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.

Goats to Heroes

It was beginning to look like the same old script for the Mets yesterday afternoon. There was another great start by Johan Santana. But in the eighth inning, with the score 3-1 in favor of the Mets, Santana gave up two consecutive singles and Mets manager Jerry Manuel decided Santana had had enough. He had to go to the bullpen, a pen that had been producing more horrors than an Alfred Hitchcock flick. Surely the Mets would lose another.

But it was not to be on this day. Not this day. On this day, the Mets would FIGHT. On this day, Jerry Manuel would manage his behind off, Mets fielders would sparkle, and David Wright would finish off those tough Padres with a two-out walk-off home run.

Manuel was brilliant. Sometimes the things that work the best are the simplest. What Manuel did in those eighth and ninth innings was to simply remove his pitcher every time that hurler failed to produce...which was quite often, really, about as often as you might expect from a bullpen that had been rapidly becoming one of the worst in Major League Baseball.

The first pitcher Manuel called on was Duaner Sanchez, which made perfect sense to me at the time. After all, Sanchez, when he's on, can be brilliant and he probably has the best stuff of them all. He's used to pitching with men on base. But Duaner let Jerry down again, hitting the first batter he faced. Bases loaded. Jerry came out and immediately removed him from the game, a move not only simple but just.

Next he called on Pedro Feliciano, the lefty who had been relatively decent lately. Good move. Pedro induced a fielder's choice grounder out of the very dangerous Brian Giles; the Mets got the force at home. (They also got a totally unnecessary throw to second from the catcher on the play but why not be magnanimous today).

With one out now and the bases still loaded, Feliciano managed to get another ground ball to Jose Reyes's right that just managed to get by a diving Jose. The hard single produced just one run though, so the Mets retained the lead. But a hit is a hit, and Manuel removed Feliciano for Joe Smith, a right-hander who can get the double play on occasion.

And Joe did the job perfectly. What came next was the play of the day, and maybe a play that will live forever in my mind, the kind of play that showed how badly each Met wanted that win, wanted to get out of that inning. And get out of it they did.

Smith got the ground ball, but it was hit hard and well to second baseman Argenis Reyes's right. Argenis was beautiful, diving to snare the ball, quickly flipping to Jose, who had to hurry his throw to first. Jose's throw was in the dirt and to the outfield side of first. But Nick Evans stretched way to his right, grabbed that hard throw on the short hop, and hung on. Picture-perfect double play. The Mets survived the eighth, still holding on to the one run lead. One inning down, one to go.

The Mets would do nothing in their half of the eighth, a harbinger of worse things to come for Mets fans only too aware of what adventure this pen could dream up. And it was a sign of another failure of these Mets, their inability to add to a lead in the late innings. They would have to make that one run lead stand up.

Manuel went to lefty Scott Schoeneweis for the ninth. Schoeneweis had teamed with Smith to successfully close out the Padres in the series opener. In addition, although the first batter would be a switch-hitter, the second man up would be left-handed batter Jody Gerut, who had homered earlier off Santana.

Schoeneweis got the dangerous Headley to pop out but he would leave a ball right over the plate for Gerut and he complied by knocking the ball over the right field wall for the game-tying home run. It was a shocker, although for this sorry bullpen, that statement is kind of difficult to defend. What it did was seemingly stop any momentum and erase any benefit the Mets had gained from that terrific double play they'd managed to eke out in the eighth.

Manuel stuck with his game plan for the night though, immediately coming out to take the ball from the grumbling Schoeneweis and hand it to Aaron Heilman, Heilman of the hard luck, Heilman, who had given up a 3-run homer two days earlier to these very same Padres.

But Heilman would not let Manuel down. Not this time. Heilman would calmly retire the next two batters in order, the first on a strikeout and the second on a harmless ground ball. Although somewhat sullied, the pen had managed to at least keep the game tied and give the locals a chance to take the game in the ninth.

Which is what they ultimately did, of course, but not without a little more angst. Former Met Heath Bell would pitch the ninth for the Padres and it seemed to me that he’d done more than his share against his former team in the past.

But Endy Chavez gave the Mets high hopes by singling to center, putting the winning run on first base with nobody out. But then things started looking bleak again. Jose Reyes failed in his bunt attempt, popping out to the pitcher. Then his namesake Argenis Reyes hit the ball solidly but lined out to left. Two outs.

So it was all up to David Wright, Wright who had made a critical error on a ground ball to help lose Tuesday’s game, Wright who had made bonehead mistakes on the bases, Wright who had insisted to Manuel that he wasn’t tired, that he didn’t need a break.

And he didn’t. Wright hit the ball over the left field wall.