fbpx

Tag: Cris Collinsworth

Blogs • Giants • NFL

Sep 5, 2013

NFL Week 1 Picks

The NFL is back and so are the weekly picks. Let’s get the 2013 season started off on the right foot with the Week 1 picks.

Labor Day is the ultimate Catch-22. The summer is over and the days get shorter as baseball starts to come to an end. But the temperatures get more reasonable, baseball pennant races pick up with hockey just around the corner and it’s the start of football season. The last thing there, “the start of football season,” is the one thing that keeps me from staying in bed, putting my Cliff Lee Sad Song Playlist on repeat and just waiting for the first nice day of spring, especially after a summer in which the Yankees have put themselves in a position where they have to win nearly every game in September.

The first day of football season means the first day of picks, doing longhand addition on the back of bills to create wild parlays, figuring out how to track four fantasy teams without getting the “Stop running this script?” message on a computer, freaking out over a suicide pool in the fourth quarter of the first week, searching for some overseas site that has every NFL game available to watch if you just answer some survey questions, drinking excessive amounts of beer and eating foods that contain little to no nutritional value.

Football is back in my life and so are the New York Football Giants.

When I last left off with the Giants, they decided to try and save their season in Week 17 against the Eagles when their season was already over. The embarrassment of another second-half collapse and destruction of a 6-2 record completed by the blowouts at the hands of the Falcons and Ravens in Weeks 15 and 16 made me happy that football was going away for eight months. But it’s been a long eight months of wondering “What could have been?” had the Giants not gone into the same freefall they have gone into every season during the Tom Coughlin era with the exception of the two Super Bowl winning seasons. But when Carrie Underwood leads us into Al Michaels and Cris Collinsworth and the Giants and Cowboys kick off in the Big D on Sunday night, the bad memories of how the 2012 season ended will be erased (but not forgotten) and the hopes of playing in the last game of the football season will begin.

Football is back and that means so are the weekly picks.

Week 1 … let’s go!

(Home team in caps)

Baltimore +7.5 over DENVER
Week 1 is so hard to pick because there is nothing to go off of except what you remember from last season and everything you have been told and force fed in the offseason and possibly some preseason action if you actually watch preseason football. The only thing harder than Week 1 is Week 2 when all you have to go off is what you saw in Week 1, which could be completely off.

The defending Super Bowl champions are on the road to open the season because the Orioles are hosting the White Sox across the street from M&T Bank Stadium. That’s right, the fading Orioles are playing the 56-82 White Sox, so Ravens fans will have to celebrate their championship for the last time by watching on NBC or by spending thousands of dollars to travel to Denver for the game.

Last season the Ravens lost to the Broncos, 34-17, in Week 15 before beating them in two overtimes in the divisional round of the playoffs thanks to a 70-yard touchdown with 31 seconds left in the game and some terrible coaching and decision making form the Broncos.

So why are the Broncos giving over a touchdown at home on Opening Night to the defending champions? I’m not sure.

New England -10.5 over BUFFALO
Just for fun I took a look at the Bills depth chart to see what their working with in 2013 and it’s not pretty. Bills fans don’t like when anyone talks poorly about them or picks against them (even when a spread is involved), but even a Bills fan with the Bills logo tattooed on his neck (someone like this has to exist) or a Bills fan with the Bills logo tattooed on his bald head (someone like this also has to exist) would tell you that the 2013 season is going to be fine.

Pittsburgh -7 over TENNESSEE
I really, really, really don’t want to pick the Steelers at seven-point favorites, but then again, how can I pick the Titan to cover? I can’t.

NEW ORLEANS -3 over Atlanta
Last year the Saints season was over at 0-4 then revitalized at 5-5 then destroyed with a three-game losing streak. They were coming off the punishments from their bounty program and Sean Payton was suspended for the season. Saints fans haven’t had a chance to go crazy since their playoff game against the Lions on Jan. 7, 2012 and that was a long time ago. The Superdome is going to be a scary effing place on Sunday and it’s the last place the Falcons defense wants to be to open the season.

Tampa Bay -4.5 over NEW YORK JETS
With the start of football season comes “fan denial.” Every fan thinks their team is going to have a great year and no one wants to hear about the possibility of a lost season or being out of it before the end of September. “Fan denial” is prevalent around the entire NFL, but when it comes to the New York Jets and their fans it’s scary how out of touch with reality people can be.

The Jets are going to suck. They are going to suck in a way that when Rex Ryan is finally showed the door, the Butt Fumble might not be the most embarrassing moment that happened under his watch. But don’t tell Jets fans this. I have had some Jets fan friends tell me the team has a shot at the postseason if everything falls right and I have had others tell me at worst the Jets will finish 8-8. There’s no way to respond to anyone who could make themselves believe that, so I have just to nod my hod in agreement or say things like “Oh yeah, I could see that.” The key to handling Jets fans is to just wait them out. By Week 6 their season will be mathematically destroyed and they won’t be able to use overconfidence as a personality. Just wait them out.

Kansas City -4.5 over JACKSONVILLE
Somewhere someone who isn’t a Chiefs fan or a Jaguars fan is going to bet on this game and watch it in its entirety. Think about that.

CHICAGO -3 over Cincinnati
The Bears are the closest things to the Giants in the NFL when you look at their talent and ability to completely destroy a playoff-bound season. But when it comes to the Bengals there isn’t a team that has gotten as much positive attention and has had as many preseason predictions in their favor since the 2013 Toronto Blue Jays, the 2012 Kansas City Royals, the 2011 Boston Red Sox and every Cowboys team during the Tony Romo era. Nothing says “Letdown season” more than the 2013 Cincinnati Bengals if only because they are being picked to go play at MetLife Stadium in February.

CLEVELAND -1 over Miami
I keep hearing about how the Browns weren’t as bad as their record says they were last season and how close they were to being 8-8. The only problem is they weren’t. And because I initially picked the Dolphins to cover here and then switch my pick to the Browns like a ninth-grade U.S. History Scantron test, I know the Browns are going to lose and their offseason hype bandwagon is going to stall.

Seattle -4.5 over CAROLINA
Somewhere someone who isn’t a Seahawks fan or a Panthers fan is going to bet on this game and watch it in its entirety. Think about that.

Minnesota +6 over DETROIT
The way everyone says each season that three playoff teams could come from the NFC East can now also be said about the NFC North. And it’s time I think everyone needs to look at NFC North games the way they look at NFC East games (before the Eagles fell apart) in that every spread should be three points and any spread over that, you have to take the points.

INDIANAPOLIS -10 over Oakland
Remember when Matt Flynn was highly coveted because of one game (the final game of the 2011 season)? Remember when the Seahawks gave him $10 million of guaranteed money off that game and then made Russell Wilson their starting quarterback over him? And then remember when Flynn was traded to the Raiders two be their starting quarterback and lost out on the job to Terrelle Pryor? I always thought Matt Cassel being coached by Bill Belichick and getting to play with the Patriots offense in 2008 and then cashing in would always be the easiest way any NFL quarterback not named JaMarcus Russell would get rich. But then Matt Flynn came along and totally changed the game by having one good game.

It’s the Everyone Who Is In A Suicide Pool Is Picking This Game of the Week. And I guess it also should be the Anyone Who Is Doing A 10-Point Teaser Is Picking This Game of the Week.

ST. LOUIS -4.5 over Arizona
Somewhere someone who isn’t a Rams fan or a Cardinals fan is going to bet on this game and watch it in its entirety. Think about that.

Green Bay +5 over SAN FRANCISCO
I thought this line was high when I first looked at it in the middle of the summer long before the NFL season was in sight because why wouldn’t I check out Week 1 lines with the season months away? And I still think it’s too high especially with the entire world that isn’t all over the Broncos, Seahawks and Bengals being all over the 49ers when the Packers have the “best” quarterback in the league.

New York Giants +3.5 over DALLAS
The Giants have never lost in Cowboys/AT&T Stadium. (And did you think I would pick against the Giants playing the Cowboys in Week 1?)

WASHINGTON -4.5 over Philadelphia
After beating the Giants in Week 4, the Eagles were 3-1. After losing to the Giants in Week 17, the Eagles finished the season 4-12. A 1-11 stretch was enough for the Eagles to finally fire Andy Reid and try to give their team a much-needed facelift. The common theme this offseason has been that the Eagles won’t be good, but that Chip Kelly might be able to revitalize the team in his first year. Even if he can, it won’t happen in Week 1.

Houston -5.5 over SAN DIEGO
It’s disappointing that Norv Turner is no longer the Chargers head coach because I liked free wins with my picks. But I’m also happy that Norv is gone because this line would have been higher and more challenging had he still been the coach. I have been anti-Philip Rivers and anti-Chargers all along, so I’m not about to turn my back on my beliefs now even if Norv isn’t there.

Read More

Blogs • Giants

Feb 6, 2012

Super Bowl XLVI Thoughts

Sunday night was epic. Here are some thoughts from the day after the Giants’ win in Super Bowl XLVI.

“Welcome to the longest 57 seconds of your 2012.”

That’s what my brother texted me when Tom Brady and the Patriots walked up to their 20-yard line with 57 seconds left in their season and trailing by four points in Super Bowl XLVI. It felt like the end of Super Bowl XLII and it ended in almost the same exact fashion. Except this time Eli Manning didn’t need to kneel the ball to clinch the victory. This time the ball bounced around the end zone as the Patriots hopelessly watched their Hail Mary attempt fail. Both endings worked for me as they both ended with the New York Football Giants as champions.

Sunday night was epic, and because of it I’m running on three hours of sleep, have a minor headache and I’m typing this with my left eye closed since that’s the side of my head (right above my eye) where the pain is. But I don’t care that I’m running on fumes because I feel like I can draft off this Super Bowl win until at least Opening Day.

There’s so much to talk about from Sunday night, and so much I want to talk about, but with the win so fresh, and fatigue setting in like I’m half-heartedly backchecking in the sixth overtime of an NHL playoff game, I decided to take things a different route than usual for the day after another Super Bowl win.

My “friend” Mike Hurley of CBS Boston, who is no longer my friend thanks to the Giants’ win over his Patriots, writes weekly “leftover thoughts” columns about the Patriots where he writes down, well, his thoughts from that week’s game. I felt like it would be nice of me to dedicate a Giants’ Super Bowl XLVI column with the same concept to him since he will forever be scarred by the letters “X,” “L,” “V,” and “I” and likely will never reference Feb. 5, 2012 again for the rest of his life. It’s important that I continue to remind him about the fall of the Patriots and this is a great place to start.

Here are some thoughts from the day after the Giants’ win in Super Bowl XLVI.

– I have been supporting and arguing for Eli Manning for years to his critics and doubters (mostly Patriots and Jets fans), but I don’t need to anymore. He is a two-time Super Bowl champion and MVP.

– Last week I had a tweet argument with WFAN sister station, 98.5 The Sports Hub, in Boston’s mid-day hosts Gresh and Zo about their logic that “You can’t beat Tom Brady and Bill Belichick twice in the same season.” I guess you can do it.

Here are some other things we learned this season that no one can do or should do against the Patriots.

1. The Patriots don’t lose in Heinz Field.

2. The Patriots don’t lose back-to-back games.

3. The Patriots don’t lose at Gillette Stadium.

4. Tom Brady never has back-to-back bad games.

5. You don’t want to give Bill Belichick two weeks to prepare a game plan. (This is my favorite because Belichick lost in XLII.)

All of these are now fairytales.

– Here’s a big difference between Eli Manning and Tom Brady: Eli can succeed with pressure and chaos around him like he did in San Francisco against a great defense in a hostile environment in miserable weather. Tom Brady can’t succeed without ideal conditions and a strong pocket to protect him.

– Tom Coughlin will be getting a contract extension and millions of dollars, and he deserves it. He has put up with more crap (I’m part of that) than any coach that has won in this city (except for maybe Joe Torre at the end of this Yankees tenure). Up until a month ago, most people would have rather had Rex Ryan coaching their team than Tom Coughlin, now there might be seven or eight people that feel that way.

– There are few things better than making the rounds on the Boston sites and sports radio shows after a devastating defeat. The last time this was possible was four months ago after the Red Sox’ loss in Game 162, and that four months has felt like way too long. I could listen to Murph from Charlestown call 98.5 to complain about Wes Welker all day for weeks, and I just might.

– I remember maybe one or two commercials from the game, but that’s partially because there weren’t any worth paying attention to. It still blows my mind that people get paid to sit around conference tables to come up with commercial ideas and then higher-ups approve these ideas to be made into multi-million dollar commercials and that there can be so many bad ones. But really I didn’t pay attention to the commercials because I was busy during TV timeouts checking Twitter and pacing. I was also trying to text message Kevin Gilbride some possible plays to run that didn’t involve having Ahmad Bradshaw and Brandon Jacobs run directly into the defensive line.

– Kevin Gilbride has earned immunity from me for the 2012 season. However, in the fine print of this agreement it says: “Subject to change if a third-and-7 draw play for D.J. Ware is called at any point during the 2012 season.”

– I would like to take this time to thank the following non-Giants for making this miracle run possible: Miles Austin, Jim Leonard, Aaron Rodgers, Matt Ryan, Rex Ryan, Tony Romo, Mark Sanchez, Alex Smith, Eric Smith, Mike Smith, Mike Westhoff and Kyle Williams. If I forgot anyone that helped the Giants go from five minutes and 41 seconds away from elimination in Dallas in Week 14 to become Super Bowl champions, I apologize, but you’re every bit as important to this championship run as the rest of the goats. And mostly, I would like to thank the New England Patriots, especially Tom Brady and Bill Belichick, for making this possible. Thank you!

– Cris Collinsworth said, “Wes Welker makes that catch 100 times out of 100.” If 100 times out of 100 equals 100 percent then what was that missed catch?

– Obviously Mario Manningham didn’t get to see Collinsworth ripping him on NBC (and rightfully so) and the broadcast showing a graphic of how Manningham should correctly run routes down the sideline, but Manningham fixed his route running the next time Eli went to him down the sideline, and it ended up being the most important offensive play of the game.

– If I were a white punt returner for the Patriots, would Al Michaels call me Wes Welker, Julian Edelman or Danny Woodhead? I guess it doesn’t matter since they’re apparently all the same player anyway.

– Why do we have to decide which Manning is better? And why does anyone care outside of Eli and Peyton (who I’m sure love to see each other succeed, but also love the brother rivalry)? Can’t Giants fans just be happy that Eli is a Giant, and can’t Colts fans just be thankful that they had Peyton for as long as they did (and maybe longer)? And can’t fans of teams that don’t have a Manning on their roster just worry about something else?

– I’m sure Aaron Hernandez looked great to Patriots fans catching a third-quarter touchdown pass and opening the vault and making it rain all over the end zone, but he looked even better to Giants fans dropping a wide-open pass on the Patriots’ final drive that cost the Patriots a lot of yards, a down and time on the clock.

– I love that it helped the Giants, but it’s another flaw in the NFL rules where the Giants could have 12 men on the field in the final seconds and Tom Brady throws an incomplete pass, and time still comes off the clock, but the Patriots get to replay the down. Why not just put 50 guys on the field and make sure it will be an incomplete, and watch the clock wind down play after play in the final seconds?

– I had XLII flashbacks at the end of the game screaming, “Get back! Get back! Get back!” with Tom Brady launching bombs toward the end zone to try and win the game.

– Thank you to Las Vegas for making the Giants +3 and +120. Thank you for also making them underdogs against San Francisco and Green Bay.

– The Giants fumbled three times, recovered the two that counted and lost the one that didn’t count because of a penalty for 12 men on the field against the Patriots. That’s a ridiculous amount of breaks, and no one can be mad about any missed holding or passed interference calls throughout the game since the Giants were lucky enough to not lose the game because of their carelessness with the ball.

– Speaking of luck, these fumbles remind us how hard and nearly impossible it is to win a championship, which makes it even more impressive that the Patriots won three in four years when every play has the potential to ruin your season. And it makes it that much more special that the Giants have now won twice in fours years.

– I don’t think we’ll be seeing “Philip Rivers is better than Eli Manning” written anywhere anymore unless we’re talking about the amount of flannel shirts in one’s closet.

– When are we going to start talking about how Tom Brady was fortunate to be part of good teams that won the Super Bowl? I think we should start now. Outside of the game against the “How The Eff Are They In The Divisional Round” Broncos, Brady was bad against the Ravens, and not good enough against the Giants. (Yes, I know going 16-for-16 at one point in a Super Bowl game is remarkable.) Brady’s first play of the game resulted in a safety after he had two weeks to create a game plan and script the first drive, and his interception after breaking free from a sack was as bad and ill-advised as his pick intended for Matthew Slater in the AFC Championship Game. Seven years ago, Brady had three rings in his first four years and people thought he might win 10 more. Now he hasn’t won in seven years when the team has been his team.

– What was with those weird Tom Brady poses and pictures NBC used when talking about TB12? How did he agree to do that, and who thought it was a good idea? I’m going to say he didn’t mind since he did sign up for that goat picture once, and I’m also going to say the idea came from an NBC staffer that’s a Giants fan. And yes, I just answered my own questions.

– I don’t care if Eli Manning ends up in the Hall of Fame or not. I’m not a fan of the Giants to root for guys to someday win a nonsensical vote to get into the Hall of Fame. I’m a Giants fan for nights like Sunday night. It seems like most people that care about the Hall of Fame passionately are those who are fans of teams that aren’t any good. That probably explains why my Twitter feed was full of Jets fans ecstatic about Curtis Martin getting in over the weekend.

– The only Patriots-related person I feel bad for is Mr. Kraft. The emotional stories about his wife, Myra, for who the season was dedicated to were touching, and to see him standing there after the game in his box alone (probably because no one knew what to say to him) and watching him just stare at the ground was hard to watch.

– Victor Cruz and Hakeem Nicks make up two-thirds of the best wide receiver trio in the NFL. They also are two of the most careless receivers with the ball in the NFL, always leaving the ball open to be stripped as they try to make that one extra move to gain one more foot while a defender gets them from behind. They are both fortunate that because of penalties and the right bounce that they didn’t cost the Giants yesterday, and they are heroes instead. (This goes for you too, Ahmad Bradshaw.)

– I have been hard on Brandon Jacobs all season. I said he entered the A.J. Burnett Zone and he did, but like Burnett stepping up in Game 4 of the ALDS, Jacobs stepped up on a much bigger stage in XLVI, and ran with more determination than he has since the 2008 season. A few months ago there was no way Jacobs was going to be with the Giants next year, but now I’m not so sure. If Sunday was his last game with the Giants, it was a good way for him to go out.

– I feel the same amount of comfort with No. 42 in the ninth inning as I do with Eli Manning in the two-minute drill or in the fourth quarter. 2005 Neil thinks 2012 Neil has lost it.

– Even though he said he was, Rob Gronkowski wasn’t 100 percent. If 100 percent of Rob Gronkowski means two catches for 26 yards in the Super Bowl, then I think WEEI’s Gerry Callahan needs to rethink his statement that Gronkowski is “the best tight end in history.”

– Wes Welker has earned a lot of credit and hype in his five seasons with the Patriots, so when he does something as bad as drop a potential game-ending pass, it’s good to see him taking the heat when something goes bad. He could have ended the game and didn’t, and he admitted it and blamed himself for the loss.

– I liked Danny Woodhead with the Jets in Hard Knocks, but I have hated him with the Patriots. I’m not sure why since I don’t like the Jets either.

– A quick brag: I didn’t know it was going to take a safety and missed two-point conversion for the Giants to get 21 points, but I did predict the Giants would win 21-17 here and here and in the Keefe To The City Super Bowl Podcasts last week.

– How about David Tyree, standing on the sideline, getting some camera time as the Giants’ started their final drive and right before Mario Manningham’s Tyree-like catch? It’s really hard not to be amazed by the strong comparisons between the 2007 and 2011 Giants with the way the season played out each week with nearly identical plays, final scores and results down the stretch and in the playoffs.

– I haven’t seen or heard many Bostonians counting down the days until Red Sox pitchers and catchers. I guess that’s what happens when your manager, general manager and closer leave and you new general manager is forced to hire a manager he didn’t want, and your starting shortstop is a Nick Punto-Mike Aviles platoon and you don’t have a right fielder on Feb. 6. If you thought there were a lot of new Bruins fans last spring, there are going to be that many more this spring. I really just hope NESN can dust off and update their piece about the 2011 Red Sox challenging the 1927 Yankees as the greatest team in the history baseball. It’s not that hard to change a few names and change 2011 to 2012 in the headline, is it?

– Why can’t Patriots fans just accept that they lost? Why does their need to be excuses? Tom Brady and Wes Welker and Bill Belichick didn’t make excuses, but the entire fan base seems to. It’s like with Rich Eisen referring to Aaron Hernandez as Adrian Hernandez throughout the postgame highlights and then saying on Twitter, ”If I said Adrian, it’s the end of a long week. Respectfully, back off.” We know it’s been a long week, Rich. Just say you effed up and that’s that. But Boston fans and Boston sports radio repeating “If Gronkowski was 100 percent…” or “If Welker caught the ball…” or “If the fumbles bounced the other way…” then the Patriots would have won is embarrassing. They didn’t do any of those things. The “if” game is a game for losers.

– The Packers, Patriots, Saints, Eagles, Steelers, Texans and Ravens all have better odds in Las Vegas to win Super Bowl XLVII than the Giants and that’s just the way I want it.

– I said, “I would have the Giants suck and not make the playoffs for the next decade if they beat the Patriots on Sunday,” and I meant it. But after 2007 when they won, and then when they were the best team in the league during the 2008 regular season, you can’t help but think about winning it again. It’s not until you don’t win that you forget how hard it is to win. (See: Yankees, 2001-2008.)

– I still have time to write my book, The Last Night of the Patriot Dynasty based off the idea of Buster Olney’s, The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty. Had the Patriots won on Sunday night, my idea would have been dead, but thankfully, it’s alive and well.

– I think I was more excited to watch the Giants’ defensive line dominate Tom Brady on Sunday night than anything else and they really didn’t until the fourth quarter. I was looking forward to Brady laying on his back and slowly getting up all night, but he went untouched for the most part until Justin Tuck clearly injured his left shoulder and then when Tuck pulled a “Jay Alford” on the final drive of the game. It’s interesting how Brady always references Tuck when speaking about problems with his game against the Giants every time they play. I have a feeling he closes his eyes and goes to sleep and envisions Tuck “bowing” after a sack. Either that or his supermodel wife next to him in bed.

– The Patriots’ dynasty is over (it’s been over since Champ Bailey picked off Tom Brady in Denver six years ago), but Brady and Belichick’s legacy hasn’t been completely tarnished. If their legacy were a car, their back windshield has been smashed in, their fender is hanging off, two of the tires have been slashed and someone keyed expletives on one side of it, but hey, it’s still drivable. And because the Patriots are no longer what they once were, I leave with you the words of Brandon Jacobs and his thoughts on the Patriots’ dynasty.

“We decapitated them. They can’t wear that crown no more.”

Read More

Blogs • Giants

Dec 19, 2011

A Giant Embarrassment

I wasted part of my Sunday watching the Giants, and I should have known better. With the Giants suffering a humiliating loss, I decided to look at some of the postgame comments from the team in an attempt to make sense of the mess at MetLife Stadium.

If you wasted part of your Sunday watching the Giants, I don’t feel sorry for you. I don’t feel sorry for anyone like myself that watched the Giants game because we all should have learned by now. We should have known better than to think that the team that had their season saved in a span of five minutes and 41 seconds of improbable events last Sunday night would do anything other than take their second chance for granted.

I was prepared for the Giants season to be over with 5:41 left last week and the Giants trailing the Cowboys by 12 points. But then they had to come back and win and suck me in and make me believe they could make the playoffs and maybe go on the sort of run we saw from them four years ago. I’m a sucker. No really, I am. I have fallen for this same act year after year and I fell for it again because of last Sunday. When will I lean? Better yet, will I ever learn?

The Redskins had absolutely nothing to play for on Sunday. Absolutely nothing. Other than that the game was on their schedule and that it was their one of their last three chances to add to or improve their season stats and that a win would screw up the Giants’ season, they had no incentive to win on Sunday. But maybe playing for nothing was enough for them.

The Giants had everything to play for. They were given a second life in their season to make the second season and three games in a row at home to win and set up an easy path to the postseason where they would host a playoff game for the first time since 2008 and just the second time since 2005. But maybe playing for everything wasn’t enough for them.

I watched Mean Streets on Friday night and I can’t stop thinking about how the New York Giants are Johnny Boy (Robert DeNiro) from the movie and how the fans are Charlie (Harvey Keitel). Johnny Boy is a screw-up that everyone else knows as a loser and a joke and someone they wouldn’t want to associate with, but somehow Charlie sees the good in him after growing up with him and feels the need to support him and vouch for him and his debts by giving him unlimited chances to turn his life around. But Johnny Boy takes Charlie for granted and never changes his reckless lifestyle.

Like Johnny Boy telling Charlie he will pay off his debts next week and then the week after that and then the week after, the Giants keep promising to be prepared next week and the week after and the week after that. Following the loss to the Redskins they made their excuses to the media and then preached change for their Christmas Eve game against the Jets. The same change they have promised after the other six losses this season. And if they lay an egg against the Jets and the Cowboys lose to the Eagles, they will tell us that the Week 17 game against the Cowboys is the only game that has mattered all along. It won’t end until there isn’t another week for them to prepare for. It won’t end until Tom Coughlin is packing up his desk and office into empty Amazon and Dell cardboard boxes and wondering what he’s going to do in 2012.

I honestly wish the Giants lost on last Sunday night against the Cowboys. I’m serious. It would have made this loss a lot easier knowing that the season were over and would have given me an extra week to accept the idea that the Giants wouldn’t be playing in the postseason for the third straight year and would have allowed me to try and fathom how another year of Eli Manning’s prime has been wasted by this team and this coaching staff.

I don’t understand “optimism” when it comes Giants fans. This team isn’t good. Their 7-7 record says so. Their 1-5 run since beating the Patriots says so. Their -38 point differential says so. Their two losses to Rex Grossman and losses to Charvaris Whiteson, Alex Smith and Vince Young say so. By the end of Sunday’s game I was so depressed that I needed a good laugh and with 4:12 left, Corey Webster provided it when he broke up a pass in the end zone for a would-be touchdown and then celebrated to the fans sitting in the back of the end zone. The Redskins were leading 23-3 at the time. (Granted Webster and Jason Pierre-Paul have been the only two consistently good defensive players this year, but really? Save the celebrations for another time.)

It was the same old song and dance from the Giants after their embarrassing loss to the Redskins that reopened the wound they stitched up last Sunday. Tom Coughlin and his players threw out a lot of clichés and a lot of promises to blow smoke up everyone’s ass that cares about this team and to those that have wasted 15 weeks waiting for some form of consistency.

Let’s look at some of the postgame quotes from the Giants as they search for answers as to how Rex Grossman (you know the guy who lost his job to John Beck this season) beat them twice in the same season.

Chris Canty on blowing an easy opportunity for a win: “We had a tremendous opportunity here against a division opponent and we let it slip through our fingers. We didn’t take advantage of it and we did not play New York Giants football.”

There’s no truth to the rumors that Chris Canty will be hosting a HBO comedy special this offseason. The guy is hilarious, isn’t he? Wait, he was serious when he said, “We did not play New York Giants football?” Is this real life? You didn’t play New York Giants football? Umm, actually that’s exactly what you did. I know you’re semi-new around here, but what happened against the Redskins is what Giants football is. Being humiliated at home and losing to four-win teams and playing .500 football and being undisciplined and unprepared is Giants football.

Antrel Rolle on the frustrating loss: “I have said that we are the better team but they [Washington] beat us twice so clearly they’re the better team at this moment.”

It doesn’t matter what Antrel Rolle says at the end of the day. He can say that Washington sucks or that the Giants will do this or that they will accomplish that, but none of it matters at the end of the day. At the end of the day, does anyone believe anything that Antrel Rolle says anymore at the end of the day? If Rolle told me that Christmas is this Sunday, I wouldn’t believe him at this point.

Last week we had to here about how he was mad at Cris Collinsworth’s analysis of him not covering Dez Bryant. According to Rolle, he was right where he was supposed to be. But then this week, Rolle missed several tackles and many big plays happened on his side of the field. Was he where he was supposed to be on every play against the Redskins? Maybe Collinsworth was on to something?

Rolle has spent most of his time this year guaranteeing stuff like Ray Zalinsky. Does he even know what “guarantee” means? It means, “to promise or assure a particular outcome.” Can we just use guarantees in sports for significant events like playoff games and championships? Antrel Rolle shouldn’t have to guarantee postseason berths. With this team and this talent, that should be a given at the end of the day.

Tom Coughlin on the lack of running plays in the first half: “We planned to do more and have more. The first three plays were three incomplete passes in a row and had we have gotten a first down, you would have had a good mix of run and pass but that didn’t take place. You didn’t see many plays in the first half. The first 15 probably had more passes than runs but not to an excessive extent. It just didn’t work out the way we would have liked it to.”

How can you plan to do more running and not do it? You do realize that you are the head coach and therefore you have the final say, right? And you do realize that your team calls its own offensive plays, right? So, if you plan on running it more, you can. You can run it as many times as you want. You can run it on every play if you want. You can run it on zero plays if you want. What does that answer even mean?

Tom Coughlin on how to improve the pass coverage: “You just keep working at it and keep trying. We keep maneuvering around and changing coverages and trying to get people in the best possible spots. We are trying to understand what the opponent will do to us. That continues.”

I take it Coughlin didn’t fully grasp the “trail and error” method in school. If you try something and it fails, try something else. It doesn’t seem like the defense keeps working at anything other than just playing the same way they have played all season.

Prince Amukamara on how tough it was for the secondary: “The quarterback made plays, the receivers made plays and they completed passes on us.”

Ah, nothing like Prince Amukamara going with the “Bill Belichick” in the postgame. (The “Bill Belichick “is saying “They made more plays than we did.” It’s the ultimate copout.)

I’m glad he noticed that the Redskins completed passes on the Giants since most of those passes were on his side of the field. I remember when everyone was talking about the defense’s struggles earlier in the season, but the consensus was “the secondary will get better when Prince is healthy.” Is it possible that the secondary is worse off with the Giants’ first-round as part of it? I think it’s certainly a question that can be asked. It seems funny now that I included him as part of the devastating injuries when I talked with the Daily News’ Ralph Vacchiano prior to the start of the season.

Brandon Jacobs on the emotion and passion from the Giants: “We didn’t play well. We were disappointed in each other. We disappointed our fans. We just have to play better. We didn’t want it bad enough the first time we played these guys and we didn’t want it bad enough this time.”

How is it possible that the same guy who gave us that quote also gave us this one just a few weeks ago?

“I’m playing for my teammates, my brothers. That’s who I care about. I don’t care about anybody else to be honest with you. I don’t care if [fans] cheer for me another day. They could boo me every day.”

So the guy who doesn’t care about the fans and doesn’t care about being booed all of a sudden feels bad that he let the fans down? If there’s only two games left in the Giants season, at least there’s only two games left of Brandon Jacobs as a Giant.

Justin Tuck on the loss: “Obviously the one word that comes to mind is disappointing, a little bit embarrassed. Knowing what we had at stake, it is disappointing.”

Disappointing? Why that’s a nice way to put it. But just “a little bit embarrassed?” You lost to the four-win (before today) Redskins at home. You lost to Rex Grossman again. I would say you could use “embarrassed” without “a little bit” in front of it. We’re way passed being “a little bit embarrassed.”

And, how about Tuck and Rolle’s war of words after the game? If the season is going to go down in flames, they might as well make a spectacle of it.

Antrel Rolle is in no place to criticize or call anyone out on this team. He has made a lot of public promises and has acted as a leader to the media, but in reality he has been one of the team’s biggest defensive problems. How many shots of a wide open receiver catching a third-and-long pass and then Rolle and Aaron Ross entering the pictures five seconds later are we going to see?

Justin Tuck is in no place to get mad over criticism. Yes, he has been injured, and I’m not going to say he hasn’t been as injured as he has led people to believe like other members of the league and the media have suggested, but Tuck has been a disappointment. He was supposed to be the face of the defense starting when Michael Strahan, but he has had a hard time living up to that status consistently.

I’m just glad we can add locker room divide and using the media to as a trash-talking messenger to the problems this Giants team faces. It wouldn’t be a second-half collapse without it!

Justin Tuck on if the Giants can make the playoffs: “I still have the most confidence in this football team. Sometimes we come out and lay an egg and today we laid an egg but I have seen us rebound so many times in my short career here and I know the character of the guys in that locker room.”

There were a lot of times during Will Ferrell’s Saturday Night Live career when I wondered how he was able to keep a straight face. There was his Robert Goulet and Gus Chiggins and Mr. Tarkanian and hundreds of others. Most of the time I wondered how he was able to keep a straight face while other cast members (mainly Jimmy Fallon who actually used Saturday’s SNL monologue to make fun of himself for this) laughed at Ferrell’s performance. Well, Justin Tuck used his best Will Ferrell SNL impression with this quote. Seriously, how do you say you “still have the most confidence in this football team?” I think I have less confidence in this team than I did in last year’s team that starred in the Week 15 Eagles debacle, or 2009’s team that started out 5-0, finished 8-8 and gave up 85 points in their last two games. Confidence? I don’t think so.

I could see “Sometimes we come out and lay an egg” painted on the Giants’ locker room wall or on a sign hanging in the tunnel on the way from the locker room to the field. But sometimes the Giants lay eggs? The Giants have lost five of six. That means in the last six games they have laid an egg 83.3 percent of the time. Is that “some of the time?” OK, if you don’t want to use a sample size, then they are 7-7 and have laid an egg 50 percent of the time this season. Half of the time, isn’t “sometimes” it’s “half of the time.”

Tuck’s “short career” is now seven seasons. That’s not exactly “short.” In that time the Giants have lost 20-0 at home in the first round of the playoffs; lost in the first round in the playoffs; had maybe the best Super Bowl run in history; lost in the first round of the playoffs at home; missed the playoffs; missed the playoffs; and right now might miss the playoffs again. So aside from the glorious 2007 playoff run, they have rebounded in exactly zero other seasons. Somehow, Tuck must have erased this from his memory.

Eli Manning on what to tell the fans after the loss: “We’re competing and we’re trying to win. We didn’t play as well as we needed to today and Washington played better than us. We’re sorry about that, but we’re going to get back to work and get ready for the Jets.”

I have nothing negative to say about Eli Manning. Yes, he threw three interceptions and had his worst game of the season in a game the Giants should have won. When it rains, it pours with the Giants and every Giant seemed to have their worst game of the season today. But Eli is also the reason for the team’s seven wins, so he’s allowed to have a bad game every once in a while. The rest of the team gets to have one every week, so it’s not surprising that he finally decided to have one too to balance things out. (He also made the perfect pass to Hakeem Nicks that Nicks dropped for a would-be touchdown, which was the turning point of the game. If Nicks catches it, the Giants take a 7-3 lead, and suddenly the Redskins, who have nothing to play for are playing a meaningless game from behind rather than with house money.)

Like Eli said, the Giants are sorry, even if sorry doesn’t make it and doesn’t make a team make the playoffs. But don’t worry, everyone, the Giants are going to get back to work and get ready for the Jets next week, just like Johnny Boy telling Charlie he will have the money for his debts next week. And the Giants will keep telling us this until they run out of weeks to prepare for. They always do.

Read More

Blogs • Giants

Dec 12, 2011

Part Of The Solution And Problem For Giants

The Giants came away with the win, which is all that matters. But despite the elation from last night that has carried over into today, it’s time to look at the old saying, “If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.”

This column was originally published on WFAN.com on Dec. 12, 2011.

Five minutes and 41 seconds. That’s the amount of time that separated Tom Coughlin and his coaching staff from turning in their three-weeks notice and guaranteeing that they wouldn’t be part of the New York Giants organization after Week 17.

I was prepared to open this column with an exchange between Michael Scott and Pam Beesly on the day they found out that the Michael Scott Paper Company was broke.

Michael Scott: Did I ever tell you about the day that Steve Martin died?

Pam Beesly: Steve Martin’s not dead, Michael.

Michael Scott: I know. But I always thought, that the day that he died would be the worst day of my life and I was wrong. It’s this.

That’s what Sunday night was shaping up to be. Another terrible memory added to the now long list of terrible memories and moments in recent Giants history. And with five minutes and 41 seconds left in the game, the Giants trailing by 12 points with two timeouts and a defense that couldn’t get a stop, I thought the Giants’ season was over. Actually I knew it was over. Dez Bryant had just been left so open on the field that the there wasn’t another player on the TV when the NBC camera found the him and the ball, and Rambo-like flashbacks of DeSean Jackson backpedaling into the end zone while dancing and laughing in Week 14 in 2009 clouded my mind. The season was over.

I had used the commercial break to ease the pain of the Giants’ loss, and convince myself that they didn’t deserve to be in the playoffs, and that if they did make the playoffs they would just get embarrassed anyway. I remembered thinking that the season was over after their Week 1 loss to the Redskins and that they weren’t going anywhere in 2011 with the injuries, and that getting to Week 14 was an accomplishment. It was like I had just used my entire checking account on a bar tab, and I was trying to justify it to myself, and trying to think of a way to twist it so that I wouldn’t feel so terrible about what had happened. “It was worth it. You only live once. This is what your 20s are for.” When in reality, it’s hard to justify buying $10 beers and $18 drinks for four hours the same way it’s hard to rationalize getting repeatedly sucked back into the Giants over the course of a season and constantly believing the team will come back.

I was willing to do anything to have the Giants win Sunday’s game in the form of a dagger that the Eagles delivered to the Giants in Week 14 last year. I said I would watch Saturday Night Live every week for the next five years. I would listen to Nickelback and only Nickelback from now until the end of January. I would read Snooki’s book and watch Pan Am and Kourtney and Kim Take New York. I would only use the ends of loaves of bread for sandwiches for the next month, and wake up at 4 a.m. all winter and run 10 miles. I would watch the Seahawks-Rams on Monday Night Football and attend a Nets game this year. I would do any of these things for the Giants to beat the Cowboys and keep their postseason aspirations alive. (So, yeah, I have a lot of horrible things to do and accomplish. And I probably should have said I would do these things if they beat the Cowboys and made the playoffs because if they lose to the Redskins or the Jets or the Cowboys and then don’t make the playoffs, that’s going to be devastating.)

Last night wasn’t the type of game that the Giants win. It was the type of game that the Giants lose. Never, ever, ever the type of game that they come back and win. It was the type of game where they drag you along and lead you on before they break your heart, only to put it back together before shattering it again with a sledgehammer. And they did their best to do this, and they tried to do it right up until the final play of the game (or the final play that mattered which was the missed field-goal attempt since the actual final play was an Eli Manning kneel).

That’s not me being negative or pessimistic. That’s me being a realist. Even Giants owner John Mara agrees with me, and he owns the team! He said so after the game: “The best thing is we got our season back tonight. It would be nice to have an easy tin for a change, but I don’t know if that is in our DNA.”

The Giants did get their season back like I thought they would before the game, but not with 5:41 left to play. They took care of their own business for the first time since beating the Patriots five weeks ago and they temporarily paused the second-half collapse, which is something they haven’t been able to do in past seasons.

The Giants won because they played with urgency when they had no other choice. I talked about this a few weeks ago. The Giants play to the level of their opponent, and they don’t play at the level we expect them to play at until the fourth quarter when it’s nearly too late and when one mistake will end the game. But really they won because of a series of crazy plays that happened in the final “five minutes and 41 seconds” that we will hopefully look back on in a few months as the turning point for this Giants season.

– The Giants go 80 yards in 2:27 to score and don’t use any timeouts, leaving them both timeouts and the two-minute warning.

– The Giants finally stop the run, and put the Cowboys into a third-down situation and only burned one timeout in doing so.

– Instead of running the ball on third-and-5 and trying to take additional time off the clock and hoping for a first down to end the game, the Cowboys try to pass for the first down. Tony Romo jussssst overthrows a wide-open Miles Austin, which would have resulted in a touchdown pass. The incompletion stops the clock, saves the Giants their final timeout (which they would go on to use to ice Dan Bailey) and the two-minute warning and forces the Cowboys to punt and play defense.

– Cowboys punter Mat McBriar only punts the ball 33 yards to the New York 42 giving the Giants great field position with 2:12 left.

– The Giants botch a snap and get saved by a Cowboys penalty. Eli Manning gets nearly sacked, but throws the ball with his left hand, but the play doesn’t count because of a Cowboys penalty.

– Mario Manningham drops a perfectly thrown ball in the end zone that would have given the Giants the lead. At the time I was going insane. When in reality, a touchdown there would have given the Cowboys even more time to work with and they would have sent the game into overtime or possibly won the game. The drops turns out to be a blessing in disguise.

– Jake Ballard catches an 18-yard pass, but is tackled at the Dallas 1 to kill additional time. If he gets in the end zone there, the Cowboys have more than the 46 seconds they ended up being left with.

– The Giants convert a two-point conversion on a … wait for it … wait for it … wait for it … DRAW PLAY TO D.J. WARE! Kevin Gilbride, you genius you!

– The Cowboys have 46 seconds and no timeouts, starting at their own 20. I don’t know what the chance of getting into field-goal range is given those circumstances, but it’s low. Really, really, really low.

– The Cowboys get to the New York 29 and kick a game-tying field goal, but Tom Coughlin calls timeout to ice Dan Bailey. On Bailey’s second attempt, Jason Pierre-Paul blocks the attempt and the Giants win.

The Giants came away with the win, which is all that matters. And it is all that matters because if the season ended today, the Giants would be the No. 4 seed with a home game in the first round (even though I would rather have them on the road in the postseason). But even with a win that saved their season, they were an iced kicker away from going to overtime where a coin flip would have decided their season. So, despite the elation from last night that has carried over into today, let’s look at the old saying, “If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem” and how it pertains to three Giants from each side of it.

PART OF THE PROBLEM

Kevin Gilbride
Kevin Gilbride sometimes calls plays as if Tyler Palko is his quarterback and Adrian Peterson is his running back. OK, it’s not sometimes. It’s all the time. And because of that, I spent halftime last night creating Monster and CareerBuilder accounts for Gilbride to use following this season. I sent the user names and passwords to kgilbride@giants.com, but I’m not sure if that’s his email or not.

Cris Collinsworth said Gilbride told him in their pregame conversation, “If we can run it, I’m not going to do anything else.” At least Gilbride isn’t a liar.

Manning threw for 149 yards in the first half. The Giants started with the ball in the second half, and came out with a seven-yard screen pass to Ahmad Bradshaw, and then back-to-back running plays with Bradshaw that went for a combined one yard, forcing the Giants to punt. I understand that the Giants were probably thinking that Bradshaw would have fresh legs since he was bench for the first half, but Eli Manning just picked apart the Dallas secondary for a half.

Then at the end of the third quarter, they didn’t get a third-down play off in time, so the game went to a TV timeout. Out of the break, the Giants ran the ball with Bradshaw on third-and-2 from their own 41. He lost three yards, as Jay Ratliff was ready for the run as if he could read Gilbride’s mind. Speaking of which … does Gilbride really need to cover his mouth with the play chart when speaking into his headset? You don’t need X-ray vision to see through the chart to know that he’s mouthing “draw with Jacobs” or “inside handoff to Ware.” Actually, I want to see what it says on Gilbride’s play chart. I picture just a blank chart with “DRAWS AND SCREEN PASSES!!!” written in huge letters in bad penmanship in red marker. I mean with less than five minutes to go and down by 12, and just two timeouts left, the guy ran a shotgun draw to Bradshaw.

Jets fans probably think this is nothing compared to what Brian Schottenheimer calls for their team, but he has Mark Sanchez to work with. Gilbride calls plays like he has Mark Sanchez and not Eli Manning.

Giants Defense (Minus Jason Pierre-Paul)
If one of my friends had been living overseas since Labor Day without Internet or any access to the American sports world and just moved back today and wanted to catch up on the NFL season and the Giants, and asked me to describe the 2011 Giants defense to them, I would say: “If there’s 30 seconds on the clock at the end of either half and the opposing team has the ball at their own 20 with no timeouts left, I don’t feel confident in the Giants being able to stop them from scoring.” Am I wrong?

I would rather watch Boone Logan face Josh Hamilton with the bases loaded and two outs in Game 7 than watch the Giants play defense. That’s not an exaggeration. For all the negative tweets and words I have written about the Yankees left-handed specialist who can’t get lefties out, he doesn’t even come close to the frustration level that the Giants defense brings out in me (and I’m assuming all Giants fans).

When the Cowboys got the ball with 1:38 left in the first half, I tweeted “If there is a line available on “Will the Cowboys score before the end of the half?” … I’m willing to wager a lot of money on it.” The Cowboys fumbled on the first play and the Giants recovered, and I got responses from people laughing at me. But when the Giants went into their “Settle for a Field Goal” red zone offense and barely took any time off the clock, the Cowboys got the ball back again with 1:03 left in the first half. They went 49 yards in 48 seconds and kicked a field goal to retake the lead. I didn’t need to tweet back as those who doubted me and believed in the Giants’ defense. It wasn’t worth it.

As of right now, if the Giants were to make the playoffs and win their first-round game, they would likely go to Green Bay to face the Packers. And while they played the Packers tough (but still lost!), that was at home. I can’t think of a worse thing to watch than having to go to Green Bay with the Packers coming off a bye week and watching a rest Aaron Rodgers and his offense just go to town on the Giants’ defense. Actually I can think of a worse thing to watch: Tom Coughlin trying to brave the cold and frigid temperatures of Green Bay like he did in the 2007 NFC Championship Game. (I would link to a picture here, but I plan on trying to sleep later.)

Ahmad Bradshaw
Bradshaw missed four games because of a cracked bone in his foot. You would think he would be itching to play and wanting to prove himself after missing 25 percent of the season. You would think.

I’m not mad at Tom Coughlin for benching Bradshaw here because even though it might have cost the Giants their season and Giants fans like me the season, it could have potentially cost Coughlin his job and his career. Sunday’s game was the most important game of Coughlin’s coaching career outside of Super Bowl XLII. He is 65 years old and isn’t going to get another head coaching job after he’s done with the Giants, and if he lost on Sunday, he would have basically fired himself. If he felt it was that important to bench his No. 1 running back for the first half of a must-win game then I have to stand by that decision because he put his livelihood in danger, and to me, only my football season as a fan was in danger because of it. Though you might be able make a case that Coughlin’s livelihood and my football fandom are equal.

Coughlin has been about discipline and old-school football since his first day on the job with the Giants. If you know who he is and what he’s about as I’m sure Bradshaw does, then no one is to blame for reportedly missing curfew and being benched other than Bradshaw. But yeah, Tom Coughlin has some pretty strong “principles” if he’s willing to go to war without one of his best players for breaking a team violation.

PART OF THE SOLUTION

Eli Manning
The world is full of silence from the Eli Manning critics today. Six fourth-quarter wins this season, his third 400-yard passing game of the year and he’s now tired with his brother and Johnny Unitas for he most (14) fourth-quarter touchdown passes in single-season history. We are far removed from the “Gee, golly” Eli days.

Sure, there are still those brain farts in the game where Eli panics and goes to the back-foot, off-balance throw that makes time stand still and makes your heart drop like when you drive past a cop doing radar going 20 mph over the speed limit. You hope the cop doesn’t pull out and come after you the way that you hope Eli’s errant pass finds the sidelines or hits some open ground.

There isn’t anyone that I would rather have with the game on the line in the two-minute drill in the league. (I say this a lot, but I don’t care. I’ll say it again!) Does that sound crazy? Maybe, but it isn’t if you watch Eli play every week and not just on national TV. With 5:46 left I didn’t think the Giants would win, but when it got to the point that Eli had the ball and a chance to go down the field and score the go-ahead touchdown, I knew he would find a way to get it done. I think the only two New York athletes I feel confident with in certain situations are No. 42 in the ninth inning and Eli Manning in the two-minute drill. Maybe Mark Teixeira with the bases loaded? Oh, wait…

Eli Manning has been so good that when you factor in the all of the drops between Hakeem Nicks, Victor Cruz and Mario Manningham throughout the season (and if it weren’t for the drops last night he might have thrown for 500-plus yards) and that Kevin Gilbride is calling his plays for him, Eli is actually even better than his numbers suggest he is.

Jason Pierre-Paul
If you’re not a Giants fan, you might not know who Jason Pierre-Paul was at this time yesterday. But I’m pretty sure after last night and now this morning, you know who he is.

It’s guy like JPP that make me feel bad when I berate the Giants defense because why should a guy like that get lumped into the conversation with guys who don’t do their job like Aaron Ross? It’s unfair to JPP. So, I’m giving him this space for me to honor him and separate him from the rest of the defense and those that don’t give the effort needed to prevent second-half collapses.

A safety, a forced fumble, two sacks, eight tackles and blocked field goal … in one game! If the Giants don’t give JPP a platinum copy of this game on DVD, I’m willing to buy him the NFL Rewind version of it iTunes. It’s the least I can do for him for saving my football season.

Brandon Jacobs
Brandon Jacobs is in the A.J. Burnett Zone and there’s no returning. I made this clear about three weeks ago.

I can’t stand Jacobs and his fall since the 2007 season has been devastating. But for one game, Jacobs used some of Steve Urkel’s “Boss Sauce” and hopped into the transformation machine and came out as 2007 Brandon Jacobs. He ran north and south, and east and west, and ran people over and held on to the ball and scored two touchdowns. He ran for 101 yards on 19 carries (averaging 5.3 yards per carry) and it was the first time since Week 14 last year. I could have done without whatever it was that he did in the end zone after his first touchdown, but I have accepted the fact that he still thinks he is as good as he was three and four years ago, and he is going to act like it.

If the Giants can get that kind of effort from Jacobs from here on out (and I don’t think they can but I hope they can), they will have two thirds of Earth, Wind and Fire for the stretch run and into the postseason. And the last time they had anything close to resembling that three-headed running monster they reached the postseason. (Yes, they lost in the first round, but after two straight years without the playoffs, I’m worried about getting to the playoffs first.)

On Friday, I said if we’re lucky we will get to relive this Game 7, do-or-die, must-win scenario again in Week 17. I will be ready for it.

Follow Neil on Twitter @NeilKeefe

Read More