Prince Amukamara – Keefe To The City

Sep 10, 2015

NFL Week 1 Picks

I hate the end of summer and post-Labor Day means the days are only going to get shorter and the weather is only going to get colder and soon enough you won’t want to go outside. So here we go. For the next 22 weeks, there’s football.

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I hate the end of summer. I have seasonal depression, or at least I think I have seasonal depression and post-Labor Day means the days are only going to get shorter and the weather is only going to get colder and soon enough you won’t want to go outside. But I love that football is back tonight, the Giants begin their season in three days, the Yankees are headed to the postseason in some form and the Rangers’ season begins in 27 days. I guess there are some positives to fall.

The beginning of the football season gives every team and every fan a chance to believe in their team and in moments like this happening (that’s me in Boston after the Giants beat the Patriots in Super Bowl XLII. I might have had a few beers). That night I drank in celebration at a bar in Faneuil Hall in the heart of Boston watching the highlights of the game over and over and over and over until the bar kicked us out.

The next morning I woke up without any traces of a hangover and walked out onto Hanover Street, which looked like the opening scenes of Vanilla Sky or I Am Legend. There was hardly any people around and the handful of people I did see had a look of complete devastation across their face. I couldn’t have been happier. That’s what football can do.

I haven’t liked football for a while. The last time I enjoyed football was the second before Russell Wilson threw a pass intended for Ricardo Lockette that was intercepted by Malcolm Butler. Actually, the last time I liked football was the second before Pete Carroll decided to throw the ball on the goal line with the Super Bowl at stake and the best running back in the league on his team. The second before Carroll opened his mouth and suggested that play or agreed to that play was the last time I liked football.

Since that second, the Patriots went on to win the Super Bowl, ending a nine-season drought without a championship, Tom Brady became a four-time Super Bowl champion, Boston sports fans argued that Marshawn Lynch might have not gotten in the end zone from the 1, Darrelle Revis became a champion and the worst thing in the history of sports happened: Deflategate. If Carroll gives the ball to Lynch there, the Seahawks win the Super Bowl, the Patriots are once again losers on the biggest stage, Jermaine Kearse’s catch unseats David Tyree’s catch as the most improbable Super Bowl catch of all time and Deflategate doesn’t spiral out of control because no one cares if a non-championship team may or may not have altered the footballs. But none of that happened and instead for nearly eight months at one point of every day I saw or heard the word “Deflategate” some place.

I was in Seattle for the NFC Championship Game and I saw about two seconds of the AFC Championship Game. I had heard the score and didn’t need to witness the Patriots embarrassing the Colts a week after the Ravens couldn’t close them out. Later that night in the hotel room, my girlfriend showed me a tweet that the Patriots supposedly played with underinflated footballs. My first thought was, “I don’t even know what that means” since I simply didn’t understand if that was good or bad or how that could be an issue. I thought it was just some nonsensical report that would either be laughed at or forgotten. I went to sleep on Jan. 18 not knowing about how footballs are handled before each game, what the proper PSI levels are for footballs or that quarterbacks got to use their own personal footballs in a game. When I woke up on Jan. 19, that nonsensical report hadn’t been forgotten.

I still can’t believe that for nearly all of the 2015 calendar year (minus the 17 days before the AFC Championship Game), Deflategate has pretty much controlled the headlines. The idea that people could spend so much time talking about the air pressure in footballs, reading every piece of information from the investigation and suspension and appeal and listening to sports radio recycle the same mind-blowing opinions on the topic is actually insane. Trying to understand how this much time, attention, money and resources were used on trying to figure out how footballs were lacking the necessary air is like trying to understand why Joe Girardi will use Dellin Betances and Andrew Miller in a game the Yankees are winning by five runs, but not in a game they’re losing by one run or why How to Make it in America was cancelled after two seasons or trying to grasp something as complex as the universe. Deflategate makes my head hurt to think about.

Unfortunately, Deflategate will never go away. The word will always follow Tom Brady, Bill Belichick and the Patriots around just like Spygate has. The Brady/Belichick Patriots will always be the victims of a witch hunt to Patriots fans and cheaters to non-Patriots fans. Even though the D-word is here to say just like the S-word has stayed alive for the last eight years, on Thursday night we will all finally have something else to talk about: a real-life football game. That is, until the Patriots beat the Steelers, like they always do at Gillette Stadium. Then, we will all have to hear about how they cheated to win the season opener too.

Tonight begins a new NFL season and with that comes a new picks season and another 263 games to pick. Last season, I finished 129-130-4, losing the final game of the season, the Super Bowl, on the play that should have gotten Pete Carroll fired. That play motivated me to work hard this offseason and get in the best shape of my life and make sure this picks season doesn’t end the way the last one did.

So here we go. For the next 22 weeks, there’s football.

(Home team in caps)

NEW ENGLAND -7 over Pittsburgh
As a Giants fan, I have to question the Patriots’ so-called cheating tactics. Either they lost on purpose a few times to make it seem like they weren’t cheating the way you might get a few questions wrong on a test on purpose to not make it obvious. Or they are just the worst cheaters of all time.

If the Patriots were videotaping signal givers and stealing playbooks and breaking into hotel rooms for information, did they forget to do these things for some of the biggest games? After their Super Bowl win in 2001, they missed the playoffs in 2002. They won the Super Bowl in 2003 and 2004, but then they lost to Broncos in the playoffs in 2005, blew a 21-6 halftime lead to the Colts in the 2006 AFC Championship Game, blew the perfect season and lost Super Bowl XLII to the Giants, got run out of Gillette by the Ravens in 2010, were embarrassed by the Jets at home in 2011, lost against to the Giants in Super Bowl XLVI, were shut down by the Ravens in 2012 and got dominated by the Broncos in 2013 before winning the Super Bowl this year.

Like I said, the Patriots were either losing on purpose to keep things balanced or they just aren’t very good cheaters given all of the information they supposedly had, taped and stole. Or maybe they just weren’t doing anything that every other team was already doing? No, it can’t be that.

Green Bay -7 over CHICAGO
This season I have made a pledge to myself to go hard after the Bears. I’m not getting suckered into thinking they can or will be good and I’m not changing my mind on them. I don’t care if they start the season 5-0 or or 7-0 or go 10-0 or complete the perfect season. If they do any of those things, good for them, but I’m not changing my mind on the Bears.

HOUSTON -1 over Kansas City
I’m not sure how Bill O’Brien and Rick Smith came to the conclusion that Brian Hoyer should be the Texans’ starting quarterback over Ryan Mallett. To be fair, it’s not like he named Hoyer the starter over a clearly more talented player and the two likely have the same amount of ability. But did they watch Hoyer play for the Browns? If you’re looking for one touchdown, two interceptions and 227 yards then Hoyer is your guy because that’s what he is and because we know what he is, why not start Mallett? At least there is a chance he might be somewhat good or at least better than Hoyer.

NEW YORK JETS -3 over Cleveland
The Jets always seem to get a cupcake game in Week 1 even if there is supposedly no such thing in the NFL. Last season, the Jets opened at home against the Raiders. The year before they opened at home against the Buccaneers. The year before that they opened at home against the Bills. It’s like they are playing the equivalent of Alcorn State, Tennessee-Martin and Arkansas State in Week 1. The Jets seem to always win in Week 1 because they’re at home against a weak opponent, which is once again the case this season, and then the Jets are 1-0 and their fans start mapping out their route to a postseason berth and before you know it they’re 1-3 and trying to keep their season alive.

After this game, the Jets follow with at Indianapolis, home against Philadelphia and at Miami before their Week 5 bye. Todd Bowles better get his first win as Jets head coach against the Browns or he might not be getting it until Oct. 18 and Week 6 against Washington. That’s a long ways away and there’s a lot of time between now and then for Jets fans to buy billboards and fly planes over practice suggesting he be fired.

BUFFALO +3 over Indianapolis
I wouldn’t mind seeing the Bills do well and have a winning season and make the playoffs. The only problem with that is their quarterback is Tyrod Taylor. His backup is Matt Cassell. His back up is EJ Manuel. That’s a big problem to have, but so is not having a run defense, which the Colts still don’t have.

Miami -4 over WASHINGTON
This is the official survivor pool Week 1 pick for just about everyone. In a week in which there are many even-matched and coin-flip games, you can always count on the Redskins to give you a much-needed win to stay alive.

For the last few years, we have been hearing about how the Dolphins will challenge the Patriots in the AFC East and each time they have failed. This year, the Dolphins are supposed to be even better and once again challenge the Patriots and reach the postseason for the first time since 2008. If the Dolphins are as good and reliable as they are being hyped up to be then this line is incredibly low. Even if the Dolphins are an average team, this line is too low. Even if the Dolphins are in the bottom third or bottom fourth of teams in the league, this is line is still too low. That’s how bad the 2015 Redskins are.

JACKSONVILLE +3.5 over Carolina
The Game of the Week. Somewhere someone who isn’t a Jaguars fan or a Panthers fan is going to bet on this game and watch it in its entirety. Thank about that.

Seattle -4.5 over ST. LOUIS
The Seahawks and I are not on good terms. After I became an honorary Seahawks fan and a 12 for the Super Bowl they went on to blow a 10-point lead and blow the game to ruin my Super Bowl Sunday and the days that have followed since. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to forgive them for the loss and I absolutely will never forgive Pete Carroll for his play call. But if the Seahawks (and Pete Carroll isn’t included in this) are going to try to win me back it’s going to be by consistently covering spreads week in and week out. Here’s their first chance at redemption.

ARIZONA -3 over New Orleans
We all know what happens when you take the Saints out of the Superdome. Now take them out of the Superdome without Jimmy Graham.

SAN DIEGO -3 over Detroit
These two teams are the same to me and this is the hardest game of the week to pick. I did trade Matthew Stafford for Eli Manning in fantasy football, so I have to root heavily against Stafford this season.

TAMPA BAY -3 over Tennessee
Jameis Winston vs. Marcus Mariota in Week 1. I’m surprised this hasn’t been sold as the “Peyton Manning vs. Tom Brady of the future”. If it were, Winston would be Manning would weapons like Mike Evans and Vincent Jackson and Mariota would be Brady with Kendall Wright and Harry Douglas to throw to. I’m thankful that the NFL Sunday Ticket is available to everyone this year, so that I don’t have to be forced to have the NFL Red Zone get stuck on this game since the only thing I would need or any non-Bucs and non-Titans fan would need from this game is the final score.

OAKLAND +3.5 over Cincinnati
I could care less about the NFL preseason. It’s baseball season until the Yankees either win the World Series or are eliminated and even if you don’t like baseball, there has to be something better to do with your time than watch meaningless preseason football games. The only crazier people in the world than those who watch preseason games are those who attend them. It’s not like spring training where you’re likely getting away from cold weather and enjoying the sun and watching a product that resembles what you see for 162 games in the summer.

The only thing I look for in preseason are finding out which key Giants were injured since it’s inevitable and videos of Andy Dalton throwing interceptions. And there’s only one thing more entertaining than Andy Dalton preseason interceptions and that’s Andy Dalton regular-season interceptions and once again there will be a lot of them.

DENVER -5 over Baltimore
Since I don’t watch preseason football, the last time I watched Peyton Manning play he was throwing wobbly passes as if he were trying to make a Nerf ball without seams spiral and the passes weren’t going to anyone. He finished that home playoff loss against the Colts at 26-of-46 for 211 yards and a touchdown despite coming off a bye, which momentarily made everyone think the Colts had a chance against the Patriots before they were blown out.

I have no idea what Manning will look like this season if he could have looked so bad against a bad defense with a trip to the AFC Championship Game on the line. I don’t think he would have come back if he were going to continue to play like that, so for now, I’m trusting that a healthier, yet older, Peyton Manning came back because he would be good enough to cover spreads once again.

New York Giants +6 over DALLAS
I’m overly confident in the Giants right now. I’m talking high levels of irrational confidence about a team that has gone 13-19 over the last two seasons and hasn’t made the playoffs in the the last three seasons. That could all change in one minute on Sunday night or even one play if Eli Manning opens the season with a first-play interception the way he did against the Cowboys in Week 1 on Sunday Night Football two years ago.

What scares me the most about the 2015 Giants isn’t the absurd amount of preseason injuries for the third straight year or the health of Victor Cruz or the absences of Jason Pierre-Paul or the offensive line or the secondary. What scares me the most is what Prince Amukamara said about this game by calling it a “must-win.”

“I could see everyone’s [butt] getting tight, everyone feeling like they are on the hot seat. You definitely don’t want that feeling around. It’s a bad disease.

“I think that can break the team’s morale, especially with the guys that have already been here and have experienced 0-1, than 0-2 and 0-6 (in 2013). It’s just a bad taste in your mouth. And with this organization, which wants to win now and always has a sense of urgency.”

The idea that a Week 1 loss could cause the team’s butts to “get tight” and “break the team’s morale” isn’t exactly reassuring for the season if they do lose to the Cowboys. Since Amukamara basically called this game the Super Bowl following the most uninspiring preseason from the Giants maybe ever, I’m not scared about this game, I’m petrified.

ATLANTA +3 over Philadelphia
Everywhere I turn I see the Eagles being picked to win the NFC East and be a Super Bowl contender. Is Sam Bradford not the Eagles’ starting quarterback? Has he not missed the last 23 regular-season games? Was the last time he played in an NFL game not Oct. 20, 2013?

In five seasons, Bradford has played 16 games twice and has played in 49 of a possible 80 games (61 percent). If Bradford were to get hurt and miss time, which obviously is a real possibility, then the Eagles would turn to Mark Sanchez once again. If you forgot, the Eagles were 7-2 last season and with Sanchez as the starting quarterback, they went on to miss the playoffs.

The Phillies are fighting to not be the worst team in baseball, the Flyers are horrible and the 76ers haven’t been good since Allen Iverson played for them. If the Eagles aren’t good, the Philadelphia sports landscape will be full of bad teams, which is more incentive to pick against the Eagles.

Minnesota -2.5 over SAN FRANCISCO
I have no idea when I’m going to sleep in the next five days. The Yankees have a four-game series against the Blue Jays beginning on Thursday. The NFL season opens on Thursday. The first NFL Sunday is this Sunday and the Giants play at 8:30 p.m. There is the Week 1 Monday Night Football doubleheader with the second game (this game) starting at 10:15 p.m. Normally this is like Raiders-Chargers and I could watch it while falling asleep, but my girlfriend is a Vikings fan, so I will be awake and invested in this game. Since I will be watching intently with a crazed Vikings fan next to me, I have to go with the Vikings here otherwise the next time I will be able to get a good night’s sleep won’t be as early as Tuesday.

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Blogs • Giants

Sep 9, 2014

Giants-Lions Week 1 Thoughts: Debacle in Detroit

The Giants opened the 2014 season the same way they opened the 2013 season. The only difference is that they were in Detroit this year and not Dallas.

One year ago when the Giants lost 36-31 to the Cowboys in Dallas on Sunday Night Football, I was disappointed about the Giants’ sloppy six-turnover effort. But it was promising knowing that despite turning the ball over six times (three interceptions, three fumbles), Eli Manning threw for 450 yards and four touchdowns, Victor Cruz had three touchdowns and 118 receiving yards and Hakeem Nicks had 114 receiving yards.

On Monday night when the Giants lost 35-14 to the Lions in Detroit, I was disappointed because I had waited since Nov. 24 (Week 12) for a meaningful Giants game and they turned in an embarrassing effort. There wasn’t anything promosing about Monday night. Eli Manning looked like he was asked to learn sign language in Ben McAdoo’s offense and either he learned it incorrectly (unlikely) or his receivers didn’t care to learn it (very likely), the Giants’ receivers couldn’t hang on to passes, the offensive line left Eli exposed enough to nearly end his career and the hyped-up secondary looked as bad as any Giants secondary in recent years.

Monday night went as bad as anyone could have imagined for the Giants in the first game of the season. Calvin Johnson set the tone, the Giants’ offensive problems looked like a continuation of the preseason and the Lions walked into a win that not even Jim Caldwell could mess up. A year ago, we had the “Disaster in Dallas” to begin the 2013 season and on Monday night, we had the “Debacle in Detroit” to begin the 2014 season.

– Let’s start with Eli Manning because it’s up to him to make the 2014 Giants’ season not play out the way 2013 did. The problem with Eli’s success is that his success is tied directly to that of Ben McAdoo and his receivers. Eli (18-for-33, 163 yards, 1 TD, 2 INTs) was far from his best and far from even mediocrity, but McAdoo, who was supposed to come here and make the Giants’ offense Packers East, was calling plays the way Kevin Gilbride would have, and Eli’s receivers, clearly lost with the new offense, were busy running wrong routes and dropping passes.

Eli looked ridiculous giving hand signals at the line rather than yelling “Omaha!” or telling everyone at home who is wearing the mic on the defense. It was almost as if Eli was being threatened with a 15-yard unsportsmanlike penalty for talking as he turned to receivers to give them index finger into hole signals, looking like he was a fourth grader who realized for the first time that he could do things with his hands to represent intercourse. And he looked lost trying to let Larry Donnell know where he was supposed to be on the line by using his hands to look like he was wringing out a wet towel and by touching his body all over the place as if he was trying to let a hitter and baserunner know that a hit-and-run is on.

Eli can’t do it by himself because no quarterback can, but things don’t seem like they are going to get better around him. The offensive line is bad and there’s no real help on the way. The Giants’ best receiver is a 21-year-old rookie, who has never really even practiced with the team, let alone played in a game or built any chemistry with Eli. And the offensive coordinator has never been an offensive coordinator before at any level. So let’s get to that offensive coordinator.

– Mike Tirico decided to chime in and take a shot at an offensive line-less and receiver-less Eli by hyping up Aaron Rodgers and saying how we should all be thankful Rodgers was born since he is so brilliant in the same offense Eli is trying to run. But Jon Gruden stepped in and shot down Tirico’s ridiculous praise for Rodgers by mentioning the obvious fact that “Rodgers has been in that system for years, Eli has been in this system for months.”

That system is the Packers’ or Mike McCarthy’s and now it’s Ben McAdoo’s, which is some form of those mixed with his own additions and modifications.

Ben McAdoo was hired on Jan. 14, which means he had 238 days until opening night to get the Giants’ offense set. The NFL schedule was released on April 23, which means the Giants knew for at least 138 days that they would be playing the Lions. That means for the last 138 days McAdoo has been thinking up his first-drive plays to use against the Lions. So what did the Giants run on their opening drive (trailing 7-0)?

First-and-10 at New York 20: Rashad Jennings left tackle to New York 18 for -2 yards.

Second-and-12 at New York 18: Rashad Jennings right tackle to New York 19 for 1 yard.

Third-and-11 at New York 19: Eli Manning pass incomplete short right to Jerrel Jernigan.

Run, run, pass intended to the fifth- or sixth-best offensive option to begin the season with a three-and-out? Are we sure Gilbride didn’t make a promise with Jerry Reese and Tom Coughlin that he would resign, but the Giants had to promise to use whatever three plays he wanted to begin the 2014 season? I thought we were going to get a taste of Aaron Rodgers and put an emphasis on the passing game in the 2014 NFL in which every rule change and adjustment to the game has been made to help the quarterback, receivers and passing in the league. But instead we got the same exact offense we were supposedly getting rid of.

In the third quarter, after giving up a field goal to trail 17-7, the Giants took over at their own 20 following a touchback. Here’s how McAdoo decided to orchestrate the ensuing drive:

First-and-10 at New York 20: Rashad Jennings up the middle to New York 20 for no gain.

Second-and-10 at New York 20: Rashad Jennings right tackle to New York 23 for 3 yards.

Third-and-7 at New York 23: Eli Manning pass short middle to Jerrel Jernigan to New York 26 for 3 yards.

Does that sequence look familiar?

In the fourth quarter with 4:39 left and the Lions leading 35-14 and the game out of reach, the Giants had the ball with a chance to get some garbage-time plays in and get some vital practice with their new offense against a non-practice and non-preseason opponent. Here’s how that drive went:

First-and-10 at New York 20: Eli Manning pass short right to Rashad Jennings to New York 35 for 15 yards.

First-and-10 at New York 35: Eli Manning pass short left to Rashad Jennings to New York 44 for 9 yards.

Second-and-1 at New York 44: Eli Manning pass incomplete deep right to Victor Cruz.

Third-and-1 at New York 44: Andre Williams left end to New York 44 for no gain.

Fourth-and-1 at New York 44: Andre Williams up the middle to New York 44 for no gain.

Eli Manning had 32 passes targeted at receivers. Here’s the breakdown of where those pass attempts went to:

Larry Donnell: 8 (24%)
Jerrel Jernigan: 7 (21%)
Victor Cruz: 6 (18%)
Rashad Jennings: 5 (15%)
Rueben Randle: 3 (9%)
Daniel Fells: 1 (3%)
Corey Washington: 1 (3%)
Andre Williams: 1 (3%)

Cruz, the team’s best receiver, was targeted just the third-most times and Rueben Randle, the team’s second-best receiver, was targeted the fifth-most times, four times less than Jernigan.

One game might not be enough for me to start asking to bring Kevin Gilbride, which would be the equivalent of me asking for the Yankees to bring A.J. Burnett or Nick Swisher or extend Mark Teixeira’s contract for five more years, but that’s all we have to go off of right now and McAdoo didn’t impress in his Giants debut.

– Victor Cruz caught two passes for 24 yards and was targeted six times. I believe five of those six times came after a rough first quarter for Manning when it was obvious that Cruz was upset and frustrated he wasn’t getting the ball. I was upset and frustrated too. Especially since Jerrel Jernigan was all of a sudden being thrown to as if he had become 2009 Steve Smith or 2011 Cruz. But as Manning started to go back to his trusted receiver, Cruz bobbled and dropped his passes, several of which were for potential big gains.

The Giants chose to pay Cruz (five years, $43 million) instead of Nicks and then decided not to pay Nicks at all after his 13-game, touchdown-less 2013 season, so he went to Indianapolis for cheap and signed a one-year, $3.975 million deal. Cruz is not a No. 1 receiver even if he is supposed to be. He is a No. 1 receiver the same way Chien-Ming Wang was an ace. He is a slot receiver, who put up big numbers because he was on the field with Nicks, who is a real No. 1. Monday night was a glimpse into life without a true No. 1 receiver to protect Cruz and he was awful.

– In the third quarter, the Lions, leading 17-7, started first-and-10 at their own 25 and Robert Ayers sacked Matthew Stafford for a loss of five yards and celebrated as if he was Jay Alford ending Tom Brady and the Patriots’ quest for perfection in Super Bowl XLII. Losing by 10 points and getting to the quarterback for the first time in the game in the third quarter and acting the way Ayers did was embarrassing. Two plays later, Golden Tate caught a 44-yard pass on third-and-11. For some reason, I didn’t see Ayers on camera acting as if he just doubled an 11 and got a 10 with $20,000 on the table following Tate’s big play.

I didn’t think anyone could one-up Ayers’ celebration, but on the same drive, just six plays after Ayers’ sack, Prince Amukamara was able to knock the ball out of Joseph Fauria’s hands in the end zone on second-and-Goal from the 9 to prevent a touchdown and then one-upped Ayers. Amukamara emphatically gave the incomplete sign as if he was signaling that the winning run had scored in the bottom of the ninth inning in Game 7 of the World even though Fauria had caught a 26-yard pass on second-and-13 from the Giants’ 35 just two plays earlier to put the Lions at the Giants’ 9.

– Calvin Johnson had seven catches for 164 yards and two touchdowns and it felt like way more than that. His first touchdown, a 67-yard wide-open reception, gave me flashbacks to the days of DeSean Jackson backpedaling and simultaneously laughing at the Giants’ secondary. Except this Giants’ secondary was supposed to be different. But in Tom Coughlin’s halftime spot with ESPN, he summed up the first half by saying, “We hung in there,” which showed the Giants haven’t changed. If the Yankees are using, “Our history. Your tradition,” then maybe Coughlin just gave the Giants their slogan for 2014. “The 2014 New York Giants: We hung in there.”

The problem is the Giants didn’t continue to “hang in there” after Coughlin offered that wisdom. The Giants were then outscored 13-0 in the third quarter and 21-7 in the second half on the way to their three-touchdown loss. “We hung in there” isn’t a phrase that breeds confidence let alone winning and the Giants did anything but “hang in” a game they allowed the Lions to go 10-for-15 on third down. To make matters worse here is how those successful third downs played out:

1. Third-and-9 at Detroit 33: 67-yard touchdown pass to Calvin Johnson.

2. Third-and-13 at New York 16: 16-yard touchdown pass to Calvin Johnson.

3. Third-and-3 at Detroit 38: 9-yard pass to Golden Tate.

4. Third-and-4 at New York 47: 24-yard pass to Calvin Johnson.

5. Third-and-11 at Detroit 24: 44-yard pass to Golden Tate.

6. Third-and-5 at New York 5: 5-yard touchdown run for Matthew Stafford.

7. Third-and-7 at Detroit 23: 22-yard pass to Calvin Johnson.

8. Third-and-5 at 50: 11-yard pass to Calvin Johnson.

9. Third-and-4 at New York 13: 10-yard pass to Golden Tate.

10. Third-and-3 at New York 37: 12-yard pass to Golden Tate.

Those third-down letdowns were the bad part of Giants football that still hasn’t changed and maybe never will, but it doesn’t look like the good part of Giants football is going to return soon to make up for it.

It’s almost impossible to remember that this team won the Super Bowl 31 months ago and it’s hard to remember that this team won seven games just last year since right now seven wins seems unfathomable. The Yankees barely got me to the Giants, and right now, I don’t see the Giants even getting me to the Rangers.

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.

Tag: Prince Amukamara

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