Just a hunch...: Clueless Week 4

Well, I don't know. I have no strong feelings about this game. It's always tough when trying to get a sense for intra-division games. The Eagles and Giants know each other so well under Reid and Coughlin respectively that it will come down to who executes better. I guess I could say I worry DeSean Jackson and Brent Celek will have big days. I know that week 4 will be the week we know for the first time what the NFC East division will look like for the rest of the season. The negatives: Redskins keep losing close games, Cowboys can't be consistent, Eagles continue to have turnover woes, and the Giants can't stay healthy. We know the positives and in the NFL they somehow just count for less. Let's face it, football is a game whose outcome is predicated more on mistakes than flawless execution. That's why match ups are so important. I hope the GMen can outlast the Eagles tomorrow night. Man, I hate the Eagles. Of course, the Super Bowl victory helps cool the acidic spice a little. This'll be the week the Super Bowl honeymoon ends if the Eagles are smiling as I go to bed.

If I ever get a tattoo, this will be it.

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Pro football's defensive singularity

"It's funny, everyone calls him the best in the game, but I don't think he ever got the credit he deserves."

-Joe Theismann

The Giants' GOAT

I recently came across this youtube user channel. If you are a fan of Lawrence Taylor, this channel is red meat. There are a couple of videos on political BS, but otherwise there's a good number of videos highlighting LT.

LT was just simply amazing from a non-traditional standpoint in pro football. Up until he came into the League, the great players were mostly running backs and a few quarterbacks. LT made his name making both look absolutely silly. And he did it with such fantastic style. He was a singularity on defense. Really nothing like him came before and nothing unlike him has been seen since in terms of pass rushing, defensive play making, and defensive strategy. Derrick Thomas, Kevin Greene, James Harrison, Demarcus Ware, Clay Matthews, Aldon Smith all come to mind. All are premium pass rushers at outside linebacker since Taylor's impact, which was immediate. Even defensive ends today look like LT in terms of their speed, size, leanness, and emphasis on ball stripping. I remember watching the GMen in earnest starting in 1988. I remember the last game of the 1989 season against the Raiders or the Monday nighter against the 49ers in 1990. Just like many have said, he was so easy to pick out compared to everyone else on the field for both teams. But he's just a linebacker. Huh? I think it's because he played the ball alone. Such a simple strategy. Rarely did he prance around in some zone scheme or worry about gap responsibilities. He had the instincts and the quickness to compensate for any mistakes other players would have been destroyed by.

The real testament to his ability and contributions is how his impact extrapolates across time scales. For a single play lasting seconds he could disrupt the passer leading to a bad throw and a 3rd down conversion failure or, worse, an interception.  For a single game lasting an hour he would more frequently than other defenders in the NFL cause the turnover that set up the game winning field goal. For a single season lasting 3-4 months his cumulative play making would put the Giants in position to make the playoffs and set up a run for the Super Bowl. This is what separates him from his clones mentioned above. He raised the level of the defenders around him and at times just looked unblockable. Half the plays in the videos in this youtube user channel are offensive holding penalties. As you may hear Frank Gifford say in one of the videos, "He is a defense all to himself."

Indeed.

Here's a taste in dramatic fashion.

Here's some comedy too (from a stand up routine by Artie lange).

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Book 'em, Danno

Unprotected

From Dan Graziano, writer for ESPN on the NFL owner's perspective of the replacement refs in a piece called "Jerry Jones thinks you're stupid."

I believe a conversation very much like this took place some months ago in a plush hotel banquet hall in Palm Beach, Fla.:

Hypothetical voice of reason (the commissioner, a fellow owner, a league PR rep, somebody): "OK, so another lockout. Second year in a row. This is what you guys want to do, right?"

NFL owners, including Jerry Jones: "You betcha!"

Hypothetical voice of reason: "OK, then. You know it's very likely that if we go ahead with these replacement officials, we're going to look really foolish, get ripped like crazy by media and our broadcast partners and a few of our teams are probably going to lose games we should have won. That's OK with you guys too?"

NFL owners, including Jerry Jones: "Well, is any of that going to affect TV ratings, attendance or advertising revenue?"

Hypothetical voice of reason: "Nope. Not one bit. We'll actually probably keep setting records for that stuff."

NFL owners, including Jerry Jones: "So, what was the problem again?"




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Impressions & Depressions: $#&@! Crazy Week 3

What a mess.

 

Impressions

• The 49ers lost to the Vikings. They got away from their game and the Vikings made no mistakes. Certainly, both the Niners and Vikings will go back to their winning and losing ways next week, respectively. However, for the 49ers and the way the season is turning out so far, they have 6 tough games against division opponents coming up. The NFC West is a defensive powerhouse. Cardinals have been playing great since the end of last year, Seattle showed its pressure abilities to match their strong defensive backfield last night, the Niners are the Niners with their awesome defense, and the Ram's defense plays dirty (I really don’t like Cortland Finnegan). The Niners are the most complete team in that division right now, and if they win it at the end of the regular season, they will have battled for it.

• The Giants have awesome depth on their roster. There has been much discussion about backups RB Andre Brown and WR Ramses Barden, but I think looking at their greatest weakness and thinnest roster spot—defensive back—they have been playing fairly well. Though there have been touchdowns scored against them, they are just a ball location away from breaking it up. The coverage is tight. They’ve got work to do, but it isn’t unrecoverable. That’s depth.

• With all the OT games and comebacks this weekend, parity is alive and well in the NFL. It’s very entertaining. This is why the NFL is king and MLB is, well, not. It’s really entertaining. Mm. I saw the LA Dodgers against the Cardinals (I think..?) in extra innings this past weekend. Ugh. When the Dodgers were up and once a player got on base they went into a bunting strategy. They got two runs out of it and won the game. It was cool. Why didn’t they do that in the bottom of the 8^th or 9^th when they knew it was coming down to the wire? High stakes, that’s why. In baseball, they have a calculated risk known as a sacrifice. In football, they have Hail Marys. Granted, MLB players play essentially 10 NFL seasons, but that only hurts their cause. The MLB regular season is watered down and in the summer months people at work on Wednesday can listen to the games on the radio. Yay. They can’t compete, and while the future is uncertain for the NFL, it’s not gonna be MLB, NBA, NHL, or MLS that where’s the crown.

Depressions

• The officiating: the Hail Mary, the fighting, the offensive holding, illegal contact by DBs, coach intimidation, inexperience. It’s cumulative. If you don't like a certain rule, whatever. The rule must be upheld. If it's not, what's the point? Can only hope something happens soon.

• I know Cam Newton is young and doesn’t like to lose. But has the blown smoke up his ass gone to his head or what? Towelhead had a sour puss. He didn’t give much respect to Giants players in post-game handshakes and did his Superman touchdown routine while getting their butts kicked. On the sidelines veteran and true competitor WR Steve Smith was chewing him out about pouting on the sidelines and how instead of pouting he could get up, watch his team play, and maybe learn something. He was still pouty at the podium. He’s got a ways to go before he shows some leadership and is anywhere close to the hype.

• I’ve always thought in recent years when some of the best players are out for the season with injury it impacts the season. Here's just a few cases: Brady in 2008, Polomalu  in 2009, and Peyton Manning last year in 2011. Now I think it’s Revis with his torn ACL. Think about it. He gives the Jets the most legitimate leverage against this passing league out of any team. He gives them the best chance against Brady in their division. And he gives them the best chance against the AFC in general. Despite how bad the Jets may be this season already, other teams have now suddenly become better. That's impact. He does his part to remind us that Brees, Brady, Rodgers, and the Manning boys aren't gods.

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Just a hunch...: Week 3 Brown out

I get the slightest inkling that the Panthers will not have game planned enough for Andre Brown and he'll have a real break out game. The Giants could still lose and, of course, there's always the very real chance Brown may not run very well, but I can just see the headlines now about what a surprise Brown was to the NY media.

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4 things that haven't changed about the conference championship winners and losers

• The Ravens still lose games they should win. Eye-ball and memory tests indicate they always skate on the edge of good and great. They've got heart, but no magic. I think teams have to have heart and something else. The 49ers have heart and smarts. So do the Patriots. The Giants have heart and magic. I don't believe they will ever play in a Super Bowl with the Coach-Quarterback combo they have. Then again, the same thing was said about Coughlin and Manning. They're a team that needs some magic.

•  The 49ers are still a very complete team. If they keep up the smart play they will likely win their division and maybe even have home field advantage in the playoffs.

• Giants' receivers Victor Cruz and Hakeem Nicks are still the most explosive receiver tandem in the League. If this duo stays healthy for Manning, the Giants can win games.

• The Patriots, though always competitive, are not the team they once were. They're good enough to make the Super Bowl on a missed field goal in a weak conference. However, like some universities ride the reputations they earned long ago, the Pats seem to let their reputation through the door first. When they lose and fans scratch their heads, they're silent. I can't figure what their identity is especially now that they don't have the continuity of yesteryear. It might be that they are too complicated of late. When they won Super Bowls they were simple and smart.

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RIP Steve

1942-2012

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Impressions & Depressions: Week 2

Impressions

Stay healthy, PLEASE!

• Nicks and Cruz are quite the receiver tandem. When needed most, they got behind a tough secondary that picked off Manning three times in the first half. According to Elias Sports Bureau the tandem hold the NFL record for two players on the same team catching 10 or more passes and 175 or more yards. Cruz was 11 receptions for 179 yards and a TD; Nicks, 10 for 199 and a TD. Of Manning’s 510 yards, they accounted for 74% of them. And of Manning's 31 completions the tandem caught 68%. Nicks also basically did it on one leg with a painful recovering broken foot. On multiple occasions he was clearly in pain. One of the plays he had his heel stepped on extremely awkwardly as he tumbled during an incompletion up the sideline. But he was back for a 20 yard completion two plays later. Cruz, well, he just makes huge plays. The 80 yarder was awesome. There was salsa.

• ESPN is a good network all the way around. They’re very consumer-oriented with a moderate amount of flash and sizzle (NFL Network) while not being too drab (CBS) or righteous (NBC). If you go to their website to listen to the radio and have missed the beginning of a program, you have a 3 hour retroactive window to find its beginning and listen the whole way through. Genius! They cover so much ground, yet nothing ever seems too thinned out in content or value. Now if they could just get rid of Skip Bayless...

• Eric Wright’s pick six of Eli Manning (3^rd pick of the game) is the greatest pick six I’ve ever seen. He looked schizophrenic. It was such a crazy blitz-to-adjustment-and-catch-and-evasion-plus-effort move that despite the circumstances for me as a Giants fan I just had to admire it.

Depressions

• Watching a number of games this weekend and hearing/reading the pundit’s opinions, it seems like officiating with replacements is OK for a week, but rapidly decays into a disorienting swirl of confusion. If they haven’t already, someone is going to get hurt in a scrum predicated by poor policing of chippy and normally illegal play from high school social studies teachers from Laramie, WY. My infant son is screaming, but I know that last sentence needs some editing.

• I hate the fact that the Cowboys and Jets talk, talk, talk, and yet put up poor week 2 performances. God, they suck!

• Like everyone else, I really LIKE the 49ers. I like how they play defense and I like the creativity on offense (mainly in the running game), but I can’t shake the feeling of 49ers head coach Jim Harbaugh saying into the mic that’s connected to Alex Smith’s helmet speaker, “throw...NOW!” NBC showed him in pregame calling plays in the huddle and you can just see that he thinks he has a helmet on. They chuckle. I’m embarrassed for Smith. Where is he, in his container? I love the 49ers competitiveness and their smart, honest play, but I personally need to see Smith cut loose regularly for a few games to know he’s not Harbaugh’s avatar.

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Victory formation

A bunch has been said about a play at the end of the Giants-Bucs game where the Giants were in Victory formation with 5 seconds left in the game. At the snap the Bucs defense in 4-point stance dove for the ball knocking Eli Manning to the ground. As the two coaches went to shake hands, you can see Coughlin chewing out Bucs coach Greg Schiano. In postgame press conferences Coughlin said it was not something that’s done in the NFL and Schiano said his team plays hard every down (more on this later). Look at his resume at Rutgers and you’ll see that it’s not unprecedented for him to call such a play and that he did nothing wrong.

Some say it’s Bush League, some say it’s football, quit complaining, and some say there’s unwritten rules. The NFL itself says there’s no illegal stuff happening in that play. Here’s what I say and it’s augmented with points brought up by Giants’ radio color commentator and ex-Giant linebacker, Carl Banks.

• There’s a rule in the NFL rulebook (Rule 7, Section 2, Article 1e) that says when a player with the ball in his hands gives himself up on the field of play, the play is dead. He can’t get up and run once he’s done this. Nor can a defender hit him once he goes down. We see this when a running back kneels down with the ball in his hands at the one yard line to kill the clock and maybe set up a field goal. In the Super Bowl last season Ahmad Bradshaw of the GMen tried to do this as the Patriots were letting him run in for the final score to save time on the clock for their offense. He couldn’t manage it, thus, the Tush-down was created. Classic play for another post. The rule is sometimes called the “Victor Cruz Rule” after a controversial play against Arizona last year where it looked like Cruz fumbled, but really he “gave himself up”, let go of the ball and can be seen looking toward Eli and the offense and trying to get back to the line in a hurry-up mode as the game was in its last minute or so. When the last pass by the Bucs QB Josh Freeman was intercepted by Giants LB Michael Boley yesterday, you can see Boley “give himself up.” Play over. Happens all the time. Now, apparently, O-lines tell D-lines when they’re going into Victory formation and that they’re just gonna kneel down. The Giants' O-line did this yesterday according to the NJ Star Ledger and still the Bucs’ D-line got into a 4-point stance, anyway. Obviously, the NFL see’s this action to be different than the Victor Cruz Rule. I don't know about anyone else, but I can see where they’re similar.

• The Bucs play hard every down except when they’re letting Giants’ RB Andre Brown run in for the game winning score, apparently.

• Are potential injuries to both sides of the line worth a Miracle at the Meadowlands Part II?

• In a time of concussion law suits and Bountygate, is that the best decision to make?

• As I understand it from listening to players talk about Bountygate there are livelihoods on the line. Unnecessary injuries, in this way, compromise the integrity of the game. Moreover, there’s money on the line the teams are paying the players. Jerry Jones is so invested in Dez Bryant being productive (bang = buck) that Dez has all these rules about what he can and can't do with himself off the field--legal documents are signed! No longer are these people playing for school pride or for the satisfaction of winning. There’s no room for libertarians in a socialist business. That’s just how it is.

Perception and the reality of law suits and livelihoods in the NFL takes precedent over sore-loser, boneheaded calls by rookie coaches. Yer in the Big Leagues now, Schiano.

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Impressions & Depressions: Week 1

Around the web there are numerous venues to find clever and interesting Monday recaps of Sunday’s games during the season. There’s PeterKing’s Monday Morning Quarterback, NFL network’s Shame Report with thehilarious Dave Dameshek, and ex-NJ-Star-Ledger-Giants-beat-reporter-now-USA-Today-journalist Mike Garafolo’s Game Balls segment  to name a few. Here’s my version: Impressions and Depressions. I’ll give myself a day to think on Sunday’s games and deliver this on Tuesdays. The segment will have three impressions and follow with three depressions from each week.

Impressions

- Peyton Manning looked excellent on Sunday night so look out League. During a official-botched red flag challenge by Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin, Peyton is shown by NBC to be conversing with Tomlin and Ben Roethlisberger on the Steelers sideline; if you’d like you can picture me with a crazed toothy grin and wide eyes as I repeatedly shove handfuls of popcorn in my face. “Yeah, yeah, football is here. Yeah, yeah...” And it was a thing to behold as he took over the game, not entertaining Troy Polomalu’s showing of the blitz (whether he would or not) by checking out two plays and taking a time out, and audibling out of a play to a play that became a 71 yard receiver-screen catch and run touchdown. Completed or not, on a first game back from multiple neck surgeries, a season on IR, and with a new team, he made all the throws. Like in Indy he made good receivers look great and a running game seem possible against the legendary Steelers D.

- Despite the greatness of Manning, the Broncos themselves made the night extra interesting. There was a ton of context: VP of Football Ops and legendary NFL QB John Elway looking down from the box, head coach John Fox—ex-Panthers head coach and former defensive coordinator with the Giants, defensive coordinator Jack Del Rio—former head coach of the Jaguars, Denver’s star veterans like Champ Bailey, Willis McGahee, Von Miller (2^nd yr), Elvis Dumervill, veterans new to the team like Brandon Stokely who previously played for Denver and Indy, Jacob Tamme from Indy, and Tracy Porter, the DB who’s pick six of Manning in Super Bowl 44 sealed the victory for New Orleans. And in the center of it all conducting the show: Manning himself. Damn, there’s a lot going on with the Broncos. It’s like the 2009 Vikings, but more.

-Wondering out loud if the lock out last year had anything to do with generally poor defensive play around the league and the Packers going 15-1...The 49ers defense simply manhandled the Discount Double Check offense. Also, interesting of note—the last game the Packers played last year they lost and it was to the other NFC Championship participant. Who could that be?... I wonder...

Depressions

- I hate the uncertainty of week 1 in the NFL. Last year the Giants lost their first game and won the Super Bowl. Ugh. So many talking head’s are so high and low on teams and it’s hard to have impressions that will last more than the two days between Monday Night and Thursday Night.

-The Giants DB’s are in atrocious shape just like last year. Eli had 7 comebacks in 2011 and it seems he’ll have to do it again if the Giants are to win with no running game and Cruz dropping passes.

-The Steelers D has 7 starters over 30. It’s tough to watch them get beat by Manning despite how great Manning was because they are THE defensive reference frame for their time. The plays they made won’t be made any time soon by just any old (he-he) defense. What I like least about the Steelers D being old is that it makes me feel old. Obviously, I’m over selling it, but the idea is that these guys generally have a window of time on their careers as truly effective super masculine warriors of the weekend who play with the rare combination of titans in intelligent coordination and they’re my age. I can articulate this better, but I won’t.

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