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.

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.

Good But Boring-Bad But Funny

You can’t say it hasn’t been entertaining. The Jets are a bad soap opera. The Giants are just, well, I don’t really know what they are. They beat the Falcons. That’s definitely a good thing. But, beyond that, it’s really hard to say anything more.

But you know I will.

Even a casual observer would have to agree that, at the very least, the Jets are a very entertaining team. The quarterback is a nut job, the head coach is even funnier and everybody else just tries to keep their heads up. And that’s okay. Anybody who really expected playoffs this year was just dreaming.

The Giants’ defense stinks. That’s really all you can say. But, with Eli firing bullets and lobs and showing a magnificent touch, and with his bevy of receivers seemingly open all the time, we could really see some shootouts in our future, and that’s not a bad thing either.

I guess that’s the biggest difference between these two teams. The Giants play a great football game, on one side of the ball at least, but they’re a bore off the field. The Jets turn in stinker after stinker on the field, but they’re a barrel of laughs off of it.

Did anybody expect the Jets to beat the Patriots again? I know I didn’t. I did think they’d beat the spread, which was 10 ½, a ridiculous spread, given that the Jets beat them the first time they played.

My mistake was that I thought they’d attempt to cover Wes Welker. At the very least, I figured they’d harass him coming off the line, or knock the bejeezus out of him when he caught the ball, thus discouraging him from perpetrating any further aerial offenses against them.

But that didn’t happen. Welker ran here and there unmolested. When he caught the ball, which was quite often, he either ran for big yardage or hit the ground before he could be pummeled.

And, last but certainly not least, the rookie quarterback started bad, came back a little, and then totally came undone.

But that’s what Bill Belichick teams do to rookie quarterbacks. That Sanchez somehow escaped that fate in the season’s first matchup with New England was nothing short of miraculous. Sanchez tried to win the game, though, and along the way, he threw a perfect long pass to Cotchery in the end zone that brought the Jets back to within 10.

But he started the game very badly by throwing that INT that went for a touchdown. That’s a killer for a team to start the game in a 7-point hole right off the bat. But he brought the team back before imploding and, all in all, I’d rather watch him than his backup. The kid still shows a lot of promise. He reminds me of Joe Montana in a lot of ways, the scrambling, the arm, the demeanor….he just needs the same head, and that will come.

Rex has promised to address his young QB’s turnover problem personally. That’s what makes you love him. It may not be the right thing to do but ya gotta love the attitude. Rex has taken as many shots as has Sanchez, and he’s apparently taken them to heart.

So the Jets are a riot, if not a successful one.

The G-Men are a playoff contender but a boring one. I still don’t think they’ll make it to the playoffs though. Their defense won’t allow it. When their opponent has needed to score, they have scored. That’s not a good sign. And, while Eli was able to take advantage of the sieve of a Falcons pass defense, I can’t imagine he’ll be able to do the same this Thanksgiving against the Broncos.

Philip Rivers and his Chargers did though. But they have a strong defense and a better running game. They have LaDainian, we have Twinkletoes. They have Sproles, we have Bradshaw. Their offensive line blocks for the run as well as the pass. Ours blocks quite well for the passing game but the holes just aren’t there in the running game, and even the powerful Bradshaw can’t run through a wall.

Regular readers may wonder why I keep picking on Jacobs. Well, aside from picking up that 4th and 1 against the Pats in that wonder-filled Super Bowl, he’s done nothing up the middle. He has no explosiveness whatsoever, runs high and doesn’t have that much leg strength. What he can do is build up a head of steam and really roll, once he gets an opening.

That’d be great if they used him a little differently, I guess, but the Giants don’t. And they usually have better options in Smith and Manningham, Nicks and Boss and, well, just about anybody else….Hedgecock?

So I can’t be bullish on this Broncos game. We won’t be seeing Simms, we’ll get their first string of Kyle Orton, and the Broncs do have some receivers who can hurt us, Marshall and Gaffney and Royal and a nice tight end who can catch. The Broncs will be able to pass and they may even be able to run. They also have some nice defenders against the passing game, aka Champ Bailey and Brian Dawkins. Hell, Ty Law is their second-string corner.

Can our G-Men win in a shootout? I don’t think so. The only way they win this game is if they’re able to run the ball and stop the passing game. I don’t think they can do either. (I just deleted a whole passage ripping Sheridan, the defensive coordinator in name only, a new butt-hole). But who’s to blame when the defense has no clue?

Almost everything else NFL-wise went my way though this past weekend so I’m not complaining. My picks against the spread went 9-6, and, better yet, my best bets were flawless and I finally won my imaginary ten bucks. I won in both my fantasy leagues and still have a shot at the playoffs.

Not the Giants.

NY Super Bowl My Butt

Thank God the Jets lost to the lowly Broncos yesterday. I was getting a little tired of the all-New York Super Bowl hype I’d been hearing all week ad nauseum. The Jets don’t have the character of a true Super Bowl team as they proved yesterday.

Think of the last few Super Bowl teams. New England, Indianapolis, and our own Giants. QB’s…Brady, Peyton, Eli…..Coaches….Belichick, Dungy, Coughlin. I could go on, traversing every position on the field but the Jets just don’t measure up to those Super Bowl teams.

Not to be unkind but the Jets succumbed to the theories of their own greatness. After beating the Pats and then the Titans, they really thought they were hot. It didn’t occur to them, maybe, that the Broncos were a totally different team, a team with a real live passing game.

It didn’t occur to them that there may have been a big difference from Titans QB Kerry Collins to Broncos QB Jay Cutler. All the way down their respective rosters, the Broncos are superior to the Titans. The Titans are just a running team. Stop the run and you stop the Titans.

The Jets weren’t prepared for any adversity on Sunday. You could tell that from the opening kickoff to the final gun. It was cold and rainy too, and Favre just really wasn’t interested. After all, who would notice a clunker thrown in on the last Sunday in November? It wasn’t a team in the AFC East, they had a cushion in the East on the Pats and the Dolphins, it was time to coast past the Broncos.

Surely, they thought, we could stop their running game. Surely, then they would stop the pass. Well, it didn’t turn out that way, of course, but the Jets didn’t react, even after it became quite apparent that the Broncos weren’t going to be content with just holding the lead in the AFC West. They wouldn’t be making any turnovers this day.

The Jets just weren’t prepared to play. I don’t put the blame on Mangini, although he can’t be held blameless. The same goes for Favre who was pretty dreadful in the rain yesterday. It’s a team responsibility, heart. The Giants have it, clearly. The Steelers have it, the Chargers don’t have it, the Jets don’t have it.

I wouldn’t even mind if the Jets had come back. But they didn’t. They were content to tuck their tails between their knees and go home. They are a seriously-flawed team, not from a talent perspective as from a character point of view.

Chad Pennington, I might add, did not have a character problem and still doesn’t, as evidenced by his bringing the Dolphins back to respectability. His Jets played with a lot of heart but they didn’t have the talent in his time. Now, they clearly have the talent but not the heart. A large part of the heart got shipped to Miami.

You see the lack of character all over the NFL. Plax’s gun incident is a very clear example. How easy it is for a man to go from the heights to the depths when he is conspicuously lacking character. All those physical attributes that make him such a talent on the football field couldn’t save him from the debacle that will be his life from here on.

It’s a good thing that Burress has been such a small part of the Giants’ success this year. The team seems to be carrying on without missing a beat. The beat goes on and it will go on without Burress. But it may not go on against the best teams in the NFL, a team that has a balanced offense and defense, a team such as the Pats were last year before they were beaten by the Giants with Burress.

Is there a team though that meets those qualifications this year? In either the AFC or NFC? I don’t think so.

You could possibly make a case for the Steelers. They have Ben Roethlisberger at QB, and some talent at the receiver position. They have a formidable defense too, and, in the person of Troy Polamalu, they have the most talented player in either league. They can run the ball too, but not as well as a Super Bowl team should. Their offensive line doesn’t seem strong enough to support either part of their overall offense.

Their potential to fulfill that Super Bowl contender position will be seriously challenged next Sunday when the Cowboys come to town. The Cowboys have Romo back, and he does not seem to be the Romo of last year, not from the perspective of character.

Romo seems to have grown into a leader this year, his injury and the subsequent Cowboys demise seems to have challenged his whole being, and his performance in the games since his injury seems to bear that out. He is one of those players who can make everyone around him better, at least this year.

The Colts have always been a team with character. They were hit hard by injuries this year, and seem to be a little slow in coming back from them. Their performance against the Browns yesterday wasn’t that of a playoffs contender though, unless it was the Browns that made them look bad, a Browns team that seems to lift its game against better opponents, as evidenced by their victory over the G-Men this year.

Who else is there? There are Carolina and the Bucs in the AFC, the Panthers with conspicuous talent on both sides of the ball. But I don’t think Carolina has the heart. They are a team much like the Jets. The Bucs may have the character but not as much talent as is required to reach the heights, at least on the offensive side of things.

A team that turned in that performance against the Broncos yesterday could never reach the Super Bowl. Forget about it. They probably already have.

The Day After

Thank God for Thanksgiving but especial thanks for the day after. That’s the day the family’s all together but the company’s gone home. That’s the day for pancakes in the morning and no cooking or cleaning up to do. That it’s also about the time I overfill the furnace with water and spend the night with the comforting but eerie sounds of clanking pipes is even easily forgotten, so full of anticipation as I am for the coming day.
Yeah, Friday after. That’s the day you do reflect, the good things, the bad things, all that, and, for a sports nut, it’s an affirmation of the normal state of things. In the NFL, it’s the dominance of Dallas, and the putridness of Detroit. In most Fantasy Leagues, it’s the last week of the regular season, and Sunday we’ll find out which brainiacs made the playoffs.

It’s also a big, big day in college football, the only day in fact that some fans pay any attention at all. This day may not be as good as some of those I recall from the past, but it will still be pretty good. It’s the height of the season and usually chock full of regional matchups that decide who’ll have bragging rights for another year. And to hell with the BCS and Bowl Games.
Not that I’m even into college football. But I still remember with a good deal of fondness those Turkey Friday games between Alabama and Auburn and Oklahoma vs. Nebraska. I don’t see those on the schedule today, I suppose Nebraska has slipped and Auburn, who knows, I couldn’t really tell you.

But still, I’m watching Pitt against West Virginia right now and that’s not all bad. West Virginia (7-3 overall, 4-1 in the Big East) can tie an unlikely Cincinnati team for first place in the Big East with a win. Dave Wannstedt’s Pitt team is also 7-3 overall but just 3-2 in the conference. They’re leading 7-0 right now and WVU looks like it’ll be coming back.
LSU plays Arkansas later on CBS, and I have no clue as to why. Both teams just aren’t that good, not this year anyway, the same goes for Colorado playing Nebraska, although Nebraska still has some hopes. Then the late game features UCLA and Arizona State, both with no hopes whatsoever of winning anything, and this couldn’t even be characterized as a regional rivalry. If anybody can tell me what the sports networks are thinking, please drop me a line.

Still, I’m determined to enjoy the day. It’ll be this Pitt game and then Colorado-Nebraska. I’ll tune in to some NBA action later on, see what Charles is up to. (If you’re asking Charles who?, this column is not for you. Click elsewhere. Thanks). But Miami will be up against Phoenix at 8 and Shaq’s always a giggle. Then Dallas vs. the Lakers and there’s Dirk and Kobe. Life is good.
But maybe not if you’re a West Virginia fan. Pat White just got smacked down at the two and they’re settling for three. Geez, will Pat White ever graduate? He’s been around forever, it seems.

And we still have Sunday to look forward to. The G-Men might have a real battle on their hands at FedEx Field in Landover vs. the Skins, who’re 7-4 and feature a healthy (supposedly) Clinton Portis, the best running back in the league. Although the Giants beat the Skins in the opener, by a score of just 16-7, the Skins were awful in that game, the first under new coach Jim Zorn, and they’ll be missing the big mouth Brandon Jacobs and the big hamstring Plaxico Burress.
Can the G- Men do to the Skins what they did to the Cardinals a week ago? I don’t think so, especially in the aftermath of the Eagles convincing drubbing of Arizona yesterday. Arizona just couldn’t stop the run again, or any piece of the Eagles game, for that matter.

A look at the stats reveals some interesting data. The Skins rate very favorably on defense when compared to the Giants, both against the run and the pass. And, if they can stop Derrick Ward and maybe even Ahmad Bradshaw, who never seems to get enough playing time, it’ll get very hairy indeed.
The Giants are comfortably ahead. They don’t really have to win while the Skins will be fighting for their playoff lives. They play smart defense usually, but the Giants have some smart fellows themselves, especially at the receiver position with Toomer and Steve Smith and even Plax’s backup, Domenick Hixon, looked really good vs. Arizona.

Of course, you have to like the Giants chances, what with that offensive line, and Eli standing tall over center. I don’t think Jason Campbell measures up. But that’s why they play the game. Will a chance at knocking the Skins out of the playoffs be motivation enough for the Giants to overcome that bruising Skins running game? And if they do stop that, will they forget about Santana Moss?
The much-ballyhooed Jets will be playing at 4 on Sunday. They’re coming off two gigantic wins, versus the Pats and then the now once-defeated Titans. They’ll be going against the crazy Broncos, a team coming off a horrible 31-10 loss to the lowly Oakland Raiders.

But the Raiders do have a great defense against the pass, just ask Jake Delhomme. The Jets secondary may look like cake in comparison. Despite the presence of Darrell Revis in that backfield, they’ve allowed 148 first downs through the air.
And, if anybody can put the ball in the air, it’s Denver QB Jay Cutler. He’s got some nifty receivers too, a fast and huge fella named Brandon Marshall on one side and a tricky Eddy Royal on the other. They’ve got two tough tight ends that can both catch the ball in Scheffler and Graham too. It could be that they’ll master the porous Jets passing defense.

Yeah, Thanksgiving Friday, the best day of the year.