Keefe To The City

Jan 14, 2011

A Giants Fan For Jets

Jets. Patriots. Someone must win. This really is my nightmare.

There are people that wonder why I despise the Patriots since they play in the AFC, and there are people that wonder why I despise the Jets since they represent New York. Well, let me explain…

I grew up as a Giants fan and therefore it’s a birthright to not like the Jets. I am not a New York fan that likes all New York teams just because they are New York. To me, there is no such thing as having an AL team and an NL team or an AFC team and an NFC team. You have one team and that’s it. And as someone that lived in Boston for five years, in which the Patriots won the Super Bowl and the Red Sox won two World Series, I have a hatred for Boston sports team that runs much deeper than the normal New York fan that dislikes Boston teams.

So now on Sunday, I am forced to sit back and watch as one of the two fan bases I am not a fan of gets to celebrate a trip to the AFC Championship. It’s not as bad as if the Mets and Red Sox were to ever meet in the World Series again, but it’s up there.

Back on December 6, I went to Gillette Stadium for Monday Night Football thinking that I would see a possible AFC Championship preview and what was being hyped up as the “Regular Season Super Bowl.” After about 10 minutes of real time, the “Regular Season Super Bowl” became as painful and boring to watch as Ronnie and Sammi have become. I left Massachusetts thinking, “45-3? Did that really just happen?” and thinking that the Jets might be taking the Tom Coughlin Way To Postseason Elimination: an epic collapse.

When people talk about this Sunday’s game, they talk about that Monday game. No one is bringing up the Jets’ Week 2 win over the Patriots way back in September and no one remembers that there was a time not long ago when Eric Mangini and the Browns dropped a 34 spot on the Patriots. But I guess there is a reason for that. A lot has changed since the Patriots lost to the Jets, and a lot has changed even since November 7 when the Browns embarrassed the Patriots. Mangini isn’t even the coach of the Browns anymore and on Wednesday, he was on ESPN talking about the Browns hiring Pat Shurmur. It was so awkward I had to change the channel.

I think the Jets can win on Sunday. I hope they can. And every time I think, “How do I not take the Jets at +8.5?” I think of sitting in the press box at Gillette Stadium a month ago and wondering if the Patriots would ever punt again this season. I hope that the Jets are able to play the way they did against the Colts and keep the game close, but I keep envisioning Tom Brady completing pass after pass across the middle and Mark Sanchez doing what he usually does in Foxboro: throw interceptions (seven interceptions in two games).

The Jets are playing with house money. They went into Indianapolis as the underdog and won. Now they are going into Foxboro against the No. 1 seed and facing the best head coach/quarterback maybe ever and being asked to win again. The only problem is that the Jets haven’t accepted this underdog role, so they sort of took away the whole “house money” concept. Over the last week they have run their mouths off like the wild teens that go on Maury and end up in boot camp and now no one feels bad for the Jets or views them as an underdog away from the point spread.

The Patriots are the ones in the tough spot. A lot of people believe the Jets-Patriots rivalry is equal to or greater than the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry, but any sober person would tell you that’s not the case. The Patriots aren’t the Yankees of the NFL, but they are in the same spot that the Yankees found themselves in every season up until the devastating events of 2004. If the Patriots win, they are supposed to win (whether or not Rex Ryan believes that), and if they lose, it’s catastrophic, as NESN.com’s Jeff Howe told me. Any Yankees fan that enjoys playing the Red Sox in the ALCS is delusional. There is nothing fun about it. There is nothing to gain and everything to lose. And if the Yankees and Red Sox were to meet in the 2011 ALCS, the same standards would hold true even though the Red Sox have won two World Series in the last seven years.

I’m not sure if the Jets will win in Foxboro, but I know that’s it’s a lot better for me personally if they do. Here are five reasons why a Jets’ win on Sunday would be good for me (aside from the obvious fact that the Patriots would be losing):

1. The Chance For Rex Ryan To Get To The Super Bowl

I once saw Dave Attell do stand-up and the show started at midnight, and Dave had already done two shows that night. Saying he was drunk would be like saying Marisa Miller is good looking. But as the show went on and on and a waiter kept delivering drinks to Dave, the show only got better and better. I’m sure the people at the 8:00 show got a good show, but it was definitely not as good as the people who went to the 10:00 show, and their show definitely was not as good the show that I saw at midnight. This is what’s happening with Rex Ryan.

Rex started off talking trash on the first episode of Hard Knocks, it got better once the regular season started and then once the Jets began to play important games. Then the playoffs started and he began to call out anyone that walked by him leading up to this game where he has used material on Tom Brady and Bill Belichick. Just think about some of the crazy things that have come out of Rex’s mouth and then think about this: he has NEVER been the head coach for a team in the Super Bowl. Imagine Rex Ryan with two weeks between the AFC Championship (if the Jets can get there) and the Super Bowl? I think only a two-week marathon of The Office or Friday Night Lights could keep me as entertained.

2. Revenge For LaDainian Tomlinson And Antonio Cromartie

I have never been a LaDainian Tomlinson guy since he would always find a way to find the bench during postseason games against the Patriots when he would sit with his helmet still on and tinted visor with the oversized Chargers coat keeping him warm as he kept the bench warm. And I didn’t get why it was such a big deal what the Patriots did after they beat the Chargers in the AFC Championship in 2006 when they celebrated on the Chargers field. Don’t want teams celebrating on your field? Don’t lose at home in the playoffs. It’s pretty simple.

But Tomlinson and Antonio Cromartie have great disrespect for Tom Brady and Bill Belichick and the Patriots, and they are just waiting to erupt with trash talk after finally beating the Patriots in the postseason. The kind of trash talk that will show up as “[expletive]” in the papers and with the censored “BEEEEEEEEP” on TV. Tomlinson and Cromartie find things to say to Brady and the Patriots now and they have never been successful against them in their careers. It’s scary to think what they are capable of if they do finally beat them.

3. “We’re only going to score 17 points?”

On December 7, I said, “I should hate Tom Brady. 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. But everything about Tom Brady says I should like him.”

I still don’t know if I like Tom Brady or not, but I know one thing: I don’t like the way he talks to the media about big games. “We will let our play do the talking on the field.” I think I heard that comment before. Oh, that’s right, I did.

Listen, Antonio Cromartie is in no place to be saying what he did to Tom Brady when he should be worried about not having a repeat performance from that Monday night game. But, it’s always fun to see how uncomfortable Tom Brady gets when someone has choice words for him and to see his reaction.

I have a question for Tom: Is Plax going to play defense?

4. Patriots Fans Dealing With The Ultimate Embarrassment

Patriots fans still can’t believe they lost to the Giants in Super Bowl XLII. They can’t believe that David Tyree made the helmet catch or that Plaxico Burress was as open as he was in the end zone for the game-winning touchdown. But what they really can’t believe is that they lost to Eli Manning with the perfect season on the line.

No one in New England gives Eli respect. Then again, no one outside of the tri-state area that doesn’t see him play every game does, so it’s not surprising. But there is a big difference between losing to Eli Manning and Mark Sanchez. A big difference. If you think Patriots fans have a hard time still accepting that the Mannings ended their season in consecutive years, think about the trouble they will have sleeping if Mark Sanchez goes into Foxboro and comes out with a trip to the AFC Championship

5. Daggerrrrrrrrrrrrr!

Since the Patriots’ last Super Bowl win, their season have finished the following ways…

2005: Lost to Broncos in divisional round

2006: Lost to Colts in AFC Championship

2007: Lost to Giants in Super Bowl

2008: Didn’t make playoffs

2009: Lost to Ravens in wild card round

It has been dagger (Champ Bailey) after dagger (Peyton Manning erasing an 18-point deficit) after dagger (Eli to Tyree) after dagger (Brady’s ACL) after dagger (Ray Rice) for the Patriots. A loss at home as the No. 1 seed to their division rival … well, that certainly won’t be easy to get over.

I will never forget watching Super Bowl XLII at my friends’ apartment where the ratio of Patriots fans to Giants fans was about 35 to 5. During the second half, all the Giants went into one of the bedrooms to watch the game, and when Randy Moss caught the go-ahead touchdown pass with 2:42 left, all of the Patriots fans came charging into the room where we were and started prematurely screaming and yelling in our faces. Minutes later we came crashing into the living room where it looked like every Patriots fan at the party had just heard a car had run over their family dog. It was one of the greatest feelings of my life. The look that everyone in the dorm saw on my face when Ruben Sierra grounded out to end Game 7 of the 2004 ALCS had once again found the faces of Boston sports fans.

Part of me wants to go to my friends’ apartment in Boston this Sunday to watch the game for the chance to see that look again. But another part of me knows what it’s like to see the jubilation of winning on Boston fans’ faces, and even if I don’t like the Jets, it will pain me.

On Wednesday, I texted my friend Mike Hurley, a lifelong Patriots fan, and asked him “On a scale of 1-10, how devastating will a loss on Sunday be?” He replied, “16.5.” I have seen that 16.5 before. Actually I saw what was probably a 36.5. I want to see it again.

For the first time and only time in my life … J-E-T-S! JETS! JETS! JETS!

Blogs • Rangers

Jan 12, 2011

Random Rangers Thoughts

I miss school for nights like Tuesday night. Nights when the forecast is calling for snow and I spend my entire night watching The Weather Channel and scouring the internet for every last piece of

I miss school for nights like Tuesday night. Nights when the forecast is calling for snow and I spend my entire night watching The Weather Channel and scouring the internet for every last piece of information as if I were an actual meteorologist trying to determine whether or not I’m looking at a school cancellation or a 90-minute delay.

There wasn’t a better feeling than deciding to go all-in on my own forecast and choosing to not do the book report due the following day by gambling that school would in fact be closed. Growing up in Guilford, Conn., I became scary good at knowing the state’s cities and towns in alphabetical order to know how many more schools before “Guilford” would come across the school closings ticker on the bottom of the TV of the local newscast.

Many times I left my grade in the hands of the superintendent hoping they would decide that we would just go an extra day in June when there isn’t any homework and teachers are showing movies rather than showing new ways to find the value of “x.” I was basically the Tom Coughlin of challenging when it came to predicting snow days, and I wasn’t always right, but more often than not I came away with an extra day to work on the book report I had yet to start.

With snow crushing the tri-state area on Tuesday night and all of the talk in the area focused on the J-E-T-S and their divisional playoff game against the Patriots on Sunday, and the Yankees trying to make good with their fans by entertaining the idea of bringing in Justin Duchscherer (I do like this idea), it was just another devastating day in what has become a cold winter for Yankees and Giants fans.

But there’s always the Rangers and Knicks and on Tuesday night the two teams that call the Garden home provided a getaway for any fan who can’t stand the fact that there’s a real chance Sergio Mitre (who probably shouldn’t be in Major League Baseball) might be in the $200 million Yankees rotation, and for anyone that might not be able to take another contradictory and outlandish press conference from Rex Ryan.

I haven’t given enough attention to the Rangers this season. Partially because the Yankees and Giants have already given me enough material to take me through 2011 and we are just 12 days into the year. And partially because the 2010-11 Rangers are exactly like every Rangers team of the last few years: good enough for the No. 5 or 6 or 7 seed, but not good enough to make it out of the second round. If you showed me the standings from 2006-07 and 2010-11 on January 12, I probably couldn’t tell you which year is which given the Rangers place in them. I’m not sure this season is going to end any different than the last few.

Sure it would be nice for a Stanley Cup run this summer, just as the baseball standings are beginning to take shape and just as the Knicks return to the playoffs for what seems like the first time in my lifetime. But when hoping for the Rangers to score three goals in a game becomes as hopeless as asking the Yankees to score runners from third base with less than two outs, I’m not sure a championship run is in the cards.

For nearly six hours on Tuesday night, my TV was on MSG with the Rangers hosting the Canadiens and the Knicks following with a game in Portland. After a long hiatus from talking about the Blueshirts I decided that now is as good a time as any to revisit some familiar issues with the Rangers and bring up some new ones. Here are five things that I thought about at length during and following Tuesday night’s 2-1 loss to the Canadiens.

How good is Henrik Lundqvist and why is he making only his second All-Star Game appearance?

I stand by my belief that Henrik Lundqvist is the best goalie in the NHL and has been for a while now. I am confident that if he was on the 2008-09 Red Wings, they would have won the Cup, and if he was on the Red Wings, they would probably be looking at their fourth in a row and we would be looking at the an unstoppable dynasty. The only problem is that he doesn’t play for the Red Wings. He plays for the Rangers where scoring goals is unheard of and odd-man rushes are as common as Amtrak delays.

On Tuesday, Lundqvist was again spectacular. Two goals against on 38 shots might not seem like much, but we have an Eli Manning situation here where you have to watch Lundqvist every game to understand just how good he is. The one difference is that Lundqvist is better at his position than anyone else, while the same can’t be said for Eli. But if you did watch the Rangers on Tuesday, you would have seen several shorthanded 2-on-1s for the Canadiens and an improbable amount of times when white shirts were able to get behind the defense and crash the net coming into the zone. At one point in the first period, I honestly thought that the Canadiens were playing “Rebound” against Lundqvist.

Lundqvist is the best and most important player on the Rangers and the sole key to deciding how far this team can go this season. I still hold out hope that at some point Glen Sather will make a move or two that will make this team an actual contender, and I hope these moves come before he uses up all of Henrik Lundqvist’s prime and his career. The King deserves better than that.

Is Mats Zuccarello my new favorite player?

My favorite player in the NHL is Brian Gionta though Chris Drury (fellow Connecticut native) and Marian Gaborik (was fastest in the league while with Minnesota) are close in the standings. I have watched Gionta since his days at Boston College when I got to see him play against Yale in New Haven twice when he made a mockery of NCAA hockey with his scoring ability. Listed at 5’7″ (most likely an exaggeration), it was remarkable to see what Gionta was capable of as the smallest player on the ice at all times, and now he is looking at his seventh straight 20-goal season, including the impressive 48-goal season in 2005-06.

I think Mats Zuccarello could be what Brian Gionta has been for me if given the chance. With basically the same build as Gionta and the scoring ability that you have to be born with, Zuccarello brings the same sense of excitement and anticipation as Gionta when he’s on the ice. Tuesday night was just the ninth game of Zuccarello’s NHL career, but you can see how much more comfortable he has gotten with his decision making since his debut, and he is taking shots and chances that he wasn’t taking even a week ago as the new guy in town.

My favorite player title is Mats Zuccarello’s to lose.

Defense?

After six years of campaigning for the Rangers to get rid of Michal Rozsival, they finally did! So, let’s take a minute to celebrate that! But there is still a lot of work to be done with this young defensive group.

After the first period, Mike Sullivan was congratulated for having Marc Staal selected for the All-Star Game, but no one questioned the man in charge of the Rangers defense as to why the Canadiens were dominating below the hash marks and inside the slot for most of the first period. It’s easy for Mike Sullivan to look like he’s doing his job when Henrik Lundqvist is in net.

I’m glad that the average age of the Rangers defense is 24.9 (thanks to Brian Monzo for that fact), but the only problem is that it would be good if Henrik Lundqvist weren’t four years older than that average. Sure it would make for some miserable seasons at the Garden (not like we haven’t seen those before), but I’m scared that by the time the young defensive group becomes an elite unit in the league, Henrik will be on his way out his prime and starting to get benched like Martin Brodeur.

Can we finally fix the NHL All-Star Game for good?

There are few people more excited about the new way the teams will be decided for the NHL All-Star Game than me, but there are probably just a few people in general excited about the 36 players the league’s hockey operations department selected to play in the game. I haven’t decided exactly who I would cut from the roster for the NHL Slightly Above Average Players Game, but I know that having Ales Hemsky and David Backes showcasing their talents isn’t good advertising for the “casual fans” that Gary Bettman has been seeking approval from since the day the lockout ended.

On Tuesday when Brandon Dubinsky scored a pretty goal in the first period when he went around Hal Gill (who hasn’t?), Joe Micheletti jumped to Dubinksy’s side when he nearly blew out the speakers on my TV yelling at Sam Rosen, “He’s upset he didn’t make the All-Star team!” To be fair, Dubinsky is having a career year (17-20), and probably should be on the team over some players that did make it, but I don’t know if even Brandon Dubinsky should be in the “All-Star Game.”

I like the idea that the NHL has made the game more like a pickup game with their captains and picking teams, but any format in which Alex Ovechkin has to be picked by the committee because the fans didn’t vote him in needs some adjusting. Maybe it’s time that the players just picked the rosters since the fans and the league office seem incapable of doing so.

Will Gary Bettman answer my phone call?

Gary Bettman is always looking for ways to increase his fan base. He’s moved cold weather teams to warm weather, he’s added instigator rules and tie downs on jerseys and locked out the league for an entire year. He’s changed the rules to increase scoring, allowed head shots to take place with little consequences and even painted a trapezoid on the ice behind the net to make sure the best goalies can’t use some of the skills that make them the best. OK, so maybe all of his ideas are horrendous, but come on, at least he’s trying! Give the man an “A” for effort!

I might not have the answer to every problem that Gary Bettman has created since he started his mission in 1993 of trying to make sure the NHL is extinct by 2020, but I have one way to increase the interest in the tri-state area for anyone who might have not grown up playing hockey or wouldn’t know what channel to find a Rangers or Devils or Islanders game on if there was a gun to their head.

My proposal is to let Joe Micheletti and Chico Resch call every Rangers-Devils from now on. Sure, it would be devastating to lose the magical voice of Doc Emrick for these special games, but I guarantee that there would be a brawl in the booth within the first five minutes of the game, as the game would sound like it’s being called by a Rangers fan and a Devils fan sitting at a bar with Chico yelling, “Ohhh Joe, what a save by Martyyy there!” and Joe making excuses for the Rangers.

And it doesn’t have to stop there. We can have Joe Micheletti do the color for a Rangers-Bruins game and let Jack Edwards (who still has never seen a Bruin lose a fight) do the play-by-play. I’m an Andy Brickley fan, but I think even Brick would step aside to see the spectacle that Jack and Joe could bring in a game based upon who could be the bigger homer. If regional networks are going to let this type of broadcasting take place then why not let the NHL capitalize on it?

Blogs • NFL

Jan 5, 2011

My Super Bowl Dilemma

This column was originally published on WFAN.com on Jan. 11, 2011. I hate football. Not really, but the Giants are giving me no choice. Two weeks ago, I asked for three things for Christmas. I

This column was originally published on WFAN.com on Jan. 11, 2011.

I hate football. Not really, but the Giants are giving me no choice.

Two weeks ago, I asked for three things for Christmas. I asked for the Yankees to produce something that resembles a starting rotation that can compete in the AL East, the Giants to make the playoffs and for the Knicks to land Carmelo Anthony. The Giants were eliminated from the playoffs on Sunday, and the Yankees are thinking about bringing in Jeff Francis or Jeremy Bonderman to round out their rotation. Carmelo might as well just get traded to the Nets or Bulls now and put me out of my misery.

I wish I could have been in the locker room prior to the Giants-Packers game and delivered the pregame speech for the Giants. It wouldn’t have been like the speech in Rudy when Rudy gets up on the stool and starts with, “We’re gonna go inside, we’re gonna go outside, inside and outside.” It would have been more like the famous Bobby Knight halftime speech (which you can find on YouTube uncensored), highlighted by the line, “You will not put me in that position again!”

Well, the Giants put me in that position again. That position is being on the outside looking in on the NFL playoffs for the second straight year.

Tom Coughlin will return in 2011 in search of a three-peat of collapses to unseat the Mets as the worst late-season team in the city, but hopefully with him, Plaxico Burress will return. I’m not sure what Plaxico can bring at the age of 34 and having not caught a pass in the NFL since Nov. 16, 2008, but I do know that the Giants are 20-18, including their only playoff game, since he last appeared in a game for them.

While Brandon Jacobs was busy packing up his equipment in a trash bag and giving Bruce Boudreau a run for his money with F-bombs as he cursed out photographers, Giants fans are forced to watch the playoffs without a horse in the race … a race that includes the chance for many hated franchises of mine to win it all. I’m forced to sit and watch the NFL playoffs for the second year in a row as a spectator while my Jets fan friends and Patriots fan friends get to actually participate. Good thing there’s beer and point spreads.

Someone will win Super Bowl XLV, but it won’t be the Giants. The scary part is it will likely be a team that I don’t want to see win the Super Bowl. And because the Giants aren’t going to The Dance, I have to sit back and think of which team I would want to take to The Dance with me and which team I would rather leave at the front door waiting for me to pick them up for The Dance.

It wasn’t easy, but I was finally able to sort out the 12 playoff teams from which team I would most like to see win Super Bowl XLV to which team I don’t want to see win at all. Here it is:

1. Colts
I’m a Peyton Manning fan and a year ago I was certain that Peyton Manning was going to win his second Super Bowl and solidify his place as arguably the greatest quarterback ever. Then there was that Pierre Garcon drop, the onside kick and the pick six, and Peyton left Miami with as many rings as his brother.

Peyton is now 34. He isn’t retiring tomorrow, but he also isn’t getting younger and is running out of time in his prime when he will be as dangerous as he now. If he can’t win it this year, it’s just another year closer to retirement for him, and another year with just one Super Bowl to his name, and that will keep him out of the conversation as the greatest ever.

2. Chiefs
It would just be weird if the Chiefs won the Super Bowl, but hey, it’s better than a lot of other options.

A Super Bowl would bring Kansas City some sort of happiness since their baseball team hasn’t for a while and likely won’t for a while. It would be a nice story if Matt Cassel wins and will likely cause crazed sports radio callers in Boston to argue that the Patriots should have never gotten rid of Matt Cassel, no matter how insane that sounds. And if you think I’m kidding, you have never lived in Boston. Go Chiefs!

3. Seahawks
Who knows why Randy Edsall left UConn the way he did? But he’s a college coach and with college coaches, you can’t be surprised when they do sleazy things. Enter, Pete Carroll … the poster boy for sleaze.

Carroll had so many NCAA violations that the NCAA gave USC a two-year bowl ban and eliminated 30 football scholarships from the school. And when Carroll sensed the NCAA closing in to bring the bill, he said he had to go to the bathroom and left USC with the check. I don’t feel bad for USC, but what a stand-up guy Pete Carroll is!

Part of me wants the Seahawks to win it all because it will just be an absolute joke if a 7-9 team wins the Super Bowl. But the bigger part of me wants the Saints to beat them 67-3 to prove how much of a joke it is that a 7-9 team can make the playoffs. And I can’t help but think of Pete Carroll during his postgame press conference on Sunday night saying how proud he is of his team and sounding like Rex Ryan by being ecstatic over an accomplishment that isn’t worth celebrating.

All I know is in Week 9 when the Giants embarrassed the Seahawks in Seattle, I thought Charlie Whitehurst might never watch another football game for the rest of his life let alone play in one that would send the Seahawks to the playoffs. Now he might start a playoff game, and if he wins a playoff game, I think I’m done with football.

4. Falcons
I’m very protective of Eli Manning. I’m like the parent of the kid that all the other kids pick on. And truthfully, you shouldn’t feel that way about your franchise quarterback, but that’s life as a Giants fan.

Matt Ryan hasn’t won a playoff game, but he didn’t bring the Falcons to a 13-3 record this season, and the hype around him rivals the hype around Aaron Rodgers. And there isn’t a non-Giants fan that doesn’t think Ryan is better than Eli. That’s fine, but I hope the Falcons go down because of it.

5. Bears
I promised I wouldn’t say another bad word about Jay Cutler if he beat the Packers in Week 17. So what did he do? Oh, just throw a pick in the red zone and another to end the game. Nothing major.

Here I’m nervous that Lovie Smith might pull the plug on the game and not start Cutler or take him out early and ruin the Giants’ chances. I have never been so angry to not see Todd Collins in a game I needed to win because the way the Bears defense played, I think they would have won the game if anyone other than Cutler started.

When the Bears were 3-0 and the Giants embarrassed them in Week 4 and forced Cutler and Collins out of the game and Caleb Hanie had to take snaps, I thought, “That’s the end of the Bears.” But they somehow managed to win eight more games. But I can’t root for a team the Giants crushed and a team that let the Patriots come to Soldier Field and blow them out by 29 points.

6. Steelers
I have never liked the Steelers in the least bit, and that was before Ben Roethlisberger finally got caught for being such a good role model. There’s no way you can pull for Big Ben if you aren’t from Pittsburgh.

7. Ravens
I’m still not over Super Bowl XXXV. I’m still not over disliking Ray Lewis or Terrell Suggs or Joe Flacco’s unibrown.

8. Saints
Of course the Saints would barely beat the Falcons on the road and then lose to the Buccaneers at home in Week 17 to close the back door to the playoffs for the Giants. Of course.

The Friday before the last Super Bowl, I wrote:

“But should the lasting image of the 2009 NFL season be the visor-wearing Sean Payton embracing Jeremy Shockey? Is seeing New Orleans win its first Super Bowl enough to want Jeremy Shockey to win a Super Bowl? Is the Saints getting their Walt Disney-like win worth knowing that Jerry Reese’s trade of the disgruntled and disrespectful tight end worked out in New Orleans’ favor? No, no and no.”

The same holds true for the 2010 NFL season.

9. Packers
My distaste for Green Bay has grown in recent years and after the embarrassment against the Giants it is at an all-time high. If you combine what the Packers did to the Giants with the national lovefest for Aaron Rodgers, it’s enough to make you sick. How about we let Aaron Rodgers win a playoff game before we put him in the same conversation as Tom Brady, Peyton Manning and Drew Brees?

I’m not really worried about Green Bay winning it all because their running game is just embarrassing. And I know this because after Ryan Grant got hurt, I was forced to pick up Brandon Jackson in fantasy football, and Jackson was so bad that I will never play fantasy football ever again. Aaron Rodgers didn’t need to get a concussion against the Lions, but the Packers kept running the ball against a terrible secondary for some reason, and then why Rodgers tried to run the ball himself, he got popped. It wasn’t until Matt Flynn came into the game that the Packers started to throw the ball, and nearly beat the Lions and then the Patriots because of it.

One question: Do you think FOX will let Joe Buck wear his Aaron Rodgers jersey under his suit for playoff games, or is he only allowed to do that for regular season games?

10. Jets
I don’t like thinking about a Jets parade and J-E-T-S echoing through the city streets. It would be like the Mets winning, and maybe even worse. I have spent a lot of my life despising the Jets and here I’m making a list of the order of which team I want to win the Super Bowl, and they aren’t even last. Richard, what’s happening?

But how fun it would be listening to Joe and Evan after a Jets’ Super Bowl win? Probably fun enough for me to actually pull for them if they play either of the next two teams along the way.

11. Patriots
It was a hard decision to figure out which team I wanted to win less between the Patriots and Eagles, and I nearly turned to my friend’s Magic 8 ball to make the decision for me.

There is no way I want the Patriots to win the Super Bowl. None at all. I would rather walk across the George Washington Bridge naked, during rush hour, while it’s freezing rain than see the Patriots win. But if they do win, I understand. They’re 14-2 and the No. 1 overall seed. They have the best coach and the best quarterback in the league.

However, a Patriots’ championship would put a serious damper on the possibility of adding more chapters to The Last Night of the Patriots Dynasty book that I plan to write with Mike Hurley.

12. Eagles
This is my nightmare!

The Third Annual Eagles Devastate My Life Party was even more of a gongshow than the first and second. 31-10. 8:17 left. Why? Whyyy? Whyyyyy?

There are no redeeming qualities about the Eagles. I’m not a Mike Vick (hat tip to Cris Collinsworth) fan like the rest of the country and there is nothing to like about DeSean Jackson’s Broadway shows in the end zone. I wish Andy Reid had gotten run out of Philly along with Donovan McNabb and there is something that makes me angry when Reid puts up one finger for the extra point when it’s obvious the Eagles wouldn’t be going for two in the situation (I know a lot of coaches do this, but only when Reid does it, does it make me mad).

Before the Packers game I wrote:

“I don’t think you can have your wife cheat on you, take all your money and find out your kids aren’t really your kids and decide to get back out and start dating the following weekend. It just doesn’t work like that. And I don’t know if the Giants can come back from such a devastating defeat and win in Lambeau Field this Sunday no matter what Antrel Rolle says or guarantees.”

And unfortunately, I was right.

Philadelphia already took Cliff Lee away from me. They aren’t going to win the Super Bowl. They can’t.

Blogs

Dec 29, 2010

Year in Review, Part I

It seems like yesterday that it was the morning of January 1, 2010 and I was riding the Metro North from Grand Central to Connecticut with a pounding headache as a result of a hangover,

It seems like yesterday that it was the morning of January 1, 2010 and I was riding the Metro North from Grand Central to Connecticut with a pounding headache as a result of a hangover, looking like I had just relived October 2004. As the train slowly moved through Noroton Heights and Rowayton and every other unnecessary stop on the Metro North route, I probably would have agreed to watch the Yankees blow another 3-0 series lead in exchange for a Gatorade.

At the time of the longest train ride of my life, the Yankees were world champions, the Knicks were as bad as ever, the Giants’ season was over, Rex Ryan had declared the Jets’ season over before the Colts revived it and Mets fans were convinced that Citi Field wouldn’t be a problem for their new $66 million left fielder, Jason Bay. A lot has changed since that day, but most people still don’t care what the Devils, Islanders and Nets are doing.

Outside of the drama and changes in the sports world in 2010, I got to see Gordon Gekko return to Wall Street, a robbery in The Town in front of the laundromat I used in Boston’s North End when I lived there for two years in college and Anne Hathaway naked for about two hours in Love and Other Drugs. I was reminded why Friday Night Lights is the best show on TV in Season 5 and why it’s devastating that there’s only six episodes left in the series. I became addicted to The League, fell for the Jersey Shore again and was happy to see Kenny Powers and Stevie Janowski return to the baseball world.

Even though the Yankees came two wins shy of returning to the World Series and the Giants collapsed for the second season in a row, 2010 was a good year.

I wrote a lot of words during 2010, and my first piece for WFAN.com was “I’m Going To Miss Johnny Damon” on February 1. Now here we are, nearly 11 months later and the Yankees are reportedly having talks about bringing back Damon when he probably should have never left in the first place. As John Sterling would say, “You can’t predict baseball, Suzyn!”

Most of the words I wrote this year were about the Yankees, but at some point I touched on every metro team that matters. When I went back through everything I wrote to come up with something for the end of the year, I thought it only made sense to write about the people that gave me things to write about in the first place. So here it is … The 20 People That Most Influenced My Writing In 2010. I just wish we could have Liev Schreiber from 24/7 narrate it.

20. The Voice of God … Bob Sheppard … The Voice of God
I actually didn’t write very much about Bob Sheppard, but as a Yankees fan he has been a major part of my life even though I never got the chance to meet him. I think when you grow up as a Yankees fan, you dream that one day you will have the chance to hear your name echo across the Bronx sky with perfect diction and pronunciation from Bob Sheppard.
When Sheppard first started missing games, I never really thought he would be gone for good at any point. Even at his age you just felt like he would find a way to get back to the Stadium and be as much a part of it as Monument Park and the facade.

Paul Olden, who is the PA announcer now, is good at his job in my mind, though I don’t know if there is any way to actually measure how good or bad a PA announcer is (but I do know I am not a fan of the Fenway Park announcer). The only problem is that Olden is not Sheppard no matter what he does or how good he is. There are rumors that Danny McBride might take over The Officeonce Steve Carell leaves at the end of this season, but it won’t be the same no matter how good McBride is or how good anyone is that they choose as Carell’s replacement.

It might be unfair to compare Olden to Sheppard or to hold him to that standard, but that’s what happens when your act follows the best there ever was and ever will be.

19. The Boss
In the back of my mind I always liked to think that George Steinbrenner was still in charge of the Yankees even though the last few seasons were filled with stories about the demise of his health.

I remember riding the Metro North and listening to WFAN on October 7, 2007 to the city to meet my friend Redz to go to Game 3 of the ALDS, which was the day that Ian O’Connor’s exclusive interview with George Steinbrenner was printed in The Record. Steinbrenner told O’Connor that Joe Torre’s job was on the line if the Yankees didn’t beat the Indians. I don’t know if anyone outside his immediate family really knew what Steinbrenner was capable of in October 2007, but I liked to believe that he was still calling the shots even if he wasn’t, and this story sure made it seem like the old George was still running the Yankees.

When the Yankees missed out on Cliff Lee, I said, “In the 37 ½ years of his life that he ran the team (I know that number depends on when he technically stopped being in charge and you also have take away the years he was banned), only one ace turned down the Yankees’ money (to my knowledge) and that was Greg Maddux. Steinbrenner has been dead for five months, and the number of pitchers to turn down the Yankees’ money has already matched the total number during Steinbrenner’s 37 ½ years as The Boss.” Then a few days later Kerry Wood signed with the Cubs for $1.5 million when it was reported that the Yankees were offering two years and $10 million.

I don’t know what the future holds for the Yankees with Hal running the team, and Hank to some degree, and Brian Cashman not facing the same pressure and accountability for his actions. I don’t know if the Steinbrenner family is serious when they say that they don’t plan on selling the team, but I do know that we are a couple of days away from 2011 and the Yankees don’t have a fourth or fifth starter.

18. John Tortorella
I haven’t written anything about John Tortorella since the end of last season when I thought he should be fired, and he probably should have been. If the Rangers find a way to not make the playoffs this year, I don’t think there is any chance that Tortorella comes back. Then again, Glen Sather has been able to keep his job with the Dolans for this long, so nothing is out of the question.

So far with the Rangers, Tortorella has blown a 3-1 playoff series lead and missed the postseason, and I am still waiting for him to show me something. Maybe I expect too much from the coaches of my teams, but I think anything other than advancing a couple of rounds in the postseason this year deserves being fired.

Once again Sather has built a team that will most likely end up with the No. 5 or No. 6 seed in the postseason and probably lose in the conference semifinals at best. Everyone is still waiting for the Rangers to have a team that is supposed to win and a team that fans can feel confident about winning. How many years of Henrik Lundqvist’s career are the Rangers going to waste?

17. Amar’e Stoudemire
I was skeptical about the signing of Amar’e Stoudemire at first and I was even more skeptical when I realized that he would be the only big name free agent that the Knicks would come away with in the summer sweepstakes. But Amar’e has been everything and more for the Knicks and has brought back a winning mentality to the Garden and rejuvenated the interest of basketball in New York City.

I still wonder what the Knicks would be like had LeBron James decided that he would rather be the King of New York than the King of South Beach where it’s just not the same. The Knicks aren’t ready to win it all just yet, but with LeBron they could have been, and basketball in the city would have been as big a deal as it has ever been.

What Stoudemire has done in just a couple of months has been inspiring to watch and with Carmelo Anthony only wanting to play in Manhattan, the future of the Knicks finally looks bright for the first time in a long time. We have Amar’e Stoudemire to thank for that.

16. Omar Minaya/Jerry Manuel
I don’t think either of these two are worthy of their own spot, so I put them together since they will be linked together in Mets history.

Sandy Alderson has been the Mets general manager for as many games as me, but just watching how he conducts his business and what his presence feels like from his in-studio interview with Mike Francesa, I think Mets fans should be happy with the future of their team in the hands of Alderson. However, the Phillies rotation likely put a damper on any division title dreams for the Mets for the next five-plus years. But I don’t think any Mets fan has to worry about Sandy Alderson’s friends taking their shirts off and challenging minor league affiliates of the Mets, or get nervous that Sandy is going to blame his team’s public relations mess on media members wanting jobs in the organization.

I am a Willie Randolph fan, and I wasn’t a fan of the way he was let go by the Mets considering he could have done just as bad a job as Jerry did for the last two-plus seasons. But part of me is sad to see Jerry go since it was like seeing Wade Phillips go. Wade Phillips didn’t deserve to be the coach of the Cowboys anymore (he probably never did), but now with a competent person coaching the team, I am scared that the Cowboys might realize their potential and actually win. The Mets aren’t that talented, but they probably could have fared better than they did with Jerry since the middle of 2008.

15. Winter Olympics Hockey
I know that this isn’t a person, but it was an event that dominated the month of February at a time when the sports world is starving for excitement between the Super Bowl and March Madness and Opening Day, and the hockey tournament filled that void after being a disappointment in 2006.

After being embarrassed four years ago in Turin, Italy, Brian Burke put together a worthy Team USA that didn’t lose a game until the gold medal game when they lost to Canada in overtime. Ryan Miller became a household name for three weeks, though I am sure non-hockey fans don’t even know who he is now 10 months later, and for at least a few days this country was engulfed in hockey. I thought the level of interest would carry over into the NHL regular season and I think it did at first, but eventually hockey went back to being the way it has always been: a sport for lifelong fans and not casual fans.

The NHL can keep changing the rules to increase scoring or create better marketing campaigns or even fire Gary Bettman, but I think the NHL will always have that special niche with its fan base, and I don’t think there is anything wrong with that. Maybe if less warm-weather cities had team and more cold-weather cities had teams the game would gain popularity, but maybe just one month every four years is enough for casual fans if it is as good as the 2010 Olympics were.

14. Matt Dodge
I don’t like Matt Dodge because he isn’t a good punter, but I don’t blame any of the Giants’ losses this season on him because since the first day that his punting became a problem, he has proven that he doesn’t deserve to be in the NFL. Tom Coughlin stuck with him for the whole year when he could have gone another route, and at this point watching Dodge take the field is just a joke and I just expect the worst possible scenario when he is waiting for the snap.

The same way that DeSean Jackson and Devin Hester and Dez Bryant bring that sense of excitement and anticipation to special teams, so does Matt Dodge. On any punt attempt, Dodge might drop the snap, fall down, bobble the ball, lose a shoe, kick the ball on a line drive to the returner, kick the ball into the stands or completely whiff on the kick. I am still waiting for him to try and throw a 60-yard touchdown pass instead of punting.

I actually felt bad for Dodge when Coughlin was out on the field ripping into him after the collapse in what was the most uncomfortable TV moment aside from the five nights a week when Jay Leno is introduced on the Tonight Show and audience members awkwardly go up to the stage and give him high fives. I’m pretty sure Matt Dodge didn’t give up the 21 points that tied the game and I’m pretty sure he wasn’t the one missing every tackle on Jackson after Jackson muffed the punt. Matt Dodge has become a household name as a punter, and that is as bad as an umpire or referee becoming a household name. You just want to do your job and do a good job because there isn’t a non-die-hard fan that knows the names of good punters or good umpires or referees. Just the bad ones.

13. Rex Ryan
I’m not sure who Rex Ryan wants to be. One day he wants to be an NFL coach and the next day he wants to be friends with the players and a class clown with the media. So far his team has underachieved by the standards he set in Hard Knocks (leading the league in wins), but you would never know that from the way he conducts himself.

I was still on the fence about whether or not I liked Rex Ryan and then on Sunday when he was giving his press conference and found out in the middle of it that the Jets made the playoffs because the Jaguars lost, and he started acting like the Jets had decided their own fate with a convincing win, well it was then that I finally decided Rex isn’t for me.

I don’t agree with everything that Bill Belichick does or how he handles the media, but I get why he acts that way, and at least he is consistent. He gave this interview outside the locker room after losing to the Giants in Super Bowl XLII, and had the Patriots won, his postgame interview probably would have been very similar.

Call him smug, or arrogant or pompous, but call him consistent. That is all I ask of Rex. Be consistent. Find a personality and stick with it. Either be an authority figure or a coach that is buddy-buddy with the players. Don’t try to be both because you can’t be both.

12. Joba Chamberlain
Three years ago it was rare if someone reached base against Joba Chamberlain, and it was nearly impossible to score against him. Now he is only in the majors because of the name he built for himself in 2007.

I don’t get Joba Chamberlain. I don’t know how he used to be so dominant and now he is so inconsistent. I think part of it has to do with Brian Cashman’s genius plan to stretch him out to be a starter then to be a reliever then to be a starter then to be a reliever again. And I think the other part of it is that Joba is too cocky to make adjustments to the league after the league clearly made adjustments to him.

I was part of the “Joba should be a starter” party and now I think we are all seeing why. Forget the fact that he was barely given any time to progress as a starter, but let’s look at where the rotation currently stands with a major gap in major league ready arms to fill the voids left by not signing Cliff Lee and Andy Pettitte’s indecision. If Joba had remained on the path to be a starter, one of the two rotation spots would be filled right now, and I wouldn’t need to worry about whether A.J. Burnett is going to finally earn his salary or if Andy Pettitte could put his family on hold for another year.

Thanks, Cashman!

11. DeSean Jackson
I didn’t necessarily write about DeSean Jackson, but anything I have written about the Giants enduring another collapse is directly related to DeSean Jackson who has clearly made it his personal mission to rip the hearts out of Giants fans every December.

Last season the Giants needed to beat the Eagles to take over the division lead and make the playoffs, and the Eagles went into East Rutherford and put up 45 points on the Giants and Bill Sheridan. Jackson scored on a 72-yard punt return and a 60-yard pass, catching six passes for 178 yards. He backpedaled into the end zone on the 60-yarder, holding the ball out and laughing as he watched the Giants’ season fall apart.

It was Jackson again who put the dagger in the Giants this season with his punt return that I will have to watch be replayed during every Giants-Eagles game for the rest of my life. And now Jackson has assisted in helping Michael Vick (or Mike Vick according to Cris Collinsworth) be named the Pro Bowl starter in what has been as been as big of a comeback year as Enrique Iglesias’ 2010 has been. Just devastating.

I don’t need any incentives to hate the Eagles or the city of Philadelphia’s sports teams, but DeSean Jackson is a good incentive.

Part II coming on Thursday.

Blogs • NHL

Dec 16, 2010

Must-See TV

The debut of 24/7 Penguins-Capitals: Road to the Winter Classic instantly took over the No. 1 spot on my TV power rankings.

I have a hard time deciding what my favorite show on TV is. There’s The Office, The League, Friday Night Lights and Curb Your Enthusiasm. If I could only watch one, I honestly have no idea which show I would pick. But I think that problem was solved on Wednesday night with the debut of 24/7 Penguins-Capitals: Road to the Winter Classic, which is easily the best show on TV and it instantly took over the No. 1 spot on my TV power rankings.

If you didn’t see it, watch it … now. Stop whatever you’re doing and watch it because it’s that good. And if you did watch it and aren’t more excited for next Wednesday instead of next Friday because of it, then I don’t know what’s wrong with you.

The series is a combination of every 24/7 boxing series and Hard Knocks on steroids. That’s how good it is. I was sold on the show well before Maxine Nightingale’s “Right Back Where We Started From” came on in the middle of the Penguins’ road trip, but as someone who could recite lines from Slapshot before I could recite the Pledge of Allegiance, the incorporation of the song took the show to another level.

Nothing is played up because HBO is there. Those were real F-bombs you heard for 60 minutes, not the overly exaggerated fake F-bombs of Rex Ryan to become to a character on a TV show. And HBO couldn’t have started filming at a better time with the Penguins being the hottest team in the league and only the Islanders playing worse than the Capitals are right now.

I’m sure Penguins fans had a lot of fun reliving their winning streak behind the scenes, and Capitals fans probably took out their emotions on some household items as a result of the team’s slide. But there might not have been a more angry fan base than Bruins fans who had to watch Matt Cooke having fun living life and saying, “There is no easy ice,” when he is on the ice, knowing that Marc Savard is still feeling the side effects of the nasty elbow Cooke gave him last season.

Within the main story line of “Penguins vs. Capitals” and their paths to the Winter Classic are other story lines that, as a fan, help to enhance the show and make you pick a side when watching it. The show isn’t supposed to be about good vs. bad or to sway you in favor of one team, but if you’re not a fan of either team, which I’m not, there are three separate stories embedded into the show that will help you decide which team to pull for in the 2011 Winter Classic.

Sidney Crosby vs. Alexander Ovechkin
These two players will be linked and connected throughout their entire careers, and if you’re a hockey fan, you’re either a Crosby guy or an Ovechkin guy. You can’t be both. You have to pick one. I’m a Crosby guy and have been from Day One, though I am pretty much alone on this among my friends.

When Evgeni Malkin is watching the game against Toronto on TV and laughs while saying, “Sid … Look,” as Crosby joins a scrum in front of the net after a whistle, I couldn’t help, but think of all the cheap shots and slew foots the Penguins committed against the Rangers in the 2006-07 Eastern Conference semifinals. But being able to play that way and get away with it is part of the game and a big part of the Penguins’ game, and it’s what makes them good. And it’s what makes me like them and like watching them play.

Is Crosby chippy and even dirty? Yes. Does he excessively whine to refs and dive? Yes. Does he get into scrums in front of the net after whistles because he knows that he won’t get a penalty and that no one will touch him then? Yes. Is he the best player in the world? Yes.

Capitals assistant coach Dean Evason made it a point to call Ovechkin “the greatest player in the world” during his locker room rant when the Rangers scored more goals against the Capitals than the Jets did points against the Dolphins last Sunday (7-6).

“Our best player is fighting! The greatest player in the world!”

I understand that Evason was trying to make the point that the Capitals were embarrassing themselves and there’s no need for Ovechkin to be fighting when the team is getting shutout, but was it necessary to call Ovechkin “the greatest player in the world?” Sure, that’s Evason’s opinion and he spends every day around Ovechkin, so I would expect his opinion to be skewed, and I’m probably making too big of a deal about nothing, but do you think the Pittsburgh coaching staff is telling Crosby he is the best player in the world? No, because he knows he is.

Ovechkin is the most exciting player in the world, but to me, he isn’t the greatest. (And how about his weird tramp stamp tattoo?) When he’s on the ice you pay attention because he could do something you have never seen before, but that doesn’t make him the best. Sean Avery is also an exciting player because when he’s on the ice he might jump someone or commit an act that forces the NHL to create a new rule overnight, but sadly, being exciting doesn’t make you “the greatest.”

Dan Bylsma vs. Bruce Boudreau
It’s hard to know exactly who Dan Bylsma and Bruce Boudreau are from one episode because Bylsma is in the middle of 12-game winning streak while Boudreau can’t even find a way to beat the Panthers. At the end of the premiere, narrator Liev Schreiber says, “Teams are never as bad as they appear during their lowest points, and never as good as they seem during their highest ones,” but right now, that’s all we have to go off of when evaluating the two head coaches.

There isn’t much to dislike about Dan Bylsma. He seems to have found the perfect medium between being an imposing authoritative figure and still being able to have fun with his players. He isn’t exactly their friend, but he isn’t just a coach. His pregame and intermission speeches are solid, and the little nuances (the clapping for the announcing of the staring lineup) and games (Mustache Boy shootout) he has instituted into the team’s practices and locker room environment are unique and entertaining. The only real downfall for Bylsma in the first episode was watching him take one-timers at practice.

I’m not sure Bruce Boudreau is going to make it through the whole season of 24/7. Once you start making positives out of losses and tell your team to build off a losing effort, well the end can’t be far away. Are the Capitals’ struggles all because of Boudreau? No, but neither are the three straight division titles that HBO seemed to make it sound like. His biggest problem is that he has terrible goaltending. Yet somehow, he has the intestinal fortitude to criticize Henrik Lundqvist and say, “Lundqvist likes to come out of the net” before the game against the Rangers.

I always wonder how NHL coaches are able to keep their emotions in check on the bench and always have the same serious and puzzled face like they’re watching the State of the Union address. Rarely do you ever see NHL coaches clap or fist pump after a goal, and the only time you ever see them talking during a game is when they are trying to sort out a mess of penalty minutes with the ref. The other night the Red Wings lost to the Kings 5-0 and as soon as the game ended the cameras showed Mike Babcock, and after being shutout at home, he looked exactly the same as he would if he had been on the winning end of the shutout. Bruce Boudreau is the exception to the rule.

Between elbowing the glass and freaking out on the bench during his team’s current losing streak, it’s no wonder the Capitals have little to no composure when they are forced to play from behind. In the event of a fire or an emergency, Boudreau is the last guy I would want being in charge of the safety of people’s lives. (That and the fact in one of his Real World-like confessions, he had either ketchup or barbeque sauce all over his face). He appears to be the complete opposite of Bylsma, who probably checks himself in the mirror a dozen times before being on camera, and I’m not sure how many NHL players can take their coach seriously when he shows up to practice in all red Capitals warmup gear with his stomach hanging over his pants like he is going to be Santa Claus at the Penguins’ team Christmas party.

Penguins Not Named Sidney Crosby vs. Capitals Not Named Alexander Ovechkin
It might have something to do with the extreme opposites of where the teams are right now, but the Penguins are a more likable team than the Capitals after one episode.

(On an unrelated side note: I went on a tour of the Verizon Center in D.C. in the summer of 1998 (it was the MCI Center then), the week after the Capitals were swept by the Red Wings in the finals. The building was a year old at that time and the locker rooms were incredible in the state-of-the-art facility. But after seeing what a locker room that was built 13 years ago looks like compared to the Penguins’ new locker room and arena, well there isn’t much of a comparison. The Verizon Center already looks old.)

I guess it’s interesting to see the life changes that a player experiences like Scott Hannan trying to rent a new house after being traded in the final year of his contract, or watching Pascal Dupuis say goodbye to his family before a road trip, but that’s not what people want to see.

Seven and eight years ago, ESPN had a similar show called The Season and one year they followed the Red Wings (when everyone was introduced to a call-up by the name of Sean Avery) and the next year they followed the Avalanche. In the Avalanche season, there is a scene on the plane where Peter Forsberg and some other guys are playing Tiger Woods on their computers against each other, and at the time I thought it was unreal. Then you see the Penguins in 2010 playing what looked to be Call of Duty on PSP and it’s just that much cooler. Sure there are the outcasts like Harvard grad Craig Adams reading a book on the plane while everyone is playing video games or cards, but aside from that, who wouldn’t want to be on the Penguins? Then again, that’s likely the difference between a team that’s winning and a team that’s losing.

The most intriguing Penguin was without a double Max Talbot who showed the stereotypical hockey player combination of being, odd, weird and creepy, and making sure to keep all these qualities balanced. Malkin and Marc-Andre Fleury had their moments as well, but in the few minutes that Talbot had the camera on him, he stole the show.

From the Capitals we saw a lot of depression as a result of losing. Mike Green was more upset that the team was in a funk than the fact that he had a sprained MCL and still wanted to play.

The Capitals lost again on Wednesday night in overtime to the Ducks and their losing streak is at seven, but hopefully their weekend road trip to Boston and New Jersey will give them a personality for next week.

Blogs • KTTC Archive • Yankees

Dec 10, 2010

Sudden-Lee, Yankees Are Without A Plan

This is not good. This. Is. Not. Good. I was thinking of sending in the lyrics to Pearl Jam’s “Black” instead of writing this since I am holding back tears and shaking, but I wasn’t

This is not good. This. Is. Not. Good.

I was thinking of sending in the lyrics to Pearl Jam’s “Black” instead of writing this since I am holding back tears and shaking, but I wasn’t sure if turning in Eddie Vedder’s work as my own counts as plagiarism since it’s a song.

On Friday, I told Sweeny Murti that I had made a playlist of sad songs in the event that Cliff Lee didn’t choose the Yankees. I asked Sweeny what the Yankees’ Plan B was if he didn’t sign, and he said it wouldn’t be to make a sad songs playlist, but I’m not so sure it isn’t. (Now playing: “Everybody Hurts” by R.E.M.)

Cliff Lee wasn’t Plan A. He was The Plan. There isn’t another free agent pitcher even close to his abilities; in fact there isn’t even another free agent pitcher I would want on the Yankees. And according to Joel Sherman, Felix Hernandez, Josh Johnson and John Danks aren’t available. So I’m not exactly sure where the Yankees go from here. All I know is it’s never a good thing when you are googling “Sidney Ponson” to see if he is available knowing that he is probably somewhere on Cashman’s list of backup plans. And yes, he is. He was placed on the Atlantic League’s retired list on June 18. Ponson Part III, anyone?

I’m scared. I’m scared of what Brian Cashman might do now. I’m scared of what will happen to the Yankees in 2011. I’m scared that CC Sabathia might opt out after this season and sign with the Phillies. I’m scared that the Yankees are banking on the idea that Larry Rothschild thinks he can fix A.J. Burnett. I’m scared that, right now, Sergio Mitre is the No. 5 starter on the $200 million New York Yankees.

Last week on Twitter I joked that this offseason Brian Cashman publicly bashed the face of the franchise, forced the best relief pitcher in the history of baseball to talk to Red Sox, scaled a building in Stamford, Conn., had dinner with Carl Crawford and then hours later Crawford signed with the Red Sox and now you can add letting a pitcher turn down seven years and $154 million to that list. His offseason has been as bad as Tim Redding’s only start with the Yankees on July 15, 2005 against the Red Sox in a 17-1 loss at Fenway Park (1 IP, 4 H, 6 R, 6 ER, 4 BB, 2K). I was joking with that tweet, but now I’m not really joking because my 2011 summer hinges on whether or not Cashman can trade for a pitcher worth getting excited about. (Now playing: “All Out Of Love” by Air Supply).

I know people are sensitive about just about everything when it comes to the Yankees and there are those that get easily offended when Cashman’s decision making is questioned. But on a day like today after a night like last night, I think it would be unfair not to question Cashman and his decision to leave next season in the hands of a lefty willing to leave two years and $28 million on the table. This isn’t so much to blame Cashman for failing to land Lee since, according to Jon Heyman, Lee is the one that initiated talks with Philly and probably never wanted to come to New York. This is more to blame Cashman for putting the Yankees in a position in which they absolutely had to have Lee.

So, here’s a look at just how much of an impact Cliff Lee’s decision has on the Yankees. And to take us through all the aspects of Lee’s choice to pitch for the Phillies and not the Yankees are quotes from Michael Scott of The Office because right now that is the person who most resembles our trusty GM, who is one non-move from ruining the 2011 summer the same way that Cliff Lee just ruined Christmas.

“But I always thought that the day that Steve Martin died would be the worst day of my life. I was wrong. It’s this.”

When Derek Jeter was still not signed, I kept thinking, “What if he goes somewhere else? What if I have to write my ‘Tribute to Derek Jeter’ story at least four years before I’m supposed to?” I never really thought that Jeter would leave, but there was that chance that he might.

I always thought there was a slight chance I might have to write the story you are currently reading. I thought I might have to write about being devastated that Cliff Lee didn’t choose the Yankees, but really, I didn’t think I would because I just figured that the Yankees would give him whatever he wanted to make sure that they would never have to face him again. And when everyone tells you he is going to be a Yankee and that they will pay whatever it takes, you believe it. So much for that. (Now playing: “Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness” by The Smashing Pumpkins.)

“How do I feel about losing the sale? It’s like if Michael Phelps, came out of retirement, jumped in the pool, belly-flopped and drowned.”

This is bad for Brian Cashman. This is as bad as giving $82.5 million to A.J. Burnett or giving Javier Vazquez and Nick Johnson second chances or letting Johnny Damon and Hideki Matsui go. Maybe Cliff Lee was never going to come to New York, but Cashman put the Yankees in a position in which they had to have Lee because there was no other option and now they don’t have him.

“My whole life, I believed that America was No. 1. That was the saying. Not, ‘America is No. 2.’ England is No. 2, and China should be like 8.”

George Steinbrenner bought the Yankees in 1973. In the 37 ½ years of his life that he ran the team (I know that number depends on when he technically stopped being in charge and you also have take away the years he was banned), only one ace turned down the Yankees’ money (to my knowledge) and that was Greg Maddux. Steinbrenner has been dead for five months, and the number of pitchers to turn down the Yankees’ money has already matched the total number during Steinbrenner’s 37 ½ years as The Boss.

Aside from Maddux, I never really thought anyone would turn down less money or not accept the Yankees’ eagerness to overpay for someone. But at the end of the day, it turns out the Yankees didn’t even offer Lee the highest contract in terms of average annual salary. Here were the offers to Lee, according to Jon Heyman:

Yankees: Six years, $148 million plus player option for seventh year at $16 million.

Phillies: Five years, $120 million.

Rangers: Six years, $138 million.

In the end, Lee left $28 million on the table, but did end up getting a higher average annual salary. (Now playing: “Every Breath You Take” by The Police.)

“Here’s the sitch. Two weeks ago, I was in the worst relationship of my life. She treated me poorly, we didn’t connect, I was miserable. Now, I am in the best relationship of my life, with the same woman. Love is a mystery.”

Before the winter meetings, it was expected that Cliff Lee would be a Yankee, and once the Red Sox got Carl Crawford and the Yankees improved their six-year offer to seven years, it was basically a guarantee that Lee would sign with the Yankees.

And before the winter meetings, the Yankees rotation was CC Sabathia, Phil Hughes, A.J. Burnett, Ivan Nova and Sergio Mitre, but it was expected to improve over the next week. Guess what? That’s still the rotation right now. So before the winter meetings the thought of that rotation was a joke, and now it’s still our rotation. Do I expect the rotation to stay the same? No. But I also don’t know how Lee’s decision will impact Pettitte’s.

“You know what? I had fun at prom. [pause] And no one said yes to that either.”

Brian Cashman and the front office will have to speak to the media about what went wrong in trying to entice Cliff Lee to the Bronx, and I fully expect them to spin in a way that make it sound like it’s no big deal. I’m sure they will tell Yankees fans how they are focused on the bullpen and the bench, and they will eventually believe their own lie that this is somehow for the better.

After the Red Sox traded for Adrian Gonzalez for prospects and not a single current major leaguer (I wonder if Jed Hoyer is still technically a Red Sox employee) and signed Carl Crawford the same night that Cashman had dinner with him, Cashman said you just have to “tip your hat” to the Red Sox for making great movies. I wonder if he will tip his hat to the Phillies too? Why not? Seems like the polite thing to do. (Now playing: “With Or Without You” by U2.)

“You know what Toby, when the son of the deposed king of Nigeria e-mails you directly, asking for help, you help! His father ran the freaking country! OK?”

Brian Cashman was embarrassed in July when the Mariners used the Yankees to get the Rangers involved in a deal for Cliff Lee. The Mariners got the Rangers to offer Justin Smoak, and once they did, they cited David Adams’ ankle injury as a way to cancel the deal on the Yankees.

At the time I was crushed. The Yankees missed out on the chance to add Lee even if it came at the cost of Jesus Montero. Here is what I said to Sweeny following the deal that didn’t happen:

“Many people thought that Lee to the Yankees would be too much or even “overkill” given the already star-studded roster. I was clearly not one of those people and even though I have been anxiously awaiting the debut of Jesus Montero, I could deal with the Yankees losing him given the depth of catchers in the minors. The Yankees would have gone from favorites to win the World Series to heavy favorites, and would have had a real chance to run away and hide in the AL East.”

And here is Sweeny’s response:

“I don’t think it was a necessary move to make, but I’ll repeat what one GM said to me last week when I told him the Yankees didn’t need Cliff Lee. He said to me, “Everybody needs a Cliff Lee!”

If Lee gets traded to the Yankees, they probably would have beaten the Rangers and might have won the World Series. Lee would have had a half season under his belt in New York and been reunited with his so-called “best friend” CC Sabathia (maybe they aren’t exactly best friends after all) and fellow Arkansas native A.J. Burnett, and would have never had a taste of the Rangers, so they wouldn’t have had much of a say in the sweepstakes. The Yankees could have signed him to an extension after trading for him or waiting until right after the season, and just like that there would be no problems.

Then again, what if the Yankees had traded Montero for Lee, and then Lee still left for Philly the way that the Rangers traded Smoak for a half-year rental? I’m just glad Chuck Greenberg made it impossible for me to feel sorry for Rangers fans. (Now playing: “How’s It Going To Be” by Third Eye Blind.)

“There are ten rules of business that you need to learn. Number one: You need to play to win. But, you also have to … win, to play.”

Here is the Yankees rotation as of today:

CC Sabathia, Phil Hughes, A.J. Burnett, Ivan Nova, Sergio Mitre.

One second, I need to grab a tissue.

Here is the Red Sox rotation as of today:

Jon Lester, Josh Beckett, Clay Buchholz, John Lackey, Daisuke Matsuzaka.

Am I the only one that sees a problem here?

Let’s not forget that the Red Sox were without Dustin Pedroia and Kevin Youkilis for a large portion of the year and still caused me to hyperventilate as late in the season as September 26 when there were only seven games left. A healthy Red Sox team in 2011 with the additions of Adrian Gonzalez and Carl Crawford has kept me awake for nearly a week and will probably cause a great deal of stress this winter and eventually ruin my summer. Merry Christmas, Cliff Lee!

“I miss the feeling of knowing you did a good job because someone gives you proof of it. ‘Sir, you’re awesome, let me give you a plaque! What? A whole year has gone by? You need more proof? Here is a certificate.’ They stopped making plaques that year.”

Two years ago, Brian Cashman ended the World Series drought by unloading the Yankees’ checking account on CC Sabathia, A.J. Burnett and Mark Teixeira, and the Yankees won the World Series. Then, instead of doing all he knows how to do (spend money), he tried to be a real general manager and get creative. So he traded for Javier Vazquez and signed Nick Johnson. He let the No. 2 hitter and the World Series MVP both leave via free agency and essentially ripped apart two of the Yankees’ most important offensive weapons and two players essential with winning and big-game pedigrees. He did trade for Curtis Granderson, so it wasn’t all bad.

Now, Cashman is going to need to get creative again. The problem is being creative doesn’t win in baseball. You either have a lot of money to spend or you have enough homegrown starting pitching that you don’t need to spend money. Look at the Red Sox. After trying to save some pennies on Mark Teixeira and trying to get creative with reclamation projects like John Smoltz and Brad Penny and Mike Cameron, and winning zero postseason games since all of this, the Red Sox went to the winter meetings with Adrian Gonzalez already in hand and left with Carl Crawford. Lots of money. Zero creativity.

I can’t wait for the creativity era to begin. (Now playing: “The Heart Of The Matter” by Don Henley.)

“Andy Bernard. Pros: he’s classy. He gets me. He went to Cornell. I trust him. Cons: I don’t really trust him.”

I’m supposed to like Brian Cashman, but I don’t. It’s not because of this or that he told No. 2 to test the market if he didn’t like the Yankees’ offer, but they are just the icing on the cake of a mountain of problems in the last decade. I have no idea what Brian Cashman is going to do now. No one does. I don’t even know if Brian Cashman knows what he’s going to do.

Cashman’s biggest flaw has always been that he doesn’t know pitching and to think that he is now being asked to make a move regarding pitching to save the 2011 season before it even starts is as bad as it gets.

Now playing until the Yankees bring back Andy Pettitte and trade for a front-end starter: “Wake Me Up When September Ends” by Green Day. September 2011 that is.

Blogs • NFL

Dec 7, 2010

A Reality Check

I was born on September 19, 1986 — 29 days before the start of the Mets-Red Sox World Series. At this point in my life, a series of that magnitude would be the equivalent of

I was born on September 19, 1986 — 29 days before the start of the Mets-Red Sox World Series. At this point in my life, a series of that magnitude would be the equivalent of the apocalypse. Mets. Red Sox. One team has to win. One team has to become world champion. It’s as terrifying as a sporting event can be in which one of my teams isn’t playing. Thankfully I wasn’t even a month old the last time that nightmarish matchup took place.

Nothing in sports can touch what the aftermath of a Mets-Red Sox World Series would mean to me as a Yankees fan and someone who lived in Boston for five years and had to live through two Red Sox championships. The only thing that I could see being relatively similar would be a Jets-Patriots AFC Championship, and that’s why on Monday I made the trip to Foxboro to get a first-hand look at the second-worst possible sports formula to my life. Sounds crazy considering I’m a Giants fan, and neither team has a direct impact on the Giants’ path to the Super Bowl, but with all of the hype surrounding the Jets-Patriots Monday Night Football game, I figured if this is the potential AFC Championship, I might as well get a sneak peek as to what life will be like when two teams that I despise meet to decide a trip to Dallas.

For all the hype, it was as bad a football game as it could be. Actually it was a bad football game even without the hype. It was as bad as the time I went to see Tom Petty a few summers ago and he played all new songs, or the time I had seats behind home plate for Yankees-Red Sox and Roger Clemens put together the type of performance (5.1 IP, 6 H, 8 R, 7 ER, 2 BB, 3 K, 2 HR) that A.J. Burnett puts together every fifth day. I respect the Jets fans that I saw playing bags and crushing Coors Lights when I walked into the stadium at 5 p.m. knowing that they would be pregaming for another three-plus hours in freezing temperatures and would then have to sit through another three-plus hours of freezing temperatures being humiliated in a rival stadium. I respect them, but I don’t feel bad for them because at some point “the same old Jets” were going to become exactly that. It might not have happened against the Broncos, Lions, Browns or Texans, but it was going to happen again, and the Patriots were the perfect team to remind the Jets that they have a long way to go.

I went into the game with an open mind knowing that one of the fan bases I hate would come out victorious. I didn’t care who won because the result would be both good and bad either way it ended, I just wanted to see a good game. I was hoping for maybe a low-scoring defensive affair, or a game that would come down to a two-minute drill in the fourth quarter. Instead I got a 45-3 blowout in which Mark Sanchez looked every bit as bad as he was in his four-interception game in Foxboro last season. By the end of the third quarter, I was wishing it were an NHL game so that there would be a line brawl or scrap of some kind. Instead the Patriots tacked on another 14 points in the fourth quarter and the closest thing to a line brawl was the wild pack of reporters fighting over the free pizza after the game.

I believe that you find out what players and coaches are really like in big games. It’s like talking to someone when they are drunk and they open up to you and tell you their real opinions and feelings that they would never tell you sober. But with some alcohol, you are suddenly their best friend and someone they trust to talk to. Well big games are alcohol for players and coaches, and no game has been bigger this season than the Jets-Patriots Monday Night Football game. No one is as important as the head coach and quarterback in football, so let’s find out who the two head coaches and quarterbacks really are after the biggest game of the 2010 season to this point.

Rex Ryan
I didn’t like Rex Ryan at first, then he grew on me and I even wished Tom Coughlin was a little like him when I said, “I only wish Tom Coughlin could be half as likeable as Rex Ryan.” Actually I wish Tom Coughlin could be half as likable as anyone, but I was wrong to think that Coughlin should change his ways to be more like Ryan. After my 180 on Rex, I have done other 180, and now a complete 360 and I am back to my initial stance of not being a fan of Rex Ryan anymore.

There are few, if any, press conferences in sports as entertaining as Rex Ryan’s, but even those are getting old. In two seasons, Rex Ryan has become what The Office has become for me over seven seasons — a show that I was skeptical about at first, and then grew to love before becoming skeptical again.

One day Rex is saying that the Jets are the team to beat and the next he is saying that he knew the AFC East would run through New England. I understand that you have to take a grain of salt with whatever Rex says, but it’s become ridiculous. He wants to come off as this cocky, arrogant and pompous winner when the Jets are winning close games against barely competent teams. And after losses, he becomes an apologetic, sincere and humble the next. It’s an odd act that has made him a favorite of Jets fan, but an immature and unprepared clown to outsiders.

Tom Coughlin might not have a comedic personality or a limit to the amount of snacks he can eat in a day or a twin brother that looks like Sean Connery’s character John Mason at the beginning of The Rock, but he has beaten Bill Belichick in a big game (the biggest of games), and at least with Tom Coughlin you know what you’re getting, whether you like it or not. Oddly enough, I’m thankful that Tom Coughlin is the way he is.

Mark Sanchez
Last week, Mike Francesa said that if you polled the city, the majority of people would take Mark Sanchez to be their quarterback over Eli Manning. It’s true and it blows my mind.

I understand that Jets fans are protective of their quarterback the same way that I was of Eli in his first few seasons in the league before he beat what would have been the greatest team ever and then didn’t need me to protect or defend him anymore. But there comes a time when you have to look in the mirror and admit that while Mark Sanchez might be an elite quarterback one day, he is nowhere close to being one right now.

This season Sanchez has been a lot better than his disastrous 20-interception season in 2009, but with the team’s success, his second-year abilities have been disguised for most of the season before being unveiled on national TV on Monday night.

I had one friend tell me that Mark Sanchez is underrated — a claim that couldn’t be further from the truth. If Sanchez isn’t the most overrated player in the league, he is certainly near the top of the list. I think he will be an elite quarterback in the league at some point, but I don’t think he is ready to be the Super Bowl quarterback Rex Ryan thinks he is, and we saw that in his second career start in Foxboro.

Bill Belichick
Unless you’re a Patriots fan, it’s easy to hate Bill Belichick, and I think Patriots fans understand why non-Patriots fans hate him. He dresses like he came out of the Eric Prydz “Call on Me” video, usually wearing 1980s sweats, a shredded hoodie and a women’s headband. He is smug with the media, and his answers are more boring than Associated Press stories. He has very few redeeming qualities from a non-Patriots fan perspective, except for two things: He is a winner and he is a Yankees fan. And being a Yankees fan means a lot, at least to me it does. It made me go change my feelings about UNC’s Roy Williams, and it just might work with Belichick.

Bill Belichick is as much a symbol of winning as Tom Brady is in the NFL, and for all the criticism and abuse he takes about he conducts himself, the man puts a winning on the field every season. So many people were quick to predict the Jets to win the AFC East this season and write off the Patriots and their young and inexperienced defense. And when the Patriots traded Randy Moss, everyone thought Belichick was making a terrible mistake, the same way they did when he traded away Mike Vrabel and Richard Seymour. But at some point I think we need to stop questioning Belichick’s coaching and personnel decisions.

He will never say it outright, but Monday night’s win was as big a regular season win as there is. But Belichick didn’t compare it to the Super Bowl or make it sound any more important than a win over the Lions. And that’s probably because he knows the difference between winning a Super Bowl and winning a game in Week 13 against your division rival.

Tom Brady
I should hate Tom Brady. 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. But everything about Tom Brady says I should like 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. I think I want to be a fan of Tom Brady. I just don’t know if I can.

For some reason, Tom Brady is constantly doubted. Whether it’s “experts” picking against him in big games or people siding with Peyton Manning in the “Who’s The Better Quarterback Debate?” it seems like Tom Brady doesn’t get enough credit. I’m sure there are plenty of people who watched the game on ESPN last night and had to listen to Mike Tirico and Ron Jaworski and John Gruden drool over him and who think that maybe Tom Brady gets too much attention, but doesn’t he deserve it? And if he doesn’t, who does?

Aside from making the Patriots the Yankees of the NFL and giving Boston three championships in a four-year span, Tom Brady is 0-1 against my team in big games, so I don’t have any real grudge against him, other than maybe his haircut. But I know one thing, and that is after his performance this season in what was supposed to be a down year for the Patriots, I will never doubt him again. He’s earned that.

Blogs • Giants

Nov 23, 2010

Looking Back on Black Sunday

After taking a full day to become emotionally stable following the second game in a row that looks like it will kick off the annual second-half collapse for the New York Football Giants, I am

After taking a full day to become emotionally stable following the second game in a row that looks like it will kick off the annual second-half collapse for the New York Football Giants, I am ready to look back at the Sunday night debacle. It was the darkest day of the 2010 season, and not just for the Giants and their chances at reaching the postseason, which now sit at 30 percent, but for me personally as a Giants fan, and as a football fan.

On Sunday I had to watch the Jets pull off a miracle win against the Texans. Then I watched the Patriots pick off Peyton Manning one less time than he had been picked off in the first nine games of the season, as the Colts teased me almost their second 31-14 comeback against the Patriots in as many years. The Cowboys? Not like they matter anymore this year, but they won too. The Redskins? Victorious. As the day went on, every NFL team I hate was watching their win total change, and the only two teams left to play that I despise were the Eagles against the Giants and the Chargers on Monday night. Give the Eagles a W, and the Chargers one too. And remember November 21, 2010 as Black Sunday.

The storm didn’t stop there. Nope. On Monday we found out that Hakeem Nicks would be out for three weeks, and that the Giants would be posting their latest wide receiver job opening on the team’s official site and Craigslist. The only actual wide receiver left on the roster that anyone thought would see playing time in 2010 is Mario Manningham, who becomes the No. 1 receiver against Jacksonville on Sunday after being the No. 2 receiver against Philadelphia and the No. 3 receiver before the bye week. When it rains, it pours around here. And it usually starts to pour in the second half of the season.

All week I heard about the Giants’ second-half collapses during the Tom Coughlin Era. And with each time it was mentioned, I said the same thing: “Sure it’s happened before, but those seasons are irrelevant to this season and this team.” Who was I kidding? How could I be so stupid?

Sure this year the Giants have a defensive coordinator that actually understands the concept of “defense,” but it’s virtually the same team. Justin Tuck can keep saying, “We don’t like to lose around here,” but just because you don’t like to lose and didn’t like it last year, doesn’t stop it from happening again. You actually have to do something about it.

Two years ago when the Giants were 11-1 and making a mockery of their competition, I actually thought it was stupid that no one thought we would ever see another dynasty in the NFL under the current system with too much parity in the league. I was certain the Giants were a dynasty in the making, but since Plaxico Burress decided to go out for the night in the city with a gun, the Giants have gone 16-16 including their only playoff game. What hurts even more is knowing that the Giants beat the final four teams in the 2008 playoffs during the regular season (Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Arizona). After the first 12 games in 2008, I never would have believed that the Giants would be on the verge of missing the postseason for the second straight year with this team. Then again, I didn’t think that after the Mets lost Game 7 of the NLCS to the Cardinals that they still would not have played another postseason game. Though that doesn’t really bother me.

Here are how the Giants have started and finished each season during the Tom Coughlin Era (minus the 2007 season for obvious reasons):

2004: 5-3 in first eight games, 1-7 in last eight games.

2005: 6-2 in first eight games, 5-3 in last eight games and a first-round playoff loss.

2006: 6-2 in first eight games, 2-6 in last eight games and a first-round playoff loss.

2008: 11-1 in first 12 games, 1-3 in last four games and a first-round playoff loss.

2009: 5-0 in first five games, 3-8 in last 11 games.

2010: 6-2 start in first eight games, 0-2 in last two games.

You could probably take 2005 off the list since they didn’t really stumble down the stretch as badly as other years, but that 23-0 loss at home in the first round to the Panthers needs to be included somehow. The idea that in five of Coughlin’s first six seasons with the Giants (2004-06 and 08-09), the team has played consistently bad in the second half and has never made it past their first postseason game except for 2007 is remarkable.

I don’t know if this is my attempt at a reverse jinx or if it’s just me being down on the team and then if a reverse jinx happens I can take credit for it, but I just don’t know what to think of the 2010 Giants anymore. I am fully prepared for a second-half collapse. I have stocked up on canned foods and bottled water like it’s Y2K and I am ready to take this second-half meltdown head on. In the past the Giants were always able to sneak up on me with their horrific second-half play. I was always too high on them in the past to see the reality that they were just getting ready to rip my heart and stomp on it, but not this time. Not this year. A second-half collapse won’t come out of nowhere over these next six weeks. So bring on your five-game losing streak, Tom Coughlin! Finish the season 8-8! Miss the playoffs for the second year in a row! I’m ready!

But seriously, I am down on the G-Men because I have seen this story too many times to think it is might end otherwise. No matter how many times I watch Dumb and Dumber, I always hope that Lloyd and Harry will get on the bikini tour bus at the end of the movie, even though I know they don’t because I have seen the movie probably close to 100 times. The same goes for the Giants. There isn’t a doubt in my mind that they will torture me and test me as a fan over the next six weeks, and they will undoubtedly lure me back in to believing in them only to pull the rug out from underneath me right when I let my guard down. I’m used to it by now, and it’s my own fault for getting drawn back in time and time again, but I let them pull me back in because I experienced in 2007 what it’s like to keep believing, and I know how rewarding it can be when they play to their potential.

What makes the Giants losing even harder is having to watch the other team that plays at New Meadowlands Stadium come back in the most improbable ways like they’re the 2009 Yankees, and then having to listen to their head coach ramble on about apologizing for wins or not apologizing for wins or whatever he is rambling on about, pretending like winning in overtime or on pass interference calls or in the final seconds of a game was in the game plan all along. It’s hard to watch my Jets friends enjoy winning even if it’s only regular season winning, while the Giants give away games by giving away the football.

The only game the Giants have left against a team out of playoff contention is in Minnesota in Week 14, and even though the Vikings are 3-7, that is anything but an automatic win. The other five games left for the G-Men are against Jacksonville (6-4), Washington (5-5) twice, Philadelphia (7-3) and Green Bay (7-3). The last easy win the Giants had on their schedule (in a league where no win is easy unless you’re playing against Charlie Whitehurst) was against the Cowboys in Week 10, and the Giants blew that game.

There were four main problems for the Giants on Sunday night, and four seems to be the magic number at this juncture in the season. Four turnovers in the loss to the Eagles (technically, there were five turnovers, but the last one came on an Eli Manning interception when the game was over and didn’t have an impact on the outcome). Four losses on the season for the Giants. Four wins away from basically guaranteeing themselves a postseason berth. Four division games left. Here are the four problems from Sunday in order of importance:

1. Ahmad Bradshaw’s Best “Tiki Barber”
It’s hard to win any game when you lose in the turnover column. It’s hard to ever win when those turnovers are from your running back consistently putting the ball on the ground. Tom Coughlin called it “a callous disregard for the football.” I called it something else that I can’t write here.

I’m not sure what Ahmad Bradshaw doesn’t understand about holding onto the ball or protecting the ball, but there is never a moment when he is rushing with the ball that I don’t envision him putting the ball on the ground. That shouldn’t be the case. A fumble from your running back should be a shock and unexpected. It shouldn’t be a normal occurrence.

Bradshaw’s biggest strength also happens to be his biggest weakness in his second efforts on runs. It’s his second efforts that make him dangerous to defenses and unpredictable on runs, but it’s those same second efforts that prevent him from initially going down and those attempts to gain that extra yard or two while being tackled is when the fumbles happen. It’s up to Coughlin now to get Bradshaw righted for the remainder of the season the same way he helped Tiki Barber overcome his fumble problems.

There was talk on Monday that Bradshaw might be in jeopardy of losing his starting job to Brandon Jacobs, and if that happens, the Giants can pack up and go home for the year now because the last thing this team needs is Brandon Jacobs getting more carries. I would take Ahmad Bradshaw, who is capable of breaking off game-changing runs, fumbling left and right as my starting running back over rumblin’, bumblin’, stumblin’ Brandon Jacobs who hasn’t been the same since 2008 any day of the week.

2. Offsides, Defense, Number 90, Five-Yard Penalty, Replay Third Down
If the offense doesn’t turn the ball over four times in the game (and another time with the game over), then the defense probably doesn’t need to stop the Eagles on third-and-1 to hold their 17-16 lead with 4:38 left in the game. And if Jason Pierre-Paul doesn’t go offsides on what was initially a third-and-5 that the Giants did stop the Eagles on, then we are probably sitting here talking about how the Giants rebounded from an awful loss to the Cowboys and have sole possession of first place in the NFC East. But the offense did turn the ball over times, and Jason Pierre-Paul did go offsides and the Giants didn’t stop the Eagles on third-and-1 and they didn’t win the game, and they aren’t in first place.

Jason Pierre-Paul went offsides and it was a big play in the game and a devastating turn of events, but what are you going to do? The offense could have bailed him out on the next drive if not for No. 3…

3. Whatever Eli Manning Calls The Way He Went To The Ground
At what point during his 16-yard run, did Eli Manning think, “I’m going to stop, drop and roll for a first down!” And when did he think it was a good idea?

I could understand if someone was diving at the back of his legs and his only play was to dive head first to go down, but there wasn’t a green jersey anywhere near him. Yes, the defense was closing in him, but he could have slid to the ground and stood up and gone into the grand roll that Gene Wilder performed as Willy Wonka (1:20 mark), and the defense still wouldn’t have gotten to him yet. That’s how much time he had to go to the ground properly. Instead, Eli went with the “Should I slide? Should I dive? Should I slide? Ahhhhh! I can’t make up my mind! I’m going to do both at the same time for an awkward fall!” routine. And it ultimately cost the Giants the game.

On Friday, I said this about Eli:

“No, 13 interceptions in nine games isn’t good, but if you have watched every minute of Giants football this season and you have seen how those 13 picks have been compiled, then you would understand Eli a little better. The majority of his picks have been tipped by his receivers on balls that should have been caught. He isn’t throwing picks directly to the opposition the way that Brett Favre and Donovan McNabb do, but the box scores don’t provide the video necessary for those who can’t watch Eli to see exactly why he has thrown as many picks as he has this season. Eli is better than the numbers suggest. Much better.”

If you read that, and decided to watch the Giants-Eagles game on Sunday because of what I wrote, well I apologize for wasting three-plus hours of your life.

4. Matt Dodge
You could make the case that a lot of things could be in the No. 4 spot, but I saved this spot for the man, the myth, the legend himself … Matt Dodge. After the Giants went three-and-out to start the game because they thought running on the first two plays of the game for no yards was a good idea, Matt Dodge punted the ball 25 yards and out of bounds. On another punt, Cris Collinsworth talked about how shaky Dodge has been, only to be rewarded with a perfect setup when Dodge dropped the ball before getting his punt off.

No Matt Dodge wasn’t really a problem or a factor in the Giants’ loss, but I wanted to include him in this because over the next six weeks the Giants will need him to come up in a big spot, and he has done nothing to prove that he will come through in that spot. We keep hearing about how Dodge kicks bombs in practice, and that the Giants are just waiting for it to consistently happen in games. The problem is the Giants’ season is taking on water and when you are asking Dodge to pin the opposition deep in an effort to help save the season, well don’t be surprised when he assists in causing the season to come crashing down.

In his Monday Morning Quarterback column, Peter King said, “Matt Dodge is a disaster waiting to happen.” I’m pretty confident the disaster has already arrived, and if it hasn’t yet, I’m not sure I will be able to physically, mentally or emotionally handle anything worse than we have already seen from him through 10 games.

The same way I can’t understand why the Yankees are deciding to be tough with Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera, the two faces of the team for the last 15 seasons when they were basically handing out money to anyone in need of a contract the last three years, I can’t understand how the Giants didn’t just tell Jeff Feagles they would give him whatever he wanted to come back this year. Why not tell Feagles he could go home during the week and only show up to games? Maybe the Giants did offer him some lucrative deal to try to entice him to punt for one more season, but if they did, I didn’t hear about it. There are still six games left. Please come back, Feagles. Please come back.

As the game ended on Sunday, Cris Collinsworth said in reference to the Giants, “They had their chances in this one, they just gave it away.”

That’s a nice way to sum up what the Giants have been in the second half during the Tom Coughlin Era minus 2007, though I would probably sum it up a little differently. But once again, I can’t write it here.

For now, I am forced to sit and wonder if I will be without playoff football for the second year in a row. If that’s the case, I’m ready.

Blogs • Giants

Nov 19, 2010

Giants Just-Past-Midseason Awards

For a team tied for first place in their division, the Giants are in trouble. They are in trouble because they couldn’t win at home against the Cowboys, a team that had nothing left to

For a team tied for first place in their division, the Giants are in trouble. They are in trouble because they couldn’t win at home against the Cowboys, a team that had nothing left to play for. They are in trouble because now they head to Philadelphia to face the hottest team in the league – in a tie for first place with the Eagles rather than a game up. They are in trouble because their final seven games are all against quality opponents.

I wouldn’t be thinking like that if the Giants didn’t go out and lay the equivalent of an A.J. Burnett egg last Sunday, but they did. And they did in typical New York Football Giants fashion, by making sure they were always within reach of turning the game around only to come up short. It was the type of Giants tease that I have grown accustomed to over the years. The type of tease they displayed last year when they beat the Cowboys and then trailed the Eagles 14-0 early the following week – only to take the lead and then blow the game and their season. They did it the year before that when they lost Plaxico Burress, went on a losing streak only to come back against the Panthers and win in overtime in the best game of the season before losing in the divisional round of the playoffs.

Aside from those four magical games in a row in the 2007-2008 playoffs, I am used to the Giants getting my hopes up and then crushing them and then getting them up again and then crushing them even harder. I can’t even imagine what Jets fans have had to deal with over the years.

The Giants suckered me in again on Sunday. They had me telling my friends that they were the best team in football for an entire week only to lose to the 1-7 Cowboys who were just looking to close up shop if they got behind. And when the Cowboys got a commanding lead, the Giants began to creep back to make sure you stuck around to see what would happen. And when the Cowboys failed to put the Giants away with interceptions and missed field goals, you thought “Hey, maybe they will win this game after all.” It never happened.

The Giants’ embarrassing performance on Sunday can be directly correlated to the fact that the media started to believe in the Giants. They took over in Vegas as favorites to represent the NFC in the Super Bowl and many of the sports outlets had them sitting at or near the top of their power rankings.

In the second episode of Friday Night Lights this season, the East Dillon Lions are coming off a 2-8 season and no one believes in them. Then in their first game, they knock off the No. 8 team in the state and they open eyes around Texas. But the following week, the Lions are nowhere to be seen on the state rankings, and it has the whole team flustered and annoyed that even though they beat a top team, they aren’t being recognized. So Coach Taylor (played by Kyle Chandler, who I still believe is really a high school football coach and would like to make him an offer to coach the Giants once Coughlin retires) flips out on his team for caring so much about what a stupid poll says rather than the results on the field. His team finally understands him and they go out and win again.

So that’s what I believe frequently happens with the Giants. They are always so concerned with how they are viewed by the public, and it can be traced back to 2007 when Antonio Pierce used to make a point to mention to the media that no one believes in the Giants.

Last season the Giants started 5-0, and were a unanimous choice as the top team in the league. Then they went down to New Orleans and the Saints embarrassed them and the G-Men never recovered. In 2008, Trent Dilfer said on ESPN before the start of the season, “The Giants would be the biggest disappointment in the NFL,” after winning the Super Bowl the year before. The Giants started out 10-1 and everyone was riding high on them, then Plaxico brought a gun out with him one night, the season fell apart and they lost to the Eagles in the playoffs once again. In 2007, no one believed in the Giants. After they lost to the Packers in Week 2, I told my friend Red that the Giants might not win a game all year. Then they had the goal-line stand against the Redskins in Week 3 and things began to come together. But once they made the playoffs, no one gave them a chance to win on the road in Tampa Bay or Dallas or Green Bay or in Arizona against New England, and they went out and ran the table. The moral of the story is that the Giants just aren’t good when everyone is so high on them, but when no one pays them any attention, they go out and shock the world

Following the loss on Sunday, Justin Tuck made some comments that at first I was upset about since the Giants were just embarrassed, and I had to watch this loser in a Jason Witten jersey dance around at the bar where I was watching the game. But the more I thought about what Tuck said, the more it made sense.

“I’m not mad, and I’m not sad about this game,” Tuck said. “Actually, I’m kind of glad. Maybe this is a wake-up call that we needed. This is a chance to look at ourselves and say that maybe we aren’t as good as we thought we were.”

Tuck is right. It’s a good thing this loss happened because it reminded the Giants that people telling you you’re good doesn’t make you good. And people predicting you will win, doesn’t mean you will win. Not in this league of parody where the consensus top team seems to get knocked off every single week and an unusual amount of teams are currently in playoff contention.

I’m not sure what will happen this Sunday night in Philadelphia. When I get too down on the Giants they prove me wrong and when I get too high on them they do the same, but there is no in between and there is no balance for me as a Giants fan.

I did midseason awards for the Yankees, so I thought it would be a good idea to do them for the Giants as well. (Yes, I know we are a game past the midseason point). These aren’t your standard awards and not every member of the Giants received one, but for those who didn’t receive one, there’s still seven games left to prove yourself.

The Rudy Award for “No One Believes In Him Because They Can’t See It Every Week”

“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.”

That quote is from Rudy, and when I think of Eli Manning, I think of that quote.

I am always defending Eli Manning against the haters (and there are a lot of them), who see the numbers at the end of the day, but don’t realize how good he is. No, he is never going to put up the numbers that his brother puts up or the numbers that Philip Rivers puts up because the Chargers lack a running game, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t an elite quarterback in the NFL.

No, 13 interceptions in nine games isn’t good, but if you have watched every minute of Giants football this season and you have seen how those 13 picks have been compiled, then you would understand Eli a little better. The majority of his picks have been tipped by his receivers on balls that should have been caught. He isn’t throwing picks directly to the opposition the way that Brett Favre and Donovan McNabb do, but the box scores don’t provide the video necessary for those who can’t watch Eli to see exactly why he has thrown as many picks as he has this season.

Eli is better than the numbers suggest. Much better.

The Robbie Cano, Don’t Ya Know Award for “Being The Smoothest Player There Is And Having All The Talent In The World But Making Mental Mistakes”

Robinson Cano might very well be the AL MVP for 2010, but it took him long enough to finally put it all together and limit the amount of times he would make fans scratch their heads and wonder what is going through his mind. These instances still happen, but at a much lesser degree than they were happening two and three years ago.

Like Cano, Hakeem Nicks has all the talent in the world, and has the potential to be the best wide receiver in the league. The only problem is that he has these brain farts where he stops his route short, tips or drops a pass or just flat out misses a wide open catch for a huge gain. All three of these things happened to happen in the same game on Sunday and it’s no wonder that the Giants suffered their most embarrassing loss of the season.

I am a huge Hakeem Nicks fan and I think anyone that likes the Giants would say the same. But for all the talent the abilities he has, he needs to minimize the mistakes. If he does that, it’s scary how good he will be.

The Dennis Green Award for “He Is Who We Thought He Was”

Before the season began, I talked with Ralph Vacchiano, Giants beat writer for the New York Daily News, about Jacobs taking the backup role, and we both assumed there would be trouble on the horizon for Jacobs and his bad attitude. So far, there hasn’t been much complaining from the man who once made Giants fans forget about Tiki Barber, but he has been as ineffective as we thought he would be. Sure, he has a handful of TDs from the goal line that make his numbers look somewhat decent, but he has rarely made the necessary play to extend a drive or get the first down, and there was never a better example than in Sunday’s loss.

Jacobs was given the ball on fourth-and-1 and instead of moving his legs and plowing to get just three feet, the big back sort of just fell forward and the Giants turned the ball over at a crucial point in the game. It’s not all Jacobs’ fault though. You can’t put Jacobs into the game on a fourth-and-1 and not expect the defense to just clog the middle knowing that he isn’t going anywhere. With Jacobs in the backfield on fourth-and-1, there is one option and that is to drive his way straight forward. If Bradshaw had been in that situation, he could have gone to the outside if the middle was clogged or stayed up the middle if the defense was worried about him going to the outside. With Jacobs in the backfield, the Giants are one-dimensional when he gets the ball, and three years ago that wasn’t a problem, but he is nowhere near the same player he was three years ago.

The Late Night With Jimmy Fallon Award for “It’s A Mystery As To How You Still Have A Job”

This award could have easily been called the Sergio Mitre award because like Jimmy Fallon, no one is sure how Mitre is able to keep his job with the Yankees. I always figured that Mitre had dirt on Joe Girardi and Brian Cashman or compromising photos, and maybe the same goes for Jimmy Fallon and the NBC executives. The man ruined every Saturday Night Live skit by uncontrollably laughing to the point where Will Ferrell would give him the look like, “Hey stop ruining my show,” and then NBC gave him his own show to take over for Conan O’Brien. Fallon’s version of Late Night is so bad that my roommate and I will do my Jimmy Fallon Test a few times a week in which we put his show on at a random time and watch for five minutes to see if either of us laugh. We have never laughed.

I never understood why NBC didn’t just give Conan the same money he was making on the Tonight Show to go back to Late Night in New York, and then everyone would have had a show that had one before the Tonight Show debacle began, except for Jimmy Fallon. But no one would have cared.

Anyways, back to Reynaud. Now that he is hurt, the Giants actually have a chance to gain somewhat decent field position without him returning kicks and punts since I think the most yards I ever saw him get off either was maybe three yards. It’s pretty amazing that the Giants were winning the way they were when Reynaud was healthy given the terrible field position they would start with whenever he actually attempted to a run a kick or punt back.

The Chad Gaudin Award for “It’s Never Good To See You In The Game”

Another case of possibly blackmailing the front office, Matt Dodge is still a Giant after nine games. I had the under on three, so I lost a long time ago, but if this man keeps his job throughout the season, a lot of people will be surprised, including me.

I couldn’t believe that after how bad he was to start the year that the Giants didn’t just call up Jeff Feagles and say, “Hey, a blank check is going to be arriving in your mailbox today. Fill in the amount you want and cash it, and we’ll see you at practice tomorrow.”

I am scared that what we are seeing with Dodge after having Feagles for so long will be like life without Mariano Rivera (still hoping that never happens). Because when you have someone as good as Feagles who was just automatic and now you have a kid who basically rolls the dice every time the ball is snapped to him, well it’s just hard to watch. Nothing is automatic anymore. Nothing.

The South Park Award for “Being Wildly Popular And Then Falling Off The Face Of The Earth Only To Become Wildly Popular Once Again”

When I was in sixth grade, South Park took the world by storm. It was as big as Jersey Shore, Four Loko and Lady Gaga combined. Then over the next few years, the show began to fade and was ultimately forgotten about even though it was still on the air. Once it became an afterthought and pretty much a non-factor in pop culture, it slowly climbed back into the spotlight with its comedic take on current events and then grew so popular again that it made everyone wonder why there was ever a gap in success for the show since the talent and abilities were always there.

The same goes for Osi Umenyiora. Following Super Bowl XLII, Osi became a household name with sack after sack; he was dating Victoria’s Secret supermodel Selita Ebanks and was basically just living the dream as a Super Bowl champion. Then he was forced to miss all of 2008 when he tore his ACL in preseason and never became the same player in 2009 after fighting with defensive coordinator (not sure if putting that title in front of his name even makes sense) Bill Sheridan and eventually became a bench player for the Giants. Umenyiora made it public that he wanted out of New York and no one knew if he would be the a Giant in 2010, and if he was, which Osi would we see?

Well so far this season, Osi has been every bit as good as he was before the season-ending knee injury in 2008. He has nine sacks in nine games, which is already more than his 2009 total, and he is on pace to have a better season statistically than he did in 2007. It’s good to see the old Osi back along with his old attitude.

The Tom Coughlin Award for Undergoing The Scrutiny That Only Tom Coughlin Could Undergo

Only Tom Coughlin could have an award named after him in the midseason, and only he could win the award named after him. Mike Francesa likes to talk about the terrible treatment and injustices Coughlin has had to deal with since becoming head coach of the Giants, and I would have to say I agree. No other coach in the city that has had the type of success Coughlin has had and has had to deal with as much as Coughlin has. It seems like his job is in question multiple times a year, and he always seems to deflect the questions with wins (except for the 2009 meltdown).

This season Coughlin’s job security became the topic of discussion after the Giants started the season with a 1-2 record and Bill Cowher’s name began to come up in Google searches for New York Giants. But Coughlin got the Giants back on track with the help of Perry Fewell (aka the anti-Bill Sheridan), and now the Giants are tied for first place in the division after nine games.

My relationship with Tom Coughlin is an odd one. It’s a love/hate relationship I guess, but I think the hate end of the relationship is a lot more extreme than the love. If I were to write about Coughlin on Sunday night or Monday morning after the Dallas loss, it wouldn’t have been pretty. But when you’re a fan and you watch a man decide to go for some 4th-and-1’s and not others, despite being exactly the same situation, well it will make you a little angry.

Coughlin was the head coach of one of the best days of my life, so he will forever get a pass in my book. But that doesn’t mean I can’t get angry with him from time to time.

Giants

Nov 5, 2010

Big Expectations for Big Blue

After what happened with the Giants in 2009, not many people were giving them a chance before the season and after Week 3 when they were 1-2. But since their loss to the Titans on

After what happened with the Giants in 2009, not many people were giving them a chance before the season and after Week 3 when they were 1-2. But since their loss to the Titans on September 26, the Giants have won four straight and are sitting atop the division and tied for the best record in the NFC. It hasn’t been the cleanest way to get to a 5-2 record for the Giants with an inordinate amount of turnovers through seven games. The Giants have tried to give away every one of their five wins with interceptions and fumbles, but have so far managed to not let untimely turnovers damage their season. Coming off of four straight wins and a bye, the G-Men begin the second portion of their season against the Seahawks. With a one-game lead over the Eagles in the division and nine games remaining (five against division opponents), the Giants have a challenging schedule ahead of them. Ralph Vacchiano, Giants beat writer for the New York Daily News, joined me to talk Giants football with the G-Men set to begin the second part of their schedule.

Keefe: In our preseason talk about the Giants, you predicted the team would go 8-8 and after their slow start to the season, I was scared that your prediction was on the money. But then the defense started playing like it did two years ago, and after four wins in a row, the Giants look like they might be back. I have watched at lot of Giants football to know that you should never feel safe with this team or the way they are going, but right now they are gaining a lot of hype and many people believe they are the best team in the NFC and one of the top teams in the league. After their beating against the Colts earlier in the season, I don’t think anyone would have predicted the Giants to be where they are at now, but the league seems to be wide open and is up for the taking by any team. Your prediction of 8-8 is still in play, though the Giants would need to go 3-6 at this point to fulfill it, and while it’s not out of the question after last season, I hope it’s unlikely. Are you sticking with your prediction in thinking that the Giants have already been as good as they will be all season, or have you become a believer in the G-Men?

Vacchiano: It would probably be unfair of me to change my prediction now. I think it would be pretty naive, too. I’ve just seen too many sudden changes from them over the years. They’ve been 5-2 or 6-1 in every one of Coughlin’s seven seasons now, but how many times have they ended as good as they started? Last year 5-0 became 8-8. In 2006, 6-2 became 8-8. In 2008, 11-1 became 12-4 and no playoff wins. I’m not guaranteeing another second-half collapse, but given that track record I’d be crazy to say, “I’m in. I buy the hype. They’re going 11-5!” How many other years would I have done that and been proven wrong? Plus, we need to go back and look at my wishy-washy prediction of 8-8. I had some pretty good reasons for it and a few caveats. I said from the outset that I believed this team had the talent to be a Super Bowl contender if – a big if – they stayed healthy and everything worked out right. I thought they had some issues, though, and were likely to end up more inconsistent than anything. So far they’re pretty healthy, and that’s great. That’s why they’re playing above my prediction. But I tell you what, the inconsistency is still there. The turnovers have them playing a very, very dangerous game. I didn’t foresee that as a major problem, but it’s become one. And even they know that if they keep that up they’re going to end up losing a lot more games than they should. Knowing that, if they stay healthy and fix the turnover issues, I don’t see any reason why they can’t be 12-4 or 11-5 and win their weak conference. But with nine games left, I still think the injuries and inconsistencies can rear their ugly heads. This remains, though, what I thought it was: A good team that, if things break right, can go a long, long way.

Keefe: Turnovers have been a problem for the Giants this season. Turnovers cost them the game against the Titans and almost cost them the game against the Cowboys – a game they dominated. Aside from the Colts’ loss, you could say the Giants should be 6-1 after the debacle with the Titans. I’m a firm believer that if the Giants can’t find a way to drastically reduce their amount of turnovers, it will come back to cost them in a big spot and eventually cost them their season. Is this the Giants’ biggest problem, and what is being done to rectify the situation?

Vacchiano: Yeah, it’s absolutely their biggest problem. They could’ve easily lost that Dallas game. They came close to losing control of the Chicago and Detroit games, too. And remember, turnovers put them in a position where they needed three end zone interceptions, if I recall, to beat Carolina on opening day. So, if we’re playing the “What if” game, you could say that the Giants only have one real quality win where they didn’t come close to shooting themselves in the foot. That’s not a fair game to play either way, of course, because turnovers are what most of these NFL games turn on today. So yeah, the amount they have right now is disturbing and they know it. Unfortunately there’s not a lot they can do to rectify it. Seven of Eli Manning’s 11 interceptions are off tipped passes. That’s a little flukey. He is throwing a little high and behind his receivers on some of those, but it’s not like he’s going to have some sort of drastic overhaul in his mechanics. He just needs to make better throws and his receivers need to hold onto the ball. On the fumbles, they’re working with Ahmad Bradshaw and, to a lesser extent, Brandon Jacobs on the “high and tight” carry position. But they are fighting instinct. Both players, when they fight for extra yards, the ball tends to drop to their sides. That’s how they’ve run for years and it’s hard to change now. So all they can do is focus on the problem, concentrate, and hope the ball bounces their way a little more than it has. The good news is that historically this hasn’t been a turnover-prone group under Coughlin. Things usually have a way of evening themselves out, so I expect that eventually this will do that, too.

Keefe: The special teams are clearly the biggest weakness on the team. You tweeted that Darius Reynaud will likely not be the returner for long, but it’s amazing he has lasted this long despite such poor results. Matt Dodge has had his ups and downs as well and the coverage on kickoffs could use some help. Do you think we will see a different look from the special teams coming out of the bye and in the second half of the season? And by different I mean a better look.

Vacchiano: I don’t really know what they can do differently. Dodge has been a lot more consistent lately and clearly he’s got the faith of Coughlin and his staff. He’s a rookie, though, so there’ll probably be another couple of ups and downs along the way. The coverage teams just need to tackle better. They can tweak the scheme a little, but if guys flail on the return men or leave their lanes, that won’t help. And you can’t really overhaul the entire special teams unit at this point in time. The only change they can really make is at returner, and now that they’ve signed Will Blackmon I expect they will do that soon. I don’t know how much that will help, though. Blackmon was a good returner in Green Bay, but he’s coming off a knee injury and who knows if he still has his old explosiveness? Plus, a lot of people thought Reynaud was a pretty talented return man, but he obviously didn’t get the job done here. Is it the returner or the scheme or the blockers? It’s hard to say. Probably a little bit of all three. But right now they don’t have a returner as skilled as Domenik Hixon was – a player who can rise above what’s going on around him.

Keefe: Nearly every one of Eli Manning’s interceptions has been the result of a receiver tipping the ball to a defender and missing what should have been a catch. I asked you via Twitter if Randy Moss made sense for the Giants since Eli’s problem has always been missing high and Plaxico Burress took care of that. You basically said there wasn’t a chance, and while I know the Giants aren’t the type of team to take in problem players, I thought Moss could have been the type of tall receiver that would limit Eli’s mistakes.

Vacchiano: Moss only would’ve been a help because he’s tall. And I get that. But as you know, he comes with so many other issues that bringing him in would’ve been disruptive and … well, terrible. Plus, he’s going to want the ball. So who would you want to sit? Hakeem Nicks? Steve Smith? The two of them are very possibly on their way to the Pro Bowl this year. Is Moss really much better, other than being taller? Anyway, I’ve said before I think the problem has more to do with Eli than with his receivers, that a majority of those tipped passes have simply not been good throws. I’ve seen him make better throws than he’s been making. Yes, traditionally he’s a high thrower. In fact, if you read my book (shameless plug alert) – Eli Manning: The Making of a Quarterback – you know that his penchant for throwing high was in Ernie Accorsi’s original scouting report on Eli and it was a big reason why they signed Burress. But I’m confident he can do better. And, to be fair, so can the receivers. The Giants’ coaching staff – I forget which assistant said it – feels that some of the problem has to do with receivers running imprecise routes. So they’ve just got to get crisper on both ends of the passes. And by the way, don’t discount the flukiness of this, too. I can’t remember the last time a tipped pass didn’t land in the hands of a defender. At some point a ball is going to tip off a receiver’s hands and go down or away from the crowd. The number off deflected interceptions in the first seven games has been unusually high. I really do think that the law of averages will even that out. I think.

Keefe: The reversal of Ahmad Bradshaw and Brandon Jacobs roles has worked out well, but how has it worked in the locker room? A major storyline before the season was how Jacobs would react and perform under his new role as a backup, so what is the mood you are getting from No. 27 now that he has been the backup back for seven games, despite his ability to find the end zone on goal line plays? Do you think as long as the team wins Jacobs will be content, or is there always going to another problem just waiting to erupt for Jacobs?

Vacchiano: I’d say it’s probably an uneasy peace right about now. I know that Jacobs is saying all the right things, and that’s admirable – you know, if you ignore his antics through the first few weeks, then I guess you could admire his new stance. But I find it hard to believe that one conversation with Coughlin and Reese suddenly turned him from one of the unhappiest people I’ve seen around that locker room in years into Mr. Everything’s OK. You don’t have to be a genius to realize he’s probably got some simmering, lingering animosity towards the situation. In fact, that’s what I’ve been hearing privately – that he’s counting the days until the end of the season, anticipating that the Giants will cut him loose. He absolutely, positively, does not want to be here next year as a backup, from what I’m told. Now, having said all that, it doesn’t mean he’ll be a problem. He may really be intent on being the good soldier the rest of the way. He seems to genuinely like and respect Ahmad Bradshaw and admire his abilities, so that may be enough to keep him in check. I’m sure his huge salary helps, too. And giving him the goal-line role has been a boost to his ego. So it’s not like I’m waiting for another eruption. But the potential is definitely there. And don’t mistake his change of heart for genuine contentment.

Keefe: Since the embarrassment against the Colts, Perry Fewell has the defense looking like it did two and three years ago. The defense looks completely different than it did a year ago under Bill Sheridan with almost the same exact names. How have the players adapted to Fewell’s system, and do you think the defense is consistent and strong enough to carry the team through the regular season and deep into the postseason?

Vacchiano: I think the players love Perry Fewell’s system, they love the way Perry Fewell calls a defense, they love the way Perry Fewell listens to his players, and they just flat-out love Perry Fewell. Honestly, the last time all the reports on an assistant were this glowing, it was for Steve Spagnuolo the year after the Super Bowl. It’s an aggressive scheme, which the players love. He’s playing to their strengths at almost every position. He’s using his veterans, which is also always important. And it’s working, which is a big thing because in the end it’s the only thing that ever gets players to believe. Can it continue? Yes, absolutely. If – here’s that if again – they can stay healthy. Losing Mathias Kiwanuka was a blow, but they survived it. In fact, they even thrived. They don’t have any other defensive injuries, though. If it stays that way, this is a very good defense. I’m not so sure it’s incredibly deep, though. It might be, but I don’t know that anybody wants to find that out. I still think they’ll probably have a few ups and downs – much like the entire team – even if they stay healthy. But they’re getting terrific pressure. They’re getting a fantastic push up the middle from their DTs. Michael Boley and Jonathan Goff have been excellent at LB. And the secondary has been very solid, if not spectacular. All the ingredients are most definitely there.