Two Guys from Jersey Head NFL Action

Guys from Jersey were sure in the news this weekend, for good and bad. One guy from Garfield broke the single-game receiving record for the Cowboys, another guy has become the leading running back for the Ravens, catching passes from still another Jersey guy from Audobon.

Miles Austin, the wide receiver, in addition to setting the Boyz receiving record, also won the game for them and kept Tony Romo from looking like a monkey. The Cowboys had played poorly all game against the Chiefs from Kansas City and our Mr. Austin was a part of the problem in the early going, dropping a couple of balls that looked catchable.

He sure made up for it later, catching a 59 yarder for the score that finally put the Cowboys ahead after about 50 minutes of hard-nosed football on both sides, only to see KC tie the score on a fourth down pass from Matt Cassell. Then, in overtime, Austin caught still another, this one going for 60 yards, to win the game for Dallas. Quite an afternoon of football.

Then there’s good ol’ Ray Rice from Rutgers. In his second year now, Ray is making Willis McGahee, the erstwhile top running back for the Ravens, just an afterthought. Mr. Rice just refuses to go down. He’ll hit the ground eventually but not before his hand without the ball holds him up for a while.

The Bengals had the misfortune of dealing with Rice yesterday, and, if not for a last-ditch effort by Carson Palmer, he would have had his Ravens team in the winners column once again. He does everything too, not just run. He caught 7 balls for 74 yards, one for a TD, and rushed 14 times for another 70.

Most interesting to me though was the similarity in style between Austin and Rice on their touchdown catches. They both appeared to be going down but they never quite made it there. Their opponents will no doubt be watching a lot of film this week with their positional coaches. I wish I could be there. I’d bring the popcorn.

You can’t speak of Jersey without mentioning the Giants, of course, and they just methodically beat up the Raiders. The final score was 44-7 but it looked as if it could have been anything they wished it to be. Everybody wearing a blue uniform looked terrific. And vice-versa for the silver and black.

I won’t make too big a thing of it though, if only because they’ve had things really easy thus far. They’ve beaten Washington, Dallas, Tampa Bay, Kansas City and Oakland. Except for Dallas, which has been struggling all year, that’s the bottom of the barrel. Washington has a bad QB and a bad coach, KC has Matt Cassel, a well-meaning coach but not much else, and Oakland has nothing.

Things will start to get interesting for the G-Men next Sunday night. They have to visit New Orleans, who will have had an extra week of preparation to ready themselves for our men in blue. You might recall the Jets had some huge problems during their trip to Louisiana last week.

The Giants are not the Jets, of course, and the two teams really don’t have much in common with each other, from the management to the coaches to the quarterbacks to the players on the field. And that’s not to cast dispersions on either squad, just to point out that they are very different.

In general terms, I’d say the Jets have a better defense and a worse offense. The Saints only scored ten points off the Jets defense. The rest was attributable to the trials and tribulations of a rookie quarterback, a good rookie but still a rookie. Eli is anything but a rookie. But the Saints will find the end zone, I’m afraid, with a little more regularity than they did against the Jets. It will be the season’s first real test for the Giants.

Things don’t get any easier either for the G-Men after that. Kurt Warner will be visiting, along with his merry cast of receivers, and then it’s off to Philadelphia to see Donovan McNabb. Then they’ll be hosting what might be a very aggravated Charger squad before their bye week.

Hopefully they’ll enjoy the week off because they’ll get Atlanta and Denver after that, then Dallas again, Philly again, and Minnesota in the final week. If you could call it a respite, they get to face Carolina and the Redskins again before having to face the Vikings. Five and oh is nice but they could be about 6-6 going into those last four weeks of the season, and at least two of those will be very tough contests.

The Jets are favored by two over the Fish tonight and I think you’ll see a more conservative approach from them and Sanchez, a game plan that will feature the running game, and a Jets pass defense that will be tested after the Jets stop the run. I think they’ll be quite up to the task.

They were one of my four best bets for the week. The other three were Minnesota, Cincinnati and Arizona. They all worked out so I’m looking forward to the game immensely. The Fish are better than their 1-3 record though, having lost to the likes of Atlanta, the Colts and the Chargers. It should be a real battle and the Jets may even have to resort to passing, maybe even phasing in their newest acquisition, Braylon Edwards.

The Yankees were fairly awesome in their sweep of the Twins. The Twins played badly in spots, a little out of character for them, but it seems the Yankees bring out the worst in them, a sure sign of a superior team. They’ll find things a lot tougher against the Angels, but the Bombers, 2009 edition, compare favorably with any team on the planet.

So, fear not, Yankee fans, the best may be yet to come. And maybe Mister Torre.