills) only works in an offense that maximizes the potential of a guy such as Tebow. No other team in the NFL uses that run-option stuff. It’s ironic that the guy who’s directing all the unusual stuff (head coach John Fox) has his background as a defensive coordinator. But it’s not so ironic at all really when you consider how difficult it is to stop that offense.

You have to guard against the run at all times, not so much the running of McGahee, which can be prodigious in itself, but the running of Tebow, and not just his runs down the field (which can also be prodigious by themselves) but his knack for buying time to get that ball to a receiver. It’s that infuriating elusivensess in the pocket and out of it too. Fran Tarkenton had it. Joe Kapp had it. Ben Roethlisberger sorta has it too as does Drew Brees. And each of those fellows has certainly had his impact on the game. But none of them presented the running down the field danger of Tebow.

Tebow can take it all the way. He’s a fullback-type runner with enough speed to get to the outside. He can score anytime he has the room. Defenses have to guard against the pass too, and, thus far, it seems as if the opposition has decided to take their chances against Tebow passing the ball. But they’re finding that, alas, Tebow can pass the ball a little too.

There’s something else too that Tebow brings to the table though. And that is fear, that visualization of your upcoming loss. Other quarterbacks have that too, of course. But their names are ones like Brady, Brees and Rodgers. All those names give a defense that expectation of imminent loss. Heady stuff.

While Tebow brings unusual talents to the table, it’s not as if other QB’s haven’t had the same skills to both run and pass the ball. Michael Vick comes most readily to mind. But Michael Vick has always been the round peg in a square hole. Every coach he’s had has tried to standardize Vick to the NFL, to make him run an offense for which the coach is most comfortable.

And Vick gets hurt a lot. Vick always seems to take some of the most formidable hits you’ve ever seen. Tebow, as much as he runs the ball, never seems to really get clobbered. Even as big as he is, he’d get hurt more often if he didn’t have a knack for absorbing the hits.

But the thing that’s really unique about this Tebow phenomenon is the offense itself. It’s not Tebow per se; rather it’s Tebow in an offense designed specifically to mazimize his skills. I give almost as much credit to Elway and John Fox as to Tebow.

It took a lot of moxie to take the steps they’ve taken. And, game by game, nobody’s handled Tebow as well as has his coach, whose direction has been most decidedly conservative, only asking his QB to do those things that Tebow most decidedly can do, and only when those things have needed to be done.

Okay, that’s enough about Tebow and the Broncos. His game is so much fun though, if only because the naysayers say it’s impossible, or now, that it can’t last, that NFL defenses will catch up. And I do think that defenses will indeed catch up but they’ll be defenses like Pittsburgh and Baltimore, with names like Polamalu and Suggs.

Another phenomenon though is leaving our fair town. His name of course is Jose Reyes. Our terrific Mets shortstop will be taking his fun game to Florida. And, while I can cry in my beer about it, I can be happy the Mets didn’t spend 17 mill per year for the next 6 years, which is what Jose got from the Marlins.

You had some bad luck, Jose, but you were aces.

Monday, November 28, 2011

On NFL Week 12 and a Monday Night Shootout

Week 12 was a dud for me. Yeah, the Jets won, Plax was a hero and Sanchez had some time to throw. Even Shonn Green garnered some yards. But my fantasy team, one that has been slumping for quite a while now while still managing to win, could put together only one decent effort, that coming from our own Dustin Keller at tight end.

I had expected tough going this week as my premier running back, Fred Jackson was injured, only to be replaced by CJ Spiller in Buffalo. Other players I counted on earlier in the season, such as Miles Austin and Julio Jones, have been likewise hurt, but not badly enough to hit the injured reserve list; just badly enough to take up room on my roster.

My two remaining big guns play tonight, Drew Brees and Hakeem Nicks. But they’ll need a heap of production, even for them. No, it’s not a good day for Crabs. One thing I’ve had all season long though is luck. The one-point wins, the 3-point wins, the remarkable performances put up by the most unlikely players (or team defenses) in the least likely situations.

If tonight’s battle between the Giants and Saints unfolds the way I think it might, which is to say, a shootout between Eli and Mr. Brees, my chances become pretty good. In that kind of battle, Drew could put up 300 yards easily and 3 or 4 TD’s while Hakeem Nicks could see a 100-yard day and a touchdown. Maybe the Saints D will double on Victor Cruz. That would be a welcome change.

While I wait for all that to unfold, I can only try not to tear my hair out thinking about the ridiculously conservative approaches that teams take with their best players. Julio Jones for example has been out for weeks with a hammy but his status was changed to probable for Week 12. Julio must’ve been down by the school yard because he didn’t see even one friggin’ minute on the field. He and I got to watch as his replacement, one Harry Douglas, got his catches and a touchdown. Meanwhile, Sidney Rice, ordinarily Seattle’s first receiving option, hurt his “widdle” head quite early and that was the end of his day on the field.

Football can be an infuriating game. Just ask the Chicago Bears who saw an injury to their QB, Jay Cutler, seriously hurt their chances at a playoff spot. Ask the Houston Texans. They lost Matt Schaub the starter and Matt Leinart the backup in successive weeks. They managed to win though. The Bears were not so lucky.

In last night’s game we had to watch the Chiefs and their backup QB, one Tyler Palko, try to compete with the Steelers and Ben Roethlisberger. They did acquire Kyle Orton, a serviceable or better QB who had the misfortune of preceding Tim Tebow in the early-season depth chart. Tebow won again yesterday in what has come to be the Broncos trademark fashion, lots of defense and lots of Tebow.

Compare and contrast Tebow to Ndamokung Suh or Stevie Johnson, the thug and the dipstick. It’s amazing to me how pleased with themselves some of these players are. Then they’re sorry afterwards. Suh especially deserves everything he might get in terms of penalties or suspensions. What irked me totally was his denial at first that he had done anything wrong (after stomping on an exposed leg). The next thing you know he’s apologizing. Stevie Johnson demonstrated his lack of brains and any class whatsoever by doing his Plaxico Burress impersonation in the end zone. He was later sorry too.

Even though I really don’t anyone who wears his religion on his sleeve (and tries to rub a little on your sleeve too), coming from Tebow, he seems so sincere that his continual religious references don’t really have any negative effect on me. He’s a big, strong, fast gentleman, maybe the only one in the NFL. I’ll take his behavior over some of these other meatballs anytime.

Meanwhile, the NBA lockout is over (or soon will be). Thank God this Holiday season that we won’t have to hear about the legal wranglings that would have been part and parcel of a continuation of the lockout.

I’m looking forward too to a reduced season as I had always thought that 82 games were too many. When the NFL season starts winding down and the playoff participants become all too clear, a little Knicks and Nets action will be just what the doctor ordered.

Rutgers failed to win the game they needed to advance to a BCS Bowl. Color me sad.

In my favorite sport, baseball (by an increasingly large margin) hot stove action has been really slow. We don’t know where Reyes is going if anywhere and the same goes for Pujols. The biggest signing though was sadly the Phillies signing of Papelbon, Boston’s terrific closer. Now the Phils seem to really have everything. And I wouldn’t be surprised if they go after Reyes too. Their shortstop is getting (and playing) a little long in the tooth.

The Philadelphia Eagles, erstwhile dream team, looked pretty dreadful against the Patriots Sunday. But it wasn’t Vince Young’s fault. He threw for 400 yards with just the one pick and yet the Birds weren’t really in the game after the first quarter. They didn’t play defense that you’d notice. Apparently the Pats are better than the Giants, who only managed to score ten points against them in their latest outing.

In any event Eagles head coach Andy Reid might be in a little trouble. All those weapons they acquired in free agency aren’t having much of an effect. Michael Vick, Vince Young, and all those offensive weapons couldn’t do much against the Pats, at least from a scoring standpoint, and the whole team seems to be playing lifeless ball.

Let’s hope the Giants fare better tonight against the Saints. Let’s have a good old-fashioned shootout.

Thursday, November 17, 2011

On Jets-Broncos and Mets Not-Stove

Everybody’s giving the Broncos no chance tonight against the Jets in Denver but I’m not so sure of that. A look at the Broncos’ last two wins indicates they can play any kind of game you want. Against Oakland, a 38-24 win, the Broncs fell behind so they had to pass the football. They did so very successfully. Against KC, they had the lead and nurtured it. They never had to pass the ball but one of Tebow’s passes did go for a touchdown. In both games, their special teams and defense played pretty well too, especially when they had to.

The Jets could have their hands full. Another thing that was obvious in reviewing the actual play-by-plays of those two games was the seemingly total inadequacy of Matt Cassell and his passing game against the Broncos defense. Carson Palmer for Oakland had some success, especially early, but then failed in the clutch to deliver anything of value.

All that data indicates to me is that Mark Sanchez and his receiving corps will have to perform better than those of either the Raiders or Chiefs. Their running game will have to click too if the passing game is to succeed at all. While I’m confident the Jets can stop the deep throws from Elway to Decker and Royal, I question whether they’ll be able to stop the run. Their defensive ranking against the run is decidedly middling.

The other thing you hear about the Jets is their lack of a pass rush. That won’t help their cause tonight. The pundits say the Jets will put 8 in the box and have a shadow for Tebow. A lot will depend on how successful that shadow is. And I wonder who it’ll be. David Harris? Eric Smith? Those two are the leading Jets tacklers. But can they stop Tebow all night?

Another advantage might be in coaching. John Fox, the Broncos head coach certainly rivals Jets head man Rex Ryan in defensive acumen. He may have better tools too, especially in the pass rushing department. The Broncos have 24 sacks to the Jets 18 but I suspect the QB hurries differential might be higher than that. Sanchez could find himself scrambling a lot. On the offensive end, the Broncos have been decidedly conservative while the Jets and Schottenheimer, their offensive guru, will throw in a lot more passes whether they have the lead or not. Overall, I’d give the Broncos the edge in the coaching department.

Then there’s the fact that the game will be played in Denver. The only road game the Jets have won this year came against Buffalo. They just ran over the Bills. I don’t think they’ll manage that tonight against the Broncos. I wonder what kind of protection Sanchez will get if they can’t just run over an opponent. How will Sanchez handle the pressure? Will he be better than either Carson Palmer or Matt Cassell?

If the Jets have an advantage, it’s that they really need to win this game. They’re coming off an awful loss while the Broncos are coming off a high point. They have experience the Broncos do not. Both those points aren’t necessarily enough to hold off a young and talented team in their building.

The Jets are favored by 5. My guess is that they’ll eke out the win somehow. But I doubt that they’ll cover the spread. A lot will depend on how this game plays out in the first quarter. If the Broncos can stay close, they’ll be very dangerous.

The only other game in town right now is hockey, a sport I just never cared for. I don’t know how many ice skaters there are from Bayonne but my guess is not many. I mean, there are probably as many skaters as ponies, but Bayonne was definitely “non-pony country.”

The NBA we can apparently just forget about. No Knicks, no Nets….how will we manage to survive?

I’m with the owners, if only because I’m firmly against ticket prices going through the roof. And I’d like to see a more competitive NBA too. The players would say that their percentage of the profits has nothing to do with either point but I think they’re mistaken. In any case, it’ll be a Lawyers win over the NBA fans, by a score of about 123-11.

Then there’s hot-stove baseball, I guess. It’d be a lot more fun to follow the free-agents if my Mets had any money. They don’t. Everybody says Jose Reyes will have to play elsewhere. While it will be a shame, it may wind up being a good thing. The Mets actually do have a nice candidate to fill the shortstop position in Ruben Tejada.

The noise about trading David Wright is kind of interesting too. It wouldn’t be a bad thing. One reason I think he’ll stay is that his market value right now isn’t really what it was a few years ago. Besides, although Justin Turner can play his position, he’d be better off at second base, which will be vacant if Tejada plays shortstop full-time. If Turner had to play third base, second base will, I suppose, revert to Daniel Murphy, a scary prospect at best.

I’ll be following the pitching situation closely too, with an eye towards what will happen with Mike Pelfrey. I’d love to see him go but he’ll probably wind up staying. Once again, he’ll be the ace who just never seems to come up aces. I suppose he is an inning-eater extraordinaire but really, it’d be a nicer feather in his cap if he did better in a lot of those innings.

If the Mets could get some value out of a trade for Wright and Pelfrey, I’d feel pretty confident going into 2012. A couple of starters or relievers would be nice, commodities more needed right now than a third baseman who can’t really hit and a pitcher who can’t really win.

Then there’re the Yanks. They re-signed Sabathia.

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

On NFL Week 9 qnd Smokin' Joe

Wow! What a football week! Having just finished watching “da Bears” take the shine off those golden boys from Philadelphia (in Philadelphia), I can honestly say this Week 9 NFL action was pretty darned good, better than I can remember in a long, long time.

The Giants (and Eli) were great. The Jets were pretty darned good. The Ravens war with the Steelers and the Bengals-Titans matchup were superlative. The Broncos won under Tebow. The Dolphins won their first game (in a big way). The Chargers were competitive against the Pack but still managed to look bad in doing so.

And some of the big guns in the NFL rolled in dazzling fashion, the Falcons, the Saints, Houston, the Niners and Dallas all outclassing their opponents as was expected. I love watching form prevail. But it’s nice to see the lower-echelon teams coming on too, the Seattles and Rams of the world still losing but looking a little better in the process.

How great was it to watch Eli bring the Giants back to outdo Tom Brady and the Pats (in Boston)? What made it better was that Brady had just finished doing his own reprisal of “Tommy Breaks Your Heart Again”. But it was the Pats hearts that were shattered. And who the heck is Jake Ballard? How can he be making all those nice catches?

I don’t root for the Jets anymore but they sure did a number on Fred Jackson and the rest of the Bills. And not just because Freddy is my feature fantasy back. (Julio Jones more than made up for Freddy). How can anybody root against those lovable Bills who couldn’t quite circle the wagons soon enough on Sunday? The Jets just systematically took them apart, nothing really flashy, just hard hits and a smart offense and defense too. The Green Team was dominant.

Back to the Giants though, just for a few seconds, it was great to watch Coughlin with the team in the locker room! The feeling between Coach and his guys was palpable. He quite apparently does not run a concentration camp, and maybe….just maybe….even modern athletes can appreciate somebody who makes them more disciplined.

Equally as great about the Giants win was that I gave them just about zero chance of pulling it off. Their best receiver (if that can even be said anymore), Hakeem Nicks, was out. So was their best running back, Ahmad Bradshaw. The center was out too, just to add a further degree of difficulty. The Pats hadn’t lost at home in five years or so. The whole thing was pretty damned shocking to a person who feels he’s got everything figured out.

Of course, I didn’t have to sit through all the commercials. I watched the Zone. In fact, tonight’s Eagles-Bears game was so oversold with ads as to be totally unwatchable, especially in the final minutes of the second quarter. Shouldn’t ESPN be embarrassed? Does nothing embarrass them?

A moment of silence (and tribute) to Smokin’ Joe Frazier who died today. He feels like family in a way, so closely were his fights with Ali examined, so genuine and so richly deserved his dislike for Ali, the hype for the fights, the actual fights, every single thing you could say about that rivalry would have to be good.

Joe played his part almost too well, first taking Ali’s title (for real this first time) with a terrific left hook to Ali’s jaw, then losing to Foreman, then Ali beating Foreman, then the “Thrilla in Manila” and the sequel that almost matched the original for drama. Joe was the plugger, Joe was the determined one, Joe was the guy who’d make Ali eat his cruel words. Joe was a guy every man, especially Ali, had to respect, even if he never seemed to get any love.

Joe kept coming, straight at you. I think Saint Peter will just stand aside.

The Bears’ Matt Forte and Lance Briggs did their own tough-guy routine tonight as they put a battering on those Eagles, even if Forte made more mistakes in one night than he usually makes in a month or two. Linebacker Briggs was just all over the place. When he delivered the hits, the “hittee” was all over the place. And that Bears offensive line kept Jay Cutler clean as a whistle.

It looks as if it’ll be the Year of the Harbaugh. Younger brother Jim Harbaugh has brought the Niners back to relevance while big brother John has his Ravens positioned nicely to finally win an AFC Championship. And they’ll meet each other on the field Thanksgiving night in Baltimore. That one promises to be the Game of the Year.

But, meanwhile, the damned Packers just keep winning. It seems that nobody can stop Aaron Rodgers and company, certainly not the San Diego Chargers. But I’ll say right now that I don’t expect them to win it all. Not this year, not with that running game….or lack thereof. Excuses can be made for the defense, I suppose, having to deal with Rodgers putting so many points on the board, but their running game is putrid.

Some might say the Pack had no running game last year. That’s really not the case though. Their offensive linemen had blocked last year. They show no inclination towards doing that this year. When the threat of the run becomes so small as to make no real difference, the play-action passes won’t work. And their defense can’t stop anybody.

Of course, there is half a season left to play. And maybe, just maybe, the game of the year will be the Giants against the Jets. That’s the game in store for us on Christmas Eve…….if we’re very good, and if the Giants and Jets are too. If even one team falters, the game might not be very meaningful.

But if both locals can keep playing good football, it could be a precursor to the Super Bowl. Now that’d be something!

Monday, October 31, 2011

No Blues in St. Loo

Let’s see if I can wrap my hands around what’s been happening in St Louis these past few days. The baseball contingent of that fair city with the arch once again refused to lose to a Texas Rangers team that kept putting runs on the board all the way through the 10th inning.

When the Rangers finally came up short in their half of the 11th, the Cards finally put them out of their misery in the bottom half, hometown boy David Freese laying down the hammer with a walk-off homer to center, this after he had tied the game at nines in the bottom of the ninth with a 2-out 2-strike triple to right over a flailing Nelson Cruz.

If the St. Louis fans weren’t crazy enough after tying the Series in miraculous fashion in Game 6, they got to enjoy watching Chris Carpenter, their ace throughout the post-season, really and truly squelch any hope the Rangers may have still had . As a bonus, David Freese once again was the hero at the plate, immediately taking Carpenter off the hook with his 2-run tying double in the bottom of the first. The hometown boy became the MVP of course and that arch looked as shiny as it ever had as St. Louis celebrated late into the evening.

If it had been just a few heroes who came through for the Cards, acknowledged stars like Pujols, Berkman and Holliday, it would have been a good thing surely. But this Cards team was so much more than that. There was Freese of course. But there were also guys, young and old alike, named Allen Craig and Rafael Furcal, John Jay and Nick Punto. Skip Schumaker and Yadier Molina, Daniel Descalso and Ryan Theriot, all turning in whatever they could whenever they could.

And they had done it since late August, coming back from 10 ½ back to capture the wildcard, then whipping the Phillies and all their aces in the NLDS, the Brewers and all their sluggers in the NLCS before finally extinguishing those Texas Rangers’ hopes.

Then, as if basking in the light of that Cards magnificent championship, the lowly Rams, that town’s NFL entry, a team that hadn’t managed to win a game all year, slugged out a convincing victory over the team that had been Super Bowl champions as recently as two years ago. They did it with their reserve quarterback and one Steven Jackson, one of the finest running backs in the league when healthy.

Those Rams made the Saints look like, well, themselves at their worst. Drew Brees was terrible. The Saints couldn’t run the ball, the Saints couldn’t pass the ball, and, just when it looked as if the Saints could mount one of their patented comebacks, the Rams said “I don’t think so” and intercepted Brees to extend their unlikely lead even further to 31-14. The Rams would not return home on empty that day. They looked a lot like their baseball brethren, refusing to lose, especially after that fine start.

So, if you’re into baseball, you’ve got to like the Cardinals. If you live in St. Louis and are into baseball, you’ve got to love them. Yeah, Pujols may not return, manager LaRussa is retiring and who knows what else the fates may hold in store for them, but those St. Louis fans will remember this 2011 group for a long, long time.

But now you can be a Rams fan too. Perhaps all they needed was an inspiration, the kind of inspiration only a team such as that Cards team could provide. A lot of teams have talent. All they lack is the will to win. Those Cards had that in their back pockets with their chew.

Maybe that Cards glow will fade in time, but the Rams were on fire on Sunday. They were as determined as they’d been all year. Run the ball, no problem, Steven Jackson alone garnered 159 yards all by himself. Stop the run, no problem….they gave up fewer than 60 yards. Defend the pass, they’d do that too with an interception that was run back for that final TD that put the Saints to bed.

Society being what we are today, not many analysts gave the Rams any credit for the victory, it was too much fun to batter Brees and the Saints. It wasn’t Jackson who excelled, it was the Saints failure to tackle. It wasn’t newly-acquired Brandon Lloyd getting wide open in the end zone, it was lousy coverage by the Saints. It wasn’t a tough D that stopped Brees cold…..well, you get the idea.

Even the greatest Rams fan of all, my brother, had given up on his favorite team by Week 8. He’d been disappointed for too long. He’d seen enough from what had become a totally uninspired group of football players on both sides of the ball. The Rams averaged fewer than 10 points scored while usually surrendering 30 or more.

Ironically, he had picked the lowly Jaguars to cover against the Texans (a push, as things turned out), but he wasn’t quite ready to spend any more love on a Rams team that had shown nothing since the final exhibition game. The same man who had garnered hope from every conceivable Rams indication of talent for seven weeks had finally given up.

What he hadn’t figured on was lightning in a bottle, a city brimming with admiration for its baseball team, hometown heroes making good, and unlikely candidates thrusting themselves into the heart of the fray. He hadn’t figured on the Rams wanting some of that too. He hadn’t figured on that Cards winning glow rubbing off, affecting even those lowly Rams, a team that had seemed impervious to even any suggestion of hope before Sunday.

I’ll bet there had been no room for blues in that St. Louis locker room on Sunday. That Rams football team came to play. Forty-five guys were saying ”Give me some of that”.

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

The End of Baseball

What could be better, a nice fall day (but not nice enough to have to work too much), a personal computer, a word processing program from 2007, a fantasy football show on the tube and the prospects of watching a World Series Game 7, if Tony LaRussa can just shut up and manage like a regular human being.

And Terrell Owens is making news again. You have to admire his tenacity. And he says he likes fantasy football too and he’s got Drew Brees and Ryan Fitzpatrick as his quarterbacks. All right, T.O.!

I love these NFL replays too, best thing next to the Redzone and the mute button. The NFL Network has been showing the Jets-Chargers and now it’s the Vikings-Packers on the air. The Jets, as much as they drive me crazy with their acerbic personalities, were actually good. They ran the ball, they passed the ball, they got turnovers, they were pretty impressive.

And C, the Vikes rookie QB, was really impressive against the Super Bowl Champions. Especially his first-drive bomb to Michael Jenkins that went for a TD before the refs took it away and awarded them the ball on the 1. Do officials ever do anything that isn’t friggin’ annoying?

The Series Game 6 scheduled for tonight may not be played. That’ll be good too, providing a perfect opportunity to watch “Inside the NFL”. Besides, maybe it’ll give Carpenter a chance to pitch again. That’d be interesting. That man is tough. There’d be nobody I’d rather have going for me in a Game 7.

But will the Rangers allow it? I don’t know. Right now, in this Series, they look like the team that does it all, especially in the power department. Since they decided not to pitch to Pujols, things have been looking decidedly better for the guys in red. And you had to love Derek Holland’s impersonation of manager Ron Washington taking him off the mound after his masterly performance in Game 4. These Rangers are a team that deserves to win.

But that doesn’t mean that the Cards don’t deserve to win it. You just get the feeling that the MO, momentum, has definitely gone to Nolan Ryan’s side of the ledger. (I wish he wouldn’t hang with Dubya though). Holliday has to start making the Rangers pay for avoiding Pujols. It looks as if he’s trying too hard. But he’s come through in the past in the post-season and Lance Berkman ain’t exactly chopped liver either.

But things are setting up for the Rangers. What must the Cards be thinking? How confident do they feel after the fluky sound problems that beset them yesterday? Even if you don’t blame anybody particularly for putting in the wrong relief pitchers, it’s a pretty big gaffe for a major league team in a World Series.

Other things weigh in the Rangers favor too. Their relievers are rested, their hitters seem confident and they’ve got the hot manager now. Ron Washington has been rock-steady at the same time as he jumps up and down like a little kid. The man’s got personality. And he makes the baseball moves that regular human beings make.

But, truth to tell, more of my attention is on the football action around the NFL , if only because my fantasy team hangs on in first for one more week, this despite getting almost nothing from about six different players in the lineup. Bye weeks can be a terrible thing but Drew Brees, even for three quarters, can make up for a lot of deficiencies in other areas.

You have to be lucky though. I’ve said this before but all that stuff about making your own luck is vastly over-rated. I’ve won one weekly contest by one point and another by about 3 along with the most curious set of circumstances one could possibly imagine.

I just learned that it’s snowing in the Denver area and all that weather is heading for St Louis, and not only that, but it’ll probably be headed our way too over the weekend. I’m not quite ready for any skiing in October. Let’s at least have Halloween first.

The Football Giants should be entertaining this weekend too. They get to play the worst team in the league this week, the Miami Dolphins. They’re coming off a nice performance against Buffalo but that game followed a horrible team performance against Seattle. That’s what bugs me about football. You can get totally inexplicable game results, as was Sunday’s Ravens debacle against the Jaguars.

I was away for the Giants woes against Seattle but everything I read indicates that both Seattle QB’s had pretty good stats and Eli Manning threw 3 interceptions on the day, the last one ensuring the Seahawks the victory. The Buffalo victory, while impressive, came against a Bills defense that was all banged up.

Now they play Miami, a desperate team for a win, and, judging by their Seahawks performance, I’d say anything’s possible. But the G-Men will probably emerge victorious. It’s a really good thing too, because their succeeding six games are really tough ones….at New England and San Francisco, then home against an out-for-revenge Eagles team, then at the Saints, home vs. the Packers and at Dallas.

If they win 2 out of those 6, they’ll be lucky. I see the G-Men being at 6-6 after their game against the Packers. They’ll then have to finish strong against their division opponents, Dallas (twice) and Washington, around a home rivalry game with the Jets.

If the Giants win a playoff berth, they will have earned it. The Jets seem to have an easier road, facing the rest of the NFC East and their own division rivals. I think that if the Jets can dominate the Bills, they’re pretty much assured of at least a playoff spot. The Pats are still the favorite to win the division.

It’s the best time of the year, even if it will be the end of baseball.

Friday, October 21, 2011

Small-Ball Prevails in Series

It’s interesting to look back sometimes on these posts of mine to see where my mind was a week ago and where it is now. In my last column that was almost two weeks ago, I reflected on the Cards being the team to beat, that it was the Cards who had all those no-name guys who would hurt you.

Since then, the Cards did manage to make the Brewers look awful and then took Game 1 of the Series behind a lot of pitching and one of those no-name guys, one Allen Craig, who hit a little flare to right against Alexi Ogando, a Texas guy much too fond of his fastball, to drive in the winning run in the Cards 3-2 victory against the Rangers in St. Louis.

But, last night, the Rangers showed that they could play some small-ball too. Rangers second-sacker Ian Kinsler got a hell of a jump on Cards closer Jason Motte in the 9th and just got his hand in to touch the corner of the bag ahead of Rafael Furcal’s swipe tag. Cards catcher Yadier Molina made the perfect throw but it wasn’t enough to nail Kinsler.

Then, a guy named Elvis Andrus kept the line moving along with another single, sending Kinsler to third and taking second on the somewhat-muffed relay. All of a sudden, it was second and third and nobody out. Both runners would wind up scoring on sac-flies from Hamilton and Young and that was it for the day as far as scoring would go. Rangers closer Neftali Feliz made sure of that.

So the American League entry can play small-ball too. They’ve also got some guys who can hit in the clutch, some guys who can steal bases and play defense too. Their shortstop Elvis Andrus made one play that looked impossible and another that just was as fine a play as you’ll ever see.

Until that ninth inning, it looked as if the Cards would once again employ the same method of destroying an opponent’s will as they had been doing all the way down the stretch of the regular season, take the lead and trot out one fine reliever after another to shut down that opposing offense.

If Kinsler didn’t steal second, if Andrus didn’t take second on the throw, the Rangers would have been down 2-0 in games on their way back to Texas. But they put the pressure on, they hung tough, much as the Cards had been doing with regularity. The Rangers got the big hits and made the big plays. Momentum now has to favor the Rangers. They beat the LaRussa formula.

That Neftali Feliz looked so unhittable in the ninth didn’t hurt either, as far as inspiring confidence in the Rangers’ chances. Feliz was the man, not Motte. The Rangers won’t fear Jason Motte anymore.

I had been thinking the Cards still had an advantage in starting pitching, if only because they had three lefties going against all those right-handed hitters of the Cardinals, especially Pujols and Holliday. But, a quick look at the split-stats for Matt Harrison, the Rangers lefty who’ll be starting Game 3, shows that he’s better against righties than lefties, in terms of opposing batting and slugging percentages. The Rangers could easily take Game 3.

Derek Holland, Game 4’s probable Rangers lefty starter, may have a lot more trouble against that Cards right-handed lineup. I’d imagine the Cards would tie the Series up in Game 4 at two apiece. He’ll be facing Edwin Jackson for St. Louis, someone who has been effective all year but with limited experience in the playoffs. If the Cards did lose this one, they’d be down 3-1 in the Series, an event that these Cards won’t let happen.

Game 5 should also go to the Cards as Chris Carpenter is a much better pitcher than he has shown thus far in the first game. Facing C.J. Wilson again, who I thought pitched over is head in Game 1, Carpenter should send the Series back to St. Louis with the Cards holding a 3-2 lead.

Then it’ll be Garcia-Lewis again in Game 6 in St. Louis. The Rangers obviously won Game 2 with the same SP matchup so it’s not inconceivable that, with the Rangers’ backs firmly against the wall, as they were to a lesser extent last night, the Texas contingent can tie the Series at 3 apiece, setting up still another Harrison-Lohse matchup in Game 7.

Your guess is as good as mine as to which of these two tough teams will take that one. Whatever happens though, it’ll be a team that can play small-ball, good defense, steals, taking the extra base and getting tough at-bats in tough situations.

The weather has negated the power of both these teams so far, both games in St. Louis having been played in weather in the 40’s with a stiff wind. Pujols’s drive especially last night would have soared out of the park on any normal baseball night.

The Rangers definitely broke through in a big way with last night’s come-from-behind win. They beat LaRussa’s formula, they beat their feared closer, they fielded the ball better and they were better on the basepaths. They have the closer to watch out for now. They have more experience in the playoffs and they’ve had their taste of failure in last year’s World Series vs. the Giants.

That’s a lot of advantages, a lot of stuff that’s hard to evaluate. I now think that the only way the Cards win this Series is if they take 2 out of 3 in Texas, a tough test against this Rangers team that loves to play at home, a fact that I heard Josh Hamilton re-affirm today, and in just about those same words.

Of course, there’s also NFL football still rolling along. The Jets, borderline sociopaths all, will lose to the Chargers if there’s any justice in this world. The Giants should have their way with Fish.

Saturday, October 8, 2011

On Playing To Win

Ok, so let’s see, where are we?

The Yanks lost. Arod is the goat, of course. New York’s favorite goat, that’s Arod. No sense in whining about it, Yankee fans, you’ve got him for six more years. Sure, it seems like a lot of money, but look at the bright side.

Ummm, Arod can play his position somewhat, he probably still has the potential to hit 30-40 home runs, he still can command attention in that Number 4 spot, at least when he’s healthy. He’s taken care of most of his physical problems and he really wasn’t in a groove yet by the time the playoffs rolled around.

I hate feeling sorry for Arod. But really, he wasn’t the only Yankee not doing much at the plate. Teixeira and Swisher weren’t exactly awe-inspiring. Jeter still can hit that ball, almost well enough to put the Yanks in front down the stretch in that final game.

What the heck, Texas probably would have beaten them anyway.

I just watched a re-run of the final Brewers-D-Backs game. Maybe if the Yankees had somebody like Nyjer Morgan, they’d be a lot scarier. I felt the Yanks would lose when they didn’t send Arod home when they had the chance, then they had the bases loaded again and didn’t do anything with the opportunity.

The Yanks have no speed, none at all. Yeah, I know they have Brett Gardner and Jeter and Granderson but Jeter isn’t really a burner. He’s just a smart runner. Grandy can still turn on the burners too but he’s not as scary as, well, Jose Reyes for example. Besides, hitting in the ninth spot in the order, Gardner’s often not right in the heart of things, y’know? There’re guys who can set the table, and Gardner is one of those, but it’s just a little harder from the nine spot.

I know Jeter is after all Jeter but, really, does he have to bat leadoff more often than not? Jeter can still steal a base but the pitcher and catcher don’t get all hot and bothered when Jeter’s on first base. But a lack of speed is not why they lost. I keep asking myself how that game turns out if the 3rd-base coach sends Arod home. And I’m not even a Yankee fan.

I’d feel more comfortable with another speedy outfielder. Swisher’s a good outfielder, well, maybe a fair outfielder, and he gets some big hits during the season but not so many during the post-season. He’s not a threat on the bases at all. Since the Yanks are locked in with no speed in their infield for quite some time, I’d think that situation would demand that all the outfielders have some speed.

I love Swisher, and who’s to say he won’t become a good post-season hitter, but Nick would probably fit better on some other team, a team that already has some speed. That middle of the Yanks lineup is ponderous when you think about it, Teixeira, Arod, Cano, Swisher……there are no extra bases in the Yanks future.

But I still wish they had sent Arod. He sure was ready to go.

There are those moments in every game when it’s either won or lost. You can play like you mean it, go for the win with everything you’ve got, or you can sit back, play it safe, and hope that still one more batter will come through for you. That second option really doesn’t work as often as you might think, not in a big game when the opponent’s pitching ain’t too shabby.

Oh well, the Yanks are dead. Arod probably would have been out anyway. Right?

The Brewers won their series with the D-Backs with speed and it was a lot of fun. The Brew Crew had a speed-burner on first base and another one at the plate, one Nyjer Morgan. The burner on first stole second as the catcher, Henry Blanco of Mets fame, came up throwing before he actually had the ball in his glove. He only muffed the play because the guy on first was fast. See what I mean?

With that burner now in scoring position, all Nyjer Morgan had to do was hit a ground ball through the middle to bring home the winning run and give the Brewers their first playoff-series win since, well, a long long time ago.

The best storyline for me is that Cardinals team, if only because I’ve been watching them since spring training. Just before Game 1, I told my cousin Joey, a Phillies fan, to watch out for the Cards. They had too many players who could come up in big spots and deliver. Deliver they did and now the Cards get to face those Brewers.

While I’d been somewhat prophetic , the Cards won because of Chris Carpenter. What a great pitchers duel it was, the Cards ace against the Phillies ace for all the marbles. And it wasn’t just a match of aces. It was a matchup of good friends. You knew you were going to see a great pitchers duel and that’s what you got. You not only got the results but the anticipation as well.

I think the Cards will be too much for the Brewers. The Brewers have Braun and Fielder (and Morgan) but the Cards have Pujols and Berkman and Holliday. They also have these no-name guys who just kill you in big spots, Friese and Theriot, Schumacher and Furcal.

The Brewers have better pitching overall but so did the Phillies. It didn’t seem to matter in the end. Those guys who just battle the whole game through, who pick each other up, those guys are mostly on the Cardinals.

So it’ll be Cards-Brewers in the NLCS and Rangers-Tigers in the ALCS. I’ve seen them all play and there’s great managers all around too, La Russa (I still hate him) and Leyland and Washington, but when push comes to shove, those Cardinals are playing to win.

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Predictable?? NOT!

Is anybody else having trouble keeping track of all these games? Baseball playoffs are going hot and heavy. If you’ve been a baseball fan all season, you have a team you favor in each playoff series. Me, I’ve been rooting hardest for the Cards. Beating the pitching-heavy Phillies would be just outstanding. But the NFL Week 4 games have been going head-to-head with baseball on at least a few occasions, If you like all the football action too, you’ve really worn down that “last” button on your remote.

As this is written, the Phillies are still having trouble putting away these pesky Cards. In the bottom of the sixth, there is still no score. Cards pitcher Jaime Garcia is pitching a gem but so is Cole Hamels of the Phils. What a great series this one is turning out to be. This game followed another nail-biter, that between the Rays and Rangers which the Rangers won, thus eliminating the miracle Rays.

The best 3 of 5 format of the ALDS/NLDS games is outrageous. Anything really can happen. And it usually happens in the blink of an eye. It’s not just the home runs either. Sometimes it’s a play at the plate or grabbing a Texas Leaguer. Of course, if one guy hits 3 homers in the same game as Adrian Beltre did earlier today, that’s pretty friggin’ noteworthy. (No, not quite sponge-worthy).

Indicative of the frantic nature of these festivities is that I haven’t even mentioned the Yankees yet. They surely were looking good as Ivan Nova finished off those Tigers in Game 1 behind Sabathia and the rain. But then they played Game 2. It sure seemed like Game 3 as Game 1 had seemed like two different games. Be that as it may, the very unlikely hero Max Scherzer outdueled Freddy Garcia (and didn’t Yank pitching seem a little thin)?

Then the Tigers ace Verlander outdid CC and a bunch of relievers. One of those relievers, Soriano, took the loss. Before you could say “Robinson Cano”, the Yanks were one loss away from elimination. And, in a wonderful twist of fate, all Yank hopes now reside in the one pitcher Yanks fans have hated all year, AJ Burnett.

And if all that isn’t ironic enough, if the Yanks do manage to emerge from the Motor City, it’ll be Ivan Nova taking the mound for the Yanks in Game 5, probably facing Doug Fister again. If that winds up being the case, it’ll probably be a Rangers-Yankees ALCS. The winner there, probably the Rangers as things shape up right now, will face the Phillies in the World Series. The only way the Milwaukee Brewers can get by Philadelphia is if all the games could be played in Milwaukee.

While all this baseball stuff was going on, the Giants seemed to get better and the Jets got incredibly worse. Both turnarounds could be attributed to the respective offensive lines. The Jets OL was terrible. They made everybody else terrible and, if not for the Jets defense playing pretty well, there’s no telling what the score might have been.

Joe Namath says they picked all the wrong guys. He’s probably right. Oh, and he did mention Vern Gholston, the muscle-bound totally inept defensive lineman from yesteryear. I tend to agree. Rex Ryan even conceded the Super Bowl, saying they’re not even a playoff team. Mark Sanchez was shell-shocked. Any QB would have been. Can you say Vlad Ducasse five times fast?



I don’t think we’ll be seeing either local football team in the playoffs this year. It looks as if those Bills from Buffalo will take the Jets place while the Giants spot can be handled by the Detroit Lions. The entire NFC East is terrible though so I suppose it’s theoretically possible for the G-Men to win the division.

Whatever else happens in the NFC, the North looks like the strongest division to me. Green Bay, Detroit and even Chicago all seem pretty formidable compared to the low-lifes in the East and NFC West. The Packers look like a good bet to be the NFC rep in the Super Bowl once again, probably facing the Baltimore Ravens.

The real NFL excitement this year has been in Buffalo. What could be better than watching a perennial doormat win their first three games, one of which was their division nemesis New England? While the Bills obviously didn’t circle the wagons tightly enough to prevent their loss to Cincinnati last week, I think those Bengals will prove to be one of the better defenses in the league this year. Look for the Bills to get back on-track really soon.

But not just in Buffalo have there been success stories. I love that the 49ers seem to be making a comeback under new head coach Jim Harbaugh. The Titans and Mike Munchak are hitting like crazy and are 3-1. Oakland looks as if they could run the ball through a brick wall. And finally, Houston has a defense that can match their offensive capability.

Other teams have been fascinating for their failures. Philadelphia, Dallas, Atlanta, even New England to a degree have been colossally disappointing, much as have the Steelers.

Michael Vick has been far and away the biggest story on all the networks, especially ESPN and the NFL Network. I’d say his name is mentioned about once every ten minutes. Blah-blah-blah. The same can be said for Tony Romo. The NFL seems to have designated those two especially as NFL reality shows. And neither Michael nor Tony have done anything to step out of the spotlight.

Vick doesn’t want to get hit. He feels he doesn’t get the calls the other signal-callers get. Romo gives a game away by fumbling on the one, then snatches victory the very next week, then remarkably jumps right back into a deep hole by feeding the hungry Lions two INT’s for touchdowns.

It all seems kind of predictable, doesn’t it? Yeah, you’d think so.

But it’s not.

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

On Sports and Luck

Yes,the Giants victory over the Eagles was fun and unexpected, especially the performance of a Jersey boy named Victor Cruz, and the Jets loss was eye-opening, even if the handwriting should have been on the wall, but the nicest surprise for me occurred on Monday night when another Ryan brother coached the defense that shut down Santana Moss and the Redskins.

My fantasy opponent needed just 10 points from the Redskins Moss in order to send my team down to defeat. Moss is no stranger to the Boyz, of course, and, over the course of many years battling each other, Moss almost always had the upper hand, averaging about 15 fantasy points per contest. As the rest of my team had fared very well in Week 3, I looked with trepidation on my prospects for holding the pesky Skins wideout to zero touchdowns and less than 100 yards gained.

But Rob Ryan’s defense would concentrate on Moss that night. He would take away Moss for most of the game and, even when game conditions dictated that Shanahan’s Skins should concentrate on getting the ball downfield, they managed to do so only once or twice.

There’s no feeling better than winning the game you fully expect to lose. I had determined relatively early that my only chance in the contest relied on my opponent’s quarterback Aaron Rodgers either having a terrible day, which he never does, or throwing all his TD passes to my fantasy tight end, Jermichael Finley. As luck would have it, Rodgers threw all his 3 touchdowns to Finley. Go figure.

It didn’t hurt either that Buffalo had the day it had against the feared Patriots. My running back Fred Jackson continued his hard-pounding and elusive running while David Nelson, one of the Bills’ relatively unknown wide receivers, would gain 89 yards through the air. And Matt Ryan (you won’t see me calling him Matty Ice anytime soon) finally threw some passes to Julio Jones.

Drew Brees, my fantasy QB, ignored the fact that he was missing Marques Colston or that he was facing a newly rugged Texans defense. Mr. Brees just kept on keepin’ on. At any rate, big outputs from 3 or 4 players offset the total failure of my running back #2, one Javon Ringer from Tennesee and the paltry stats racked up by Hakeem Nicks, the Giants wunderkind whom the Eagles shut down only to watch Victor Cruz beat them.

Life is good sometimes. Just ask the Bills or Cowboys or, switching sports, ask the Tampa Bay Rays or St. Louis Cards. The unexpected can happen once in a while. The Bills came back from three TD’s down to Tom Brady’s Pats, picking him off four times in the process. The Cowboys and Tony Romo held steady against the rugged Skins and blitzed Rex Grossman into the big mistake of the game.

In baseball, Tampa Bay finally caught the Red Sox, the dream team of baseball going into the season, whose pitching went almost totally into the tank the entire month of September. The Cards still have a shot at what had been a sure wildcard for the Braves going into September.

The San Francisco Giants added Carlos Beltran but would have needed at least two more of him to prevent their unhappy demise. The Angels had a shot too for a while and still aren’t mathematically eliminated. So major league baseball is right at the forefront of sports fans’ imaginations going right into October. So much for changing the wildcard rules.

This just in. The judge trying the Mets bankruptcy case just ruled that that Pirate Picard, the snake lawyer representing the Madoff downtrodden, has to prove that Wilpon and Katz knew there was a fraud being perpetrated. That’s a huge win for the Wilpons.

I’m listening now to Mets fans calling Mike Francesa to complain that the Mets would be better off if the Wilpons were forced to sell, that it’s a setback for Mets fans that the Wilpons will prevail in this gigantic legal fight. It makes me sick. The Wilpons have been pretty good owners. They just haven’t been the brightest lights in the sky…..or the luckiest.

Think about the Mets collapses, the failures down the stretch of Glavine and Pedro Martinez, that brutal curve ball for a called strike 3 on Carlos Beltran. Omar Minaya could have been more prudent to be sure in his day but the Mets owners’ decision to hire him wasn’t that bad.

But Minaya had always worked for organizations with almost no money to spend. Minaya was like a kid in the candy store. Glavine and Pedro were too old. Beltran was just paralyzed. He should have been way more attentive.

Their latest decision on a GM was a great one. Sandy Alderson is like the anti-Minaya. He doesn’t act without careful study. He’s surrounded himself with good people, not drones. He understands that Reyes is a Mets frontispiece. He brought in Collins. Together, Alderson and Collins have brought in young talent, have shuffled the right pieces and have positioned this Mets team for the future.

What a way to end the baseball season. Not only are we provided with wildcard races down to the wire but now Mets fans can visualize their appearance in a playoff series somewhere along the road. They can also think about shorter fences and lower walls. The “half-full” crowd can even dream about a successful return of Johan Santana.

The sky’s the limit for the Mets (but that sky has been defined as from 100 to 120 million dollars). Still….

This fellow will never minimize the significance of luck. Luck shot down the baseball Giants, luck shut down Santana Moss for me, luck crippled the Red Sox and Braves in September; luck may have just saved the Wilpons in bankruptcy court even as it had abandoned them for much of the 21st Century.

They say people make their own luck. “They” can sell that bit of nonsense elsewhere.

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Musings of the Fall

Okay, the Week 2 NFL action is over and now we have additional perspective, but, if we had absolutely no perspective after Week 1, does one more game played qualify as an event worthy of contributing true perspective? I would say NOT!

Take the Giants, for example, please. They looked awful in their Week 1 loss vs. the Skins, a team I had termed “low so many years”. Then the Rams came to town after having had a fairly successful (for them) opener against the Eagles. (Well, it had been close for most of three quarters anyway). It wouldn’t have been surprising under those circumstances if the Rams had managed to beat the Giants.

Of course they didn’t. The Rams fielded what was perhaps the worst set of receivers I had ever seen on any field anywhere. In fact, I could expand my meaning somewhat to say that kids in the street playing “association” football have better hands. They played some of the worst football I’ve ever seen.

So, in the face of such great incompetence, you could have expected the G-Men to have looked pretty good. But they really didn’t. They just managed to survive against an incredibly inept team, one riddled with injuries and woefully short on talent seemingly everywhere.

So what does that tell us? Well, it tells me that the Giants still can stink out the joint, against anybody. They did manage to run the ball a bit. That was somewhat heartening, I guess. In truth though, the only truly good thing was their pass rush. Their secondary still seems clueless and their passing game was only just good enough to enable them to run the ball.

The Jints probably won’t face Michael Vick next week, a very good thing, but it hardly matters. The Eagles can beat the Giants with Vince Young or Mike Kafka at QB. The Eagles are chomping at the bit. The Giants spit the bit in Week 1 and haven’t grabbed hold of it since. That’s what happens to a team that doesn’t sign its best players.

As good as GM Reese had been in his first season, that’s as bad as he did this year. Losing Kevin Boss and Steve Smith to free agency was just unconscionable. Losing Eli’s center (and friend) was almost as bad. Their replacements just haven’t got it. Those guys couldn’t really be replaced. Talk about penny-wise and pound foolish.

But why belabor a point. The Giants stink. Coughlin stinks. Reese really stinks and even good ol’ Eli stinks. Who woulda thunk it?

Now the Jets are a much happier story. They signed everybody they needed. When the Giants abandoned Plaxico, the Jets came up with a contract for him. The Jets worst receiver is better than the Giants best, at least this past Sunday. The Jets have already won a game they should have lost. The Giants can only relax when that clock strikes zero.

But no team I’ve seen so far can say they have all their bases covered. The Eagles, for example, managed to lose to the Falcons Sunday despite their 10-point lead when Vick went to the sidelines. They’re supposed to be a dream team. If that’s true, it’s a bad dream indeed.

Ok, so I forgot about the Pats. Actually, I’d love to forget about the Pats. They may have some weak spots too but, if so, they’re not so immediately obvious. Unless you can call a two tight end offense a weakness, the Pats seem awesome.

But all of the above is based on two weeks performance. The only things I’m really sure of are that the Jets will be happy as clams and the Giants will look like the smiley face upside down.

Baseball fans can be happy that the wildcard races in both leagues have become true races. As this is written, our Mets are trying to put a damper on the Cardinals post-season hopes. And not only that but Cohen and Darling are interviewing GM Sandy Alderson as to the future of the franchise. Most notable from that talk was that October will be dedicated towards keeping Jose Reyes.

But the Cards and Giants are catching the Braves and the Rays are doing likewise with the Red Sox. With just about 8 or 9 games to go, these wildcard races will be going to the wire. The Rays, however, have much the worst of the schedule (and are now losing to the Yankees 5-0), but the Red Sox’s decline seems to just keep going of its own momentum despite the opponent.

If pitching truly does determine pennant winners, the Rays have a real shot but the Braves can pitch with the best of them, albeit not lately. The Cards may be the toughest of the National League bunch with Pujols and Berkman in the lineup and the best fans anywhere. The Cards just pulled ahead of the Mets in tonight’s game in their bid to remain just 3 games back of Atlanta who won tonight.

It always makes me a little sad when the baseball season winds down. It may be because it’s a harbinger of worse things to come, colder weather, the end of summer, barbecues and the Jersey shore. But it also marks the end of daily games in a sport that is played out day after day for 162 games. The NFL plays 16 games in 17 weeks and that’s all she wrote. We look forward to hype only for 6 days out of every 7.

All that inactivity would be broken up in normal years by NBA basketball. This year of course will be anything but normal as the owners and players dig in their heels. So it’ll be college basketball only and, if you’re a Seton Hall or Rutgers fan, there just won’t be much to think about. That’s assuming the Big East remains unchanged, a highly unlikely prospect right now.

Oh well, at least Curtis Granderson may still get MVP.

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

We Need Some Perspective

Perspective, it’s a hard thing to find and even harder to keep. That’s what I’ve been thinking in the wake of Sunday’s NFL openers. I know the NFL is perennially hard to figure but this year could be more ridiculous than most seasons. Maybe it’s the shortened pre-season….but I don’t really think so.

The most strikingly surprising game to me, I suppose, was Sunday night’s Jets-Cowboys game. I had expected the Jets to cover whatever deep routes the Boyz would run and do a pretty fair job of stopping their running game too. I had expected a low-scoring game, one that the Jets would squeeze out in the end using their running game behind that terrific offensive line.

Wrong, wrong, wrong, on just about every count, except that the Jets did manage to win. But, winning the way they won is almost inconceivable. Could the Jets repeat that late-game performance on any other Sunday?

No way. Gimme a break, a blocked punt for a touchdown followed almost immediately by a “gimme” interception ? And then a long, long field goal, given the circumstances, to win the game in regulation. In what other game will that Jets safety Leonhard stop Jason Witten on the 2-yard line only to have the opposing quarterback then fumble the ball away on the one?

Everything I thought was so was not. The Jet offensive line was, all in all, non-existent in the first half. It was the old “weakest link in the chain” ploy used by the Cowboys to put a big rush on Mark Sanchez. But the Jets couldn’t “ground and pound”. It was LaDainian Tomlinson and pray for rain for the better part of the second half. Thank God for “LT”. (We all know he’s not LT but WTF)?

I must throw a bone here for Mark Sanchez. Except for that unfortunate fumble that put seven on the board for the Boyz, Sanchez was great. Who can throw on the run as accurately as he does? Who can avoid the rush as he did and find all those different receivers downfield, both throwing from the pocket and, once again, on the run.

While I’m giving out bones, how about Plaxico? He didn’t do anything spectacular, I guess, but just Plax being Plax was plenty good enough. The same could be said for Santonio Holmes being himself. That’s some receiving corps the Jets possess, especially when you add Derek Mason into the mix. But will that kind of game put Rex into the grave before his time?

Primary running back Shonn Green was not Shonn Green, or maybe he was just Shonn Green with no blocking. Look out, Shonn! Here comes another big hit. If the run game doesn’t improve in a hurry, this season could really get strange.

Think “Cardiac Cards”, if anybody but me can remember that far back. When you think about it, the Jets do have the personnel to be that kind of a team. And that kind of game can be really entertaining. But “ground and pound” it’s not.

One game is a poor indicator of future performance in the NFL though, especially in a season with an abbreviated pre-season. Did any running backs have a big day? Not really. Four backs exceeded 20 fantasy points for the week (which is, after all, pretty analogous to real live performance). They were the Chargers’ Mike Tolbert, the Eagles’ LeSean McCoy, the Bengals’ Cedric Benson and the Bears’ Matt Forte. All those teams won.

There were several other 100-yard rushers though, most notably Darren McFadden’s 150-yard tally for the Raiders. So, all in all, the teams that truly wanted to run the ball were pretty successful at it. Those teams showing less commitment in that regard were correspondingly less successful. Our New York Giants could very well be put in that category.

And the Giants could be put in another category as well. If there were an award for “most uninspired”, the Giants could have been right at the top of the list. I couldn’t even watch them. I didn’t expect them to stop the Redskins and they didn’t disappoint me. That they would do so little on offense was a surprise. That their offensive line would be dominated was shocking.

The Giants show every sign of being an unhappy team, a team that’s not having a good time, so much so that they really don’t care much whether they win or lose. And you can put this year’s version of Eli Manning on the top of the list of the truly uninspired. Ahmad Bradshaw carried 13 times for 44 yards. Manning was 18-32 for 268 yards and just one INT but it was a huge one to put it mildly.

But are the Redskins much better than we thought? Were the Bills much better too? How about the Carolina Panthers?

The Bills were really bad at stopping the run last year. The Chiefs, their opponents, had a bigtime rushing game featuring Jamaal Charles, another fantasy wunderkind. Of course it was the Bills and Fred Jackson who piled up the rushing yards. The Chiefs did almost nothing in any phase of the game. Ryan Fitzpatrick, the Bills quarterback, was phenomenal . Are the Chiefs as bad as they looked? They were a playoffs team last year. Are the Bills that good?

Another vastly disappointing team was the Atlanta Falcons. Their QB, Matt Ryan, ballyhooed last year as “Matty Ice” and armed this year with the addition of a supposedly Superman wide receiver, Julio Jones, did nothing through the air, relatively speaking. He certainly didn’t target his rookie much.

But worse than that, the Falcons coaching staff didn’t seem to understand their predicament. They played a very conservative game when the situation demanded some verve. They showed nothing. Matty Ice was the most timid player on the field.

I know one thing. Drew Brees was himself. Was Cam Newton himself? Can we expect that terrific performance to continue?

We need some perspective.

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

September Is Looking Good

Oh good, it’s not raining.

And the Yanks are fielding their irregulars for the day after late-night game with the Orioles. It’s Nunez leading off, then Martin, Swisher, Arod, Andruw Jones, the rook Montero, then Laird, Golson and Pena. So far, Arod looks good and Montero got caught lunging at a low and away slider. But there’s more fun in store with that 7 thru 9 lineup….Laird, Golson and Pena, whew!

It should be interesting to see what A.J. Burnett gives up today. So far it doesn’t look good. First baseman Laird just muffed an easy grounder to give the Birds another run. It could be a long day.

The Mets took one in unusual fashion last night from the Marlins. Parnell failed as a closer yet again, giving up two runs to allow Florida to tie the game at four. It took 3 more innings of work to finally win it 7-4. Pagan, Bay, Evans and Reyes combined to score three big runs in the top of the 12th to win it.

Not that any of these heroics mean anything, but, what the hell, it is still baseball. Nominally.

The big stir for me today is the NFL opener tomorrow night between the Saints and the Packers, the super Bowl champs against the champs of two years ago. There’ll be Saints rookie running back Mark Ingram to check out in his first real game and, of course, Drew Brees and Aaron Rodgers. Sounds good.

The Football Giants can’t get a break, unless you count bones. Now their linebacker Goff is gone too. He’ll join the rookie corner who went down after about one play in pre-season and the other 2nd-year LB Clint Sintim on the DL. And let’s not forget Terrell Thomas.

Yes, folks, that same defense that gave up all those second half points to the Eagles last year, that same horrible excuse for a defense, will be right back this year. Oh well, at least they tried to fix things. It’s just that anybody who could have helped is hurt. I won’t even mention the offensive losses of Steve Smith and Kevin Boss. As things turned out, they’re both injured anyway. But you would be forgiven for forgetting the names of the guys playing middle linebacker and one of the corners.

But the Giants do have the advantage of playing against the Redskins, lo these many years low these many years. The current Redskins under Mike Shanahan feature Rex Grossman as its quarterback. Donovan McNabb is off in the wilds of the north and I hope Shanahan will be happy now. As he already divested himself of Haynesworth the Ugly, this is a Redskins team that might be very close to a Shanahan ideal, good running game, zone blocking, yada yada ya. But what about the Skins defense?

(Montero, the Yankee rookie who looked so bad in his first AB, just hit a long single to right to score two and tie the game up for AJ and the Bombers).

The Jets have had a lot more luck with just about everything. They return an offense that ‘ll be remarkably identical to last year’s, the exception being Plaxico Burress taking over for Braylon Edwards at wide receiver. On defense, they’ll probably wind up being less consistent than last year’s group, as veterans have been let go but big things are expected from two big bodies in Kenrick Ellis and Muhammad Wilkerson.

The Jets will be facing the Cowboys. Who knows where this score could end up? If you told me it’d be high-scoring, I’d believe you. If you said it’d be a scoreless tie, I could entertain that idea too. The Cowboys are just all over the place. Romo is back and he’ll be trying to find Jersey boy Miles Austin and the sometimes sensational Dez Bryant. They’ll score points for sure but their running game will probably be harder for this Jets defense to stop. Expect to see a lot of Felix Jones and Tashard Choice. Look for those two rookies. They may be on the ground a lot.

Meanwhile, back to baseball, the MVP race in the American League seems to be tightening. Curtis Granderson, Adrian Gonzalez and Robinson Cano, to my mind, could all stake a legitimate claim to the title but there’re still quite a few games to go. Cano especially seems to be coming on, and have you seen him play the field? It seems he’s a human highlight reel.

Who’ll be the playoff teams in each league? While the wildcard teams will come from the East in both the NL and AL, the only real question marks will be who’ll win the West . In the AL West Texas is still only 3 games up on the Angels while in the NL West, the upstart Arizona Diamondbacks are a full 6 games up on the World Series Champs SF Giants.

The D’Backs have the pitching to lock out the Giants, both on the starting and relieving end. Ian Kennedy, Daniel Hudson, Joe Saunders and Josh Collmenter are all well below the 4.0 ERA marker and they seem to finally have the lineup to back up that pitching.

Justin Upton is the closest thing to Curtis Granderson in the National League, batting .297 with 27 homers and 93 runs scored. Miguel Montero is perhaps the best hitting catcher in the NL while other role players such as Chris Young, Ryan Roberts and Willie Bloomquist keep on keeping on.

The Angels are looking old though, and despite some pretty awesome pitching, just don’t have the firepower to knock out the resilient Texas Rangers. The Rangers have just enough pitching to see themselves to the Promised Land, especially with their beefing up of the relief corps with Mike Adams.

September is looking good if you discount all the rain. The baseball playoffs should be riveting, especially those involving the Red Sox and Yankees. Let’s hope the Giants and Jets can keep the month interesting.

Thursday, September 1, 2011

A Good Draft, a Bad Irene

Imagine if you never had to see Mike Pelfrey pitch again……in your entire lifetime….Pelfrey-free….aahh.

But this won’t be about the Mets. After all, what can anybody really say? Just, please God, don’t make me watch any more Mets wheel-plays. And the latest highlight of the Mets fortunes was Jason Bay’s arm-less lunge for home plate with his arms pinned to the ground under his body.

The Mets won that one so Jason gets a pass, but it was the most ridiculous slide I’ve ever seen.

Enough said about the Mets. Even if David Wright had a really nice night and Tejada made the tough play he had to make to close the game out. It was like old times. Reyes was back smiling and Wright was playin’ energized and Duda came through with a nicely- measured swing to win it. I could really get used to watching baseball like that.

I just watched a replay of the Jets-Giants exhibition game from Monday night. I thought it was bad the first time around. It was worse in Round 2. The Giants, who lost 17-3 to their Green rivals, looked ordinary at best. The Jets were just a little more impressive.

If it seemed to you that Eli Manning had no clue as to where his receivers might be going, join the club. If it seemed to you as if nobody ever came open for him, you’re not alone.

The Jets actually looked better defensively to me than they were last year. The offense needs a little work right now but that could be said of a number of teams. They can still run the ball, especially if Shonn Green stays healthy. Once again, their only fly in the ointment might be New England. The Pats will be a huge fly to swallow.

But most people here are just getting over the wrath of Irene, the raging waters, the dump from the sky. Trees down, power lines down, rivers swelling, politicians swaggering, and Weather-Channel scaring the life out of you every step of the way, but especially before the event . Irene was a big fat girl wagging her fatt butt all the way up the Jersey coast.

But I stood ready for her, pump ready for the onslaught. Around 2 PM on Saturday, the pumping began. But its little 1/6 HP heart couldn’t keep the waters below the 18” retaining wall between the garage and house proper, could it? Well, it pumped its little brains out for about 27 hours straight and saved our butts from a watery ending.

The power held up for me. There’ll be a generator in my future. The worst wind I got was as Irene was dragging her disgusting ass out of here. She was worn out by then, all that torrential rain for all that time having dragged the venom out of her. Her home invasion was finally over by mid-afternoon Sunday.

I’m thinking about giving my pump a name.

But right before the deluge, that would be Saturday morning, we had our fantasy draft. That was fun. Once again, I tested my QB-first strategy with a guy everybody seems to have forgotten about, Drew Brees. He had no running game last year at all and still managed to have himself a nice year.

But it’s all about risk. The first pick should offer the highest risk-reward. If running backs get hurt waaay more often than QB’s, how can you pick a RB first? There were four who loomed over the rest of the ball-carriers, Arian Foster, Adrian Peterson, Chris Johnson and, arguably, Rrrray Rrrrrice. In our new world of two-back systems, you could throw a blanket around many of the rest.

I should point out too that passing TD’s count as much as running TD’s in our league and QB’s fantasy scores vs. RB scores are always a lot higher overall.

Then there is the matter of variability, week to week adherence to a standard. Drew Brees is like a machine. The opponent doesn’t matter that much, he’ll score against Green Bay and Buffalo too. He won’t be a target like Vick or slide around a lot like Rodgers or have a Manning neck or a Brady benching in Week 13.

He’ll just be cruisin’ this year, handin’ the rock to Mark Ingram, making the play-action go. And there’ll be the same guys on the other end, Colston and Meachem and Henderson and Mohr. His line is good, his coach is smart and they like to score points….every week.

I could have had RB Jamaal Charles, as things turned out. He was one of the four leading the pack and perhaps my favorite among those. But will all of those four guys finish the season? Would Jamaal Charles have been the odd man out?

Anyway, my second pick was 21 overall and I still didn’t particularly like any of the running backs there so why not grab a top wideout? And if you could get yourself a Giant at the same time, why wouldn’t Hakeem Nicks be the logical choice? Then at 28 overall, there was Jersey-boy Miles Austin edging out DeSean Jackson and the possibly resurgent JET Shonn Greene. I see lots of catches in my future.

A lot of nice players disappeared from the board before my next pick. Fearing a run on tight ends, I jumped on Jermichael Finley, Rodgers’s favorite target most Green Bay days. I could finally select a running back so I jumped on Knowshon Moreno of the Broncos, who does a little bit of everything pretty much all by himself in Denver.

I may have actually taken a risk with Julio Jones, Atlanta’s multi-pick alleged wonder, but I still wasn’t sold on any particular RB. I did get a nice reliable guy in Fred Jackson of Buffalo, who got them his thousand yards last year and seems to be the star in lowly Buffalo. And, um, circle the wagons.

And Detroit will be my defense. Good Luck.

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Fantastic Reflections and EARTHQUAKE!

A beautiful day is this Tuesday August 23rd, a great day for running in the park or getting some outside chores done. But while I should be getting my butt moving on to other things right now, I just can’t. My mind is chock full right now of reflections, on the baseball season just past for sure but also on the upcoming NFL season.

But I haven’t been thinking at all about the actual seasons. After all, the Mets have been decimated once again and the playoff teams are virtually set in stone with one or two exceptions. The only questions left are whether the Yanks or Red Sox will get past the Rangers and, if they do, will either of them get past the Phillies in the World Series?

Looking ahead to the NFL actual seasons, it’ll be business as usual, it seems, as the Pats and Jets and Colts and Packers and Steelers, you know, the usual suspects, look to be the strongest teams for 2011-2012. I’ve not included the Giants as they seem to have too many weaknesses right now, not the least of which may be the two yahoos running things. (yeah, I know, they won the big one 3 or 4 years ago but you’ll notice that some of their key clutch players from that almost magical season are gone now).

So, if not the actual seasons, what can I be reflecting upon? Why, the fantasy seasons of course!

In fantasy baseball, my Crabs contingent is sumthin’ like 16½ games ahead of its closest competition with just two week left to the regular fantasy season. And, while it’s possible I could really get blown out in these last two weeks, it’s highly unlikely. Even with losing Brian Wilson and Jimmy Rollins to the DL in this last week, I’m thinking their replacements will still get me to the finish line in fair shape.

I like to think my brilliant baseball draft strategy back in late March is the reason I’m so far ahead but, more realistically, my success can be attributed to just two guys, they being Robinson Cano, my number 1 draft choice, but most especially Curtis Granderson. my number 13 choice. As David Wright was my number two choice and is having by far his worst season ever, I must eat humble pie on my draft strategy and admit I’ve been lucky.

But I’m left to reflect upon the true greatness of this Granderson fellow. This guy just hasn’t quit being humility personified this entire season. Despite his prodigious numbers, currently at 114 runs scored and 98 ribbies, Curtis, when asked, will focus on his measly .281 batting average and his 131 strikeouts.

Curtis won’t mention that he has stolen 24 bases. He won’t dwell on the fact that he plays a stellar centerfield. He attributes his huge lead in the runs scored department to Cano and Teixeira, who drove him in more often than not. But to me, his most endearing attribute is his unfailing propensity for picking up foul balls around the plate and handing the ball to the catcher!

I mean, who does that? Only one guy. Curtis Granderson.

And only one guy gets an inside the park home run on his drive to the top of the right-center field fence the other day. Only one guy runs full-speed out of the box until he sees it go over the fence, only one guy turns it up a notch when he sees the coach’s go sign, and only one guy makes a beautiful slide into the plate, fatigue be damned. His name is Curtis Granderson.

I know Jose Bautista’s been great and Adrian Gonzalez too, but they haven’t been, and can’t be, Curtis Granderson. Curtis Granderson is, as Nick Swisher said the other day, blowing the doors off. I’m rooting like crazy for him to somehow, some way, keep up his almost feverish intensity throughout the rest of the season. There are 39 games left. I don’t want to jinx him…..but whoa!!

Meanwhile, Cano has been, well, Cano. After a pretty ho-hum start for him, he seems to have turned it up after the break. His August numbers have been unbelievable, to date standing at a cool .351 BA and he’s driven in 19 in as many games. He’s slugging .649 for a ridiculous August OPS of 1.035.

I’ve been a real Yankee-hater but it’d be impossible to hate these guys, not just Granderson and Cano but also Teixeira and Jeter and you can throw Swisher in there too. I’m hoping Arod’s return won’t screw things up, but Grandy’s batted second, third, fourth, eighth….and it hasn’t affected him one bit. Lefty on the mound? No problem…..unaffected, that’s the essence of Granderson.

Speaking of “unaffected”, I was anything but unaffected by a friggin’ EARTHQUAKE that just shook my entire house. I thought my body was spasming at first, then started walking to the door and thought I was having some kind of heart attack as I felt dizzy and shaky. Holy crap!!

Back on point though, I’ve already been worrying about my number 4 position in my fantasy football draft coming up this Saturday. What I’m expecting is that Arian Foster and Adrian Peterson will be gone, as will QB Aaron Rodgers, based on my previous experience with the same group. That would leave me only Chris Johnson and Ray Rice of the “elite” backs and I just can’t get excited over either of them.

Of course, there will be elite QB’s still on the board, all but Rodgers in fact. But Peyton Manning is hurt, Tom Brady winds up almost every year taking a seat during the fantasy playoffs and Michael friggin’ Vick is the closest human thing to a target for every fast huge hard-hitting defenseman looking to make a name for himself.

That would leave me Drew Brees, a guy who helped me to a 2nd place finish last year. I guess I can live with that.