The Giants have decided the answer to getting back on track and returning to NFL royalty is by pushing Eli Manning out. They have unsuccessfully tried everything else and are down to their last out.
At the 2018 draft, there was the notion the Giants should pick their next quarterback with the No. 2 pick under the premise they wouldn’t be picking at or near the top of the draft again for a very long time. That very long time became the very next season and the 2019 draft.
The Giants didn’t need to draft a quarterback in the first round of the 2019 draft, and they certainly didn’t need to use the higher of their two first-round picks on one. Just because they chose to not select the heir to Eli Manning the year before didn’t mean they had to select him this year. But they did.
The Giants threw away any chance to truly contend in 2019 when they used the sixth overall pick on Daniel Jones. After ridding themselves of Damon Harrison, Eli Apple, Landon Collins and Odell Beckham, the Giants used their best asset to draft a player whose position was already filled on the roster. It made no sense from a personnel or salary-cap perspective to both bring back Manning and use the sixth pick in the draft on a quarterback. Their highest-paid player and highest-picked player now played the same position, of which, only one of them could play at a time.
The surprising moment when the Giants reached for Jones to send nearly the entire fanbase into shock meant the end for Manning. At some point, Jones would take over for Manning, sending the most-tenured player in franchise history to the bench for good. When that point will come is unknown, but with every Giants loss it will be called for. If the Giants lose in Dallas in Week 1: “Start Jones!” If the Giants lose to the Bills in Week 2: “Bench Eli!”
Manning is no playing for his career on a week-to-week basis, a 16-game season of one-game playoffs for the 38-year-old quarterback. The only way for Manning to avoid going to the bench in what’s likely his final season in the league is to win and keep on winning as the Daniel Jones era won’t start as long as the Giants are in postseason contention. The only problem is the front office has once again failed to build a team around Manning capable of postseason contention.
For all of the untimely interceptions and frustrating fumbles Manning has provided Giants fans with over the years, ownership and the front office has failed him many more times than he has ever failed them, struggling to consistently build an offensive line for him to play behind and a defense to hold his leads. No matter what the Giants’ problem or problems have been in this recent slide for the franchise, the blame has always been put on Manning, and he has taken it and accepted it when he has been far from the reason to blame. Now the organization is once asking telling him to play for his career without the necessary pieces to do so. The Giants have given Manning an impossible task, setting him up to fail and ensuring Jones will become the Giants’ starting quarterback this season.
I knew this day would come at some point. No one can play forever, and while I still feel Manning is a starting quarterback and still on the same level as his 2004 draft peers, he hasn’t been given the same opportunity to succeed. Ultimately, Manning is taking the fall for the final years of the Tom Coughlin era, the second and final season of the Ben McAdoo era and the disaster that has been the Dave Gettleman-Pat Shurmur era. The Giants have decided the answer to getting back on track and returning to NFL royalty is by pushing Manning out and giving his job away. They have tried everything else from hiring and firing their general manager and head coach, only to bring in equally-as-bad replacements and they have let those equally-as-bad replacements trade away all of their top talent. The Giants’ last out is to now end Manning’s career, and if that doesn’t work, the equally-as-bad replacements will be replaced as well. Giants fans have to accept the fact Jones is going to replace Manning this season. They don’t have to like it, but they have to accept it. Accept it and pray it works out, or in a few years, ownership will replacing Gettleman and Shurmur and drafting a different heir to Manning.
Sunday is the beginning of the end for Manning. A fate which was decided back on April 25 is now nearing its final stages. Each snap Manning takes could be his last as the starting quarterback of New York Giants, and with each loss, the inevitable will grow closer.
I miss this feeling. This feeling is the feeling of knowing September Yankees games are meaningless (aside from home-field advantage) and that the result ultimately doesn’t matter because of their enormous division lead.
After losing on Monday to the Rangers, the Yankees won on Tuesday and Wednesday to win the three-game series and continue their home series winning streak, which dates back to April. If you don’t think home-field advantage matters in the postseason, like the Yankees seem to think, you might want to rethink your stance on that.
Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees on this off day as usual.
1. I missed this feeling. This feeling is the feeling of knowing September Yankees games are meaningless (aside from home-field advantage) and that the result ultimately doesn’t matter because of their enormous division lead. For the four NFL Sundays in September, I can watch football and not be completely focused and worried about the Yankees. It’s been a while since Yankees fans have had this luxury and I forgot how good it felt. I won’t take it for granted.
2. The Yankees aren’t going to go all out to win home-field advantage. I think they need it to win the American League pennant and get past the Astros in a potential ALCS matchup, but clearly the Yankees don’t feel the same. Aaron Boone has shown us they don’t feel the same.
In Sunday’s game, Boone brought in reliever Ryan Dull with the game tied to start the seventh inning against the A’s. Dull had already been released by the A’s and Giants this season, found his way to the Yankees and somehow was a September 1 call-up. Why? Because he’s in the Top 20 percent in spin rate.
3. This is Dull’s line pre-Yankees this season: 9 IP, 19 H, 13 R, 12 ER, 4 BB, 8 K, 4 HR. Throw in the one batter he hit and he put 24 baserunners on in nine innings. How is he on the Yankees’ 40-man roster and how did he get a September 1 call-up, and why is he pitching in the seventh inning of a 0-0 game? Dull was every bit as bad in that seventh inning as he was prior to joining the Yankees. His line: 1 IP, 2 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 2 BB, 1 K.
Later in that same game, Boone brought in Adam Ottavino with the Yankees trailing. So he goes to the shouldn’t-be-in-the-majors reliever when the game is tied and he goes to the elite, top-tier reliever with the team trailing. If you don’t think Boone’s logic and bullpen management is going to be a problem in October, you must have missed last October.
4. The Yankees came back to win the game 5-4, thanks to back-to-back home runs from Brett Gardner and Mike Ford in the bottom of the ninth off Liam Hendricks, who can’t seem to ever get the Yankees out. Because of the win, Boone was saved from being questioned about his nonsensical bullpen management as the postgame focus turned to the second walk-off win in as many days. But not for me. I was happy the Yankees won, but not happy about how they won because it’s decisions like pitching Ottavino when the team is losing and using a lesser reliever when the game is tied that will arise in the postseason. Boone was dealt a 15 with the dealer showing a 10. Boone inexplicably stayed. The dealer flipped over a 3, pulled a 2 and then a 10 to bust. Boone thinks he made the right decision because he won the hand.
This type of bullpen management happened last October after everyone spent the entire regular season under the idea Boone would manage differently in the postseason. If you’re not scared about Boone ruining this season, you should be.
5. I updated my Postseason Rotation Power Rankings on Tuesday, but didn’t really update them since I’m currently staying with Masahiro Tanaka in Game 1, Domingo German in Game 2, James Paxton in Game 3 and Chad Green as an opener in Game 4. If Luis Severino comes back then everything changes. Or if Paxton continues to pitch the way he has since the beginning of August.
After the Yankees lost all five of Paxton’s start in July, he has won seven straight. His line over those seven straight wins: 42.1 IP, 25 H, 14, 14 ER, 15 BB, 51 K, 5 HR, 2.98 ERA, 0.944 WHIP. That’s the Paxton the Yankees thought they were trading for with opposing hitters posting a .545 OPS against him.
6. Through all of his ups and downs over the last two seasons, I have never said, written or tweeted anything negative about Gary Sanchez. How could I as President of the Gary Sanchez Fan Club? And after last year’s dismal season which ended with offseason surgery for Sanchez, he has repaid those who believed in him and ridiculed those who wanted Austin Romine to be the team’s starting catcher. (That will always be the most ridiculous Yankees storyline of all time.)
Sanchez homered twice on Tuesday night to give him 34 on the season, breaking his Yankees’ single-season home runs for a catcher record he set in 2017 with 33. After becoming the third fastest player ever to 100 home runs, Sanchez is the second fastest to 14 multi-home run games. He’s the best hitting catcher in baseball and the Yankees’ biggest advantage in the lineup because of his position as a middle-of-the-order bat.
Now I just need Sanchez to continue his record-setting slugging ways in October, where he already owns five postseason home runs in 18 games and 75 plate appearances.
7. Aaron Judge hit his 20th home run on Wednesday night and Sanchez said he thinks Judge can get to 30. That would be 10 more home runs in 21 games, most of which Judge won’t be playing the full game or playing at all since the Yankees will have clinched the division.
Judge isn’t going to get to 30 this season, but his 20 in 84 games is the equivalent to hitting 39 in 162 games. His 27 in 112 games last year was also the equivalent to hitting 39 in a full season.
Judge’s only full season so far has been his Rookie of the Year 2017 season, in which he hit 52 home runs and had a 1.049 OPS, finishing second for the AL MVP to Jose Altuve. It’s unlikely Judge will ever match his magical age-25 season, but it would be nice to see if he actually could by playing a full season in 2020. Can we please get one freak-injury- and oblique-injury-less season from Judge? Is that too much to ask?
8. If the Indians don’t blow their 3-1 lead to the Cubs in the 2016 World Series or finish off their remarkable comeback in Game 7 of that World Series then Aroldis Chapman for Gleyber Torres might be the worst trade of all time. A closer for a middle infielder with 40-home run ability? If not for the Cubs’ World Series comeback to end their 108-year championship drought, it would go down as the worst trade of all time.
Torres already has 58 home runs and an .855 OPS in 251 career games despite being 22 years old and playing two premium defensive positions. Judge and Sanchez might get all the attention now as this being their team, but it won’t last long with a superstar up the middle for the foreseeable future.
John Flaherty brought up a good point during Wednesday’s broadcast about looking forward to seeing how Torres performs in the postseason after he looked jumpy and not ready last October. I agree with Flaherty that Torres never looked like himself at the plate in the five postseason games last year, and I’m sure it had to do with the A’s and Red Sox’ planning for him as well as it being his first experience on that stage. Torres did manage to hit four singles in the postseason, but he was nowhere near the hitter he is now with the experience he has gained. Put Torres in the middle-of-the-order for good, Boone. It’s well overdue.
9. A year ago when the 2019 schedule came out, I figured this weekend’s four-game series against the Red Sox would cause me to finally purchase a respirator and quite possibly send me to the hospital. Thankfully, it means nothing other than for the Yankees to increase their odds at obtaining home-field advantage.
But it does mean something for the Red Sox who are clinging to the smallest of chances at a wild-card berth. The Red Sox are six games back in the loss column of the A’s and five games back in the loss column of the Rays and Indians with three weeks to play. The Yankees have a chance to go to Boston and officially eliminate the Red Sox from the division (the Red Sox’ division elimination number is 7), and also completely ruin the Red Sox’ chances at sneaking into the playoffs as a wild-card team. I want the Yankees to leave Boston with the Red Sox’ division elimination at 0 and their wild-card elimination greatly diminished (it’s 18 now).
10. My expected record for the Yankees in August (by expected record, I mean a record I would be content with them having) was 17-13. The Yankees finished the month 21-9, four games better than I would have been content with.
The Yankees are now 92-49 (my expected record for them in September is 15-10) and they have a 1 1/2-game lead over the Astros for the best record in the AL and a 1/2-game lead over the Dodgers for the best record in baseball. The Yankees only have to go 8-13 to win 100 games for the second straight season and 9-12 to beat last year’s 100-win total. It’s hard to know how the Yankees will play the final two-plus weeks of the season once the division is officially clinched, but they have a chance to win 105 games in a year in which they broke the record for the most players on the injured list a season. What a season it’s been.
***
My book The Next Yankees Era: My Transition from the Core Four to the Baby Bombers is available!
The first week of football is special. Keeping up with the games, parlays, teasers and fantasy teams all at once, while drinking and eating thousands of bad calories for nearly 11 straight hours 17 times a year is magical.
I have seasonal depression. The fact that it’s getting cold at night and the temperatures are going to begin to fluctuate enough from day to day that I will have to actually check the weather to see what I should be wearing saddens me. I hate that summer is over. I hate it. But like every year at this time, I’m happy that football is back.
The first week of football is special and the anxiousness at 1:00 p.m. on the first Sunday of the season is indescribable. Keeping up with the games, parlays, teasers and fantasy teams all at once, while drinking and eating thousands of bad calories for nearly 11 straight hours 17 times a year is magical.
In order to avoid a down week from a financial standpoint I have come up with some personal gambling rules to prevent any emotional or illogical decisions this season.
1. Don’t Be Tricked by Week 1 Week 1 is my favorite week to pick and wager on because your decision making is based on your own knowledge and feel for how the season will play out. Week 2, on the other hand, is a reaction and a lot of times an overreaction to what happened in Week 1. (If I could, I would sit out Week 2. I guess I technically could sit out Week 2, but we all know that’s not going to happen.)
I spend the entire offseason coming up with an opinion on each team, and then Week 1 happens, and some of those opinions, and at times a lot of those opinions, are destroyed or proved wrong. Except they aren’t.
Don’t let the results of Week 1 influence your original opinions on teams for Week 2. The Week 2 lines are the most reactive lines of the season because there is only one game of information to go off of.
I need to set a calendar reminder to read this paragraph when I write the Week 2 picks blog.
2. Be Careful with Thursday Night Football It’s not so much about Thursday Night Football in September and October as it is in November and December when baseball is over and the time between Monday Night Football and Thursday Night Football feels like an eternity.
The Thursday Night Football game generally sucks. Generally might be too generous. It sucks nearly every single week. The Opening Night Thursday game doesn’t count and neither do the Thanksgiving games since those are unlike the other Thursday games. Thankfully, this season, the Thursday Night Football schedule has given us matchups that include at least one postseason-contending team each week (at least for now). I have bolded those teams.
Tampa Bay at Carolina Tennessee at Jacksonville Philadelphia at Green Bay Los Angeles Rams at Seattle New York Giants at New England Kansas City at Denver Washington at Minnesota San Francisco at Arizona Los Angeles Chargers at Oakland Pittsburgh at Cleveland Indianapolis at Houston Dallas at Chicago New York Jets at Baltimore
I didn’t want to bold Indianapolis or Houston, but I did because both teams were playoff teams last season and both teams could at least be in the conversation this season.
Even with the best potential Thursday Night Football slate we have ever received, it still doesn’t mean the games need to be bet on because there hasn’t been a game in 72 hours.
3. Beware of the Non-Bear Bs It was always beware of all the Bs, but after the Bears’ 2018 season, they have removed themselves from the pack. Now watch the Bears regress like the post-2016 Giants and be the worst of all the Bs.
The Browns, Bengals, Buccaneers, Broncos and Bills are not your friend. Don’t get enticed by any high-point spread or any glowing money line.
It doesn’t matter that the Browns now have Odell Beckham to go along with Jarvis Landry. The Bengals’ quarterback is still Andy Dalton. Jameis Winston is still the starter in Tampa Bay even if Bruce Arians is the head coach. The Ravens decided to move on from Joe Flacco despite watching one of the single-worst quarterback performances of all time in the playoffs and now he’s the Broncos’ starter. The Bills … they’re the Bills.
4. Don’t Bet on the Giants I have had some memorable runs with the Giants, especially their money lines over the years, but we are long past the point of where I have lost money overall on the Giants. Long past the point. If the point is Mischa Barton on The OC in 2003 then I’m Mischa Barton on The Hills in 2019.
I’m over thinking the Giants are good or are going to eventually be good midseason or are going to win each week. I’m over it. I need to accept the Giants aren’t going to be good in 2019 and need to realize no one really knows the next time they will be good. As a Giants fan, I need to expect the worst each week and not let inexplicable turnovers, undisciplined penalties and nonsensical in-game coaching decisions affect my life. I need to treat the Giants the way they have treated me in all but two years over the last 12 years: like I don’t care.
On top of this all, I need to somehow talk myself into thinking John Mara and David Gettleman have any idea what they’re doing and won’t further separate the Giants from contention. I need to talk myself into believing in Daniel Jones, the rest of Gettleman’s draft picks and the vision he has about building a team around a running back in a league which has drastically changed every rule to promote and help the passing game.
I won’t be betting on the Giants in 2019 because I’m suspending myself from betting on the Giants for all of 2019. (Unless, it’s in a teaser, of course.)
(Home team in caps)
CHICAGO -3 over Green Bay In Week 1 on Sunday Night Football last season, I had my entire week connected to the Bears-Packers game. I had the Packers to cover (-7.5), I had the Packers’ money line as the final piece to a parlay and I had the Packers at 0.5 as the final piece of a teaser. When the Packers trailed 20-3 at the end of the third quarter, I figured all three bets were losses. Fortunately, the Packers came all the way back in the fourth quarter to win 24-23 and save two of the three bets.
I made those bets thinking the Bears were the same old Bears, and the result of that game showed me they were. But all of that happened before the Bears became the team that won the NFC North and should have won their wild-card game against the Eagles. I believe in the Bears this season. Or at least I believe in their defense. Give me the Bears at home in the first game of the season.
Tennessee +5 over CLEVELAND Since the Giants can’t be expected to win the Super Bowl this season, my rooting interest has turned to rooting against the Browns. The last thing I want is for Odell Beckham to have any sort of success from a win-loss standpoint in Cleveland and what I really want is for the Browns to get off to a miserable start and have the offense divided in the locker room and on the field, so optimistic Browns fans can see the real Beckham at his best.
It’s unfortunate that it had to come to this. I enjoyed rooting for the Browns last season and was every bit as happy as real Browns fans when they beat the Jets in Baker Mayfield’s first game. But now I have to root for their demise. Though when you pair the history of the Browns with the issues Beckham brings, I won’t have to do much rooting. It will take care of itself.
Baltimore -6.5 over MIAMI I’m sure Tua Tagovailoa is happy to see the Dolphins tanking as hard as possible for the first pick in the 2020 draft. Most first-overall picks end up in Cleveland or Oakland or some other cold-weather city with a crappy team no one wants to play on and a team that’s not going to be good for a while. But Miami? No one cares about getting drafted by the Dolphins and no one cares if the team is never going to be good when they’re living in South Florida and not paying state income tax.
MINNESOTA -4 over Atlanta I was expecting this line to be higher, around 6. But when you collapse the way the Vikings did last season with Kirk Cousins, and when you’re as mediocre as the Falcons have been over the lastwo seasons, I guess 4 makes sense.
I don’t want to say how much money Kirk Cousins lost me last year. Actually, I can’t say because I have been too scared to add it all up. A year after riding the Vikings and Case Keenum to win after win after win, I tried to do the same for the 2019 Vikings and my bank account took more hits than Cousins, and no loss was worse than the Week 17 win-and-they’re-in game at home against the Bears, who had nothing to play for. But the same goes for the Falcons after I rode them to the Super Bowl a couple years ago only to frequently lose on them over the last two years.
I don’t want to pick Cousins to cover four points, but there’s no way I can pick the Falcons against a real opponent.
NEW YORK JETS -3 over Buffalo I wouldn’t say I believe in the Jets from a “going to the playoffs” standpoint, but I believe in the Jets from a “going to win enough to crush their fans” standpoint. There’s nothing worse than the idea of having to watch the Giants play meaningless games starting in October while the Jets are in a playoff race, which is most likely going to happen. But the good news for Giants fans is that while the Jets are looking at a schedule that could lead to a midseason six-game winning streak, the final three weeks of their schedule present opponents which could ruin their season and postseason chances. That’s what I’m looking forward to.
PHILADELPHIA -10 over Washington If the Giants are going to suck, they better suck enough to finish last in the division to set up the easiest possible 2020 schedule and also have the highest possible draft pick. In order to achieve these “goals”, they’re going to need the Redskins to not suck as much as them, and that’s going to be hard because the Redskins are going to suck.
CAROLINA +2.5 over Los Angeles Rams It made me sick to watch Jared Goff’s Super Bowl performance and then think about the contract he has. That was the Rams’ chance at a championship with him as quarterback. They were handed a gift on the non-pass interference call in the NFC Championship Game to appear in the Super Bowl, and then once there, the Rams’ defense did everything it could to put Goff and the offense in a position to win, and he played as bad as a quarterback could ever play. Unfortunately, after being part of delivering another championship to Boston, I will have to root against the Rams, like I do the Falcons.
JACKSONVILLE +3.5 over Kansas City I’m expecting big things out of Jacksonville this season, especially now that the team has an actual quarterback to believe in, a healthy and dominant running back and the league’s top defense. The Chiefs will be a contender once again and seem to be the most-predicted Super Bowl winner, but a game that would have been an easy win for them last season won’t be this season.
Indianapolis +6.5 over LOS ANGELES CHARGERS I don’t think the Colts are a playoff team without Andrew Luck, but I don’t think they’re going to fall apart without him either. Jacoby Brissett has proven to be serviceable when he starts and behind that offensive line, being serviceable is more than enough. And for anyone who has watched the Chargers throw away easy covers over the last two seasons, it’s hard to trust them to cover a touchdown whether they’re playing against a team whose franchise quarterback retired two weeks before the season or not.
SEATTLE -9.5 over Cincinnati Andy Dalton without A.J. Green at CenturyLink Field? We have everyone’s survivor pool pick and the game most used in a teaser of the week.
New York Giants +7.5 over DALLAS Jerry Jones should be embarrassed for caving to Ezekiel Elliott. It’s not a surprise a deal got done and got done prior to Week 1. The Cowboys were never going to play a game without Elliott signed, and everyone wasted a lot of time covering, reporting on, reading about and watching training camp and the preseason as if there had ever been a real chance a deal wouldn’t get done.
The Cowboys had a chance to show off their impressive offensive line against a weak Giants defensive line and have a non-Elliott running back go to town on the Giants’ defense and prove that Elliott’s success is a product of the Cowboys’ offensive line, and not that the Cowboys’ success is a product of Elliott’s abilities. This would have hurt Elliott’s leverage, and the Cowboys could have gone on without him, as he sat by and forfeited millions of dollars and destroyed his entire holdout plan. Instead, the Cowboys made Elliott the highest-paid running back in the line, gave him everything he wanted and did it just in time for him to return to face the Giants in Week 1.
Do I think the Giants will win? No. Do I think they can cover? Eh. As you read earlier, I’m not exactly an optimist when it comes to the Giants and I certainly don’t expect anything from them this season. If anything, I expect them to finish last in the league and have the No. 1 pick in the draft with Tagovailoa available, and have them draft Tagovailoa a year after using the third-overall pick on Daniel Jones, wasting the opportunity to build a complete core with Top 6 picks in three straight years. If the Giants are really becoming the pre-Baker Mayfield Browns, that would complete the transformation.
ARIZONA +2.5 over Detroit If not for the debut of No. 1 pick Kyler Murray, what would be the appeal of this game to anyone who isn’t a Lions or Cardinals fan?
TAMPA BAY 0 over San Francisco The cross-country flight and timezone change is no joke even if it comes in Week 1. If the teams are evenly matched on the field, the mismatch occurs on the sideline where Bruce Arians is levels above the man responsible for the Falcons’ second-half Super Bowl collapse in Kyle Shanahan.
NEW ENGLAND -5.5 over Pittsburgh The Steelers have been frauds for a while now. Usually good enough to make the playoffs, but not good enough to do anything when they get there, let alone beat the Patriots once they’re there. Tom Brady has owned Ben Roethlisberger and the Steelers in his career and after having seven months to think about and prepare for this game, this is about as confident as anyone can be in picking a game.
Houston +7 NEW ORLEANS I’m done with Drew Brees. Done with him. Between his Week 13 127-yard performance against the Cowboys as a seven-point favorite and his interception in overtime in the NFC Championship Game, I’ve had enough.
In the past I would be scared off by the Superdome Saints, but not anymore. While I don’t love Houston this season since I don’t even like Houston this season, this pick is more about going against Brees and the Saints than it is thinking the Texans will be good enough to stay with the Superdome Saints in Week 1.
Denver 0 over OAKLAND The last game of the week happens to also be the worst matchup of the week. Instead of this game getting lost in the shuffle, it will be everyone’e last attempt to make everything back from a poor week or really go for a big week with one final bang.
As a football fan, I will watch the beginning of this game in bed. As someone who doesn’t want to be tired the following morning because I stayed up watching and wasting my time with this game, I will find out if the Broncos covered on Tuesday morning.
Football is back! With the season beginning this week, it’s time for the 2019 over/under win total predictions. Five overs and five unders for the season.
Football is back! Even though the return of the NFL season means the end of summer and the eventual end of baseball and nice weather, it means 17 straight Sundays of all-day gambling, drinking and eating. I would say it’s a fair trade.
With the season beginning this week, it’s time for the 2019 over/under win total predictions. Five overs and five unders for the season.
(Last season’s win total in parentheses)
OVERS
NEW YORK GIANTS, 6 (5) Unfortunately, I have to pick the Giants’ win total. Even more unfortunate, as a Giants fan, I can’t pick the under. I can’t pick the under because I don’t want to believe I will have to sit through another wasted season even if it’s inevitable in 2019.
Last year, the Giants started 0-2 and were eventually 1-7. The year before that, they were 0-5 and eventually 1-8. Two years before that, they finished with six wins. Aside from 2016, when the Giants managed to win 11 games and eight of them by seven points or less, it’s been miserable year after miserable year.
If you look hard enough, you can find a scenario where the Giants might win seven games or at least push with six. Possible wins over Buffalo, at Tampa Bay, one of the two Redskins games, Arizona, at Detroit and Miami. There’s six wins to push and maybe they can sweep the also-bad Redskins or pick up an upset along the way.
Normally, I go into every Giants season thinking they will win the division and possibly even go on a postseason run. Not this season. This season I have absolutely no expectations for the Giants. Fortunately, for the Giants and I, they play their best with no expectations.
NEW YORK JETS 7.5, (4) The Jets would have to double their four wins from last year to hit the over this year, but I think they can do it. This isn’t me reverse jinxing the Jets to watch my Jets fan friends suffer through another mediocre or bad season, I really think the Jets are at least a .500 team.
Looking at their schedule, winning one of the two Buffalo games, Miami, New York Giants, Washington, Oakland, Cincinnati and Miami is enough to clinch eight wins. Not only is it enough, but if the Jets were to win those games, it would mean a midseason six-game winning streak heading into the final three weeks of the season where they would have the chance to ruin their season and crush their fans. I need this to happen.
JACKSONVILLE 8, (5) The Jaguars’ decision to hold on to and extend Blake Bortles for three years beginning in 2019 is what led them to their demise last season. A team which could have and should have went to the Super Bowl the year before turned in five wins and despite a 3-1 start, losing six games by six points or less.
I believe the Jaguars are more of the team they were two years ago than the team they were last season. And with Nick Foles as their starting quarterback instead of Bortles, I feel a lot safer picking them to finish over .500.
If the Jaguars go 3-3 in the AFC South, they have home games against Tampa Bay and road games at Denver, Cincinnati and Oakland. That would leave them needing to win two of their remaining six games against Kansas City, Carolina, New Orleans, New York Jets, Los Angeles Chargers and Atlanta. That’s more than doable.
SEATTLE 8.5, (10) The Seahawks won 10 games last year, and I feel they are at least as good as last season, if not, then no worse than one game worse. One game worse would give them nine wins and give them an over here.
Their home games are against Cincinnati, New Orleans, Los Angeles Rams, Baltimore, Tampa Bay, Minnesota, Arizona and San Francisco. There’s at least five wins in their, when you factor in the home-field advantage, and when you factor in the home-field advantage and the cross-country flights for New Orleans, Baltimore and Tampa Bay, there might be even more than five wins. That would mean the Seahawks would have to play .500 on the road to clinch nine wins. I hate the Seahawks, but I love this over.
MINNESOTA 9, (8) I don’t want to say how much money Kirk Cousins lost me last year. Actually, I can’t say because I have been too scared to add it all up. A year after riding the Vikings and Case Keenum to win after win after win, I tried to do the same for the 2019 Vikings and my bank account took more hits than Cousins, and no loss was worse than the Week 17 win-and-they’re-in game at home against the Bears, who had nothing to play for.
Like I did when the Vikings signed Cousins, I still think they made a horrible mistake, and all the other general managers who hoped to sign Cousins in free agency saved a terrible blemish from their career resumes. Cousins was a disaster in his first season with the Vikings, taking a win-now team which went to the NFC Championship Game the season before and made them a barely-above-.500 team thanks to an early-season tie. I don’t want to need a Cousins-led team to have to hit an over for me, but since my wife’s Dodgers aren’t going to win her a championship anytime soon, the least I can do is play along that her Vikings might.
Games against Oakland, New York Giants, Washington and Denver give the Vikings a favorable schedule, and if they go what should been an easy-to-achieve 3-3 within their division, they would only need to win two other games against Atlanta, Philadelphia, Kansas City, Dallas, Seattle and Los Angeles Chargers.
UNDERS
OAKLAND 6, (4) The Raiders won four games last year, and I can’t remember a single one of them, nor do I know how they managed to win four games. For this season, they added the best wide receiver in the league in Antonio Brown, who pretty much proved on Hard Knocks he’s not going to play a full season.
The Raiders have their usual four games against Kansas City and Los Angeles Chargers, which are four losses, and they will also play the NFC North, AFC South and New York Jets. The Raiders aren’t winning going over six wins. They’re not going to get to six wins. I’m not sure how they will even match last year’s four wins.
CINCINNATI 6, (6) The Bengals won six games last year, didn’t improve and will be without their best player in A.J. Green to start the season. They are the only weak team in the AFC North, add in games against the NFC West and AFC East this season and where exactly are they going to get seven wins and be better than they were last year? This one feels way too easy.
DETROIT 6.5, (6) The Lions went 6-10 last year and their expected win total went up by a 1/2 game even though I think they will be worse in 2019 than they were in 2018.
There’s a very good chance the Lions go 0-6 in division play, but let’s say they go 2-4 to be generous. They have easy opponents in Arizona, New York Giants, Oakland, Washington, Tampa Bay and Denver. If the Lions go 2-4 within their division and then win all five of those six games, they would beat their number. But if they fail to do either, they would have to picks up either more wins within their division or find wins against Los Angeles Chargers, Philadelphia, Kansas City or Dallas. There’s too much that needs to happen for the Lions to be a seven-win team.
INDIANAPOLIS 7.5, (10) I think Jacoby Brissett will be better than most expect him to be, and I think the Colts won’t be as bad of a team as anyone would expect a team to be when their franchise quarterback retires two weeks before the season. But I don’t think they’re an eight-win team, and it’s nearly impossible to see a path to eight wins on their schedule.
If the Colts are able to go .500 in their division, which won’t be easy, they would have to go 5-5 in non-division play against three Super Bowl-contenders in Los Angeles Chargers, Kansas City and New Orleans, and second-tier teams like Atlanta, Pittsburgh and Carolina. Even if the Colts were to upset one or two of those teams, they would have to win all of their easier games against Oakland, Denver, Miami and Tampa Bay, and there’s a better chance they lose to one of those four teams than there is that they beat one of the previous six. It’s just not happening.
SAN FRANCISCO 8, (4) The 49ers had Jimmy Garoppolo for three games in 2018 before losing him for the season. They went 1-2 in those games and then 3-10 the rest of the way. The 2019 49ers have a chance to get off to a fast start opening the season against Tampa Bay and Cincinnati, but with games against the AFC North this season and an absolutely brutal second-half schedule (minus a game against Arizona), I’m not buying the 49ers as a .500 team.
It’s hard to envision a quarterback with a little more than a handful of starts leading an eight-win team in the competitive NFC West. It’s even harder to envision the coach who orchestrated the Falcons’ second-half Super Bowl collapse leading a team to an eight-win season.
The Yankees’ postseason rotation won’t be decided for a few weeks, but it’s time to figure out what it will look like with a month to go.
The first edition of the Yankees’ Postseason Rotation Power Rankings was on July 23. Back then, trading for Madison Bumgarner seemed more realistic than Luis Severino returning this season and finding anyone to follow Masahiro Tanaka and Domingo German in the rotation seemed impossible.
My postseason rotation hasn’t changed over the last six weeks, but it’s getting close to. James Paxton is pitching like the front-end starter the Yankees thought they traded for and Severino came out of his first rehab start in Triple-A without any issues. The third edition could see drastic changes depending on how the next two weeks go.
These power rankings will be updated frequently between now and the end of the regular season. They are based on a combination of personal preference, recent performance and historical performance. This rotation is based on the current 25-man roster and is created under the assumption the players on the injured list won’t be available for the postseason.
Game 1: Number 19, Masahiro Tanaka, Number 19 Masahiro Tanaka could pitch to a 15.10 ERA for the rest of the season and I would still give him the ball in Game 1 of the ALDS. Tanaka has proven his worth in the postseason in three different postseasons now with the worst of his five starts being two earned runs over five innings in a game the Yankees were never going to score in let alone win (2015 AL Wild-Card Game against Dallas Keuchel).
Last October, Tanaka was the only Yankees starter to pitch well in the four games against the Red Sox (5 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 4 K, 1 HR), and had he pitched Game 1, I might be writing about the Yankees looking to become the first team since 2000 to win back-to-back championships. In 2017, he allowed two earned runs in 13 innings in the ALCS to the eventual champion Astros and shut out the Indians over seven innings in Game 3 of the ALDS to save the season and kickstart the Yankees’ improbable comeback over the Indians.
Advanced metrics suggest Tanaka has been the same pitcher in the postseason as the regular season, with a little more luck, while his postseason success has been attributed to a small sample size. Well, the postseason is a small sample size. At most, a team could play 20 games, and in the Yankees’ case, the most games they could play this October is 19. Jobs, careers, salaries, memories and legacies are built on the small sample size of the postseason, and so far, Tanaka has been outstanding (30 IP, 17 H, 5 R, 5 ER, 7 BB, 25 K, 3 HR, 1.50 ERA, 0.800 WHIP). Same regular-season FIP or not, he’s getting the ball in Game 1.
Game 2: Number 55, Domingo German, Number 55 Do I trust Domingo German in a postseason start? Not particularly. But outside of Tanaka, it’s hard to trust any of the current available starting options. As of now, German’s going to get a postseason start and will be asked to get 12 outs, which makes things a lot easier to stomach. If he’s going to get a start, it has to be at home.
German at home: 61.1 IP, 44 H, 17 R, 16 R, 17 BB, 74K, 10 HR, 2.35 ERA, 0.995 WHIP
German on the road: 71 IP, 75 H, 47 R, 43 ER, 16 BB, 67 K, 19 HR, 5.45 ERA, 1.282 WHIP
There’s still the chance the Yankees shut down German as a starter for the rest of the season at some point or screw with his routine and off days to the point that it messes him up, the way they have with so many other young starters to try and prevent injuries that eventually happened anyway. If the Yankees allow German to pitch uninterrupted for the remainder of the season and they win the World Series and he never pitches again, he did his job. His job is to pitch for the New York Yankees. The Yankees’ job is to win the World Series. The goal isn’t to grow careers. The goal is to win. Sadly, the Yankees’ effort to achieve this goal for the last decade hasn’t been what it once was.
Game 3: Number 65, James Paxton, Number 65 After the first edition of these rankings, Paxton went out and got rocked by the Red Sox (4 IP, 9 H, 7 R, 7 ER, 0 BB, 9 K, 4 HR) and his ERA rose to 4.72. But since getting embarrassed in Boston, Paxton hasn’t lost, winning six straight for an undefeated August after the Yankees lost all five of his July starts.
Over this six-game winning streak, opposing hitters are batting .192/.271/.344 against Paxton as he beat two wild-card race teams in the Red Sox and Indians and dominated the National League-best Dodgers on the road. He’s looked like the pitcher I thought the Yankees traded for and not the pitcher who gave them four-plus months of mediocrity to begin the season.
I actually trust Paxton more than German right now, but since German is going to get a postseason start, it should be at home, which pushes Paxton to Game 3 on the road. Paxton has also been worse on the road than he has been at Yankee Stadium, but I trust him more to get comfortable, adapt and adjust wherever Game 3 is because I don’t have to.
Game 4: Number 57, Chad Green, Number 57 When Severino comes back and proves he’s healthy, the opener will fall off as a postseason starter. But until then, I’m giving the ball to Chad Green, Tommy Kahnle, Adam Ottavino, Zack Britton, Aroldis Chapman, and hopefully Dellin Betances to piece together 27 outs. There’s absolutely no way CC Sabathia can start a postseason game, and it’s comical to think J.A. Happ is going to be on the postseason roster, let alone given the ball for an October game. That leaves the opener strategy as the only available option.
Green hasn’t opened a game since August 15 against the Indians (0.1 IP, 4 H, 5 R, 5 ER, 1 BB, 1 K, 2 HR). He has worked strictly as a reliever since then, holding batters to a .394 OPS for 7 1/3 innings.
My preference would be to have Green go one inning and maybe two innings depending on how he looked in the first inning. Then I would go right to the bullpen. I don’t care that you’re asking the bullpen to possibly get 24 outs. Worry about the next game when you get there.
This season, Green has either been dominant or a disaster with very little in between. He’s either looked like he did in 2017 or given up a crooked number while only getting an out or two. The opener plan with Green starting the game is far from a guarantee, but you could say that about all of the Yankees’ starting pitching options for the postseason.
***
My book The Next Yankees Era: My Transition from the Core Four to the Baby Bombers is available!
