Blogs – Page 230 – Keefe To The City

Nov 9, 2011

Giants, Jets Just Getting Started

New York City is the place to be for football right now. With the city serving as the center of the football world, let’s recap where the Giants and Jets are at midseason.

Wall Street is the place to be right now. Well, it’s the place to be if you don’t have a job or any responsibilities at home, or if you don’t have a home, or if you don’t mind sleeping in a tent in the middle of the city in freezing temperatures, and if you can deal with people protesting everything and anything around you.

New York City is the place to be for football right now. It’s the place to be if you’re a Giants fan with the G-Men at 6-2 and in first place in the NFC East. And it’s the place to be if you’re a Jets fan with Gang Green at 5-3 and in a three-way tie for first place in the AFC East. One city with two first-place teams. It’s a glorious thing.

With New York City currently serving as the center of the football world along with the center of the business and news world, I thought it would be a good idea to combine everything going on in the city to help recap where both of the city’s football teams are at midseason.

Last season I handed out some midseason awards for the New York Football Giants, but this year I decided to do it a little differently. Instead of awards, I thought we would use quotes from the movie Wall Street with what’s going on in New York (and also in honor of “Kappo” wanting to be called “Young Gekko” in this season of How To Make It In America) to celebrate New York’s two first-place teams at midseason and analyze the first eight games.

“It’s a zero sum game. Somebody wins, somebody loses. Money itself isn’t lost or made, it’s simply transferred from one perception to another.”

I couldn’t read this quote without thinking about what I wrote on Monday following the Giants’ win over the Patriots.

The perception of New York City right now is that it’s a Giants town (or at least that’s what the Daily News told us on Tuesday). Sure, it sort of swings depending on who reaches the postseason and who doesn’t, and who lasts longer in the playoffs, but hasn’t it always been a Giants town?

It’s actually kind of crazy to think the city would be considered a Jets town because of their two AFC Championship appearances. It would be like the Mets being referred to as King of the City after their 2006 NLCS loss. (I actually know Mets fans who were under this impression). The Yankees hadn’t won in six years and had lost in the World twice and the ALCS once, but one NLCS appearance apparently was good enough for some Mets fans to think that their team was the king. Now Jets fans are under a similar impression after back-to-back AFC Championship Games (despite losing both).

It’s been a miserable three-plus year drought since the Giants last won a Super Bowl. That’s way longer than 42 years.

“Blue Horseshoe loves Anacott Steel.”

There is a whole group of people that loved the Kings of Leon well before “Sex on Fire” and “Use Somebody” were played on the radio more times than Adele is now. That’s how I feel about Eli Manning. Giants fans have known what he is capable of for years, it’s just taken everyone else a lot longer to catch on.

Everyone is buying stock in Eli after beating the Patriots and leading his team to a 6-2 record. It almost seems like the perfect time for everyone to board the Eli bandwagon as the Giants’ gauntlet continues this week in San Francisco, and the football world waits for Eli and the Giants to falter, so they can say, “I told you so.” Maybe the Giants will lose in San Francisco (though I don’t think they will), but it won’t be enough and shouldn’t be enough for any sensible person to give up on the Giants or their quarterback.

“This is the kid. He calls me 59 days in a row. Wants to be a player. Oughta be a picture of you in the dictionary under persistence, kid.”

I said after the Jets beat the Patriots in the playoffs that I didn’t know what Mark Sanchez is. I still don’t. Yes, I root against him and hope he throws five interceptions every Sunday, but he’s still someone you can kind of, sort of pull for even though he’s a Jet.

Sanchez has only thrown two picks in his last four games (the Jets are 3-1) after throwing five in the first four games (the Jets went 2-2). He’s only in his third year in the league and already has four playoff wins (all on the road), which is as many as Tom Brady has since the 2006 divisional round. But the Jets still have the training wheels on him and whenever they take them off to see if he can keep his balance, he rides his bike off the sidewalk and into a bush.

The reason I don’t think Sanchez gets as much respect as he should outside of New York (and I’m not sure he gets that much here) is that he came into the league in a great situation. The Jets were a team built to win when he showed up in 2009. (They were built to win in 2008 before Brett Favre lit their season on fire). Sanchez didn’t take over for a three-win team and wasn’t forced to be part of a rebuilding process. He was given a “now” team and asked to manage the game and to not do anything spectacular, but also to not screw anything up either. He has basically been given the same responsibilities as a 16-year-old babysitting for the first time. “Make sure the kids don’t run away or light the house on fire for the three hours we’re gone and make sure that they’re in bed by 10.” Basic stuff. It’s not Sanchez’s fault, he’s being treated this way, and you do have to give the Jets credit because it’s worked to an extent.

I don’t think the clock is ticking on Sanchez to prove himself the way it ticked on Tim Couch and David Carr and Joey Harrington because those three were in some rotten situations. But Rex Ryan isn’t doing his 25-year-old franchise quarterback any favors by guaranteeing things every time he opens his mouth like Ray Zalinsky in Tommy Boy. Let’s give the kid a few years to learn how to perform at a high level consistently in the NFL without Brian Schottenheimer holding his hand while he crosses the street. It pains me to say this, but I think Sanchez will be worth the Jets trading their first-round pick, second-round pick, Kenyon Coleman, Abram Elam and Brett Ratliff to the Browns for the fifth pick.

“If you need a friend, get a dog.”

There’s nothing really to this other than that I can picture Tom Coughlin saying this to his team in training camp or after a loss.

I have been waiting for Coughlin to give us his patented confused look after the Giants allow an improbable comeback this season. You know the face. The one where he looks like he is trying to solve the equation on the hallway chalkboard in Good Will Hunting. The one he gives Matt Dodge and his special teams after the DeSean Jackson punt return for a touchdown last season. So far we haven’t seen it, and I’m hoping we don’t.

Coughlin entered the season on the hot seat and right now it has cooled off. I still think he has to reach the postseason to come back in 2012. So far, that doesn’t look like a problem for a guy getting a lot of recognition for Coach of the Year.

“I don’t throw darts at a board. I bet on sure things. Read Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War.” “Every battle is won before it is ever fought.” Think about it.”

I doubt that Rex Ryan has ever read “The Art of War” or any book that isn’t full of “X’s and O’s” or starring The Berenstain Bears. I realize that Gordon Gekko’s quote is about how properly preparing for battle leads to victory, and while I think Rex does that, I also think he feels he will win no matter what preparation steps he takes.

In Rex’s mind the Jets are a perfect team every season and therefore they have nothing to work on and nothing to improve. At least that’s what it sounds like when he opens his mouth. Then the Jets lose a couple of games, Rex backtracks and makes some wild statements to cover up his original wild statements, and soon enough he’s like a guy on Cops handcuffed in the back of a cruiser digging himself a hole full of fiction. It happened in 2009 when he thought the Jets were eliminated from the playoffs. It happened in 2010 when the Jets were dominated by the Patriots on Monday Night Football and started a late-season slide. It happened this season when they lost three games in a row and he almost went Jim Mora on us.

I like Rex Ryan. He’s good for football and good for the Jets, and he’s an easy guy to root for (unless you’re a Patriots fan) as he straddles the line between being a public relations dream and a public relations nightmare. I just wish he would use his back page material for big games and meaningful situations, and not just any time there is a microphone or a camera or a cell phone or a Talkboy in front of his face.

“Just remember something. Man looks in the abyss, there’s nothing staring back at him. At that moment, man finds his character and that is what keeps him out of the abyss.”

Brandon Jacobs has regressed since his 1,089-yard 2008 season (which he amassed in only 13 games). Back then, Earth, Wind and Fire dominated the NFC, and the Giants were the best team in football. Since then Jacobs has dropped to 835 yards in 2009, 823 yards in 2010 and just 198 yards in 2011. He’s averaging his lowest yards per carry (3.3) since his rookie season in 2005 when he averaged 2.6 yards per carry (but he only had 38 carries in 16 games that year).

Jacobs had to take a $1.75 million pay cut just to stay with the Giants this season, and he will most likely be an ex-Giant this March when he is due to get a $500,000 roster bonus before a $4.4 million salary in 2012. With the drop in production, he hasn’t been able to compensate for his decline by being a positive locker room presence or a team player. Instead he has complained about his playing time, pouted about his use and touches and gone off to the media about his displeasure with the organization. I’m not sure if it’s a bigger upset that Fred Armisen is still on Saturday Night Live or that Brandon Jacobs is still on the Giants.

On Sunday, Jacobs was given a chance to redeem himself and prove to the Giants and the other 29 teams that he isn’t as washed up as we all think he is. Jacobs ran for 72 yards on 18 carries and had four receptions for another 28 yards for a total of 100 yards on the day, including a 10-yard touchdown run in the third quarter. It was his best game in two years. (He hasn’t had a 100-yard rushing game since Week 10 against the Eagles … in 2008!)

If Ahmad Bradshaw doesn’t get healthy soon then Jacobs is going to be counted on and given more chances to prove his worth to the NFL. He will most likely be cut by the Giants in March, but he can use the next eight weeks to try and recreate an image he has tarnished the last two years for potential suitors for 2012 and beyond, and hopefully help the Giants win in the postseason too.

“Greed clarifies, cuts through and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit.”

When Steve Johnson had a 52-yard reception against Darrelle Revis on Sunday, I thought Twitter was going to crash. An NFL team’s No. 1 wide receiver caught a pass against Darrelle Revis! History! That’s what it felt like when it happened. No one does that on Revis Island. No one.

I’m not being sarcastic or joking. I’m serious. No one does that to Darrelle Revis. It’s such a rare accomplishment that people felt the need to tweet about it. Could you imagine if people felt the need to tweet when big plays occurred against the Giants’ secondary?

“There goes Rob Gronkowski over the middle untouched for 27 yards.”

“DeSean Jackson with a 39-yard reception against Corey Webster.”

“There’s Miles Austin behind Aaron Ross for 21 yards.”

“Wes Welker has it for 24 yards before being brought down.”

Revis is so good that it feels like, maybe, he should have held out for even more money last year. I know that the $32 million of guaranteed money is a lot of money, but the guy is so much better than the next best guy at his position and anyone else in the league that he deserves it, and more. With Antonio Cromartie jumping routes and trying to catch balls himself instead of making sure they aren’t caught by the other team, where would the Jets secondary be without Revis, and with Cromartie and with Kyle Wilson? Not in first place.

“It’s not always the most popular guy who gets the job done.”

When the Giants were marching down the field with 1:36 left against the Patriots on Sunday, and Ramses Barden and Jake Ballard were the guys putting together the winning drive, how many Patriots fans turned to the person next to them and said, “Who the hell is Ramses Barden?” or “Who the hell is Jake Ballard?” in the same voice that Verne Lundqvist uses in Happy Gilmore to ask that same question about Happy Gilmore.

Prior to the season the Giants lost Steve Smith (Philadelphia) and Kevin Boss (Oakland) to free agency. They lost cornerback Terrell Thomas (knee), linebacker Clint Sintim (knee), defensive tackle Marvin Austin (pec), cornerback Bruce Johnson (Achilles), cornerback Brian Witherspoon (knee) and Jonathan Goff (knee). And on top of that, cornerback Prince Amukamara (foot) still hasn’t played in a game.

Even after all the injuries and the season-opening loss to the Redskins and the embarrassment at home against the Seahawks, the Giants are 6-2 and have a two-game lead over the Cowboys in the division. And when Ahmad Bradshaw and Hakeen Nicks and Kevin Baas were ruled “out” for Sunday’s game, the Giants turned to Barden and Kevin Boothe and D.J. Ware to play significant roles, and the Giants came away with a win.

The same way the Patriots have amazed everyone with their ability to replace proven stars and long-time Patriots with new and unproven names, the Giants have done that this season by getting production from guys who most of the league doesn’t even know exist. Last Sunday, it was Ballard and Barden. Who knows who it might be this Sunday?

“Wake up, will ya, pal? If you’re not inside, you are outside.”

I will never get over what happened to the Giants in 2008 and what could have been if Plaxico had just stayed in on the Friday before the Giants’ Week 13 game. I have little doubt that the Giants would have reached the Super Bowl and probably won it. Forget probably. They would have won it. The final four teams in the postseason were the Cardinals, Eagles, Steelers and the Ravens. The Giants beat all four of those teams in the regular season. But they lost in the divisional round to the Eagles because they were relying on Domenik Hixon to be their deep threat and became one-dimensional because of a lack of receivers.

I thought Plaxico Burress was going to have more of an impact with the Jets than he has. Sure, he’s 34 now and hadn’t played in an NFL game in almost three years when he came back, but the man who gave me one of the best sports moments of my life has just 322 receiving yards this season (he had 1 catch and 16 yards combined in Weeks 2 and 6). He does have five touchdowns, but three of those came in one game, and his season high for receiving yards in a game is 79.

Maybe Plaxico isn’t going to be the safety blanket for Mark Sanchez the way he was for Eli Manning and maybe the two won’t ever build the same chemistry he had for the other New York team, and that’s OK with me. I’m over Plaxico.

“Well, you’re walking around blind without a cane, pal. A fool and his money are lucky enough to get together in the first place.”

Did anyone see Rob Gronkowski and Wes Welker on Sunday? They were Tom Brady’s only two targets and they ran around the middle of the field like streakers trying to evade security guards and police officers. Their presence somehow caught everyone by surprise and caused the Giants secondary to have delayed reactions as if Zack Morris called timeout to give the Patriots receivers a head start.

This is a problem for the Giants. Yes, it’s more of a problem for some of the other teams in the league, but when Aaron Ross (you might know him by his birth name of Fumbles Magee) is tracking down open receivers like it’s a game of two-hand touch, and when Deon Grant is leaving Gronkowski open on fourth down for potentially the game when the whole world knows Brady is going to Gronkowski in the end zone, you know things are bad.

This wasn’t only a problem against the Patriots. The Giants let Rex Grossman (who isn’t good enough to start over John Beck) throw for 305 yards against them in Week 1. They let Sam Bradford go for 331 yards in Week 2. Charvaris Whiteson (the combination of Charlie Whitehurst and Tarvaris Jackson) threw for 315 yards in Week 5, and Tom Brady put up 342 on them in a losing effort. The good news: They are 6-2 despite this. The bad news: Drew Brees in Week 12 and Aaron Rodgers in Week 13.

“When I get a hold of the son of a b-tch who leaked this, I’m gonna tear his eyeballs out.”

Remember when Derrick Mason complained that there were “cracks” in the offense after Week 4 against the Ravens? Then before Week 5 against the Patriots, Mason, Burress and Santonio Holmes reportedly went to Rex to complain about Schottenheimer’s play calling.

And then after losing to the Patriots, Plaxico said, “Whoever wrote that story, they’re just making up stories. I would like to get the name of the guy who wrote it, because that never happened. Whoever wrote it … is just trying to make himself look good, but it’s all rumors.”

When asked about the meeting, Rex Ryan said, “If [the meeting did happen], then maybe I got hit in the head or something. I don’t remember that.”

And Santonio Holmes said, “I honestly have no idea where that came from [or] who could’ve said it. Me, personally, I have no issue with Coach Schottenheimer and I didn’t go and talk to Rex about anything.”

Two days later the Jets traded Mason to the Texas for a conditional seventh-round pick.

Mike Tannenbaum talked about the trade by saying, “What he said after the Baltimore game had nothing to do with the decision we made last night.”

Everyone believes you, Mr. T. No, really, we believe you…

“You’re on a roll. Enjoy it while it lasts, ’cause it never does.”

Jerry Reese was on top of the world after Super Bowl XLII. Then he went down a few notches after the divisional loss to the Eagles in 2008. Then he went down a few more after the 2009 collapse. Then he went down even more after the 2010 collapse. Then he was at rock bottom of his time as Giants general manager when the Giants preseason looked like a controlled demolition video. But now at 6-2 and in first place, Reese’s stock is slowly climbing back up as the Giants have shown exceptional depth on both sides of the ball.

Mike Tannenbaum has watched the Jets transform themselves from the “Same Old Jets” into an elite team in the league with back-to-back AFC championship appearances under his reign. He has made some questionable decisions and some exceptional ones, and has earned his self-proclaimed title as “one smart SOB” at times. But with Rex continuing to guarantee rings for a team that last won 42 years ago, Tannenbaum’s approval rating is going to mirror the success of the Jets in the second season.

“Well, life all comes down to a few moments. This is one of them.”

Three years ago this weekend, the Giants were 9-1 (on their way to 11-1 and then 12-4), Plaxico Burress hadn’t gone to the Latin Quarter with sweatpants on and a gun in those pants, and everyone expected the Giants to appear in the Super Bowl for a second straight year.

After missing the playoffs in 2003 and 2004, the Giants returned to the playoffs in 2006, and 2007, and 2008, and it felt like they weren’t going to miss the playoffs again. Then the collapse of 2009 happened after a 5-0 start to the season, and then the collapse of 2010 happened with 7:18 left against the Eagles in Week 16, and they haven’t been back since losing to the Eagles in the 2008 divisional round.

Things can change in a second in the NFL. Right now the Giants are coming off their biggest win since beating the Panthers in overtime in Week 16 in 2008, and New York Football Giants hype is selling better than Four Loko was at this time last year. The G-Men survived one week of the nine-week gauntlet, but have to travel to the West Coast this weekend to face the 7-1 49ers, and then they get the Eagles, Saints, Packers and Cowboys. A loss against the 49ers will get the collapse buzz brewing again like it would have if they had lost in Foxboro. The stench of late-season failure will follow the Giants until they can reach the postseason again, and right now they are set up for that to be this year.

But, once again, things can change and they can change quickly, and once they begin to change, it’s hard to stop them. It happened in 2009. It happened in 2010. The schedule has the Giants facing a perfect storm of devastating events that could make it happen again in 2011.

The NFL season comes down to a few moments. This Sunday is one of them for the Giants. Next Sunday will be another one, and the Monday after that, and the five Sundays after that. I have desperately wanted the Giants to get back to the postseason and with eight games left in the regular season, they are already there.

Blogs • Giants

Nov 7, 2011

Eli, Giants Still Kings of the City

Instead of sitting here and going over a step-by-step guide on How To Build A New York Football Giants Late Season Collapse Shelter And Survival Kit, I can sit here and talk about what was an important (and necessary) win for the G-Men.

The Patriots never lose to the Steelers. The Patriots never lose at Heinz Field.

They did and they did.

The Patriots never lose to back-to-back games. The Patriots never lose to NFC teams at home. The Patriots never lose at home, period.

They did and they did and they did.

The Giants took care of their own business on Sunday in Foxboro and picked up the slack for the Jets too, doing Rex Ryan’s dirty work and keeping the Patriots from taking over first place in the AFC East. The Giants did something that no team had done between Weeks 1 and 17 since 2002 when the Packers became the last team to beat the Patriots in Gillette Stadium. (However, I don’t think this is that much of an accomplishment since the Patriots have lost their last two playoff games at home.)

I said the Giants would beat the Patriots on Friday and NESN.com’s Mike Hurley agreed with me, and so did the Boston Globe’s Chad Finn. But as the week progressed and Ahmad Bradshaw and Hakeem Nicks and David Baas were declared “out” for the game, I began to have my doubts. Those doubts were erased yesterday and now I can’t help, but think about what the Giants would have done to the Patriots if they had their No. 1 running back, best wide receiver and starting center.

The Giants’ 24-20 win felt like a game that the Giants are supposed to lose and a game that Patriots are supposed to win.

The Patriots were supposed to be the team to go down the field with 1:36 left and score the game-winning touchdown.

The Giants were supposed to be the team that went up with 17-13, making their fans prematurely celebrate a win, only to allow the opposition to go down the field and then commit a stupid pass interference penalty and lose the game.

That’s how it would have ended for the old Patriots and for the old Giants. (I say old Giants in hopes that their sloppy play over the last decade-plus will finally come to an end). But that’s not how it ends in 2011 with these two teams.

If Eli Manning doesn’t orchestrate a game-winning drive with 1:36 left in the fourth quarter and two timeouts, and if Rob Gronkowski’s touchdown holds up as the winning touchdown, this column takes a whole different approach, as does the sports world. Here are some storylines we’re looking at today if the Giants lose 20-17 instead of winning 24-20…

a. The Giants have completed Phase 1 of another second-half collapse.

b. The Giants let the Patriots off the hook with missed opportunities and undisciplined penalties.

c. The Patriots still don’t lose back-to-back home games or regular season home games.

d. The Patriots are the best team in the AFC. Actually that isn’t a storyline, that’s just what Peter King would be saying.

e. Tom Brady is still the man of the fourth-quarter comeback.

f. Aaron Ross and Devin Thomas should find other employment. They should still do this. I have already created a Monster.com account for Thomas (no responses yet) and have forwarded Ross’ resume to a few job placement companies. (This is just something that needed to be addressed and this is the spot that made the most sense.)

For most of the game on Sunday it looked like these things might happen. The Giants kept getting solid starting field position and not doing anything with it. They fumbled a punt return and threw an interception in the end zone and took an unsportsmanlike penalty after scoring the go-ahead touchdown. Aaron Ross had shot the Giants in their left foot and Eli Manning had shot the team in the right foot. I assumed the Manningham penalty was the “Finish Him” move that I was waiting for to end the Giants’ chances, but for as bad as the Giants were, the Patriots were equally as bad. Actually they were worse.

I have this weird relationship with Tom Brady (I talked about this last year here and here). I like him, but I hate him. He’s the Derek Jeter of football. He’s a winner. He says the right things (minus that Plaxico Burress defense comment). He wears a Yankees hat away from the football field and is married to a smokeshow. But he is a legend and an icon in Boston and has brought immense happiness three times to the sports city I hate more than any other.

On Sunday, I planned on using every ounce of my body toward hating Brady. It wasn’t going to be hard with him playing against the Giants and trying to begin the process of making me go another football postseason without my team in it. Aside from his drive that led to the Gronkowski touchdown, I didn’t even really need to pull against Brady because he pulled against himself. Outside of that drive, Brady looked human the entire game. Actually he looked less than human. He looked like Carson Palmer. Two interceptions? One in the end zone? What happened to the guy that stands in the pocket like a statute and goes down the field with relative ease? Where is the best losing streak stopper that football has ever known? Was that even real life yesterday?

Instead of the Giants losing a game they had many chances to put away and win, well … they won. And instead of sitting here and giving my step-by-step guide on How To Build A New York Football Giants Late Season Collapse Shelter And Survival Kit, I can sit here and talk about what was an important (and necessary) win for the G-Men.

Thanks to Eli Manning and Jake Ballard, I don’t have to go to Wal-Mart today and start stocking up on bottled water and canned foods and batteries like it’s Y2K in preparation of another Giants collapse. I don’t have to avoid the Internet or TV for fear of seeing Gronkowski catch the go-ahead touchdown on a continuous loop. I don’t have to shut my phone off or stay off Twitter because of harassment from Patriots fans. I don’t have to do any of these things because the best fourth-quarter quarterback in the NFL plays for the Giants.

I would take Eli Manning over any other quarterback in the NFL in the two-minute drill at the end of the first half or at the end of the game. That might sound like saying I would rather eat a No. 6 at Wendy’s over a filet mignon, but that’s for people that still view Eli as Mr. Aw Shucks and the goofy No. 1 pick who would throw four picks at home against the Vikings and shrug his shoulders walking off the field as if to say, “It’s not that big of a deal.” There is still part of that Eli that exists. We saw it when he was intercepted in the end zone from the five-yard line on third down when the only open receiver he had was the back wall of the end zone. Eli gave away the chance for three points and gave away the momentum. It was a brain fart that we have tried to eliminate from his career, but he does relapse from time to time.

These untimely relapses cause me to tweet things like “Omaha! Omaha!” and make me understand why my friend Heff lit his Manning jersey on fire in the Giants Stadium parking lot after his four-pick game against the Vikings game I just mentioned on Nov. 25, 2007 (Heff still claims this sacrifice led to the Giants winning the Super Bowl.) But I support Eli like he is my younger brother instead of Peyton’s even though Eli is actually almost six years older than me. I have had his back in countless arguments as if I were the third of the four Manning sons, and gone to bat for him against his critics for really no reason whatsoever other than to not have the name of the franchise quarterback of my football team dragged through the mud. It’s games like Super Bowl XLII and Sunday’s win that let me know I wasn’t wrong in those arguments and have the same “I told you so” thoughts that I know run through Ernie Accorsi’s mind after the same games.

Right now everyone is all over Eli for his gaudy stats and for his third-best QB rating and his fourth quarter QB rating. He’s getting the attention he has deserved for a while and the credit he hasn’t been given before by leading a very banged-up Giants team to a 6-2 record despite losing what seemed like the whole team in preseason. (The man won the game on Sunday without his center, best receiver top running back!) This isn’t anything new though. Giants fans have known what Eli is capable of for some time now, and we have known what he can do in clutch situations. The rest of the world is just catching on now.

I feel like I discovered a band seven years ago and have been listening to them nonstop as a die-hard only to find out that they are now being played on the radio, have a video on MTV and are opening for Dave Matthews next summer. I get my irritated that Joe Buck and Troy Aikman kept talking about Eli’s season and that FOX kept showing graphics of his placement behind Aaron Rodgers and Brady in terms of quarterback rating, as if to finally say that he is part of that class. Everyone is ready to buy tickets for the Eli bandwagon, but it’s these newcomers that will be asking for a refund is he another multi-interception game in a loss over the finals eight weeks of the season.

Last year in my Just-Past-Midseason Awards for the Giants, I gave The Rudy Award for “No One Believes In Him Because They Can’t See It Every Week” to Eli. He was getting unfairly blamed for the team’s turnover problems because his receivers were tipping and dropping passes on nearly every play. I said that Eli reminds me of the quote in Rudy where Rudy says, “My father loves Notre Dame football more than anything else in the world. He doesn’t believe I’m on the team … because he can’t see me during the games.” Eli is better than the numbers suggest. He always has been.

Sunday’s win was eerily similar to the win from that glorious first Sunday in February in 2008. From the final score to the final drive to the Manningham touchdown in the corner of the end zone to the most important catch of the game being made once again by No. 85, yesterday felt a lot like Feb. 3, 2008.

Today I get to read about another hit to the Patriots “dynasty” (I use quotes because it’s a dynasty that Champ Bailey ended on Jan. 14, 2006) and the incapable Patriots defense. There are columns calling for the end of Chad Ochocinco’s tenure with the Patriots and Julian Edelman’s too. There are those questioning Bill Belichick’s coaching and general managerial tactics and whether or not the Patriots, at 5-3, are good enough for the postseason. I have read them all with a smile.

I know that it’s only Week 9 and the Giants only survived the first week of the nine-week gauntlet that will determine whether we are talking about their first January football game in three years or talking about Tom Coughlin’s job status in January for the third straight year. I also know that the Cowboys are now back to .500 and the Eagles have a chance to get there on Monday night, and despite a two-game lead in the division, the Giants aren’t going to run away and hide with a playoff berth like it’s 2008.

Since their devastating loss to the Seahawks that made it seem like they were still destined for 8-8 at best despite a 3-1 start, the Giants have won three straight games by a combined 10 points. They have had their “Ladies and gentlemen, the New York Football Giants!” negative moments this season and had several of them against the Patriots. But for a season that looked over before it started, thanks to some questionable decisions from the front office and then a never-ending slew of injuries, this is a team that Giants fans can be proud of through eight games. (I say through eight games to give myself an opt-out clause if this season starts to take on water at a 2009 or 2010 pace starting San Francisco this Sunday.) I came into this season with absolutely no expectations because of the way the team was banged up during preseason. All I wanted was for the Giants to be competitive and give me a chance that they would stay in it and would be playing meaningful football in November and December. I have gotten that chance.

A week ago the Patriots were coming off a loss to the Steelers and the city of Boston had started to panic. Yes, it was insane for a fan base to be that distraught over one loss to the defending AFC champions on the road, but those are the kinds of unrealistic expectations that the Patriots created at the beginning of the last decade. If Patriots fans were quick to question their team at 5-2 after one eight–point loss in Pittsburgh, what would they do if they suffered a second straight loss, at home, to the team that destroyed their chance at perfection?

Thanks to Eli and the Giants we get to find out.

Blogs • Email Exchanges • Giants

Nov 4, 2011

Giants Will Beat Patriots and Boston Agrees

It’s Giants-Patriots and it’s time for an email exchange with Mike Hurley.

By Neil Keefe
» More columns

It’s been almost four years since I watched the Giants end the Patriots’ perfect season on arguably the greatest night of my sports life. And when it’s possibly the best night of someone’s sports life, it’s likely the worst night for someone’s sports life on the other end of the game.

Enter Mike Hurley of NESN.com.

I have known Mike Hurley for almost three years now and not a day goes by that I don’t try to slip the names “Jay Alford” or “David Tyree” into a conversation with him or send him an email that asks “Is Plax going to play defense?” I have tried to make him relive a night he couldn’t have seen coming and a night that I wish I could relive every night.

I don’t have to make him relive it anymore. For the first time since Super Bowl XLII, the Giants and Patriots will play Sunday. No, it’s not the Super Bowl or the playoffs or in a neutral setting, but it’s as good as we’re going to get unless the Football Gods are willing to give us another miracle this winter. With the Giants heading to Foxboro and looking to maintain their lead in the NFC East, I decided to conduct another epic email discussion with Mike Hurley to get his feelings on the game and possibly bring up a moment or two from the past.

Keefe: Over the last two-plus years (almost three now), I have bombarded your email inbox and Facebook wall with videos of Eli Manning scrambling to find David Tyree, and Jay Alford soaring through the air like Bobby Orr trying to end Tom Brady’s career and not the Stanley Cup finals. I have sent you Tom Brady’s pre-Super Bowl XLII press conference asking, “We’re only going to score 17 points? OK. Is Plax playing defense?” after the wide receiver’s famous 21-17 prediction, and I have sent you remixes and mash-ups of that same press conference. I have tried to get you to watch Bill Belichick postgame session with Chris Myers outside the Patriots locker room. You have told me you will never watch that game again or any play from that game again and you usually end up threatening my livelihood.

But not anymore. Not this week. This week I know you were unable to escape the loops of the Helmet Catch and the replays of Plaxico Burress breaking Ellis Hobbs’ ankles in the end zone on every possible sports channel. I know you were unable to look away from every major sports website that’s been coated with coverage of the XLII rematch with endless content as everyone tries to relive that glorious day.

The other day I found myself wondering what would have happened if Brett Favre didn’t throw an interception to start overtime in the NFC Championship Game or what would have happened if Lawrence Tynes missed another field goal in that game. The answer is that the Packers would have played the Patriots in the Super Bowl and the Patriots would have been considered the best team in the history of football.

I thought about Bill Belichick deciding to go for it on fourth-and-13 instead of attempting the field goal, or his decision to not challenge the fumble ruling that would have been overturned in the Patriots’ favor. I remember being nervous that Brandon Jacobs wasn’t going to convert a fourth-and-1 and the Giants would turn the ball over on downs and lose in anti-climatic fashion, or that Steve Smith wouldn’t get that third-and-11 before going out of bounds. Sometimes I visualize Asante Samuel coming down with the ball that went through his hands and watching him go down and then get up only to run around the field celebrating with the other members of the Patriots defense. Once in a while I watch the Helmet Catch and wait for the officials to blow the play dead or for Rodney Harrison to knock the ball loose, but neither thing ever happens.

I know this is a lot to take in right off the bat and you’re probably crying or trying to not cry, and you might not even want to participate in this email discussion anymore. Now you’re probably searching on YouTube for clips from one of the three Super Bowls the Patriots won at the beginning of the last decade to try to build some self esteem and pride. I will give you a moment…

(Giving you a moment.)

Let’s start with last week. The Patriots never lose off a bye week. I know this. You know this. Everyone knows this. So what happened in Pittsburgh where the Patriots always win? What’s happened to Bill Belichick’s defense? How do the Patriots have the worst passing defense in the league? How do the Patriots have the worst anything in the league?

Hurley: That was absolutely, without question, the worst thing I’ve ever read. I hate you.

I’ll be honest, I’m having a little bit of a hard time answering your question at the end there, because you spent the first five paragraphs delivering haymakers. I’ll do my best though.

If you want the Patriots’ defensive problems explained to you in simplest terms, I can do that: Antwaun Molden, James Ihedigbo, Sergio Brown, Phillip Adams, Josh Barrett. Those are the names of guys who are being leaned on heavily to slow down opposing teams’ passing attacks.

Undrafted cornerback Kyle Arrington is actually having a decent year. Adams and Barrett were both seventh-round draft picks, and they play like it. Molden was a third-round pick by Houston in 2008 but was waived in August (Houston had the worst passing defense in the NFL last year).

That leaves Devin McCourty (first round, 2010) and Patrick Chung (second round, 2009) as the only reliable players in the secondary. Chung can only cover one person at a time, and McCourty’s experiencing a definite regression in his second year. Namely, he has no idea where the football is. Ever. That’s a problem when your job is to know where the football is.

Ben Roethlisberger did Sunday what Chad Henne did in Week 1 (Chad Henne!), Philip Rivers did in Week 2, Ryan Fitzpatrick did in Week 4 and what Eli Manning should do in Week 9. It’s not going to get any better for New England. Throw the ball against this Patriots defense, and you’ll get your yards and you’ll control the game. It’s really that simple.

Keefe: No retaliation from you? Nothing? You’re not going to tell me that the Giants haven’t won a playoff game since that Super Bowl or that they have missed out on the postseason the last two years? Oh, that’s right. The Patriots haven’t won a playoff game since before that Super Bowl and might as well have not made the playoffs the last two years with first-round exits at home to the Ravens and rival Jets. OK, I’m done with the insults. I promise.

You have already told me that you think the Giants will win. Chad Finn of the Boston Globe told me the same in the podcast I did with him. What is going on in Boston? What is in the water up there? I have never heard a Boston sports fan predict that their team is going to lose or that the thought of failure has even crossed their mind, especially when it comes to the Patriots. And you of all people think they will? This is unprecedented.

You made me feel good about the Giants’ chances by reminding me that Chad Henne picked apart the Patriots defense along with every other quarterback that has taken the field against the Patriots this year. But now it’s my turn to make you feel better about your team’s chances.

Ahmad Bradshaw is reportedly out with a cracked bone in his foot. That means that 2011 Brandon Jacobs is going to play. You remember Brandon Jacobs as a monster and beast of a running back whose career was about to take off after his impressive play in the 2007 playoffs and in the Super Bowl. But (almost) four years is a long time, and now Jacobs doesn’t run hard, doesn’t run people over and instead stands on the sidelines pouting when he isn’t throwing his helmet into the stands. He is a problem when he is the locker room or on the sidelines or in the game, and I’m surprised the Giants didn’t cut ties with him before the start of the season.

On top of that, Hakeem Nicks hasn’t practice all week with a hamstring injury (people usually heal from those quickly…) and his absence would put a massive dent into the Giants’ passing game and take away their deep threat. Yes, Victor Cruz and Mario Manningham have been good, but they aren’t Nicks.

So, now that you know that the Giants might be without their starting running back and possibly their best receiver, do you feel a little better?

Hurley: Questioning my integrity as a sports professional? How dare you.

What’s in the water up here is that the Patriots’ defense is bad and has been for a long time. You could take Ty Law and Rodney Harrison off the street and put them on the field, and it’d be an improvement.

I do like how this has turned into an argument where we each argue why the other’s team is going to win. Seriously this is the first discussion of its kind here.

I know Brandon Jacobs is hilariously bad. The Giants, for whatever reason, are on in Boston almost every single weekend, so I have to watch them with their super-tight, armpit-exposing jerseys, and their non-shiny, all-too-revealing gray pants. I think it’s a conspiracy to get Bostonians to buy the satellite packages because it’s so boring to watch the Giants play football every single Sunday.

So I saw last week as Jacobs fumbled a handoff, which Dan Dierdorf blamed on Eli for being “a little high,” and I know he’s terrible, but the Patriots have no problem stopping the run. They’re actually top 10 in that category (hey, go Patriots!!). They’re going to have problems stopping Eli though.

Now, if you want to have some faith in the Patriots, which you clearly already do, you can rely on history. The Patriots don’t lose twice in a row. They just don’t. They lose Super Bowls when they’re 18-0, but they don’t lose twice in a row. They lost two in a row in ’09 and ’06, but have actually posted six of eight seasons since ’03 without losing consecutive games. That has a lot to do with the coach and quarterback, who are obviously still in New England, so there’s reason to believe Tom Brady could act like Tom Brady and throw for 400 yards and five touchdowns.

You can also maybe hope that Eli puts up a stinker (it will always kill me that he threw 23 TDs and 20 INTs in 2007 but beat Brady’s team in the Super Bowl), which is always a distinct possibility.

But all of that is hope and has nothing to do with the events we’ve all witnessed this season. Don’t make me say Antwaun Molden’s name again!

Keefe: There isn’t much integrity to question.

You love saying Eli is “terrible or “horrible” or “embarrassing” or “the worst” or “a joke.” Maybe it’s you trying to compensate for XLII or maybe it’s just you wearing a Pat the Patriot costume when you say those things. Does Eli put up the numbers that his brother or Tom Brady or Aaron Rodgers or Drew Brees puts up? No. But he’s still one of the best quarterback in the league, and you just said that the Giants are on every Sunday in Boston so you should know this.

It’s hard to defend Eli all the time because of his inconsistent stats. But you know as well as anyone that there should be a stat for interceptions that are tipped by receivers or dropped by receivers, and if that category existed, Eli would lead the league in it because of the play of his receivers (mainly Steve Smith) the last few years.

Right now everyone is all over Eli for his gaudy stats and for his third-best QB rating and his fourth quarter QB rating. He is getting the attention he has deserved for a while and the credit he hasn’t been given before by leading a very banged-up Giants team to a 5-2 record despite losing what seemed like the whole team in preseason. This isn’t anything new though. Giants fans have known what Eli is capable of for some time now, and we have known what he can do in the two-minute drill whether it’s at the end of the first half or the end of the game. I think Cowboys fans remember it from the 2007 playoffs, and I know you still remember it.

So before we continue, I need you to finally admit to me that Eli Manning is good and not the 24-year-old goofball, “gee whiz” southern boy you still view him as.

Hurley: I think I can say that Eli is good while still saying he’s the “gee whiz” kid that I say he is. He’s at the lower end of the second tier of quarterbacks in the league. Rodgers, Brady and Peyton are the cream of the crop, with Brees, Rivers and Eli the next up. I’ve always maintained that, just as I’ve maintained Rivers is better than Eli.

I say that in part because I know we’re running out of time and space and it’s going to make you lose your mind without the ability to write about it, but also because I believe it.

So I don’t know what you want me to do. I’ll throw a parade for Eli on Sunday for being a slightly above average quarterback. A poor man’s Carson Palmer, if you will. Hooray for Eli!

Keefe: A poor man’s Carson Palmer?!?! A poor man’s Carson Palmer?!?! I feel like Zoolander questioning Mugatu … “One look?!?! One look?!?! I don’t think so!”

The mood in Boston this week has been one worth watching from afar. The Patriots lost one game on the road to a team that went to the Super Bowl last year and a team that could go to the Super Bowl again this year. It’s one loss at Heinz Field! Yet somehow Bill Belichick’s coaching and drafting techniques have come into question here over the last week, and you would think the Patriots are 3-4 and that the dynasty is finally over (even if it ended that night in 2006 when the Broncos beat them).

That’s what makes this week even more interesting. If the Giants can beat the Patriots in Foxboro and stir up old memories of XLII, and have the Patriots at 5-3 with a trip to the Meadowlands next week to face the Jets, who might have the same record then with the Bills (the Bills!!!) sitting in first place, well I know how I will be spending my Monday: reading every Boston sports site and listening to Felger and Mazz starting at 2 p.m.

What’s going to happen on Sunday? Well, I hope it goes something like this…

The Giants score the go-ahead touchdown in the fourth quarter on the first play after the two-minute warning on a pass to Victor Cruz, and he salsa dances in the end zone. Now, there’s 1:57 left on the clock and the Patriots have two timeouts, trailing by four and needing a touchdown to win. Tom Brady gets the ball and has a chance to go down the field in under two minutes at Gillette Stadium and be the hero he couldn’t be in Super Bowl XLII. Brady completes his first four passes and the Patriots are at the Giants’ 38 with 49 seconds left and they use their first timeout. The first play out of the timeout, Justin Tuck busts through the line, reenacting the Jay Alford sack from XLII. The Patriots burn their last timeout, and on the first play after that timeout, Corey Webster picks off Tom Brady for the win.

Giants 31, Patriots 27.

What do you think?

Hurley: Look, I know you love Eli, and you wear his jersey T-shirt to bed every night, but facts are facts.

31-year-old Carson Palmer’s career stats: 62.8 completion percentage, 7.0 Y/A, 1.50 TD-to-INT ratio

30-year-old Eli Manning’s career stats: 58.4 completion percentage, 6.9 Y/A, 1.43 TD-to-INT ratio

In terms of how I think this Sunday will play out, I don’t think it will be all that different from your prediction. However, I will not be referencing anything that rhymes with “Hay Malford Jack” because that is just cruel.

As much as there’s that gut instinct to believe in Brady and the offense, I can’t picture anything other than a whole lot of passing from the Giants.

Giants 34, Patriots 30.

Follow Neil on Twitter @NeilKeefe

Blogs • NHL

Feb 10, 2011

How to Fix the NHL

There are three main problems with the NHL and the way they currently police problems in the league that just need some slight modifying to make the game better and safer.

There’s no real beginning and end to any sports year, but I like to think that the Super Bowl is the New Year’s Eve of the sports year. The only difference is that everyone is hungover the Monday after the Super Bowl, but it’s not a holiday (though it should be) like New Year’s Day. And like New Year’s Day meaning the end of the holiday season and the long winter months ahead, the Super Bowl means the end of football and not quite the beginning of baseball with February and March still to go.

I didn’t care who won the Super Bowl. It was a lose-lose situation. If Ben Roethlisberger won for the third time there would be stories about how he “changed” and “turned” his life around over the course of a season. And if Aaron Rodgers won for the first time there would be stories calling him the next big thing and prematurely putting him in the same class as Tom Brady, Peyton Manning and Drew Brees.

So, no good could really come from the outcome of Sunday’s game. I just wanted the Rocky Mountains to be blue, the pizza and wings to be good, the commercials to be funny and for David Letterman to not sell out and do any more spots with Jay Leno like he did last year. All of these things happened, so for me it was a good Super Bowl. And if the Giants couldn’t win it, I’m just glad that the Jets, Eagles, Patriots and Cowboys couldn’t either.

The Super Bowl without the Giants in it serves sort of the same purpose as Marathon Monday did for me in college in Boston. I wasn’t running the marathon and I wasn’t going to attend or watch the 11 a.m. Red Sox game, so it was just an excuse to party and still is. If the Giants were playing on Sunday, it would still have been an excuse to party, but I would have actually been emotionally attached and focused on the game and wouldn’t have watched it in the setting that I did. But the Giants’ season ended six Sundays before XLV when the eventual champion Packers finished a job the Eagles started.

As soon as the Super Bowl ended, the awkward time of the year began as it does every year after the Super Bowl. The time between the Super Bowl and spring training, which is really the time between the Super Bowl and Opening Day. Because aside from a few highlights like the first day of pitchers and catchers, the first spring training game, St. Patrick’s Day in Hoboken and the first four days of March Madness, February and March are as bad as the weather.

Luckily I’m a hockey fan and with the weeks leading up to the trade deadline and under 30 games left on the calendar, the NHL is getting primed for the stretch run. The Rangers have 26 games remaining to find out if they can score more than two goals in a game on a consistent basis and John Tortorella has that time to prove that he should be back for another season in New York. The next eight weeks should be a lot of fun.

With the Rangers having four days off, I spent Wednesday night watching the Bruins-Canadiens game, which had the feeling of the Bruins-Canadiens games of two and three years ago with the melees of Bruins-Canadiens games from decades ago. It was the best game of the year and the NHL probably feels like it won the lottery that it aired on Versus (though I watched it on the NESN feed).

It’s safe to say that sold-out crowd of 17,565 at Boston’s TD Garden will be going back for another game in the near future. 14 goals. 192 PIMs. 12 fighting majors. Seven misconducts. Two line brawls. One goalie fight. It was nearly a three-hour infomercial for the NHL and the best unintentional advertising the NHL has done since last February’s Olympics. If only the NHL could figure out a way to market their game better on purpose then games like Wednesday night could just be the cherry on top. Then maybe they could compete with the other three leagues.

But what made the Bruins-Canadiens gongshow on Wednesday so entertaining that my Twitter and Facebook feeds were full of people commenting on the game and why my phone was constantly vibrating was because it was everything the NHL is supposed to be. The only thing it really lacked was big saves, which is odd because of two of the six All-Star Game goalies were playing.

The one thing the game didn’t have was cheap shots. Lingering problems from January between the teams were taken care of the way they are supposed to be: by dropping the gloves. No one had to get run from behind or given a flying elbow outside the finishing-your-check window. No one ran anyone’s goalie (though I was hoping for this to incite another bench clear), and no one tried to dangerously take out a skill player from the other team.

Why is this all of this a big deal? Because earlier in the afternoon, the NHL’s posterboy for dangerous play, Matt Cooke, was given a four-game suspension for his vicious hit from behind on defenseman Fedor Tyutin, which was the latest dangerous play on a resume that could go toe-to-toe with Darcy Tucker’s from seven and eight years ago. Cooke has become a household name in the NHL for all the wrong reasons – another unintentional marketing campaign by the NHL.

For the most part, the league office has protected Cooke because of wordy and awkward rules that leave a lot of the game open to interpretation. But when your head of discipline is Colin Campbell, nothing should be left open to interpretation. Otherwise we get situations like last year when Cooke left the scene of his brutal hit on Marc Savard unscathed, while Savard has battled severe post-concussion syndrome and is now out for the remainder of the year after suffering another concussion. So instead of all-around physical games like the Bruins-Canadiens game on Wednesday, we have games in which Cooke and other players that don’t care about the livelihood or careers of others are free to do whatever they choose because they know the league might not have an answer for them.

There should be more games like the Bruins-Canadiens played and fewer games in which skill players can’t use their skills because players with lesser talent like Matt Cooke aren’t skating around with intent to injure on every shift. There are three main problems with the NHL and the way they currently police problems in the league that just need some slight modifying to make the game better and safer. And since the only thing Gary Bettman has to worry about right now is how he can book Hoobastank to perform at next year’s All-Star Game, I think he would be willing to listen for once.

1. The Instigator Rule

We could talk about all the ways that Gary Bettman has ruined the NHL, but I don’t think anyone is willing to sacrifice two years of their life talking about Bettman’s questionable leaderships and nonsensical decisions. But the one rule that Bettman has enforced worse than any other rule is the instigator rule.

The instigator rule was implemented to protect players that couldn’t protect themselves from being jumped. Instead it has done the opposite, by letting players that can’t protect themselves commit acts against they shouldn’t be.

If Player A wants to do something to Player B they can, and then if they don’t drop their gloves and fight, it’s OK. And then if Player B or a teammate of Player B wants to get back at Player A or a teammate of Player A later, they can’t because Player A is protected by the instigator rule. It’s disgusting.

There’s a reason why Wayne Gretzky played as long as he did and was able to put up the points he did aside from his natural talent. Because Gretzky and other scorers of his era didn’t have to worry about players like Matt Cooke taking runs at him since Dave Semenko and Marty McSorley wouldn’t stand for that.

Sidney Crosby hasn’t played in a game since January 5 because of a concussion and no one really knows when he will return. The game’s biggest star is sitting at home with the stretch run of the season getting underway because he was hit in the head, and there is still nothing being concretely done to prevent hits to the head with the NHL’s most important marketing tool of this generation out of commission.

Crosby’s teammate Cooke (who will probably end up getting Crosby killed eventually) tried to take out the game’s second biggest star, Alexander Ovechkin, with a leg trip that would make you throw up your most recent meal. What if Ovechkin had gotten hurt or been forced to miss a lengthy amount of time? Any league is only as good as its best players and the NHL would be without their best two because of scum skating around doing whatever they please because the rules built to protect the victims are actually protecting the dirty players.

The instigator rule isn’t going anywhere because the NHL doesn’t want to increase fighting, though they do at least recognize it’s a necessary part of the game. But if you don’t want to increase fighting, make it so that head shots are no longer a part of the game, by enforcing serious suspensions for those that think it should be a part of the game. Otherwise the only way Matt Cooke will learn his lesson will be once it’s too late and someone puts a Tim McCracken-like bounty on his head.

2. Suspensions

I’m not sure how the NHL decides the length of suspensions. You would think there would be some sort of rulebook for suspensions or some sort of procedure or at least some logic to determine if a player should be suspended and the severity of the suspension. But none of these things exist. For some time I thought that Colin Campbell used a cootie catcher to decide suspensions, and I still think he does because he has done nothing to dispel this idea.

Last week, Daniel Paille of the Bruins, whose dangerous play resume consists of drinking too many Cokes during games in which he is a healthy scratch for the Bruins (which is often) made an illegal (though this is questionable because Scott Stevens made a career off similar hits and is considered a legend for it), but not dirty hit. He was given a four-game suspension.

Matt Cooke’s dangerous past should be enough where he shouldn’t be able to make money playing hockey anymore, yet after being a repeat offender, he was given the same suspension as Paille despite CHARGING at Tyutin, LEAVING HIS FEET and drilling Tyutin FROM BEHIND with a few feet between Tyutin and the boards.

For anyone that has followed Campbell’s time as the league’s principal disciplinarian, it’s evident he has no idea how to fairly decide the difference between legal and illegal the way that I can’t figure out the difference between navy and purple and dark green and brown sometimes. Jack Edwards, Bruins TV play-by-play man, captured Campbell’s unique decision making with a piece two seasons ago.

3. The Officiating

Maybe it’s just me but I think the referees and linesmen do a terrible job of letting things play out on their own. (I’m pretty sure it’s not just me). Instead of letting players police themselves the way it used to be, the officials interfere too much with the flow of the games and don’t let situations take care of themselves.

Too many times the officials interrupt the pace of the game try to stop things before they happen like the pre-cogs in Minority Report. Sometimes you need to let the game play its course and let the players play the game the way it’s been played forever. No one paid the insane prices the NHL charges to go see the officials. They paid to see the players. Let them play.

The NHL has tried its best to make fighting as clean and socially acceptable as possible from the wordy fighting rules to the tie downs on jerseys, and even the way fights are officiated with the refs hovering around the fight so close that it looks they are nervous parents allowing their children to walk for the first. Watch a fight from before the game was toned down when refs would be nowhere in site and players had a chance to actually settle the score without being separated before it ever gets going.

Sure there were dirty players then. There will always be dirty players trying to get an edge by attempting to injure others. But no one had to worry about Matt Cooke trying to tear their ACL or paralyze them because the league’s rulebook had evolved so poorly.

Blogs • NFL

Jan 19, 2011

And the Winner Is …

My plan is to co-write a book titled The Last Night of the Patriots Dynasty with Mike Hurley some day. On the cover I hope to have Jay Alford trying to actually end Tom Brady’s

My plan is to co-write a book titled The Last Night of the Patriots Dynasty with Mike Hurley some day. On the cover I hope to have Jay Alford trying to actually end Tom Brady’s life from the final seconds of Super Bowl XLII, the way Mariano Rivera is standing hopelessly on the mound at Yankee Stadium on the cover of Buster Olney’s book. The problem is that the way the Patriots franchise is going I’m going to have to keep re-releasing the book in different versions every year with new material since it never seems to end with the Patriots.

New Englanders like to think the Patriots are the Yankees. And from 2001 on, they have been (unless the Steelers find a way to win this year), but now they have finally completed their transformation into what the Yankees were from 2001-2008 and what Mike Lupica likes to call “The Greatest Regular Season Show on Earth.”

On Friday, I talked about how I wanted to see “the look” on the faces of Patriots fans on Sunday night after a New England loss. And on Sunday night when I walked down Washington Street in Hoboken to get pizza after the game and “J-E-T-S!” chants were breaking out all around me as if Fireman Ed was leading a parade, I began to think back to February 4, 2008, the day after Super Bowl XLII, when I woke up and walked down Hanover Street in the North End in Boston and it looked like the opening scene from I Am Legend. There was no one to be found and if you did find someone they looked like their whole life had been devastated. It was a great feeling.

Obviously the feeling from the last few days isn’t nearly the same as three years ago since I’m not a Jets fan and this wasn’t the Super Bowl. It’s nowhere near the level of happiness that I experienced after Super Bowl XLII. It’s more like the relief I felt when the Rays beat the Red Sox in Game 7 of the 2008 ALCS. I still despise the Jets (aside from Sunday when I joined Gang Green for a day), but I didn’t hesitate to start sending text messages to Boston friends that sent me text messages after the Rangers finished off the Yankees in the ALCS when they didn’t have a horse in that race. There are still a few people that haven’t responded, and it’s now Wednesday, so I’m actually worried for their well being after that embarrassment.

I watched Super Bowl XLII with my current roommate, Redz (also a Giants fan), and I watched Sunday’s game with him as well – both games the Patriots couldn’t possibly lose. And after the game on Sunday, I asked him “Would you rather be here right now where everyone is in a good mood since the Jets won and Boston lost, or would you rather be in Boston to see that “look” again on the faces of everyone who predicted another Super Bowl because Bill Belichick and Tom Brady can’t lose?” We both agreed. We wished we were in Boston.

The Jets’ win wasn’t exactly Team USA beating the Soviet Union in 1980, but the Jets are faced with the same situation Team USA was. Team USA was built to win the gold medal, but the team they were built to beat they ended up playing in the semis. And after they beat the Russians, it was almost as if they had already won the gold, but they still had to play Finland and not have a letdown that would make the win over the Soviets a lot less meaningful. The Yankees were in the same spot following the 2003 ALCS and they had a letdown against the Marlins in the World Series and it took away from how significant Aaron Boone’s home run was. Beating the Steelers on the road for the second time will be hard enough. Beating them after upsetting the Patriots will be even harder.

Now that the Patriots are home for good and the Jets have advanced, I find myself in another predicament in that I’m running out of teams to hope win the Super Bowl. Most of the teams I didn’t want to see win the Super Bowl are gone. The Eagles are gone. The Patriots are gone. The Ravens are gone. The Saints are gone. But the Jets, Steelers and Packers are still alive and well. The Bears are my only option left and I don’t know if they’re the answer. I feel like a contestant on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire and I’m running out of lifelines, and I’m running out of options.

Jets-Steelers is another matchup that has a lot of potentially awful repercussions. The Jets could win and send the city into a green-and-white frenzy. Or Ben Roethlisberger, the role model he is, could win for the third time in six years. And on the other side, Joe Buck’s Packers and Aaron Rodgers are still in it. That leaves me with only one option … become a Jay Cutler fan and hope Soldier Field can propel the Bears into the Super Bowl and then hope they get lucky in Dallas. I don’t think I can trick my brain into believing in Jay Cutler for a second let alone an entire game on Sunday and then again on Super Sunday.

I still have a few days to sort out the pros and cons of what’s left of the NFL playoffs and the teams still playing and who I want to win, but for now, it’s time to look back on a win that solidified the Jets and a loss that shook New England’s foundation on the same night of the Golden Globes. It’s been almost three days since the Boston sports world got kicked in the privates and bottled, and the time to capitalize on the misery of my Boston friends who thought that the Jets would lay down and serve as a red carpet for the Patriots to the AFC Championship is coming to an end. With the attention turning to Jets-Steelers and the upset of Sunday fading, let’s take one more look back at the events of Sunday by handing out some hardware. I just wish I had Ricky Gervais to give an opening monologue.

The Trent Dilfer Award for “The ‘Experts’ Were Wrong Again”
I will never forget during the 2008 preseason when Trent Dilfer said, “The Giants will be the biggest disappointment of the year and will miss the playoffs.” They did end up disappointing the tri-state area after Plaxico decided to carry a gun into Manhattan, but starting the year 11-1 should have had ESPN searching for a new NFL analyst.

I like Bill Belichick because he likes the Yankees. I like that he’s consistent with his answers to questions from the media. Dumb questions get dumb answers, and if you have a problem with Belichick’s answers then you really have a problem with the questions. But my whole problem with Bill Belichick isn’t a problem that he created. My problem with Bill Belichick is a problem that the media created for him.

All week we heard about how “You don’t want Bill Belichick to have two weeks to plan against you. You DON’T WANT Bill Belichick to have two weeks!” Now Belichick didn’t ask for people to believe in this theory that if given an extra week to prepare he’s untouchable and will think up this flawless plan to beat any opponent. We heard about it before Super Bowl XLII. We heard about it this week. But the last time I checked, Rex Ryan is a coach in the NFL too, and he might not have three rings, but in Bill Belichick’s first two seasons in the NFL he didn’t make back-to-back AFC Championships.

The three Super bowls in four years at the beginning of the decade put Belichick in a league of his own, but since the Patriots’ Super Bowl win over the Eagles, they have gone 5-5 in the postseason, losing the last two years at home in their first game of the playoffs each time.

It’s hard to have a winning record in the NFL. It’s even harder to win a championship let alone three of them in a four-year span, which is basically impossible at this point in a league of parody. But maybe it’s time to relax on thinking that it’s a foregone conclusion that Bill Belichick WILL win in the playoffs, and if given an extra week, will embarrass his opponent.

The Tom Brady Award for “Making A Prediction When You Say You Don’t Make Predictions” 
Let’s go back to the week leading up to Super Bowl XLII …

“We don’t make predictions. We just let our play do the talking,” said Tom Brady.

Now let’s go back to last week …

“We’re just going to do our talking on the field. That’s the way we’ve always chosen to do,” said Tom Brady.

Umm … it might be time for TB12 to find a new line.

A lot of comparisons are being made between the Giants game plan in Super Bowl XLII and the Jets game plan on Sunday since both times Tom Brady didn’t look like himself in a big game. But in 2007, the Giants had Brady on his back the whole game with continuous pressure and he didn’t have any time. Brady had time against the Jets, he just couldn’t find an open receiver.

Brady looked like he was traded to the Patriots on Sunday morning and had three hours to learn the entire playbook and the offense. He was standing back in his statue stance without pressure, panning the field and still couldn’t make a play. And when he did try to hit a receiver, they usually weren’t looking or the ball would land at their feet.

The look on Tom Brady’s face throughout the game look like he just got pantsed waiting for the bus in junior high school, and I would like to thank the TV director for all those shots of him.

The Geico Insurance Award for “Mike Westhoff Probably Keyed The Cars Of Everyone On Special Teams” 
If you told me that Nick Folk and Steve Weatherford went out drinking on Saturday night, I would say, “OK, that makes sense.” Could a kicker and punter have had a worse combined effort? OK, Giants fans, don’t answer that.

When David Harris didn’t run it in on the Tom Brady interception, I thought, “Nooo!” When the Jets ran three running plays after that, I thought, “Nooo!” When Nick Folk missed the field goal, I yelled, “Nooo!” and started thinking about the Jets letting the Patriots off the hook as if a team had just left the bases loaded against the Red Sox with no outs in the first inning.
And then when Weatherford decided that he would make Matt Dodge not feel so bad about his career and started bombing punts into the end zone, I figured the Jets couldn’t win with their kicker and punter taking the day off. Thankfully, I was wrong.

The Eli Manning Award for “People Didn’t Believe in Eli Either” 
I don’t know what Mark Sanchez is just yet. I don’t know what he’s going to be. But I know one thing: he wins playoff games. And I was wrong about him all along and I admit it.

Sure, Mark Sanchez was brought into a great situation in New York and it’s not like he was drafted by an expansion team and asked to be a hero and carry the team, but he can only play in the situation he was put into, and he’s a doing an impressive job in it. In the last calendar year, he has more playoff wins (4) than Tom Brady has in the last three years, and he has as many playoff wins as Eli Manning has in career (all four of Eli’s came in 2007).

I want to not like Mark Sanchez. I used to not like him. I still kind of don’t. But he says the right things and goes out and plays hard. And he made Pete Carroll look like the jerk he is by proving him wrong about leaving college early. It’s no secret that Carroll only wanted Sanchez to stay at USC for his own personal reasons. A class act that Pete Carroll is!

No, I’m not about to jump on the Sanchize bandwagon, but I respect him, and he’s making it hard for me to not like him.

The Tino Martinez Award for “Everyone Thought He Would Bring Back The Winning Magic In His Second Stint With The Team” 
On Opening Night at Yankee Stadium in 2005 when Tino Martinez came in as a defensive replacement, I honestly thought the right field bleachers were going to cave in. The cement under my feet felt like it was going to give at any moment, and when Tino made that diving stop after being in the game for only seconds, I was confident a riot was going to ensue. That is what Tino meant to Yankees fans and that is how badly people thought that by brining Tino back, the Yankees were brining back what they had lost in the four years he was away from the team: the ability to win it all.

The Patriots would have beaten the Colts in 2006 if Deion Branch were on the field instead of Reche Caldwell. Instead he was in Seattle because the Patriots didn’t want to pay their two-time champion and Super Bowl XXXIX MVP.

This year, the Patriots got rid of Randy Moss to bring Deion Branch back, and all anyone heard about was that Deion Branch “is the Patriots” and everything they have been about since 2001. Now that Branch was back in the mix, the Patriots were going to win the types of games they won when they were winning championships.

Well there was Deion Branch dropping the pass that would have given the Patriots a chance to win the game in the fourth quarter, and there he was after the game crying the way that LaDainian Tomlinson cried when the Patriots celebrated on the field in San Diego. The way I feel embarrassed for Larry David when he does something in Curb Your Enthusiasm that just makes you feel awkward on the couch of your living room is how embarrassed I felt for Branch complaining about the Jets “flying” around Gillette Stadium. If you don’t want the opposing wide receivers to run around your field pretending to be jets then don’t lose home playoff games as the No. 1 seed and heavy favorites. Otherwise say that it’s disappointing you lost, accept blame and responsibility and clean out your locker and go home until next year.

The Christian Bale Award for “Best Supporting Actor” 
I’m scared of what Bart Scott has in store for sound bytes if the Jets win the AFC. I’m petrified of what he is capable of if the Jets win the Super Bowl. And I think Sal Paolantonio probably feels the same way.

I respect Bart Scott because when he talks trash he actually talks trash. He doesn’t say “he is going to let his play on the field do the talking” and he doesn’t need to make clever foot references in a press conference to get his point across. He just comes out and tells it how he sees it and doesn’t care who he offends. And then he backs it up.

The Nick Swisher Award for “Making Poor Decisions On Your Own”
I hate when Nick Swisher tries to bunt because he should never be bunting and he simply doesn’t know how to bunt. But Swisher tries his stupid bunting in the middle of July against the Orioles. What Patrick Chung did (if he really did call for the fake punt) would be like Swisher bunting in the fifth game of the ALDS with absolutely nothing to gain.

How is Patrick Chung, a second-year player, allowed to make that decision? How does Bill Belichick allow that play to be called? In the end, Chung isn’t the one that this loss taints. It taints Belichick and Tom Brady, the faces of the franchise. Just like when the Colts took the penalty for roughing the punter near the end of the Jets game and they showed Peyton Manning on the sidelines, you just knew he was thinking, “This loss will come back to me and be a blemish on my career and not the career of the 53rd man on the roster playing on special teams.” Unacceptable play, but, hey, I’ll take it.

The Billy Walters Award for “Being The Man” 
On Sunday night, CBS ran a piece on 60 Minutes about Billy Walters, a sports gambler in Nevada that bets hundreds of thousands of dollars on football and basketball games and won $3.5 million on the Saints in last year’s Super Bowl.

I take back anything bad I have said about Rex Ryan. He’s a hero. And I’m not joking when I say that. He’s the man.

When Rex ran into the end zone to celebrate Shonn Greene’s touchdown with the players, he won me over. For a minute I thought Rex was the one that scored the touchdown and seeing the players celebrating with him and letting him be one of the guys for that moment made you realize that when Bart Scott says he would “die for Rex Ryan” that he probably isn’t the only one on the Jets that would.

When I look at my team, the Giants, I see a team that if Tom Coughlin was fired tomorrow, the players would give remarks like, “football is a business” or “it’s not Tom’s fault” when really the majority of the team probably wouldn’t care and would likely be happy. (And Antrel Rolle verified this on Tuesday.) If Rex were fired, I could see the Jets threatening to not show up and play. That’s the vibe you get from this Jets “team” and it’s something you don’t get from the Giants.

The Jets are Rex Ryan. The entire team has bought into his trash talking system, and during Hard Knocks when he kept reiterating, “Play Like A Jet” I thought, “What is wrong with this guy?” Playing like a Jet meant not winning championships. But what Rex meant was that “Playing Like A Jet” meant “Playing Like A Jet From When I Took Over This Team.” Nothing with the Jets before Rex Ryan matters and like he said, “Same old Jets going to the AFC Championship for the second year in a row.”