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?

Dumb Luck and Just Dumb

What’s better than this? It’s 70 degrees, and the Mets got a complete game out of a really nice guy, it would seem anyway, a fellow named Dickey. He’s 35, he’d been in the minors forever, nobody really noticed, and then he figured out how to throw a knuckleball.

Anyway, this guy Dickey has a weird knuckleball, a harder than “normal” one, and it only gets hit when it decides to do nothing, to just sit there and say, “hit me”. But that isn’t very often. Most times, the batter will be out, in spectacularly boring ways.

Anyway, this Dickey guy won his 11th game last night, and he should be up to at least 15 by now. He’s unassuming, he has no attitude except for a refreshing positive nature, he’s high on his team, and naturally, the Mets will probably wind up losing him some way, or pissing him off, or making him crazy.

Naturally I’m reminded of Carlos Beltran, who FINALLY is looking something like himself. But I don’t think he’s trying very hard. I saw him on the front end of a double play and he just ducked. Oh well. Tendinitis, operations the management gave him trouble for, in the last year of his contract, who could expect anything more.

He’ll get his numbers if he can but, until someone talks to him about an extension or a trade, he’ll hit his long balls, he’ll play a pretty good outfield (meaning fast and smart if uninspired), and be scary to opponents. That’ll be good enough for me, even at 16 million, given our Jason Bay experience.

But one again, it’s a beautiful day. Why sully it with Mets talk. It’s just depressing. They coulda been a contender, as Marlon might have said.

The Giants, on the other hand, were great on Sunday, much to my delighted surprise. That Carolina team killed them last year. Even with all the new guys, that whole infusion of talent, I never expected them to come together as a unit. They didn’t really show much in the exhibitions.

The Giants stopped the run, they covered receivers pretty well, they rushed the passer. Hell, they did everything a defense is supposed to do. Manning to Nicks was there all day. The running game didn’t look that good but it’s early yet. But defense will not be absent this year.

For whatever reason, whether it was Sheridan, or guys who couldn’t cover, or just a general malaise, the Giants stunk it up last year on defense. And it took the management all year to figure it out. The Giants almost never make big in-season moves. They should have. This isn’t 1956, it’s 2010, the era of just in time inventory systems. Gimme a break.

But it’s really nice to have football back. That’s for sure. Aside from the Giants and Jets, there’s all the action around the league. I thoroughly enjoyed Sunday if just because my fantasy opponent had some of the most horrendous luck I’ve ever seen.

Kevin Kolb was his quarterback and, ordinarily, he could put up some big numbers. He got hurt very early in that Packers game. His most dangerous wide receiver, Calvin Johnson, got totally screwed, along with his Detroit Lions team, on a sure touchdown pass that didn’t fulfill all the “process” requirements for a TD in today’s NFL. Who’s making the rules, Eric Mangini?

Another fantasy opponent who scared me was none other than MJD, Marcus Jones Drew of the Jacksonville Jaguars. MJD did quite creditably with 98 yards rushing, but that’s all he had. Jags quarterback David Garrard decided to have the best game of his career, throwing three TD passes on the day.

So my fantasy team survived a rather moribund performance from its quarterback, Drew Brees, and a horrendous effort thrown in by Percy Harvin, who couldn’t connect with Bret Favre all day long. Instead I got lucky, saved by touchdowns scored by players having just average days or worse.

Jahvid Best had two scores but just hadf 20 yards rushing. Knowshon Moreno managed to get one by the Jags and Ahmad Bradshaw and the G-men came on in the second half of their game to start rushing effectively.

The Jets were horrible on offense and no team ever deserved defeat more than that bunch against Ryan’s former team, the Ravens. It turns out you can’t play great when you have no left guard. And you can’t just maul receivers running down the field, imagine that, what a concept! The Jets went down the hole with their braggadocio.

Of course, all things aren’t going my way. The Yankees won last night in a big game against the Rays, a game the Rays could’ve won despite everything else, if Carl Crawford hadn’t pulled a Carlos Beltran by trying to steal third on a short fly ball with two outs and a shaky Mariano on the mound. I truly dislike the Yanks and still do. The Rays are the better team. Crawford should have known better.

And I was terribly disappointed with the performance of the Niners against the lowly-rated Seattle Seahawks. The Niners were as bad as the Jets. Maybe Pete Carroll really can coach in the NFL. And maybe Mike Singletary isn’t as good a coach as I had hoped.

Dallas looked really awful in their debut and, once again, Wade Phillips helped them lose the game with a ridiculous fancy shmancy (and chancy) play call on the last play of the second quarter, allowing the Skins DeAngelo Hall to recover a fumble and score for the only Skins TD of the game, in what turned out to be the game-winner. Not that I’m a Cowboys fan but Miles Austin is my fantasy #1 wide receiver and at least he had a good game.

So life is good. The Mets aren’t getting any worse, the Giants have a defense and the NFL kicked off with a bang. And the Yanks look vulnerable to me.