The Best Defense in the League?

What an NFL Wildcard Weekend!!

I had thought this past weekend might be one of those yawners that seem to happen now and then. The matchups certainly didn’t lend themselves to one’s thinking that it’d be great entertainment, especially not the Broncos-Steelers game. I’d been looking forward to the Giants-Falcons, of course, but the other games didn’t send me, except for maybe the Bengals against the Texans. I thought the Bengals had a great chance.

Wrong, wrong, wrong!!

The Texans were off and running early. JJ Watt, a lineman for Pete’s sake, made a reaching stab of a Dalton pass to the flat and that play pretty much was a harbinger of things to come. There’d be no Dalton dramatics, there’d be no stopping the Texans running game….it was a pretty routine win for the contingent from Texas. For one more year, it’d be a shame to be a Bengals fan.

That Saturday night, the Saints-Lions was on the schedule. Nobody in their right mind thought the Lions would be able to stop Drew Brees but they actually did pretty well through the first half before utterly crumbling in the second half. It was like a snowball rolling down the hill. But, if you like watching a good quarterback work, Drew Brees is one of the three quarterbacks in the league that can absolutely destroy a defense.

One of the other two, of course, Aaron Rodgers, is unfortunately facing our Giants this weekend. His Packers have lost just once this year and Rodgers has been a huge part of the reason. The man is as accurate as anybody who’s ever played. He rolls around in the pocket and will take off running when the opportunity presents itself. The man just rolls.

Yeah. That’s true. But what about the Giants defense? Won’t that pass rush get to Rodgers? I certainly hope so but that Pack OL ain’t chopped liver and I’m not so sure the Falcons OL had one of its better days against the G-Men. But, statistically, as I can recall, the Falcons OL was pretty high in the rankings.

What I’m trying to say is that, if the Giants defensive line is the best in the league, if they can get to any quarterback in the league, then Rodgers might find himself running around a bit more than he is used to. I’ve already heard the Giants have a puncher’s chance and that’s as good an analogy as any, I suppose.

The trouble is that even a Rodgers under pressure is going to be pretty damned good. He’ll roll around and get rid of the ball when he must but most of the time, he’ll just find those receivers in perfect stride. Or, if they’re covered, he’ll just do that back-shoulder routine that’s so impossible to stop. Rodgers throws to everybody and he throws on the run probably better than anybody. So, even if he’s running, that doesn’t help the opposition as much as you’d think.

When the Giants beat the Pats in early 2008, Brady was the QB and, at the time anyway, Brady was considered the best quarterback ever. As things turned out, the Giants did indeed get to Brady and the pressure affected him bigtime. But Brady is a statue compared to Rodgers.

The aforementioned Brady is still in these playoffs, of course, and his Pats should have another reasonably good time against the Broncos. All I can say about that one is Tebow, Tebow, Tebow, Tebow. Watching Tebow running that Denver offense, when it’s all working, is a thing of beauty. What’s he going to do? Well, he could run himself, he could simply hand off or he could run to the edge and pitch it, or he could just wing it down the field, that last being the least likely of all.

That is, until Sunday afternoon. After Sunday’s game, the defense will have to figure against the Broncs passing game as well. Tebow’s 316 yards passing and two touchdowns, and another one rushing, pretty much killed any thoughts that the Broncs were only 3-dimensional. Any more dimensions, of course, would be out of this world, by definition, and that’s exactly what most Broncos fans are thinking about their quarterback these days.

After the Giants crushing of the witless Falcons, I would’ve been happy with the day as it was. I didn’t really need a great Broncos game, even if the Broncs opponent was the hated Steelers, the hated Ben Roethlisberger, that stupid Kiesel beard, that bully Harrison, and Mike Tomlin just out-thinking and out-motivating everybody else on the sidelines.

The way Denver went about their business was special. That first half was especially good, watching the Broncos not only take the lead with a beautifully-thrown Tebow pass that went the distance, but then adding insult to injury by just piling up some more points. And when hated Big Ben took the Steelers all the way back to inevitably tie the game in regulation, one had to think the worst. But Tebow’s on-target dart to Demaryus Thomas on the first play of overtime was just great. There would be no Steelers victory that day. Tebow to Thomas took care of that.

Saving the best for last, the Giants game proceeded pretty much as I had expected. The game started slowly, both teams did nothing and then things heated up quickly. But I’d thought both teams would have some success through the air. I’d thought Falcons head-man Mike Smith would ultimately blow the game. As things turned out though, Smith took his team out early with badly-run quarterback sneaks while the ponderous Michael Turner watched from the bench.

And the Giants defense stopped everything the Falcons could muster.

But Rodgers will be doing the mustering this week and their head coach isn’t Mike Smith. The G-Men need to bring their best game. If they truly have become the best defense in the league, as it certainly appeared on Sunday, they could even win this thing.

And Down the Stretch They Come

Okay, first of all, Zenyatta was robbed. Hey Mike Smith, could you have taken her any further back? The wondrous Z danced her way to the paddock and seemingly all the way to the starting gate. She seemed to acknowledge the crowd throughout, wanting only to squeeze one more hurrah out of thousands of racing fans, and make good on their winning tickets. Even if a lot of them would never be cashed. She seemed sure this’d be a walk in the park, another day at the office, sashaying her way to the winners circle while all the boys were still hangin’ by the water fountain. This would be her 2oth in a row….no problemo.

That was all before her longtime jock strangled her coming out of the gate. Before she could say “dumbass jock”, she was 20 lengths behind, getting clumps of real dirt pounding into her gorgeous peepers. But the queen kept her cool, if somewhat surprised by her rider’s strange reluctance, and wondering when he’d pull out a pair of goggles for her? She cut the lead from 20 to about 12 lengths at the mile pole but by then there was only a quarter mile to go. And those young colts ahead of her didn’t even seem tired.

It was about then that Mike finally took her outside where she could turn it on and, in the space of about 11 seconds, the time it took her to charge through that next to last (who says penultimate anymore?) furlong, she had cut that monstrous lead to about two lengths and she could see that finish line (I’m convinced). She had that chassis moving now with just one horse to beat, but geez, that young stud, a colt named Blame, was rolling too.

So down the stretch they came, as they say. That lead became 2 lengths, then 1 ½, then 1 and then just about nothin’ at all. And there was the pole.

The crowd was cheering but she could feel her rider’s anguish. She seemed to hang her head and she definitely stopped dancing. She probably wondered what the crowd was thinking. Why did thay all still seem so excited?

It probably didn’t occur to her that she had just gobbled up a 12-length lead in a quarter mile, that she had restored hope to all those bettors and fans whose heads had drooped after seeing her hopes diminishing with each succeeding pole for that first mile or so. “She’ll never make it”, I had said to my lovely wife, who had almost never watched TV with me before. She said sumthin’ like “but she always comes from behind, doesn’t she” and I said sumthin’ like “but she’s too far back, she’ll never catch them now”. I remember thinking about an old stretch-runner named Carry Back, who would sweep the field in the last furlong or so, but that was a long time ago, and Carry Back was a colt.

And then I was yelling, “Go! Go! Go!” as Zenyatta’s profile slowly, inexorably, advanced on that lead colt’s flanks all the way to that damned final pole. It was the best horse race I had seen in many a year, and I knew I had seen one of the best horses I would ever see.

They say she had her chance and couldn’t get her head in front. They say she won’t be the Horse of the Year. I say she’s been the Horse of the Decade at least and no other horse had evoked as much admiration out of a crowd since, well, Secretariat in that insane Belmont of the early Seventies. Yeah, there were other big ones too, there was Ruffian of course, and Affirmed and Stevie Cauthen wearin’ out Alydar for the Triple Crown. But that’s about it. I wasn’t around for Seabiscuit. And none of them could dance. (Actually, Secretariat and Seabiscuit both played to the crowd).

So go ahead, racing intelligentsia, make Blame the Horse of the Year. After all, he did keep his head in front at that finish line. It won’t change anybody’s mind, not anyone who had been there at Churchill or anybody who had just watched on TV. Zenyatta’s the Horse of the Year and one of the horses of the century.

There. All that had to be said. I feel better now.

That seemed more important to me than what the Jets or Giants did, or what has developed in the Mets front offices. Of course, all’s quiet on the football front, at least locally, as the Giants have been rolling and the Jets more or less just surviving in good form. The Mets new guy, Sandy Alderson, will probably wind up being a good hire and he’s supposed to be evaluating fiery coaches. (I have almost no hope in that regard, I liked Jerry Manuel). Oh, and I don’t care what the Yankees do. Whatever they do, it won’t be enough, not with trying to carry all that dead weight. (Okay, not dead, just twitching ever more slowly).

The big intrigue in football is in Dallas and Minnesota, what with Wade Phillips finally hitting the dusty trail and Brad Childress hanging on like that cat hangin’ on to that chinning bar in all those cheap reproductions. Both of their jobs were in trouble going into Week 9. Favre and Adrian Peterson, Percy Harvin and even Bernard Berrian for Minnesota rallied the Vikings to victory in a thrilling comeback win. The Boyz flopped historically, and nary a Dallas cornerback or linebacker could be found. They lost 41-7. Wade Phillips needed a secondary to show up in what would turn out to be his final game. He didn’t get it.

But the Vikings still breathe, even if they’re way behind and that finish line seems so close. Down the stretch they come.

They could take a lesson from a magnificent dancing mare who faced the same odds but fought valiantly to that finish line, despite the bad ride.