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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