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.

The Worst and Best of 2009

I think I’m going to be sick. Tiger Woods has been named Athlete of the Decade by AP. What timing, huh?

I don’t even care whether he is or not but it seems the AP is trying to get in the good graces of Tiger, amidst all the well-deserved media (and universal) criticism. If not for his good graces, the award was given to make sure he’d return to the game so that AP writers would have something to write about, as if there’re no other good candidates for a little more press.

I’m not a moralist but Tiger has lived a despicable existence for a married man, not because he fooled around but because he fooled around and took almost no pains to disguise the fact. It was okay with Woods to embarrass his wife and his kid…..over and over again.

So spare me if I spit on your award, AP. I’m happy not to be a part of it.

Speaking of despicable human beings, Bret Favre was hailed in a recent Newark Star-Ledger article that boosted him for MVP, as if there were no other candidates, as if there were nobody performing better, not Peyton Manning, not Drew Brees or Philip Rivers, to name just a few.

The writer in question also seemed to think all the criticism was unfounded, a theory that just doesn’t wash.

Let me say it one more time. Favre ruined the Jets season last year by playing hurt. He hid his arm injury to keep his consecutive games record alive. He didn’t care what he did to the Jets season. That he had a perfectly willing Jets management to assist him in that regard isn’t really the point. The man needed an arm operation LAST YEAR, not in the off-season so that he could come back totally healthy with his rocket arm working perfectly well for his old team’s biggest rival.

Favre certainly has been great this year. And he was pretty great for a lot of years. And maybe he would be a viable candidate for NFL MVP this year. But he cheated the Jets and the Jets fans. He took a playoffs season away from them. That’s my problem with Favre. The fact that he never met a camera or microphone he didn’t like has nothing to do with it.

Let’s see….who else can I pick on? Oh, I know, how about Serena Williams, the latest quasi-star to get a break from the U.S. press and the powers that be in tennis.

She deserved a suspension for her ugly emotional display (and arguably, assault upon the lineswoman) at the U.S. Open. She got a fine instead. She now has the green light to ruin everybody’s good time at another major tennis event. Along the way, we can listen to her whine that the whole ugly matter should be put to rest.

She not only ruined the Open, she also robbed the winner, Kim Clijsters of Belgium, of her victory on the court, a hard-fought and decisive victory, one for which Williams had no ready excuse. She hadn’t launched her crippled act. She hadn’t tapped into the trainers-session delays she had used in several important past matches to demoralize opponents who had finer tennis skills but couldn’t match her for gamesmanship and rules-twisting.

There is still some good in the world though. As this is the Christmas season, let me now focus on some positively good people, some people who aren’t just talented but who always seem to personify hard work and class.

How about Mark Teixeira? Teixeira did nothing but good things for the Yankees in 2009, earning every bit of his money and hustling all along the way. I’ll always remember his scoring from first base with the winning run against the Mets on a fly ball that 99.5 % of the time gets caught. But since it was Luis Castillo, the ball wasn’t caught. Teixeira stole one for his Yankees, not with his considerable talent but with his remarkable hustle.

How about Eli Manning? All Eli does is try to win. He can’t quite manage the fine sense of humor his brother has always had. And he doesn’t have his brother’s accuracy to be perfectly honest.

Eli just had exactly the confident but humble demeanor his team needed in 2007, one that he still brought to the table this year and last, no matter that he was robbed first of his wide-outs and then of his defense. You never hear a word of complaint from Eli, although I suspect his receivers hear about their route-running from time to time.

How about Drew Brees? Here’s a true man of stature who lacks only height, a guy who has been “dissed” throughout his lifetime by football experts, a guy who kept Philip Rivers on the bench in San Diego, where he started his pro career, for two full years, a guy who should have won the Heisman in 2000 but lost to the taller Chris Weinke from Florida State (but did finish ahead of LaDainian Tomlinson and a fella named Michael Vick).

When Brees was eligible for free agency in 2006, the Chargers elected to let him go with nary an unkind word from Mr. Brees, to the Saints, who Brees lead to their first NFC Championship Game in his first year.

Ever since his acquisition, Brees has been top notch offensively, starting every game for the Saints and gaining over 4400 yards in his first two years before topping the 5000 yard mark in 2008. This year, Brees is once again among the NFC leaders in yardage and touchdowns, this despite the fact that the Saints are running more than ever in their quest for that elusive Super Bowl victory.

Unlike Peyton and Brady, though, Brees throws to everyone ,usually making sure every wide-out gets his touchdown each game, making household names of Marques Colston, Robert Meachem and Devery Henderson.

He’s the best of 2009 and King of Bacchus too!

A Lost Sunday

It was a lost Sunday. For the Giants and Jets, that is, and anybody silly enough to root for them. I knew the Giants would be in trouble, facing Drew Brees & Company with somebody named C.C. Brown at safety and, well, I never put much faith in Dockery. The Jets were a surprise flop though, losing in miserable fashion to one of the worst football teams in the league.

Mark Sanchez has regressed a lot from the quarterback he was against New England. It’s a shame really. He’s aiming the ball. He’s doing almost everything required of a quarterback badly. He even made Ryan Fitzpatrick, the Bills horrible quarterback, look good, a feat I would have thought was impossible before yesterday.

For the Jets, the game wasn’t the only bad news. They also lost Kris Jenkins, their huge defensive tackle, to a fairly serious knee injury. So there goes the run defense for the rest of the season too.

And it’s easy to second-guess but I would have got Sanchez out of there. He was clearly dazed and shaken, and not likely to come out of it, which he didn’t. He seems to have lost any confidence he may have had, and clearly, it’s time for a change. At the very least, it’s time to institute some rules, like Joba rules, in a way. Three picks and he’s out.

Not that it even makes a difference anymore. Any team that could lose so easily to one of the worst teams in the league cannot be expected to win many more. Forget the playoffs, forget even mediocrity, this team is bad, bad, bad. Of course, any team with a bad quarterback will be bad. We can only hope that the regression of Sanchez isn’t a reflection of the coach’s ability. Most people like Ryan, and I do too, but maybe he shows too much confidence in people? It’s optimism gone amok.

I have to admit that, while the Giants clock was being cleaned, I was enjoying every bit of it as my fantasy team roster includes Brees, Colston and Shockey. They all had their way with the Giants, especially Colston, who seemed to just outduel anybody covering him for the ball. I knew he was good but I didn’t realize he was great.

The Giants made every Saint look great though, so it’s hard to tell how really good Colston may be from yesterday’s game. I have to think the result would have been much different if there had been any kind of coverage at all. All I saw was guys in blue running with guys in gold, but when the ball was in the air, the guy in gold went up and got it. The blue guy stayed cemented to the ground.

Just about everybody who could have caught a pass caught one. Not just Colston and Shockey, but Meacham, Moore….Well, seven different players scored touchdowns for the Saints. It was pretty much a massacre.

It was sad to see Eli do so badly in his hometown. Equally as sad was to see him lose his cool with running back Ahmad Bradshaw, who zigged when he should’ve zagged on one play, resulting in horrific pressure on Manning and ultimately, an interception.

There is hope for the Giants though. The Saints may be the best team in the league, and they had an extra week to prepare for this game. They exposed every Giants weakness, quite often actually. But the Saints offensive line did its job pretty well too, keeping what had been a fierce defensive front in check all day. Even a hint of defensive pressure up front could have made a big difference.

I’ll try to take solace in the fact that, as bad as the locals were, there were some other teams that looked just as bad or worse. The first team that comes to mind is the Eagles, who lost to the awful Raiders, but the Titans were absolutely humiliated by the Patriots and the hapless Redskins lost to the previously winless Kansas City Chiefs.

The most revealing statistic of them all might be the fact that the Redskins had faced a winless team in each and every game they’d played this season but had only won two of them. Harried Skins head coach Jim Zorn was relieved of his play-calling responsibility yesterday and quarterback Jason Campbell was finally relieved at halftime in favor of Todd Collins, who at least led the Skins to some field goals.

What happened to the Eagles at Oakland is beyond me. I knew Oakland was capable of fielding a very decent pass defense, what with the highest-paid cornerback in the NFL residing in their secondary (Asomugha got hurt), but I didn’t realize they could stop the run. Evidently, it was not a big part of their game plan.

The Eagles did lose their offensive tackle, Jason Peters, in the first quarter, which probably doused any Eagle thoughts of running. But McNabb was sacked six times, indicating some really big problems up front. And Akers missed two field goals, McNabb called a timeout he didn’t have, and they still should have won that game.

The Cowboys had their bye week and got to watch everybody else lose. Not too shabby. They’re coming off two fairly good weeks of play, having lost a close one to the undefeated (for now) Broncos and having beat the Chiefs by six in Kansas City. They get an extra week to prepare for the very tough Atlanta Falcons next week, and they seem to have found a wide receiver they didn’t know they had.

The Yanks had the day off after beating the suddenly sorry Angels and seem a 50-50 chance of winning still another at 4PM today, Pettite vs. Saunders. Arod’s been great; he saved the game Saturday.

The Phils killed LA behind Lee to go up 2-1. They’ll face Wolf tonight behind big Joe Blanton. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Dodgers tie the series.

The Beat Goes On

The Mets saga conTINuuuuues. Just when you’ve decided not to watch, even on TV, here come the Mets again, the Mets you expected, well, maybe not expected exactly, but the team you know they could be, iff they would just pitch once in a while.

Well, pitch they did, well, Pelfrey sure did. It seemed as if he was suddenly unhittable. How nice for him. I just wonder where the heck that pitcher goes every fifth day? It’s like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Pelfrey. Maybe he can only whip the San Francisco’s of the world?

Then there was this kid Parnell. He sure did very nicely in his first start ever. The kid has some speed and some stuff too. Hell, he could be the number two starter. I got almost excited as the Weather Channel guys at the prospects of that new tropical storm, or the Republicans after helping kill any healthcare changes.

Anyway, in the short term, there’s somebody besides tired old Livan friggin’ Hernandez and the crazy lefty Perez to throw out there. The depth chart now reads Santana, Pelfrey, Hernandez, Perez and Parnell. That’s not too shabby really, they sure are all different. It’s just that you’d like to see some more consistency, y’know?

But starting with the last game vs. Arizona, the Mets are on an impressive run. Crazy Ollie pitched that last game and allowed just one run in 5 1/3 impressive innings. Even the atrocious reliever Sean Green couldn’t lose it for him. Then it was Parnell with the shutout, a shaky Santana which is still not horrible, and then Pelfrey’s little gem. A Mets fan could get used to this.

And just when you thought the baseball gods had forgotten about the Mets, here they came with one more salvo, leveling the one remaining core guy, good ol’ David Wright. It came in the form of a shot to the head, of course, that nobody thought was intentional, but….still. There may have been a feeble attempt at retaliation as roly-poly Bengie Molina was hit by a pitch much later on, but you can never really get even for your rock going down for the count. With a concussion, he may as well be lost for the season, especially this season.

Fernando Tatis is now our third baseman, backed up by a fella named Andy Green, who is, surprise, surprise, a very light-hitting guy indeed. But the lineup against the Giants on Sunday was Pagan, Castillo, Sheffield, Francoeur, Tatis, Murphy, Santos and Anderson Hernandez, which can be a pretty entertaining group. I’m looking forward to seeing if Livan can get by SanFran’s Joe Martinez.

Oh, but just to keep things in perspective, the Mets are 55-62, 12 games back of the Phillies in the NL East and 9 ½ behind the Rockies for the wildcard. And they’re way way back on that list too. It’s good that football season is almost upon us, unless of course you’re a Yankee fan.

The Yankees are way ahead of Boston and are 41-18 at home, the best home record in either league. They lead Detroit in that respect by a game but Detroit has a losing record away from home. The Yanks are also 33-26 on the road. They have the best overall record in both leagues, Mark Teixeira is being touted for MVP and Jeter just passed Luis Aparicio for most hits be a shortstop. So what’s not to like?

Aside from this innings thing with Joba, there’s almost nothing left to criticize. You see little chinks now and then, like Sergio Mitre maybe not being that good, and I suppose Chad Gaudin hasn’t really proven anything yet. And now Matsui’s a little banged up.

But with the Yankees, if they’re close through 6 or 7 innings, you get the feeling they’re going to win the game. There are not that many teams you can say that about.

The big news in the American League is the Texas Rangers. It looks as if they have the staying power to outlast Boston for the AL wildcard. They put them away yesterday head-to-head after losing a tough one a day earlier. And with the same pitcher to close things out, Frank Francisco, who had a 2.01 ERA before Boston lambasted him for 6 big runs on Saturday.

Ian Kinsler, Michael Young, Josh Hamilton…the Rangers have got a hell of a team and even the pitching is holding up. It’s a pitching staff put together by a real man named Nolan Ryan, who pees on pitch counts. This team stayed together and played well, even after losing Hamilton and Kinsler to injuries for, in Hamilton’s case anyway, a good portion of the season.

The Red Sox seem a mess compared to what they had been. Between injuries to key players like Matsuzaka and Wakefield and performance funks from the likes of David Ortiz and the shortstop position, the Red Sox are hanging into the race by the tips of their fingernails. And their confidence had to be shaken by the sweep the Yanks laid on them.

So things should be quite tolerable for the rest of the baseball season, even for a Mets fan. When boredom really sets in, we can just tune in to the NFL station and watch some exhibitions. For me, I’ve been checking out the quarterbacks for fantasy purposes, especially QB’s who changed teams or whose team was enhanced by some key additions.

In Buffalo, I watched Trent Edwards looking good throwing to Lee Evans, even with Terrell Owens out with a bad toe. On the other hand, the much-ballyhooed Jay Cutler looked lousy with da Bears and Kyle Orton didn’t look that great in his exhibition. Tony Romo looked as if he was trying a bit harder to stay in the pocket and looked pretty good while Donovan McNabb seemed to have an easy time of it in his few minutes on the field.

Then there’s Mark Sanchez. And we’ll see Eli tonight!

Wednesday Odds and Ends

So what can you expect on a Wednesday morning in New Jersey when it’s just Philly and Pittsburgh on the NFL horizon. (Yeah, sure, I know, it could be Arizona and/or Baltimore but a reasonable person shouldn’t expect it). Odds and ends is what I’m serving today.

By Wednesday morning, you’ve heard all you ever wanted to hear if you’re a Giants fan. How bad Eli was and how he can’t throw in the wind, and what if we had Plaxico, and how bad was it throwing to Hixon and Toomer, and why didn’t they let Jacobs run more, and what about the defense?

Yeah, I’ve had it with that. They lost. Get over it. They were lucky to have gotten that number 1 seed. They actually played their hearts out on Sunday but there are at least two factors in any football game. There is “heart” and the G-Men had plenty of that. But there is also talent and there wasn’t nearly enough of that.
So it’s up to Jerry Reese now, and I’m already hearing whines from the do-gooders that Plaxico shouldn’t be allowed to come back. Well, good luck with the union, fellas. And good luck finding somebody with those nice physical attributes combined with a knowledge of that somewhat-difficult offense. Good luck with Hixon and Toomer and Smith and Moss and Manningham too.

The Giants are kind of predictable in situations such as this one actually. They really hate over-paying for talent. So I wouldn’t count on Jacobs returning, unless the big fella is okay with taking less than another team might offer. Ward will probably come back, because, let’s face facts, he gained his thousand by following blocks for the most part.
As a third-down back, he failed in my eyes on Sunday, and probably for anybody who was really watching. (I understand G.M.’s really do watch the games). So, expect some changes in the running backs department. If both return, that’d be okay, better than okay maybe, but it still won’t get them to that brass ring (or the gold one encrusted with diamonds either).

On defense, they’ll need some help in the secondary, I suppose. Sam Madison, James Butler and a couple of others will be out there in one way or another. I’d love to see them draft a linebacker or two. This group doesn’t thrill me. The defensive line is signed except for Fred Robbins so they’re in great shape with Umenyiora, Tuck, Kiwanuka and Alford, the kid from East Orange. But I wouldn’t mind having one more.
Eli needs a backup too, and David Carr isn’t too bad in that department. It’s at running back where they are most vulnerable. Jacobs did entirely too much running east and west in that Eagles game. It seems he’s hell on wheels once he gets some steam up, but, alas, not before. So a team that recognizes his weakness can make sure he never really gets started, which is exactly what the Eagles did on Sunday.

So, I’d welcome another running back for sure. I’d like to see Ahmad Bradshaw get a real live opportunity. Then, if there’s another Adrian Peterson out there somewhere, I’d be happy to draft him.
But Jerry Reese has proven he’s some kind of personnel guy. In the NFL, that’s more than half the battle. What might hurt the Giants more than any of these player changes would be the loss of Spagnola as the defensive coordinator. At the very least, we can expect them to lose the first couple of games just learning the new defense.

Okay, enough about the Giants. The Jets are still pretending to interview candidates for their vacant head coaching position. I fully expect them to go with the biggest butt-kisser, that is, whoever can jump the highest when Woody says boo. Through Tannenbaum of course. That’s enough about the Jets, unless you want to hear some more about Bret Favre. I certainly don’t.
If you’re a reasonable gambling man, you’ve already lost your shirt on the friggin’ Arizona Cardinals. The other games were predictable, at least to a certain degree. There was Baltimore’s ridiculously strong and manic defense, and there was Donovan McNabb and a whole boatload of receivers. But Arizona winning against a strong playoffs team two weeks in a row was sumthin’ friggin’ inexplicable (and inexcusable too).

You had to feel somewhat for the Titans. They lost on some big turnovers, which is a tough way to lose. That Crumpler fumble as he neared the goal line was a real killer. Losing their best running back for the second half didn’t help much either. Jeff Fischer deserved better.
The upcoming Sunday games should be great ones though. Kurt Warner against Donovan McNabb, and those two great defenses going after each other in Pittsburgh. You’re pretty much guaranteed to see everything on Sunday, from heavy hitting to bone-crushing sacks to beautifully floated passes to diving catches in the endzone.

My guess is you’ll be seeing some pretty fancy field goal kicking too, in Pittsburgh because neither team can even get to the red zone half the time, and in Arizona because the Eagles are so bad at scoring from in close. The Eagles secondary is too good to expect many TD’s from that feared Cards receiving corps.
Had enough of the NFL? The Knicks are playing pretty well lately, and, speaking of odds and ends, you have to really start wondering about Eddie Curry (apparently). Other than that, though, they’re doing pretty well for a team that just shucked two of its best players. And Harrington’s from Jersey!

The Nets too are a very interesting team. It looks as if Brook Lopez is working out just fine at center, especially if Vince keeps busting his horns. If there’s anything wrong with the Nets, it’s that they can’t seem to find the right rotation.

And the Mets lost the Derek Lowe sweepstakes. Go Tim Redding!! And what about Ollie?

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.

Michael Strahan - One of a Kind

Well, he finally did it. Michael Strahan retired after 15 long years of football. And he will be missed. Not only was he the best defensive end on the Giants team (and arguably the NFL) but he was the easiest to talk to (most times) and everybody liked him (well, just about). And he stopped the run too. He was truly one of a kind.

Throughout the Giants triumphant playoff run and Super Bowl, it seemed as if there were a lot of heroes. And there certainly were. Eli, Steve Smith, Amani Toomer, all those rookies.....but there was always Strahan. He always got a lot of attention. And he deserved it.

What do most people remember about him? First and foremost, unfortunately I think, is the gap-toothed smile, that gap-toothed smile that became his trademark. And, who knows, given his overall effect on the Giants football team, maybe it was one of his greatest assets.

I’ll bet it helped him be a leader. It made him approachable. Instead of the dour expression you might expect from a man who mixed it up with the biggest, meanest people on the planet, Michael would sport that gap-toothed grin. And all would seem right with the world.

That’s what the Giants will miss most - his leadership. How many people can be elected captain of a team when he’s not even there? Well, that’s what happened with the Giants last year. At the time, I viewed it as an enormous negative. What kind of mixed-up priorities did this team have?

But it turned out to be a harbinger of good things to come. The Giants were saying, “HE’S OUR LEADER” loud and clear. Not Eli, not Coughlin, not Amani. It’s Michael Strahan and we don’t care that he’s not here. Who knows? Maybe that’s what ultimately brought him back for that one last triumphant run to glory.

In preparation for this column, I looked at Strahan’s career stats, and, while laudable, primarily for their consistency, stats don’t tell his story. Stats are a more reliable indicator for a quarterback. But for a defensive end, who can be double-teamed or even triple-teamed, you would have to examine the performance of every other defensive lineman and linebacker to really gauge his overall significance.

There was one best way of gauging his importance. You just had to watch him. He had one of those classic defensive end bodies. Listed at 6’5” and 255, it’s hard to believe he carried that much bulk. He was always so fast. And quick. (There is a big difference there)..And he played with abandon.

All the great defensive linemen had speed and quickness. And power, of course. But the primary asset is speed. You can make a guy powerful, and you can even improve a guy’s speed and quickness through training, but the gift from God is really the natural speed.

Strahan always had it. In fact, sometimes I thought he tried to rely on his speed too much. There were too many games when I thought he’d just run himself out of a play, the offensive lineman would just ride him out behind the quarterback.

But, more often than not, in moments that counted, Strahan would make a play. He’d do what he had to do. And Strahan could do it all, run like a deer, stop on a dime, change directions in a heartbeat, bull his way through a block or even jump bodies to make the play.

But he was smart too. He’d study his opponent. He’d understand the defensive scheme. And certainly for the latter days of his career, in those last several years, he became a leader, and then he became THE leader.

In fact, the best indicator of his prowess on the field was what happened to the Giants when he wasn’t on the field. The best example was the 2006 season. The Giants couldn’t stop anybody. That they finished a .500 team and made the playoffs by a hair was remarkable. But, even that accomplishment may have been out of reach if not for the exhortations of Strahan.

Read Michael’s book. And then read a book called “The G.M.”. The two, taken together, give you a good idea of the power of Strahan. He endured the pain. He made Tiki a better person. He made Coughlin a better coach. I think he even made some reporters better reporters.

Just as his opponents on the line couldn’t know what to expect from Strahan, whether he would run around them, or bull through them, or whirl like a dervish, so did his personality consist of several quite different elements, some that could scare you but others that could charm.

When Strahan was going through that ugly divorce, it was easy to turn against him. You’d read some ugly things, and you’d wonder. But could any of us endure a microscopic examination of his life and emerge unsullied?

Well, Strahan is nothing if not resilient. He endured that experience just as he endured the pain of every Sunday, or the relentless questioning of those reporters. He’s just a tough guy. And maybe that’s what we should remember the most.

Not just fast or strong, but tough too. And enduring. Following his rookie year, he played 15 or more games in every year but two. In those years he played just 8 games in 2004 and 9 games in 2006. He was always tough and he was always there. If he could walk, he’d be in there.

I’ve already heard that some people think he is a big phony. That stems, I’m sure, from the times you’d see a different person from the one you thought you knew. But Strahan really is a complex individual, and I think people were just seeing the many sides of Michael.

The capacity to laugh and enjoy, but also the capacity to be very tough. All the great ones had it, certainly Ali, Marciano or even Howie Long.

And Michael Strahan too.

Cold Hands, Hot Foot

What was Sunday's Giants victory over the Green Bay Packers really about? To me, after watching the tape, it was all about many cold hands and one foot. Whose hands? Well, Plaxico Burress's were in evidence all night. There was also, of course, Amani Toomer. And the hands that didn't LOSE a fumble all night, and, actually, for three games now, those of Brandon Jacobs and Ahmad Bradshaw. There were also the hands of Eli Manning, using one glove only, throwing lots of completions right on the button. There were illegal hands to the face too, but more than any others, today I would like to pay tribute to the hands of TE Kevin Boss and special teamer Domenick Hixon. Boss recovered Jacobs's fumble at the goal line. Hixon recovered still another R.W. McQuarters fumble amongst several furiously groping men in green.

The foot, of course, belonged to Lawrence Tynes, who, after failing to put the ball through the uprights on two previous occasions, finally solidly kicked the hell out of that last kick, putting out of his mind the things that went before, like a bad snap, like a scolding from his coach. That singlemindedness put the Giants back into the Super Bowl. It also solidified his career, I'm sure, but that's quite beside the point.

Was there ever a game that was more fun to watch? The lead changed hands seemingly all night long before finally evening up at 20 with almost the entire fourth quarter (and ultimately overtime) to go. The Giants dominated, it seemed, all night long, time of possession, yards on the ground, yards in the air, receptions, quarterback pressures, yet here they were, tied with a team that still, after all, boasted the world's finest quarterback and about five dangerous receivers.

But the "hands of the night" award was fated to go to arguably the MVP of the Giants post-season run, namely cornerback Cory Webster, who snagged Favre's errant pass to his favorite receiver, Donald Driver, and streaked down the sideline, setting up the G-Men for that last miracle kick. I don't say "miracle" lightly either. It was in zero-degree weather, the man missed two shorter kicks earlier and he had to listen to some vitriol from Coughlin on at least one of them.

All was forgiven in the aftermath of the victory, of course. Coughlin joked that they just had to move the ball back a little farther. Also forgiven in those joyous post-game moments, I'm sure, were the R.W. McQuarters two fumbles and Sam Madison's impossibly poorly-timed unsportsmanlike penalty that killed still another Giants drive.

What's abundantly clear after these three playoff wins is that this really is a team. You can't pick one player on whom to focus. The quarterback, of course, gets most of the credit, but what's new? And who's more deserving? Eli had been the whipping boy all year for talk-radio, especially one mean-spirited cretin who can't pronounce most English words over one syllable, for former Giants running backs, for TV pitchmen disguised as football analysts....for most of the NY print-media. He's certainly answered all his detractors, controlling the game, setting a selfless example, and showing the same coolness in the pocket that so annoys all of those pickers of bones. Where was Eli to be found, directly after the game? Looking for someone in the stands, concern written all over his face. It's easy to play for a guy like Eli.

But, even given Eli's performance, what about the coaching staff, in fact, the entire management team ! There is a GM who seemingly picked all the right players, a head coach who has his team ready to play each week, an offensive coordinator choosing all the right plays, a defensive coordinator who no quarterback can quite figure out, and owners who just keep smiling.

And what about these new players? Tight end Kevin Boss, in addition to recovering that critical fumble on Sunday, has been a huge 6'7" presence, he gets open, and he catches everything coming his way. Ahmad Bradshaw missed eleven games and came back running hard and fast. Steve Smith, the wide receiver, has been a magnificent third option behind Plaxico Burress and Amani Toomer. Justin Tuck stops the run and pass. Even players we never heard of like that cornerback Pope have stepped in without missing a beat. Domenick Hixon, Madison Hedgecock, the list goes on and on.

The veterans have performed as well as, if not better than, ever. Michael Strahan, Burress and Toomer, the entire offensive line, the leader of the defense, Antonio Pierce, who made a miraculous game-saving stop on a screen pass in Sunday’s game, wrapping up the running back and his blocker until help could arrive. The veteran offensive line has stood up to the rigors of the Patriots, Bucs, Cowboys and now Packers. Feagles, the punter, is a marvel at 41 years of age. And of course there’s Tynes.

If I were the Patriots, I’d be a little nervous. For, as perfect as they have been, for eighteen games now, can they continue that perfection for another game against a team that’s only been perfect for four? Even though the Pats beat the Giants in that last game of the season, they only won barely, and that on a rather unfortuitous quirk of fate, a blown coverage after an injury to a cornerback.

And the Giants are now a curious mirror of the Pats. There is balance everywhere, an offense with two good running backs, a strong offensive line, and a bevy of receivers. There is a defense with a gunslinger mentality, a reflection of its new leader. Its special teams have truly been special down the stretch. But, most of all, they play as a team, they win as a team. Sound familiar?