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?

On NFL Week 12 and a Monday Night Shootout

Week 12 was a dud for me. Yeah, the Jets won, Plax was a hero and Sanchez had some time to throw. Even Shonn Green garnered some yards. But my fantasy team, one that has been slumping for quite a while now while still managing to win, could put together only one decent effort, that coming from our own Dustin Keller at tight end.

I had expected tough going this week as my premier running back, Fred Jackson was injured, only to be replaced by CJ Spiller in Buffalo. Other players I counted on earlier in the season, such as Miles Austin and Julio Jones, have been likewise hurt, but not badly enough to hit the injured reserve list; just badly enough to take up room on my roster.

My two remaining big guns play tonight, Drew Brees and Hakeem Nicks. But they’ll need a heap of production, even for them. No, it’s not a good day for Crabs. One thing I’ve had all season long though is luck. The one-point wins, the 3-point wins, the remarkable performances put up by the most unlikely players (or team defenses) in the least likely situations.

If tonight’s battle between the Giants and Saints unfolds the way I think it might, which is to say, a shootout between Eli and Mr. Brees, my chances become pretty good. In that kind of battle, Drew could put up 300 yards easily and 3 or 4 TD’s while Hakeem Nicks could see a 100-yard day and a touchdown. Maybe the Saints D will double on Victor Cruz. That would be a welcome change.

While I wait for all that to unfold, I can only try not to tear my hair out thinking about the ridiculously conservative approaches that teams take with their best players. Julio Jones for example has been out for weeks with a hammy but his status was changed to probable for Week 12. Julio must’ve been down by the school yard because he didn’t see even one friggin’ minute on the field. He and I got to watch as his replacement, one Harry Douglas, got his catches and a touchdown. Meanwhile, Sidney Rice, ordinarily Seattle’s first receiving option, hurt his “widdle” head quite early and that was the end of his day on the field.

Football can be an infuriating game. Just ask the Chicago Bears who saw an injury to their QB, Jay Cutler, seriously hurt their chances at a playoff spot. Ask the Houston Texans. They lost Matt Schaub the starter and Matt Leinart the backup in successive weeks. They managed to win though. The Bears were not so lucky.

In last night’s game we had to watch the Chiefs and their backup QB, one Tyler Palko, try to compete with the Steelers and Ben Roethlisberger. They did acquire Kyle Orton, a serviceable or better QB who had the misfortune of preceding Tim Tebow in the early-season depth chart. Tebow won again yesterday in what has come to be the Broncos trademark fashion, lots of defense and lots of Tebow.

Compare and contrast Tebow to Ndamokung Suh or Stevie Johnson, the thug and the dipstick. It’s amazing to me how pleased with themselves some of these players are. Then they’re sorry afterwards. Suh especially deserves everything he might get in terms of penalties or suspensions. What irked me totally was his denial at first that he had done anything wrong (after stomping on an exposed leg). The next thing you know he’s apologizing. Stevie Johnson demonstrated his lack of brains and any class whatsoever by doing his Plaxico Burress impersonation in the end zone. He was later sorry too.

Even though I really don’t anyone who wears his religion on his sleeve (and tries to rub a little on your sleeve too), coming from Tebow, he seems so sincere that his continual religious references don’t really have any negative effect on me. He’s a big, strong, fast gentleman, maybe the only one in the NFL. I’ll take his behavior over some of these other meatballs anytime.

Meanwhile, the NBA lockout is over (or soon will be). Thank God this Holiday season that we won’t have to hear about the legal wranglings that would have been part and parcel of a continuation of the lockout.

I’m looking forward too to a reduced season as I had always thought that 82 games were too many. When the NFL season starts winding down and the playoff participants become all too clear, a little Knicks and Nets action will be just what the doctor ordered.

Rutgers failed to win the game they needed to advance to a BCS Bowl. Color me sad.

In my favorite sport, baseball (by an increasingly large margin) hot stove action has been really slow. We don’t know where Reyes is going if anywhere and the same goes for Pujols. The biggest signing though was sadly the Phillies signing of Papelbon, Boston’s terrific closer. Now the Phils seem to really have everything. And I wouldn’t be surprised if they go after Reyes too. Their shortstop is getting (and playing) a little long in the tooth.

The Philadelphia Eagles, erstwhile dream team, looked pretty dreadful against the Patriots Sunday. But it wasn’t Vince Young’s fault. He threw for 400 yards with just the one pick and yet the Birds weren’t really in the game after the first quarter. They didn’t play defense that you’d notice. Apparently the Pats are better than the Giants, who only managed to score ten points against them in their latest outing.

In any event Eagles head coach Andy Reid might be in a little trouble. All those weapons they acquired in free agency aren’t having much of an effect. Michael Vick, Vince Young, and all those offensive weapons couldn’t do much against the Pats, at least from a scoring standpoint, and the whole team seems to be playing lifeless ball.

Let’s hope the Giants fare better tonight against the Saints. Let’s have a good old-fashioned shootout.

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.

On NFL Week 9 qnd Smokin' Joe

Wow! What a football week! Having just finished watching “da Bears” take the shine off those golden boys from Philadelphia (in Philadelphia), I can honestly say this Week 9 NFL action was pretty darned good, better than I can remember in a long, long time.

The Giants (and Eli) were great. The Jets were pretty darned good. The Ravens war with the Steelers and the Bengals-Titans matchup were superlative. The Broncos won under Tebow. The Dolphins won their first game (in a big way). The Chargers were competitive against the Pack but still managed to look bad in doing so.

And some of the big guns in the NFL rolled in dazzling fashion, the Falcons, the Saints, Houston, the Niners and Dallas all outclassing their opponents as was expected. I love watching form prevail. But it’s nice to see the lower-echelon teams coming on too, the Seattles and Rams of the world still losing but looking a little better in the process.

How great was it to watch Eli bring the Giants back to outdo Tom Brady and the Pats (in Boston)? What made it better was that Brady had just finished doing his own reprisal of “Tommy Breaks Your Heart Again”. But it was the Pats hearts that were shattered. And who the heck is Jake Ballard? How can he be making all those nice catches?

I don’t root for the Jets anymore but they sure did a number on Fred Jackson and the rest of the Bills. And not just because Freddy is my feature fantasy back. (Julio Jones more than made up for Freddy). How can anybody root against those lovable Bills who couldn’t quite circle the wagons soon enough on Sunday? The Jets just systematically took them apart, nothing really flashy, just hard hits and a smart offense and defense too. The Green Team was dominant.

Back to the Giants though, just for a few seconds, it was great to watch Coughlin with the team in the locker room! The feeling between Coach and his guys was palpable. He quite apparently does not run a concentration camp, and maybe….just maybe….even modern athletes can appreciate somebody who makes them more disciplined.

Equally as great about the Giants win was that I gave them just about zero chance of pulling it off. Their best receiver (if that can even be said anymore), Hakeem Nicks, was out. So was their best running back, Ahmad Bradshaw. The center was out too, just to add a further degree of difficulty. The Pats hadn’t lost at home in five years or so. The whole thing was pretty damned shocking to a person who feels he’s got everything figured out.

Of course, I didn’t have to sit through all the commercials. I watched the Zone. In fact, tonight’s Eagles-Bears game was so oversold with ads as to be totally unwatchable, especially in the final minutes of the second quarter. Shouldn’t ESPN be embarrassed? Does nothing embarrass them?

A moment of silence (and tribute) to Smokin’ Joe Frazier who died today. He feels like family in a way, so closely were his fights with Ali examined, so genuine and so richly deserved his dislike for Ali, the hype for the fights, the actual fights, every single thing you could say about that rivalry would have to be good.

Joe played his part almost too well, first taking Ali’s title (for real this first time) with a terrific left hook to Ali’s jaw, then losing to Foreman, then Ali beating Foreman, then the “Thrilla in Manila” and the sequel that almost matched the original for drama. Joe was the plugger, Joe was the determined one, Joe was the guy who’d make Ali eat his cruel words. Joe was a guy every man, especially Ali, had to respect, even if he never seemed to get any love.

Joe kept coming, straight at you. I think Saint Peter will just stand aside.

The Bears’ Matt Forte and Lance Briggs did their own tough-guy routine tonight as they put a battering on those Eagles, even if Forte made more mistakes in one night than he usually makes in a month or two. Linebacker Briggs was just all over the place. When he delivered the hits, the “hittee” was all over the place. And that Bears offensive line kept Jay Cutler clean as a whistle.

It looks as if it’ll be the Year of the Harbaugh. Younger brother Jim Harbaugh has brought the Niners back to relevance while big brother John has his Ravens positioned nicely to finally win an AFC Championship. And they’ll meet each other on the field Thanksgiving night in Baltimore. That one promises to be the Game of the Year.

But, meanwhile, the damned Packers just keep winning. It seems that nobody can stop Aaron Rodgers and company, certainly not the San Diego Chargers. But I’ll say right now that I don’t expect them to win it all. Not this year, not with that running game….or lack thereof. Excuses can be made for the defense, I suppose, having to deal with Rodgers putting so many points on the board, but their running game is putrid.

Some might say the Pack had no running game last year. That’s really not the case though. Their offensive linemen had blocked last year. They show no inclination towards doing that this year. When the threat of the run becomes so small as to make no real difference, the play-action passes won’t work. And their defense can’t stop anybody.

Of course, there is half a season left to play. And maybe, just maybe, the game of the year will be the Giants against the Jets. That’s the game in store for us on Christmas Eve…….if we’re very good, and if the Giants and Jets are too. If even one team falters, the game might not be very meaningful.

But if both locals can keep playing good football, it could be a precursor to the Super Bowl. Now that’d be something!

Predictable?? NOT!

Is anybody else having trouble keeping track of all these games? Baseball playoffs are going hot and heavy. If you’ve been a baseball fan all season, you have a team you favor in each playoff series. Me, I’ve been rooting hardest for the Cards. Beating the pitching-heavy Phillies would be just outstanding. But the NFL Week 4 games have been going head-to-head with baseball on at least a few occasions, If you like all the football action too, you’ve really worn down that “last” button on your remote.

As this is written, the Phillies are still having trouble putting away these pesky Cards. In the bottom of the sixth, there is still no score. Cards pitcher Jaime Garcia is pitching a gem but so is Cole Hamels of the Phils. What a great series this one is turning out to be. This game followed another nail-biter, that between the Rays and Rangers which the Rangers won, thus eliminating the miracle Rays.

The best 3 of 5 format of the ALDS/NLDS games is outrageous. Anything really can happen. And it usually happens in the blink of an eye. It’s not just the home runs either. Sometimes it’s a play at the plate or grabbing a Texas Leaguer. Of course, if one guy hits 3 homers in the same game as Adrian Beltre did earlier today, that’s pretty friggin’ noteworthy. (No, not quite sponge-worthy).

Indicative of the frantic nature of these festivities is that I haven’t even mentioned the Yankees yet. They surely were looking good as Ivan Nova finished off those Tigers in Game 1 behind Sabathia and the rain. But then they played Game 2. It sure seemed like Game 3 as Game 1 had seemed like two different games. Be that as it may, the very unlikely hero Max Scherzer outdueled Freddy Garcia (and didn’t Yank pitching seem a little thin)?

Then the Tigers ace Verlander outdid CC and a bunch of relievers. One of those relievers, Soriano, took the loss. Before you could say “Robinson Cano”, the Yanks were one loss away from elimination. And, in a wonderful twist of fate, all Yank hopes now reside in the one pitcher Yanks fans have hated all year, AJ Burnett.

And if all that isn’t ironic enough, if the Yanks do manage to emerge from the Motor City, it’ll be Ivan Nova taking the mound for the Yanks in Game 5, probably facing Doug Fister again. If that winds up being the case, it’ll probably be a Rangers-Yankees ALCS. The winner there, probably the Rangers as things shape up right now, will face the Phillies in the World Series. The only way the Milwaukee Brewers can get by Philadelphia is if all the games could be played in Milwaukee.

While all this baseball stuff was going on, the Giants seemed to get better and the Jets got incredibly worse. Both turnarounds could be attributed to the respective offensive lines. The Jets OL was terrible. They made everybody else terrible and, if not for the Jets defense playing pretty well, there’s no telling what the score might have been.

Joe Namath says they picked all the wrong guys. He’s probably right. Oh, and he did mention Vern Gholston, the muscle-bound totally inept defensive lineman from yesteryear. I tend to agree. Rex Ryan even conceded the Super Bowl, saying they’re not even a playoff team. Mark Sanchez was shell-shocked. Any QB would have been. Can you say Vlad Ducasse five times fast?



I don’t think we’ll be seeing either local football team in the playoffs this year. It looks as if those Bills from Buffalo will take the Jets place while the Giants spot can be handled by the Detroit Lions. The entire NFC East is terrible though so I suppose it’s theoretically possible for the G-Men to win the division.

Whatever else happens in the NFC, the North looks like the strongest division to me. Green Bay, Detroit and even Chicago all seem pretty formidable compared to the low-lifes in the East and NFC West. The Packers look like a good bet to be the NFC rep in the Super Bowl once again, probably facing the Baltimore Ravens.

The real NFL excitement this year has been in Buffalo. What could be better than watching a perennial doormat win their first three games, one of which was their division nemesis New England? While the Bills obviously didn’t circle the wagons tightly enough to prevent their loss to Cincinnati last week, I think those Bengals will prove to be one of the better defenses in the league this year. Look for the Bills to get back on-track really soon.

But not just in Buffalo have there been success stories. I love that the 49ers seem to be making a comeback under new head coach Jim Harbaugh. The Titans and Mike Munchak are hitting like crazy and are 3-1. Oakland looks as if they could run the ball through a brick wall. And finally, Houston has a defense that can match their offensive capability.

Other teams have been fascinating for their failures. Philadelphia, Dallas, Atlanta, even New England to a degree have been colossally disappointing, much as have the Steelers.

Michael Vick has been far and away the biggest story on all the networks, especially ESPN and the NFL Network. I’d say his name is mentioned about once every ten minutes. Blah-blah-blah. The same can be said for Tony Romo. The NFL seems to have designated those two especially as NFL reality shows. And neither Michael nor Tony have done anything to step out of the spotlight.

Vick doesn’t want to get hit. He feels he doesn’t get the calls the other signal-callers get. Romo gives a game away by fumbling on the one, then snatches victory the very next week, then remarkably jumps right back into a deep hole by feeding the hungry Lions two INT’s for touchdowns.

It all seems kind of predictable, doesn’t it? Yeah, you’d think so.

But it’s not.

On Sports and Luck

Yes,the Giants victory over the Eagles was fun and unexpected, especially the performance of a Jersey boy named Victor Cruz, and the Jets loss was eye-opening, even if the handwriting should have been on the wall, but the nicest surprise for me occurred on Monday night when another Ryan brother coached the defense that shut down Santana Moss and the Redskins.

My fantasy opponent needed just 10 points from the Redskins Moss in order to send my team down to defeat. Moss is no stranger to the Boyz, of course, and, over the course of many years battling each other, Moss almost always had the upper hand, averaging about 15 fantasy points per contest. As the rest of my team had fared very well in Week 3, I looked with trepidation on my prospects for holding the pesky Skins wideout to zero touchdowns and less than 100 yards gained.

But Rob Ryan’s defense would concentrate on Moss that night. He would take away Moss for most of the game and, even when game conditions dictated that Shanahan’s Skins should concentrate on getting the ball downfield, they managed to do so only once or twice.

There’s no feeling better than winning the game you fully expect to lose. I had determined relatively early that my only chance in the contest relied on my opponent’s quarterback Aaron Rodgers either having a terrible day, which he never does, or throwing all his TD passes to my fantasy tight end, Jermichael Finley. As luck would have it, Rodgers threw all his 3 touchdowns to Finley. Go figure.

It didn’t hurt either that Buffalo had the day it had against the feared Patriots. My running back Fred Jackson continued his hard-pounding and elusive running while David Nelson, one of the Bills’ relatively unknown wide receivers, would gain 89 yards through the air. And Matt Ryan (you won’t see me calling him Matty Ice anytime soon) finally threw some passes to Julio Jones.

Drew Brees, my fantasy QB, ignored the fact that he was missing Marques Colston or that he was facing a newly rugged Texans defense. Mr. Brees just kept on keepin’ on. At any rate, big outputs from 3 or 4 players offset the total failure of my running back #2, one Javon Ringer from Tennesee and the paltry stats racked up by Hakeem Nicks, the Giants wunderkind whom the Eagles shut down only to watch Victor Cruz beat them.

Life is good sometimes. Just ask the Bills or Cowboys or, switching sports, ask the Tampa Bay Rays or St. Louis Cards. The unexpected can happen once in a while. The Bills came back from three TD’s down to Tom Brady’s Pats, picking him off four times in the process. The Cowboys and Tony Romo held steady against the rugged Skins and blitzed Rex Grossman into the big mistake of the game.

In baseball, Tampa Bay finally caught the Red Sox, the dream team of baseball going into the season, whose pitching went almost totally into the tank the entire month of September. The Cards still have a shot at what had been a sure wildcard for the Braves going into September.

The San Francisco Giants added Carlos Beltran but would have needed at least two more of him to prevent their unhappy demise. The Angels had a shot too for a while and still aren’t mathematically eliminated. So major league baseball is right at the forefront of sports fans’ imaginations going right into October. So much for changing the wildcard rules.

This just in. The judge trying the Mets bankruptcy case just ruled that that Pirate Picard, the snake lawyer representing the Madoff downtrodden, has to prove that Wilpon and Katz knew there was a fraud being perpetrated. That’s a huge win for the Wilpons.

I’m listening now to Mets fans calling Mike Francesa to complain that the Mets would be better off if the Wilpons were forced to sell, that it’s a setback for Mets fans that the Wilpons will prevail in this gigantic legal fight. It makes me sick. The Wilpons have been pretty good owners. They just haven’t been the brightest lights in the sky…..or the luckiest.

Think about the Mets collapses, the failures down the stretch of Glavine and Pedro Martinez, that brutal curve ball for a called strike 3 on Carlos Beltran. Omar Minaya could have been more prudent to be sure in his day but the Mets owners’ decision to hire him wasn’t that bad.

But Minaya had always worked for organizations with almost no money to spend. Minaya was like a kid in the candy store. Glavine and Pedro were too old. Beltran was just paralyzed. He should have been way more attentive.

Their latest decision on a GM was a great one. Sandy Alderson is like the anti-Minaya. He doesn’t act without careful study. He’s surrounded himself with good people, not drones. He understands that Reyes is a Mets frontispiece. He brought in Collins. Together, Alderson and Collins have brought in young talent, have shuffled the right pieces and have positioned this Mets team for the future.

What a way to end the baseball season. Not only are we provided with wildcard races down to the wire but now Mets fans can visualize their appearance in a playoff series somewhere along the road. They can also think about shorter fences and lower walls. The “half-full” crowd can even dream about a successful return of Johan Santana.

The sky’s the limit for the Mets (but that sky has been defined as from 100 to 120 million dollars). Still….

This fellow will never minimize the significance of luck. Luck shot down the baseball Giants, luck shut down Santana Moss for me, luck crippled the Red Sox and Braves in September; luck may have just saved the Wilpons in bankruptcy court even as it had abandoned them for much of the 21st Century.

They say people make their own luck. “They” can sell that bit of nonsense elsewhere.

Fantastic Reflections and EARTHQUAKE!

A beautiful day is this Tuesday August 23rd, a great day for running in the park or getting some outside chores done. But while I should be getting my butt moving on to other things right now, I just can’t. My mind is chock full right now of reflections, on the baseball season just past for sure but also on the upcoming NFL season.

But I haven’t been thinking at all about the actual seasons. After all, the Mets have been decimated once again and the playoff teams are virtually set in stone with one or two exceptions. The only questions left are whether the Yanks or Red Sox will get past the Rangers and, if they do, will either of them get past the Phillies in the World Series?

Looking ahead to the NFL actual seasons, it’ll be business as usual, it seems, as the Pats and Jets and Colts and Packers and Steelers, you know, the usual suspects, look to be the strongest teams for 2011-2012. I’ve not included the Giants as they seem to have too many weaknesses right now, not the least of which may be the two yahoos running things. (yeah, I know, they won the big one 3 or 4 years ago but you’ll notice that some of their key clutch players from that almost magical season are gone now).

So, if not the actual seasons, what can I be reflecting upon? Why, the fantasy seasons of course!

In fantasy baseball, my Crabs contingent is sumthin’ like 16½ games ahead of its closest competition with just two week left to the regular fantasy season. And, while it’s possible I could really get blown out in these last two weeks, it’s highly unlikely. Even with losing Brian Wilson and Jimmy Rollins to the DL in this last week, I’m thinking their replacements will still get me to the finish line in fair shape.

I like to think my brilliant baseball draft strategy back in late March is the reason I’m so far ahead but, more realistically, my success can be attributed to just two guys, they being Robinson Cano, my number 1 draft choice, but most especially Curtis Granderson. my number 13 choice. As David Wright was my number two choice and is having by far his worst season ever, I must eat humble pie on my draft strategy and admit I’ve been lucky.

But I’m left to reflect upon the true greatness of this Granderson fellow. This guy just hasn’t quit being humility personified this entire season. Despite his prodigious numbers, currently at 114 runs scored and 98 ribbies, Curtis, when asked, will focus on his measly .281 batting average and his 131 strikeouts.

Curtis won’t mention that he has stolen 24 bases. He won’t dwell on the fact that he plays a stellar centerfield. He attributes his huge lead in the runs scored department to Cano and Teixeira, who drove him in more often than not. But to me, his most endearing attribute is his unfailing propensity for picking up foul balls around the plate and handing the ball to the catcher!

I mean, who does that? Only one guy. Curtis Granderson.

And only one guy gets an inside the park home run on his drive to the top of the right-center field fence the other day. Only one guy runs full-speed out of the box until he sees it go over the fence, only one guy turns it up a notch when he sees the coach’s go sign, and only one guy makes a beautiful slide into the plate, fatigue be damned. His name is Curtis Granderson.

I know Jose Bautista’s been great and Adrian Gonzalez too, but they haven’t been, and can’t be, Curtis Granderson. Curtis Granderson is, as Nick Swisher said the other day, blowing the doors off. I’m rooting like crazy for him to somehow, some way, keep up his almost feverish intensity throughout the rest of the season. There are 39 games left. I don’t want to jinx him…..but whoa!!

Meanwhile, Cano has been, well, Cano. After a pretty ho-hum start for him, he seems to have turned it up after the break. His August numbers have been unbelievable, to date standing at a cool .351 BA and he’s driven in 19 in as many games. He’s slugging .649 for a ridiculous August OPS of 1.035.

I’ve been a real Yankee-hater but it’d be impossible to hate these guys, not just Granderson and Cano but also Teixeira and Jeter and you can throw Swisher in there too. I’m hoping Arod’s return won’t screw things up, but Grandy’s batted second, third, fourth, eighth….and it hasn’t affected him one bit. Lefty on the mound? No problem…..unaffected, that’s the essence of Granderson.

Speaking of “unaffected”, I was anything but unaffected by a friggin’ EARTHQUAKE that just shook my entire house. I thought my body was spasming at first, then started walking to the door and thought I was having some kind of heart attack as I felt dizzy and shaky. Holy crap!!

Back on point though, I’ve already been worrying about my number 4 position in my fantasy football draft coming up this Saturday. What I’m expecting is that Arian Foster and Adrian Peterson will be gone, as will QB Aaron Rodgers, based on my previous experience with the same group. That would leave me only Chris Johnson and Ray Rice of the “elite” backs and I just can’t get excited over either of them.

Of course, there will be elite QB’s still on the board, all but Rodgers in fact. But Peyton Manning is hurt, Tom Brady winds up almost every year taking a seat during the fantasy playoffs and Michael friggin’ Vick is the closest human thing to a target for every fast huge hard-hitting defenseman looking to make a name for himself.

That would leave me Drew Brees, a guy who helped me to a 2nd place finish last year. I guess I can live with that.

A Half Empty Outlook

Wow, it’s August 18th already and the baseball season is winding down. Professional football action is right on the horizon. And professional basketball will never again be played in our lifetimes. The U.S. Open for pro tennis is one of my personal favorites (not that I’m a tennis player but I like to play) and do I really have soccer in my sights? Well, no.

Yeah, yeah, I know, I forgot hockey again. Oh yeah, and there’s the Triathlon swimming controversy and drugs in biking and a whole bunch of other stuff but really, how many things can you concentrate on at once?

Anyway, I don’t really have a point but if I did want to make one, it’d be along the lines of what the hell are you doing swimming the friggin’ Hudson River if you’re concerned about injuries? There’s all sorts of stuff floating around in the water. That just two died of heart attacks is pretty good, I’d say, under the circumstances.

What other points need to be made? Let’s see, the friggin’ Port Authority is right up there on my list. Let’s make it impossible to travel. Let’s charge people road licenses, after all, the NFL manages to charge for seat licenses. Let’s build more tunnels and make bridges higher so we can get humongous ships into Port Newark.

Oh yeah, and another concern of mine, still waaay before pro sports of any kind, is that friggin’Christie is a hair from the Republican presidential nomination. I mean, he’d get things done but would they be the right things? Would he have thought things through? I don’t know.

And Obama is stinkin’ out the joint.

Okay, okay, I know I should be worrying about more socially irrelevant things like the friggin’ Mets, for one good example. Yesterday, they torched the San Diego Padres in San Diego for a really impressive win in a hostile environment (yeah, I know, it was only Kansas City), and how nice was It to see David Wright finally play like a superstar?

David’s 3-run homer was impressive enough against a tough Matt Latos but then his fielding gem was even better. I mean, he was in the moment, recognizing that he’d never make the play at first while watching Cameron hustling around third base, that his best choice and doable too was to step up and nail Cameron before he could get back to the bag.

Angel Pagan is doing everything after months of doing not so much. There’s the big kid Duda too and Justin Turner and hard-workin’ Thole and Pridie and those young pitchers….and the continuing saga of Jason Bay. I guess I’ve already given up on Jose, either coming back immediately or long-term too. The bankruptcy proceedings overhang everything….

Meanwhile, the Yankees took back first place from the fear-ed Red Sox. Y’know, it’s easy for even me to root for them this year, as an underdog, not just to the Red Sox, but to the Phillies also, if the Bombers should be fortunate enough to ever get past the Red Sox in the ALDS and ALCS. And a lot of these Yankees are damned good baseball players.

Take a look around the diamond. Start at first base….watch Teixeira play the position…..holy shit!! On to second base, there’s Robinson Cano who sometimes seems to have a magic wand over there in the hole. Shortstop? Derek Jeter is playing like a young guy. Uh-oh, third base is a little shaky right now, I suppose, but a guy named Arod can at least still swing the bat.

Outfielders? There’s Curtis Granderson contending for MVP honors and that smilin’ plugger Swisher and the crazed left fielder with the blazing speed and pesky at-bats. Yeah, and Posada can still play in spots. Will he make the playoff roster?

And the crazy pitching staff is kinda’ interesting too, right now a struggling CC and a bunch of question marks in Burnett, Colon, Garcia, Hughes et al. Of course, sometimes those guys will come through, and if they do, the relief corps is dynamite…..not just Rivera, who can be forgiven his recent lapse, but Robertson too, and now the long-awaited Soriano. ( Does anybody else wonder that they’d sign another Soriano after the first one)?

So I’m obviously rooting for both New York teams, solid underdogs both, for the Yanks because of the pitching questions and for the Mets because they have this friggin’ cloud hangin’ over their head. Tomorrow there will be another ruling that will be appealed either way. Oh yeah, and then there’s the friggin’ mediation still plodding along…..

All this baseball drama is perfectly complemented by the anxiety about the football season, the Giants seemingly having done nothing while the Jets and especially the Eagles dominate the headlines with signing after signing, and what about the friggin’ Patriots?

Balanced against all these willy-nilly signings is the stability of the Giants organization, and their almost Steeler-like affinity for Football 101, running the football and playing solid defense and a guy who can throw too, with protection (and hopefully those line-changes will work).

Listening to GM Gerry Reese, he’s not worried. Yeah, they have no proven slot receiver and no tight end that you could really call a complete tight end, and oh yeah, the #1 draft choice got hurt on the first day of camp, but still, there’s that pass rush and Jason Pierre-Paul and a Tuck and a Umenyiora, who’d play hard if we give him more money.

I don’t know. I’m a half-empty kind of guy, I guess. But that 2007 team that won the whole shebang wasn’t expected to do great things. And the guys that helped a lot that year were brought in by Gerry Reese. But geez, their defense really did stink last year.

And I’m happy for Plaxico. I think it’s great that he’ll be a Jet and already I’ve heard one of those SNY crazy people predict 55 catches for him this year.

We shall see.

Same Old Steelers

It was the same old Steelers. Run the ball, run it some more, stop the run, make a big play on defense, and don’t make the big mistake. Terrible towels, the whole deal. Same crap every year. Big quarterback too, like Bradshaw used to be a little bit. But quarterback seems always to be just another position on the Steelers.

It never seems to matter who makes up the opposition. Yesterday it was the Jets who couldn’t stop the run early, who could never get on the field, who had the ball come out at the worst possible time, and who couldn’t score from the two in four tries.

I had said earlier that it would be motivation and focus that decided this game; that a game plan wouldn’t win or lose it. But I was wrong. I would have thought surely that containing Roethlisberger would be a focus. It wasn’t. I would have thought that stopping the run would have been a paramount matter too. But it wasn’t.

And I would have thought that a tough team, a ground and pound team, would have run that ball into the end zone from the two. They didn’t.

I was really angry with Schottenheimer after the Jets tried those two passes. Then, of course, there was the safety and regaining possession and eventually scoring but it just wasn’t the same from then on. And, even then, the Jets could have turned the game around if they could have just stopped the Steelers on that fateful last possession. But they couldn’t.

That was the real story of the game, I suppose. When the Jets needed to do something, they couldn’t do it.

The Jets made a bold statement early by electing to kick off rather than receive the ball. The gauntlet was thrown down, so to speak. The Steelers said ok, challenge received, now take that and that and that and that ad friggin’ infinitum all the way down the field for the score. I couldn’t think of a worse way to start a game. In my mind’s eye, I could see the albatross circling.

Then the Jets did nothing much but maybe more than could have been expected after sitting on the sidelines for as long as they had. They gained 30 yards and punted. Bryan Thomas later intercepted Roethlisberger to stop another Steelers drive.

Oh, what’s the use? The Jets couldn’t stop Mendenhall and they couldn’t run. Later on, Sanchez got stripped and all of a sudden it was 24-0. I was saying it was “game over”.

That the Jets made a game of it at all was heartening, very much so. That they couldn’t score from the two yard line changed the game though. Even though the Jets got the safety and then scored again, there was another five minutes or so burned up when time was of the essence.

From there on, it became just a matter of getting the ball back. They couldn’t do it. They let Big Ben get out of the pocket once again and he made that critical completion to hold the ball and finally sink Gang Green. It was at that point that Rex finally lost it and threw down his clipboard in disgust.

The Jets couldn’t tackle, especially early in the game. It’s that kind of inexplicable thing that decides games. To me as I watched, I remember thinking that the Jets looked as if they were playing on ice, that they were trying to tackle without leaving their feet, that the cold and the surface were really making them look like a bunch of old guys. And some of them are old guys. The Jets will have to deal with that.

So the Jets won’t be going to Dallas. I can deal with that. What I’m going to have trouble dealing with is the future. I just wish everybody’d stop thinking about the next AFC Championship and the next Super Bowl. Guess what? It’s a long hard road to get into the game at all.

There are Patriots looming, and Colts and maybe even the Raiders in the future. And none of them will be easy to beat, at least not as easy as they had been this year. The Pats were kind of young, the Colts were kind of hurt and the Raiders, well, who knows with the Raiders?

A lot depends upon what moves the Jets will be making, of course. So far, even though their General Manager Tannenbaum is probably one of my least favorite people in the world, their moves have been great. Nobody could argue with that. But will they be able to keep Braylon and Santonio, LaDainian and other established stars with less colorful names, like Jason Taylor and Calvin Pace and Shaun Ellis?

Darrell, D’Brickashaw…..they do have some great names, don’t they?

As I write this, Mike Francesa is lambasting Rex Ryan again. Rex obviously doesn’t kiss Mike’s flabby butt. Much to Rex’s credit, he hasn’t changed his behavior at Francesa’s behest. If anything, he’s totally disregarding him, which is probably the biggest slight of all to someone with Francesa’s huge ego.

Giants coach Coughlin hasn’t made that mistake. Coughlin kisses Francesa’s butt at every opportunity, much to his advantage. You won’t hear Francesa going after Coughlin, who perfectly fits Francesa’s image of the perfect football world, one in which only coaches speak, players don’t celebrate and players say nothing but “yes sir”.

Guaging the Jets organization’s success only on AFC Championships and Super Bowls plays right into Francesa’s hands though, and to all those who think like Francesa. Jets fans can expect only tough defensive football teams who win more often than not. You need luck as much as anything, with injuries and ball bounces, to advance any farther than that.

The Steelers are the standard though…same old Steelers. They’ll continue to be too. They’ll run the ball, stop the run, and have tough guys who can make plays.

Who Wants It More.?

I’m still trying to come down off my high after that Jets win over the Patriots. I’m not even letting Francesa get me down. I did finally turn him off though. That show desperately needs Chris Russo back. At the very least, they should stop screening the callers who disagree with him. It’s really a one-sided program.

But what a feeling of elation for New Yorkers and Jets fans! To beat Manning and then Brady in successive weeks is an incredible high, but for Mark Sanchez to throw 3 touchdown passes against Bill Belichick and his vaunted Pats defense takes it up one more notch.

My chief concern, though, now is that the Jets will experience a natural letdown after not just one but two great upsets over the best quarterbacks in the game. I myself am even feeling a letdown. Why shouldn’t the Jets?

And it’s not only that. Playing the Steelers is like playing themselves. The coaches are alike, the philosophies are alike and the players are even somewhat alike in their personalities. Where’s the hate?

I was able to conceive how the Jets could beat each of those two teams, the Colts and the Patriots. I think their different styles of play made it an easy matter to distinguish the Jets strengths versus their opponents’ and formulate a plan based on playing to the Jets strengths, even if some of those strong points weren’t even so evident at the time, such as the Jets potential dominance in the passing game.

The Steelers are a totally different animal from both the Colts and Pats. Manning and Brady threw from the pocket, Roethlisberger throws well on the run. The Colts and Pats featured offenses based on precision and timing in the passing game. Messing up that timing was a key ingredient in the Jets wins.

The Steelers offense is based on running the ball. The passing game clicks mostly off Roethlisberger scrambles while his receivers just try to find a hole to sit in. Manning and Brady go down when hit. Roethlisberger does not.

My initial take on this game is for the Jets to think of Big Ben as a kind of monstrous Michael Vick. He’s not as shifty as Vick, almost no one is, but he’s almost as dangerous when he’s running around, not because he’ll run with the ball but because he’ll kill you with his arm, sometimes while being dragged down to the ground.

The key to winning this AFC Championship will then be to contain Roethlisberger, much as the Giants contained Vick for 52 minutes before they totally lost their composure. The Jets were terrific at making Manning and Brady move out of the pocket. I wonder if they’ll be quite as adept at containment.

The Steelers like to run the ball. And they always stop the run. Those are two things they are noted for. That differs hugely from what the Colts and Pats brought to the table. Once again the Jets may have to take advantage of their potentially strong passing game in order to move the ball down the field.

Although the Jets did beat the Steelers in Week 15, 22-17, those Steelers were playing without two starters on their defense, defensive end Aaron Smith and the best safety in either league, Troy Polamalu. Another key ingredient missing from that game was Heath Miller, their tight end and one of Roethlisberger’s favorite targets. That’s a big difference.

Another huge factor in that Week 15 game was Brad Smith’s opening kickoff return for a touchdown. The Jets were ahead 7-0 after 12 seconds. That’s a huge boost, one that the Jets can’t really expect to duplicate in this upcoming game. And let’s not forget a huge tackle in the end zone by Jason Taylor that not only put two more on the scoreboard for the Jets but gave them the ball as well.

Not that I’m being pessimistic but this game could definitely be the toughest playoff game yet. This Steelers team is made for the playoffs, made for cold weather, made to win games in December and January. They had some bad luck in that Week 15 game.

The current line on this game says the Jets are 3 ½ point underdogs, a spread that simply reflects the home field edge. These teams are pretty much dead even. The Jets have a superior offensive line and receivers. The Steelers have the edge defensively.

The Steelers running back, Rashard Mendenhall, rushed for 100 yards in just 17 carries in that Week 15 game. Both Jets running backs, LaDainian Tomlinson and Shonn Greene, did pretty well for themselves too, gaining about 89 yards combined, but that was on 23 attempts. Based on those stats, I’d expect to see a bit more of Mendenhall in this game. Whether the Jets stick with the running game remains to be seen.

Stats are great, I love them, but they’re probably more meaningful over a full season than in one isolated game, especially a playoff game that will determine who goes to Dallas for the Super Bowl. This game will probably be decided by individuals making plays in big situations, not by which running back or quarterback garners more yards.

The playmakers in that Week 15 game were obviously Brad Smith early and then Jason Taylor late. They were the big reasons the Jets carried the day. One could also point to the coverage by Revis and the rest of the Jets secondary on those two final shots Roethlisberger had at the end zone.

There’s no better playmaker than Polamalu, of course, and he’ll be back for this one. The Steelers have no lack of playmakers, including James Harrison, their deadly outside linebacker, and their very speedy wide receiver, Mike Wallace, who was pretty much shut entirely down in that Week 15 game, catching just one pass for 8 yards.

The Jets have Santonio Holmes, Darrelle Revis, Jason Taylor…..

It’ll come down to who wants it more.

Jets Beat Pats? It's Not Inconceivable!

Okay, I’ve had a few days to cogitate on this big Jets-Pats matchup in Foxborough and I keep coming up with the same answer…the Jets are and should be a prohibitive underdog. Why? Well, the easy answer is it’s the Jets-Pats in Foxborough.

The Jets did everything right last week in Indianapolis (following my prescription for winning exactly…ahem) except for that ridiculous third down pass, and thus emerged victorious. I’ve been enjoying the game even more immensely this week via the courtesy of the NFL Network and Inside the NFL.

But alas, the Pats are not the Colts. Belichick is not Caldwell and the Pats receivers are not the Colts receivers. They run the ball a little better too. I don’t give Brady much of an advantage over Peyton Manning but, when you consider the difference in their respective receivers, the Pats have a pretty fair-sized plus on their side of the ledger.

The Jets stopped the Colts wideouts virtually cold, allowing just the one long TD to Pierre Garcon. There were no other Colts receivers that could really be considered a threat, Tamme, the tight end or Blair White or well, anybody. The Pats biggest threats are at tight end and in the slot. When they play the two tight ends together, they’re really scary.

This game won’t be 45-3 but the spread is 8 ½ and it’ll be difficult for the Jets to keep it even that close. They can, of course, if they do everything right two weeks in a row. They can probably stop the Pats running game, or, at the very least, keep Green-Ellis and Woodhead in check.

But they’ll still have trouble covering everybody. After Revis and Cromartie, it’s just Brodney Pool and Eric Smith who can avert disaster. And, yes, the Jets can field as many d-backs as they want, but then they’ll leave themselves open to a Pats running game that’s scarier than that of the Colts.

The Pats defense, in terms of yards allowed, looks statistically to be pretty pedestrian. But their scoring defense is statistically much better. Their last two games were easy wins, against Buffalo and Miami, when they allowed just 7 points and then 3 points, but before that they laid one on the Packers 31-27. So the Pats defense can be had.

But the same cannot be said about their offense. The Packers have the best defense in the NFL and they gave up 31 to Brady and company. There are just too many weapons. But the Pats had extraordinarily good luck in that contest. Not only was Aaron Rodgers out, but they got a 71-yard kickoff return from a 303 pound offensive lineman too, after which Brady hit Aaron Hernandez for 6.

While it’s easy to say the Jets should just use the same formula Sunday as they used last week against the Colts, that is, run the ball, play keep away, jam the receivers, mess up Brady’s timing and keep the pressure on him at all times, I think that Sanchez will have to have a much better game and a much bigger impact on the game than he had in Indianapolis.

You’d have to figure the Pats scoring at least 30 points. Unless Sanchez can hit a few to several big plays in the passing game, I can’t imagine the Jets putting up 31. And, if Sanchez can’t throw the ball any better than he did against the Colts, this one could be over very early.

But the Packers reserve quarterback, one Matt Flynn, was the guy throwing three TD’s against the Pats 3 weeks ago, to Jones and Jennings and Kuhn. I could just as easily see Sanchez throwing 3 of his own, to Edwards and Holmes and Tomlinson, for example. Throw in a rushing TD along the way and you’re just a field goal away from 31. It’s not inconceivable.

So it’s conceivable that the Jets could win. It’s just not the most likely outcome. The preceding example, three TD’s passing and one rushing, would assume the Jets were doing everything right offensively, both running the ball and throwing a few over the top every once in a while. The Pats would probably have to make some mistakes…..not inconceivable.

I’d think the Jets would have to get off to a good start as well. That first play of the game sets the tone. A good play, then a good series, then a nice quarter, well, you get the idea, the Jets need to stay close from the opening kickoff, playing aggressively but under control, just like a good team.

At least two other factors might swing this game in a decidedly Green direction. One is hate. The other is Ryan’s unpredictability.

These teams’ hate for each other has been well-documented. In fact you could make a case for nothing ever having been as documented as has been the Jets hate for the Patriots and vice-versa. Brady hates the Jets, Cromartie hates Brady, it’s personal for Ryan, and on and on. One has to wonder what falls under the category of business as usual for Rex Ryan.

Hate can be a tricky thing though. In my own experience, some players just want to pummel their opponent, not particularly caring whether or not they make the play. Others channel that hate towards beating the opponent on the scoreboard, the place where it hurts the most. If the Jets can focus that unhealthy dislike on imagining the Patriots humiliation at having lost this playoff game, then only good things can come of it.

As for unpredictability, Belichick could be expected to have a clear advantage over just about any coach who acts as a reasonable person would act in similar circumstances. Rex Ryan doesn’t fit that mold. He might run because his butt hurts or pass because his pants are falling down. He proved that in the Colts game.

A passing game, hate and ridiculous coaching decisions might just make the difference. It’s not inconceivable.

Winning the Hard Way

Well, that was satisfying.

The Jets played some of their best football of the year to beat those damned Indianapolis Colts and their infuriating quarterback, Peyton Manning, 17-16, last night. That was the best part.

I would’ve been even happier if they had won 14-13 and I didn’t have to spend a few minutes cursing Brian Schottenheimer for calling the ridiculous long pass to Braylon Edwards on third and five with a little over two minutes left and the Colts with just 1 timeout left.

But they did jeopardize the game, they did have to give the ball back to Peyton Manning with all that time left, and Manning did come through for the Colts, leading them down the field for another Adam Vinatieri work of art that sailed directly through the uprights with 57 seconds left, giving the Colts what should have been a 16-14 victory.

I figured that was the end. It would take a miracle for these Jets to work their way all the way down the field to regain the lead. Sanchez hadn’t been exactly lights out the whole game and he had just finished badly overthrowing Edwards on that ridiculous third down pass. I figured the Jets had wasted 58 minutes of really good football. They’d be done in by their failure to make that third and five.

But I hadn’t figured on Antonio Cromartie running the ensuing kickoff back 47 yards. I hadn’t figured the Colts laying back on receivers and letting Sanchez make a couple of easy completions to shorten the field even more. And I really couldn’t have figured the Colts calling a timeout to give the Jets even more time to collect themselves and strategize how best to work their way even farther down the field.

But the Colts really did allow Cromartie to make that run, they did play soft and they did call a timeout. Right after that timeout, the Jets called the same play that had gotten them in this situation in the first place.

But this time it worked! Sanchez threw it up, Edwards went up and grabbed the football and it was all over but the shoutin’. Surely even Nick Folk couldn’t blow one from that close. (I did have a minute or so to contemplate that no distance was short enough for Nick Folk). But Folk put it through to save everybody’s ass and make me a happy New Jerseyan once again.

Later on, Rex Ryan was asked about that third down call. He responded that it was a good call based on the coverage and the matchup or words to that effect so I guess he has more confidence in Sanchez and Edwards than I do. But my point is, why throw a thirty yard pass when you need just five yards? What about a nice five yard pass?

That the Jets won is besides the point. They shouldn’t have had to win that way. They really need to re-think their short yardage options when the defense stacks the line with 9 bodies. They’ll never beat the Patriots that way.

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m really happy the Jets pulled it out. And maybe you lose the forest for the trees a little bit when you see Sanchez make that same pass to Edwards time after time in practice. I don’t know. I just know it’s a really poor percentage decision. If you need five, go for five.

But Jim Caldwell helped lose that game by calling that timeout. It was obvious that Peyton Manning thought so. I have a feeling we might not see the same Colts coaching staff next year. I know I wouldn’t rehire them.

And how many times will you get a long kickoff return from Antonio Cromartie? And how many times will you run into a bad coaching staff? I know it won’t be next week, that’s for sure.

If I were a different sort of person, I’d just be happy that they won, I guess. There certainly was a lot of great football being played by those Jets last night. I was especially impressed by that 10-minute drive ending in the touchdown that gave them the lead.

But all throughout the game, the Jets had played it just the way I thought they should, by running the ball and stopping the run, by playing conservative and jamming those receivers. They did blow the coverage on the Manning touchdown pass to Garcon but you had to figure they’d get beat for at least one Manning touchdown.

Their offensive line was pushin’ em back all night long. Shonn Greene and LaDainian Tomlinson were running hard and running smart. And they had only lost the football one time on a Sanchez interception just 45 seconds before the half that was devastating in that it had wasted a nice long time-eating drive.

But, except for that one mistake, the Jets played brilliantly. They were the better team and they proved it on the field. Offense, defense, special teams, the Jets were all in line. It was beautiful. Rex Ryan had his team ready to go.

Much to Ryan’s credit too, he ripped Cromartie a new butt for giving up the Garcon touchdown and let his guys know at halfime how upset he was. There’s probably nobody in football better than Rex Ryan at motivating a team, both before the game and during the game. The Jets will certainly need all that and more when they once again have to face the Patriots next week.

The Pats are not the Colts. They’re a better team with a much better coaching staff. And I don’t even want to think about how tough they’ll be yet. But, on a day when the Seattle Seahawks upset the Super Bowl Champion Saints, anything seems possible.

Besides, one of the two Pats losses this season was to these Jets. Yeah, the Jets lost 45-3 in the other one but the Jets defense is back, Tom Brady.

A Prescription For Violence

I know this is supposed to be about sports but does anything feel better than finally not being sick anymore? Everything matters again, at least a little bit anyway. I just wish things were going my way a little bit more.

I mean…the Giants are going nowhere but home and the Jets will be facing the Colts. Except for the great Ohio State victory over Arkansas last night, all the Northern and Eastern teams got beat in the Bowl Games. Teams I rooted for, like the Rams to beat the lowly Seahawks, went down in a flurry of dropped passes.

And there’s no baseball news to get excited about, not if you’re a Mets fan. If you’re a Mets fan, the only question about who’ll win the NL East is whether it’ll be the Phillies or the Braves. The latest Mets acquisitions have been strictly lower-level at best.

But maybe the most depressing thing of all for a defensively-minded football fan is that I can’t fathom the Jets giving the Colts a run for their money. They’ve got the really accurate Manning, the one who figures everything out at the line of scrimmage and just picks a defense apart, especially the ones being tricky.

I remember feeling the same way about the Niners offense back in Joe Montana’s heyday. The Niners threw all those short passes that required no time at all to throw, using precision and timing to frustrate the best defenses of the day.

But our very own Giants team did beat that Montana-led offense. Guys like Leonard Marshall and Lawrence Taylor wouldn’t let Montana finish the game and just creamed those Niners receivers all day long.

You just can’t assume anything in football. The favorites tend to win most of the time but any of those locks can go down in a wave of violence and momentum. Arkansas showed that last night before finally succumbing to a brilliantly-executed zone blitz.

I don’t expect the Jets to beat the Colts. That is, not unless they just do the following:

1. Knock the crap out of anything they see in blue.

2. Hit those wideouts and tight end right off the line. Mess up that timing. If you give up something along the way (and it’s almost inevitable but just once would be acceptable), so be it.

3. Go for the 3 and outs. Get that defense off the field.

4. Don’t try to outsmart Peyton Manning.

5. Swipe at that ball when it makes sense. Otherwise just make the hard tackle.

6. Run the ball. Use Joe McKnight if necessary.

7. Protect Sanchez, use max protect if necessary, he only sees one or two receivers anyway.

8. Continue with step 6.

Braylon Edwards and Santonio Holmes seeking redemption won’t beat the Colts, Mark Sanchez’s suddenly good shoulder won’t make the difference, Rex Ryan’s making it a personal battle won’t carry the day. What’ll beat the Colts is a 60-minute football ass-kicking.

The Jets need to feel insulted going in there. They have to be pissed off. They should remember that Peyton didn’t recognize any personal battle with Rex. He wasn’t aware of it. Rex was below his radar on awareness. The Jets have to hit this guy. Clearly.

That ballyhooed offensive line has to perform, Ferguson and Mangold and Woody have to show up. If they think in terms of long drives and clock-killing and 3 and outs, they can outperform those guys in blue. They can hold the ball forever. LaDainian Tomlinson isn’t chopped liver. This is the game for which he was picked up in the first place.

The game plan is so important. It should be conservative.

For Reggie Wayne there is Darrelle Revis and for Garcon there is Cromartie. There will be no Austin Collie or Clark to worry about. There is every reason to believe the Colts passing game can be held in check.

It goes without saying (and I’ve tried up to now not to say it), the Jets have to stop any sniveling Colts attempts to run the football. I mean, it’s Addai and Rhodes, not Arian Foster or, dare I say it, LaDainian Tomlinson. And hell, isn’t that what Rex Ryan really knows how to do?

Peyton Manning can get flustered. The Saints proved that last year. If you keep the pressure on Manning (or really just about anyone not wearing a big S on his chest), he can go bust. Of course, the Saints were a lot smarter than this Jets defense has yet shown itself to be. But they definitely gave Manning less time to think as the game wore on, and yet they still covered everybody.

The Jets can’t be the Saints but they can be a smarter Jets. Rex Ryan can’t try to be Sean Payton but he doesn’t have to be Herman Edwards either. He has to rely on his “best team in the AFC”, play conservatively and not make the big mistake. He has to concentrate on making the first down in three attempts, and, if not, punt.

Peyton Manning has to feel the pressure on every pass attempt. Let him know there will be no downs off when he can stand back there and survey the field. There must always be someone coming for him. But, in addition to the pressure of every down, Manning has to be made to feel the pressure of the game situation.

If the Jets play the physical game they’re noted for and keep the pressure on Manning and that precision-passing game, they can be assured of either staying close or maintaining a lead very late into the game.

If they make no obvious mistakes, if they can get Brad Smith free just one time, or maybe even get another safety out of a Jason Taylor, if they can just “out-football” that Indianapolis team for 60 minutes, that Colts team can be beaten.

I’d love to see it, to make Peyton Manning “aware” of Rex Ryan and the Jets.

I'd Dump Them Both........except...

The feelings around town are definitely mixed. Fire Coughlin or not, get rid of Eli or not, dump Ryan, bench Sanchez. The only things to which all agree is that the Giants and Jets may not stink, but they are surely not smelling that sweet these days either.

I’ll buy that last sentiment for sure. But guess what? It’s the players. Even though I do pin the Eagles loss squarely on Coughlin, for the most part it’s the players who are to blame for the losses. Not all the players, of course, but for the Giants it’s the linebackers and corners and for the Jets, it’s the defensive line.

Even though the Jets already clinched a playoff spot, it’s not as if they’re likely to get out of the first round, not with that defense. The Giants threw away their playoff spot in that horrible meltdown against the Eagles but, even if that hadn’t happened, the same goes for them. They’re just not that good. They would have folded in the wildcard round.

But just because neither coach is the worst in the league, that doesn’t mean they should be retained.

Ryan has become a clown and an embarrassment. How can he hold the respect of his team after committing dumb thing after dumb thing? Coughlin should be held accountable for throwing away that Eagles game. Never has a defense played so recklessly, never has a return team been so oblivious and never has a punter been so scared.

Imagine waking up some Monday morning to read that Coughlin is retiring! Oh baby! What a breath of fresh air! No canned responses at press conferences, no confused countenance on the sideline, no listening to him blame every other thing, usually turnovers, for losses rather than just actually admitting to anything.

His public chastising of that rookie punter, Matt Dodge, after the Eagles game was pure Coughlin. His only object was to make it clear to the television audience that he instructed that punter correctly. With Coughlin it’s never his fault (although he does his false humility thing taking responsibility for every damned thing under the sun when things aren’t his fault). In short, Coughlin is the biggest phony in the New York area, which is saying a lot.

As for Ryan, reading of his ousting would be a sad thing. He’s a terrific personality and great with the defensive x’s and o’s but how many times can you have your lead guy embarrass the entire organization? How can the players respect that?

I’d say dump them both…..except….

The only sobering aspect of firing each coach is that the replacement could definitely be worse. These are both “football guys”. Although it’s very unlikely that anyone could be more embarrassing than Ryan, or that anybody could be more annoying than Coughlin, it’s hard to imagine anyone being more qualified than either as a head football coach.

Of course, I’d rather have Gruden, I’d rather have Cowher, I’d rather see Tomlin jump over here from Pittsburgh, and I wouldn’t mind having Spagnola back at all. Other than that select group though, there really isn’t anyone to get excited about. (Don’t even try talking me into Billick).

So any coaching move would be fraught with peril. A lot of guys could be worse. Maybe we should forgive Coughlin for the Eagles debacle, for the boring press conferences, for the Mom and apple pie feeling he gives to everything. And maybe we could give Ryan a little time to straighten out his act and his life too.

As for the quarterbacks, all we hear about are Eli’s turnovers, never mind that half of them have bounced off some receiver’s hands or head or shoulder pads. Never mind that he almost never has any time in the pocket, he does have some great receivers, right? Oh, and never mind that he seems to have everyone’s respect in the locker room.

Is Eli fast? Well, no. Is he elusive? Um, that would be a big no too (except for one notable Super Bowl exception). Is he really accurate? Well, he’s getting better. But Unitas wasn’t any of those things (except for accurate), Starr wasn’t either (except for accurate), or Jurgensen or a lot of other signal-callers of great renown(except for accurate).

I’d hang on to Eli. I’d concentrate on getting him some time in the pocket though, on the order of the time his brother seems to get in Indianapolis.

As for Sanchez, he surely looks like a keeper to me. His football instincts aren’t always in evidence but that could be a disconnect between that wacky offensive coordinator and himself. He just needs a little more experience, not to mention some receivers who catch the ball each and every game, not only when they really try to focus.

Yeah, I’d hang on to Sanchez. I might look into getting him a new offensive coordinator though.

So I hope cooler heads prevail in both cases. The lion’s share of the problems for either team have nothing to do with coaching, at least not at the head, except for one notable game, or two if you count the Jets total meltdown in Foxboro.

Get a couple of corners for the G-Men and maybe some help for that offensive line that only got worse when O’Hara returned. Get a couple of defensive linemen for the boys in green. Get rid of some of that high-priced help that in many cases hasn’t delivered.

Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to mimic the Belichick drafting strategy a bit, successively trading down for more lower picks, pretty much guaranteeing a whole lot of talent on the field at all times, if a little more distributed.

And, for both teams, try to decide what your team does best and then go out and do that. It seems the Ground and Pound isn’t working. And it’s hard to tell sometimes just what the Giants are trying to do.

Maybe both teams could acquire a resident shrink.

Getting What You Deserve

How often have you said to yourself, “he (or she) needs to have his ass kicked” when confronted with an arrogant, stupid person on the street, or in a car, or just about anywhere. You know, one of those unruly pampered brats who says and does whatever he wants with no thought given to how it might affect somebody else, good or bad but especially bad.

That’s pretty much the way I felt about the Jets drubbing by the Pats Monday night. They’re a hard bunch to feel sorry for. No team in any sport I can think of has ever deserved a sorry beating more than these 2010-2011 Jets.

So they got what they deserved. And Tom Brady seemed to think so too. In fact, that whole Boston team seemed to buy in. Whether it was their offensive line, or their little Jets-rejected running back, Danny Woodhead, either of their two tight ends, the fast one and the really fast one, or heck, just about everybody on that team.

They turned the tables on the Jets. They did what they wanted whenever they wanted. They kicked the Jets ass….in every way you could ever think of.

It was totally predictable too. Even though the Pats were only 3 ½ point favorites going into the game, any informed observer would or should have taken note of the fact that the Jets had just lost their defensive captain and leader, safety Jim Leonhard, and remember what happened to our Giants when Antonio Pierce went down?

Sometimes, it’s always the least likely guys who really make all the difference. Only a couple of analysts even took note of Leonhard’s absence. After all, he’s not that talented, right?

The Jets were flustered clearly, starting with QB Mark Sanchez. On at least one pass, he didn’t even bother to check the coverage. Braylon Edwards dropped his first two passes, not that he needs to be flustered to do that. Then it just seemed that all the guys in the red and blue had super powers.

Brady, Welker, Woodhead, Aaron Hernandez, Gronkowski, oh hell, just everybody from Boston was kickin’ Jet butt. It must’ve been so much fun.

It’s just one game though, no matter how bad the Jets stunk it up. It’s an emotional game and the Jets were beaten soundly last night even before the opening coin flip.

How many teams from week to week have been proclaimed the best team in the NFL? I know the Giants were. So were the Jets. But that also goes for Indianapolis, Pittsburgh, New Orleans, Baltimore and…well, you get the idea. The Chargers looked great there for a while too before absolutely smelling up the airwaves versus the Raiders.

So the Jets will live to see another day. But their defense especially must improve. They need desperately to figure out their coverage, without Jim Leonhard being on the field. Sanchez needs to settle down and his receivers need to catch the ball. Their kicking game needs to improve dramatically. And they must run the ball.

If they can’t recover immediately against Miami, their wildcard spot will be in jeopardy as, after the Fish, it’ll be Pittsburgh at their place and the Bears in Chicago. If their record is only 9-6 going into Buffalo for the final regular-season game, it could be all over but the shouting. They need to finish 10-6 to my mind to secure the final wildcard. Either Pittsburgh or Baltimore, Jacksonville or Indianapolis will be right up there with them at 10-6.

A 180 degree different team than the brash Jets are the Giants. They have exceeded my expectations in the last couple of weeks particularly, defeating Jacksonville and then Washington handily, despite the loss of their top two receivers and all kinds of people on the offensive line. They too have gotten what they deserved but in a totally different way than the Jets.

And they absolutely needed those victories too. The Giants must face the Vikings, the Eagles and the Packers before once again facing Washington in the final game. Any of those first three teams is capable of beating the Giants, especially the Eagles and Vick and Green Bay and Aaron Rodgers.

There are at least eight teams vying for the 6-team playoff spots in the NFC and all of them might in truth be better than the Giants, especially in their injury-riddled configuration. For now, this tight-end and running back oriented offense seems to be working, especially since their defense has dominated when it has had to.

But all you can ask as a sports fan is that your team will be competitive deep into the season. Both our local football teams have certainly been that, and, barring a total collapse, an unlikely event even for the Jets coming off the worst beating of their lives, they should keep us interested until well into the New Year.

For Mets fans, who have had their post-season hopes dashed right around the middle of July the last few years, the “hot stove” portion of our baseball year has been a vacuum, which is almost a blessing for fans who have been mostly disappointed by the free-agent acquisitions of our past.

Sometimes doing nothing looks pretty good, although I wouldn’t at all mind trading some high-end butts right outta here, beginning with Jason Bay and Carlos Beltran. But if the 2011 season started with the same butts in the dugout as in 2010, it wouldn’t be too terrible. An outfield of Bay, a healthy Beltran and Pagan, and an infield of Wright, Reyes, and the two rookies on the right hand side could be very interesting.

Of course the Yankees are a different story. Their fans’ expectations never end. The Yanks relative inactivity thus far, except for the re-signings of Jeter and Mariano, has got to be disappointing. Cliff Lee is the foremost target and the Yanks are just biding their time, awaiting Lee’s other offers to come in before putting their money on the table, a really clever thing, although I hate to give them the credit.

For the most part, all these sports teams get what they deserve in the end, except in cases of a ridiculous number of injuries, something the Giants seem to have overcome for now.

Let’s hope the Jets can learn to deserve something other than an ass-kicking.

And rest in peace, Dandy Don........

Tuesday in New York

It’s another Tuesday, it’s raining, there’s nothing particularly that needs doing so I’ll just vedge(sp) and take the hour or so it will take me to whine.

First of all, the Monday Night Football game was horrid…totally unwatchable. Why can’t anybody figure out in advance that Arizona is just barely a professional team at all? To match them up with any team is risky. What team wouldn’t have beaten the Cardinals last night? Detroit plays harder. Buffalo definitely plays harder, and smarter too. The Rams, now that they have a real live quarterback, would dance rings around that sorry bunch from Arizona.

Of course, the Giants won. That makes me happy since I thought it would take their best effort to knock off even the likes of Jacksonville. It’s really a tribute to them from the coaches to all the remaining healthy players that they were able to come from behind to take the lead and then hold it against a Jaguar team that was still trying to show some fight. The Jets won too on Thanksgiving but they were once again nothing to write home about.

The Knicks have been doing better than expected and the Nets started really slow but are showing signs of life. All of the above is promising better times for New York fans this winter, and maybe even into the March Madness of college basketball. And by that time, spring training will have started. Life is good if you’re into sports and not so much into shopping and Cyber Monday crapola, the teetering economy or global warming.

Another melodrama that will keep the NY area humming until the wee hours of February is the Derek Jeter negotiation. I’m enjoying it immensely so far. The one question, it seems to me, that no one is asking is how the Players Union and the MLB Commissioner’s office feel about rewarding a player for his marketing value. There is the power of precedent to be considered. Why shouldn’t every player want to add value to their contracts? Wouldn’t the Commissioner want the Yanks to take a hard line on this icon talk?

All this is great stuff for a Mets fan. There couldn’t be a wider division between the parties. And, while it’s hard to envision Jeter playing for any other team, the Yankees have essentially told Jeter to get other offers. But other teams will be skittish about being a pawn in that game. So any offers will come late, only after they are convinced Jeter may really consider a uniform without stripes. How great would it be for some team that would be willing to pay Jeter a premium for his market value? A Detroit or a Boston (just to drive the Yanks crazy) might enjoy getting some attention and more fannies in their seats for just a few million dollars premium per year. Then the question will really be how much the Yankees want Jeter and how much Jeter wants the Yankees.

The team is clearly in the driver’s seat. The Yankees can function quite nicely without Jeter. While they’d take a lot of heat in the first Jeter-less year, especially when he’d get his 3000th hit for say, Kansas City. Heh-heh,. They’d look better and better as Jeter would get older and older. It’d be virtually impossible for Jeter to score his hundred runs per year for any other team but the Yankees, who have continually surrounded him with hitters in their own right.

Juan Uribe, about five years younger than Jeter and the San Francisco Giants postseason wunderkind, just signed a 3-year contract with the Dodgers for 21 million. Based on that figure, I’d say Jeter’s worth about 10 to 11 million per year. The Yankees offered him 15 mill for 3 years, a figure already that included market value. I’d understand totally if the Yankees felt that Jeter was holding them up. They would be entitled to be thinking Jeter should accept a pay cut from his last contract, his 10-year 189 million deal. The Yankees should stick to their guns, and if they do, things should get really interesting. And what if they withdraw their 15 million offer? Then what?

Meanwhile, the Mets have done almost nothing. Today I heard that their pretty fine left-handed specialist in the bullpen, Pedro Feliciano, turned down arbitration, which would seem to indicate that the market is good. It would also seem the Mets want to keep their better players, definitely a good sign for us Mets fans. The Mets need pitching though and I’m not crazy about the free agent starters. I wouldn’t mind seeing them shop Jason Bay and/or Carlos Beltran for a couple of pitchers. And I’d rather see them get young guns with limitless potential than see them go for broke with a veteran commanding a high salary.

A second baseman wouldn’t hurt either. But there are plenty of second basemen. It’s just not that critical a position. I was happy to see Florida’s slugging Dan Uggla go elsewhere. His fielding has always been atrocious and the Mets fans wouldn’t be tolerant of that. Uggla will be fine in Atlanta though, and Atlanta may be ready next year to challenge the Phillies seriously for the Division Championship. Whatever the Mets do next year, it’s difficult to think they’ll overtake either of the top two contenders.

The Knicks play the Nets tonight and it should be a barn-burner. Although the Knicks are the better team, they’ll be without their starting center Ronnie Turiaf, a factor that should hurt them a lot being that the Nets Lopez will be firing from all directions. But the Knicks have found an unlikely answer to their 2 guard spot in Landry Fields, who doesn’t really score so often as he does all the other things. He shoots well though when he does shoot, he rebounds and assists, goes for loose balls and, well, you get the idea.

The Nets need two more players to compete. Newark anyone?

Too Many Variables

It’s hard to figure, professional football outcomes. There are just too many variables.

For the Giants, it was another bad day at the office. A left-handed pass, a fumble down low, a bunch of penalties….geez, I expected them to lose, but who could have predicted that they would lose the way they did?

Let’s face it, their offensive tackles stunk last week, and now they came in without their center. Their tight end had been out. That they were favored in that game was ridiculous. The Titans are a pretty damned good team, year after year, and especially with their line play.

But it didn’t turn out the way I figured. The O-line was good and would have been great if not for their stupid penalties later in the game. Their defensive line, in fact, their whole defense, played admirably. But the Giants did lose anyway. Their special teams, and especially their new punter, Dodge, were awful.

Injuries are the order of the day in professional football. How a team weathers them determines their success. If the Giants had a backup center who was any good, if they had a better punter, they would have played. I didn’t see them, did you?

The Giants need some changes. Will they make them? No. They don’t make in-season changes. Almost every other team does. So they have a built-in disadvantage. They’re living in a different century.

Coughlin takes responsibility though….again. That makes me feel a whole lot better.

The Jets surprised me in a good way, showing me some unexpected toughness, not to mention skill, down in Miami. Mark Sanchez was great….again. He made some awfully nice passes. So was their tight end, Dustin Keller. So was Braylon Edwards, who scored on a cornerback slip, proving there really is no justice in this world. Ask Michael Vick.

But the Jets defense forced the Fish to pass. Ronnie Brown had 54 yards. Ricky Williams had 28. The Jets offense put the Fish in a hole, which forced them to pass. And pass they did, but it wasn’t enough and it’s really not their game. They’re used to running and wearing out the other team, keeping the opposing offense off the field.

The Jets overcame their defensive liabilities, their loss of run-stopper Kris Jenkins, their loss of pass-stopper Darrelle Revis. And they just scored more points than they usually do, even without Leon Washington, the running back they let go to Seattle, who scored twice yesterday to beat the Chargers.

It didn’t have to turn out that way. But the Jets have reserves all over the place. A fellow named Sione Pouha manned the center of the defense, just as capably as he did last year. A fellow named Antonio Cromartie partially made up for the loss of Revis. All their acquisitions were all too visible; LaDainian Tomlinson and Jason Taylor played key roles in the win too.

But in professional football, there are just too many variables to determine outcomes of games. Injuries are only the most glaring example. There is coaching, the game plan, the scheme and how it works against a particular matchup, and just plain luck.

But coaching is huge, not just for game-planning but for motivation as well. The Jets play the game as if it were fun, the Giants play as if it were a forced march, much as the Jets used to play under Mangini.

But the Giants won’t change coaches. They did win it all a few years ago. But that was before the departure of Steve Spagnola to the Rams, an organization on the upswing for sure. That team also had a fellow named Strahan, a leader on and off the field, and a younger offensive line.

The Forty- Niners, who had played like a team on a mission just last week against the Super Bowl champion Saints, lost yesterday to the uncharacteristically good Kansas City Chiefs 31-10. They fired their offensive coordinator today. The Giants will react to their problems sometime next year.

The quarterback sets the tone. Eli Manning, as good as his numbers may be, set the tone yesterday for the Giants and that tone was stupid. Throwing left-handed in the red zone just isn’t smart. Everybody worked too hard to get there. Maybe he hangs around with Favre too much.

Backup quarterback is arguably the second most important position on a football team. When the starter is injured, the backup becomes all-important. The Eagles and Steelers weathered the loss of their first-string guys quite nicely.

Their names were Michael Vick for the Eagles and Dennis Dixon, and then Charlie Batch for the Steelers. They all played great. The Lions just had backup QB Shawn Hill. They haven’t won yet. The Raiders had a fellow named Gradkowski backing up the disappointing Jason Campbell, and he lead them to what should have been a victory.

But then kickers can lose a game for you too. It happened in the Big Easy yesterday. And it happened in Arizona against the Raiders. Sebastian Janikowski, one of the best kickers in the league, missed the game-winner and so did Garrett Hartley for the Saints.

There are just too many variables. With around 50 players and 15 coaches, and an infinite number of game situations, just about anything can happen, and often does.

For example, the Jets just finished beating the Patriots and the Dolphins, both front-runners for playoff bids. They go to lowly Buffalo next week. But Buffalo just rid themselves of their former Number 1 quarterback, and are now involving talented running back C.J. Spiller into the game plan.

The Jets are riding high. How will that affect their attitude?

Those variables, especially injuries, affect fantasy teams too. My team continued its streak of good luck yesterday against a tough opponent despite the loss of its leading scorer, Jahvid Best, who injured a toe. Who could have foreseen a 12-catch performance out of Austin Collie while my opponent’s QB Matt Schaub had his worst game ever?

Melodrama Without Chemistry

Is anybody else tired of all the melodrama surrounding the New York football teams? I think it shows a huge team character and chemistry deficit.

The Jets beat the Patriots, a huge win given their slow start, and all we hear about is Braylon Edwards. The Giants play one of their worst games ever, but all we hear about is Brandon Jacobs and his helmet, or Antrel Rolle, a new Giant, who says there’s no leadership on the team.

I’m really tired of it. If you want any analysis, you have to tune in to MLB or NFL or NBA Networks. The newspaper coverage is a wasteland. Can anybody tell me what the Giants are going to do about that horrible offensive line, when they’ll get their tight end situation fixed, or when they can rid themselves of David Diehl as the tackle on the left-hand side?

The Jets are a reality show. I don’t even care about them anymore, except for Rex Ryan, who seems to be a good man under all that baloney. Tom Coughlin has the Giants playing under his unique form of despotism again, after disbanding that pesky players committee after they won that Super Bowl. And his team played like a team that doesn’t care.

The Jets-Dolphins matchups over the years have been awesome, practically each and every one. This year’s game could be the best one of them all. Yet you’ll hear nothing about that in the papers.

It’ll be that tough Jets offensive line and running game facing off against a Fish defensive line that spit back Adrian Peterson after a few attempts inside the ten-yard line. It’ll be two young QB’s showing off their wares, Sanchez against Henne. Sanchez should have time but see no open receivers. Drew Henne, Miami’s QB, will see open receivers yet have no time to get the ball to them.

But underlying all the talents on the field is that indefinable team chemistry, a factor in football games more so than in any other sport. How will the Jets react to being told to tone it down after Braylon Edwards’s arrest ? How will the Dolphins come out after thrashing the Vikings this weekend?

Team chemistry…the Jets have some, the Dolphins have some, even the Kansas City Chiefs have some. The Giants have none. Neither do the Bills or half a dozen other teams, even some of those who spend big money for players.

The poster-boy for team chemistry would have to be the New Orleans Saints. On Monday night, before a packed house in San Francisco, they showed the timely combination of good offense and defense that just got the job done, no matter what the circumstances.

I’ve been a closet Saints fan for a few years now, and to me, their Monday night game against the San Francisco 49ers proved that a team that believes in its coach, and a coach who believes in his team, can accomplish wonders…..packed house, Jerry Rice Day, mad Mike Singletary….it just doesn’t matter.

You’ll seldom see a team play as hard as the Niners did Monday night. Their head coach, Mike Singletary, had been rabid all week after the Niners opening loss against the lowly Seahawks , a loss that was largely attributable to coaching. But Monday night, Singletary’s team came ready to play.

The Niners may have been too ready. After a bad snap for a safety and an early Drew Brees-engineered drive, the Saints took an early 9-0 lead. But, when backed up to their ten-yard line with the crowd screaming, the Saints played conservatively, using runs and short passes to gain ground. When they could not, they simply punted. There would be no Saints meltdown; the Niners would have to earn every yard.

The Niners kept coming though. Frank Gore was a battering ram, the un-Brandon Jacobs. But Saints CB Roland Harper intercepted an Alex Smith pass to thwart one drive, only to have the Niners force another Saints punt when they sacked Brees, who was fortunate to keep his grip on the football.

Then the Niners really started turning it on. Frank Gore, Alex Smith and a few different receivers put together a clock-eating drive to pull within 9-7. Then they forced another Saints punt to take control of the ball again with about 7 minutes left in the first half.

The Niners kept coming. Banging Frank Gore into the line and using some deft passing from Alex Smith, they drove again to the Saints 12-yard line. But the Saints kept their composure, and when Delanie Walker had the ball punched out at about the 4-yard line, it was the the Saints who swarmed to the ball, the Saints who would hold on to lead at the half.

In the second half, the Niners changed gears. Two long passes to Morgan and tight end Vernon Davis spearheaded their next drive, one that was good for an eventual TD that gave the Niners the lead 14-9, for the first time.

It was then that the Saints really showed their character. Using their big guns, Bush and Colston and Pierre Thomas, the Saints took the lead again on their very next possession. And their defense held, first by forcing a 3 and out, then intercepting a Smith pass.

Punting then became the order of the day. The Saints held on like bulldogs in a few sequences that included a nifty Brees batted pass to himself. But a Niners goal-line stand forced a Saints field goal. Instead of putting the game away, the Saints lead was only 8.

A TD and 2-point conversion could still tie it. The Saints finally blinked. The Niners took advantage and tied it. The crowd went wild. It looked bad for the Saints.

But the Niners left 1:19 on the clock, too much time against a QB like Brees, a coach like Payton and some great team players named Colston and Thomas. Hartley kicked the winning field goal with zero on the clock.